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It is 8:20 pm on New Year’s Eve. My kids are playing Just Dance on the Wii and I’m sitting down to try to write what has been on my mind leading up to New Year’s this year.
I think goals are really important, like super important, because they set our direction. If you don’t know where you want to go, you will end up anywhere.
The problem comes when we make a list of goals, which are really just a list of ALL the things that stand in our way of perfection. Often we get caught up in thinking how great things will be AFTER we achieve our goals, WHEN we arrive, and then we will finally be enough and worthy of love from ourselves and others.
The truth is, you and I will never be perfect. Every time we achieve something, it will be on to the next thing to change/improve. If we don’t find a way to love ourselves now, to feel good enough right now as we are, we will spend our lives feeling miserable.
A few years ago I had a friend who lost a significant amount of weight and finally arrived at her goal weight. I asked her how it felt to have this huge weight (figurative and actual) lifted off, did she feel totally free mentally to just live? She said that she expected it would feel like that, but it didn’t. It felt like she had crossed something off of a long to do list and still had a lot more to do.
So, the point I’m trying to make is this:
Make your goals. Think long and hard about them, pray and meditate about them. Mentally set the direction you will move in the New Year. But be kind to yourself. Go in a good direction and don’t wait to feel enough. You are enough right now, quirks and all. Right now, with no change at all, you are worthy of God’s love and your family’s love.
No matter how detailed your resolutions list might be, no matter how awesome your twelve-point plan, tomorrow you will not be perfect. And maybe if you stop expecting that from yourself, you’ll be happy realizing that you’ve made progress.
Progress is good.
Now check back tomorrow for my twelve point plan to a perfect life. Bwahahaha! Okay, maybe not a twelve point plan, but I am going to share my goals with you. 😉
Happy New Years!!!!
From my home to yours,
Mary
great post. I am looking forward to reading your goals. I still have to write mine down.
Thanks, April!
Completely agree! I love 2013 and the fact that I want to improve does not mean that I did not enjoy every minute of it 🙂
Yep! 2013 may be one of my favorite years yet … but I think 2014 might be even better. 🙂
I like this, and would just like to comment: some things are just never complete. You reach a goal, but then you have to continue to work to make sure some goals stay met (for example, I want a clean room. Once I achieve this goal though, I will have to maintain my room consistently or else it will no longer be clean) and others take such a long time, at a slow rate (like losing a lot of weight) that you may lose your excitement because of the slow, but steady progress.
Nevertheless, just because reaching a goal may not give you the blast of excitement you hoped for/expected, it makes up for it in the way you feel whenever you see your accomplishment (unless the maintenance is too stressful, in which case there is a problem somewhere, be it with the maintenance, your own limitations, or something else)
Oh yes, maintenance. Maintenance is such a great place, but requires constant effort to stay there.