The Value of a Goal

As this year is coming to an end, many of us begin thinking of what we want the new year to have in store of us. Many people start their new year resolutions and are waiting to get started once the new year is here. But I ask myself, why do we value these goals so much? Is it that we believe that only when the new year begins that we can set these goals that we will follow this year unlike years past where they have been forgotten as the year progresses forward? Or, is it the promise that a new something holds for us – hope. For many it is that spark of hope that THIS year will be different. As a kid, I remember being asked what my new year’s resolution was but no one checked in on me weekly or monthly to see how my progress towards achieving this goal was going.

If these new year resolutions are so important then why do many of us wait until this time of year to begin anew? I guess the real question is, if the goal is so important then why wait? When I think about this, a saying my grandpa use to say comes to mind. I clearly remember hearing him say, “Why put off tomorrow what you can do today”? Honestly, this is an excellent question. If something is so important to us as a goal we have for ourselves, our lives, our families…. and the list goes on, then why is it only when the end of this year that we begin to look to the next year with such hope and promise that we set these important goals for ourselves to accomplish?

I hold goal setting very high on my list but I have to admit even I get off track from time to time. For me, setting goals for a new year was a way for me to put that year I had failed to achieve those goals behind me and the new year was a broad horizon for me to set new goals that, I believed, would be achieved this year because THIS year it would be different. My reality was that like the previous year, I got off track, sometimes even derailed, and the goals I had so much hope in achieving were lost to the sea of unachieved goals for yet another year. For me, I kept using the excuse that life was getting in the way. If I had not had x,y & x then I would have been able to accomplish that which was so important to me at the beginning of the year. After awhile, I began to feel like a failure in my life because I was not achieving many of the goals I had set for myself. This was soul crushing because as a kid I would set goals and crush them. If I wanted something I worked hard until I achieved it, even when many people told me that it was not possible. So why, in my adult life, was it so hard for me to achieve my goals when I had no problem as a kid? For me it was that I had lost faith in myself and what I could do.

If I look back, the first real defeat came when I was not accepted into the university, that I had planned on attending for 4 years, in the major I wanted – dance. Looking back now I realize that it was only because I had not received the proper training leading up to that moment. Nothing I did would have changed that outcome but that set me reeling because I had no idea what I was going to do then or where I was going to go to college now. I allowed that defeat to crush me instead of saying OK how can I turn this around. I lost faith in myself and that lead to years of self doubt and more goals that were missed and left in the graveyard of abandoned what ifs. I lost myself in each of those missed goals and I wandered for years trying to find myself again. Ironically, it was through the very thing that began this doubt that I began to find myself again – dance.

I share this story because many of us have had similar experiences that knocked us off of achieving the goals we set for ourselves each year. If you loose faith in yourself then how are you suppose to show up each day and work to achieve the goals you have set for yourself? YOU have to believe in yourself or the goal will not be an achievement you reached it will die and end up in the graveyard with the rest of your goals that died. Next year DOES hold a hope of what is to come so seize that energy and make this the year that everything changes. Start small and build so that you begin to see that you can achieve what you set out to achieve. How do you do this? Set a daily goal, just one, and make it a priority to achieve that goal each day. Show up for yourself and prove that you can do it. For me, those small goals were simple, get up early each day and do something for myself. I took the time before everyone else in the house got up to do something for myself. One day I worked out, the next I read for an hour. I wrote down what I was going to do the next day each night before I went to bed and then the next day, when the goal was achieved, I crossed it off the list. After a week, my success was easy to see because I had a week’s worth of achieved goals starring back at me on that sheet of paper. It not only made me feel like I was accomplishing something, it made me proud of myself again.

Goal setting is something we need to do for ourselves, no one else. If we want to be present for our kids, our loved ones, our friends, even ourselves, we have to take time to take care of ourselves first. What good are we if we are not firing on all cylinders? Each of us has amazing potential if we just believe in ourselves and show up each day to make that day a success. Life is not easy sometimes and there are plenty of things to throw us off track, even derail us. Our goals are what keep us focused, that help us be our very best and take care of ourselves so we are our very best for those we love and who need us. Next year is just around the corner, like a sunrise full of hope and endless possibilities. You don’t have to wait to begin setting your goals. Take then next few days of this year and set those small goals and crush them each day so when the new year begins, you have already set the tone for the new year. Take that energy and expand your goals to a week, a month, and then to the year ahead. Tomorrow is not promised so, in the words of my grandpa, why put off tomorrow what you can do today!