Three Keys to Chasing Your Goals

Last week I started my Lenten goal of writing an article each Friday (whoops-Sunday in this case!) that I felt gave back and tried to improve the world.  I issued the edict of trying not to make other people feel bad about achieving something in their life and challenged myself (and you) to ask someone about their goals in life, and what they want to do to achieve them.  I was really shocked at how easy it was to ask people about what they wanted out of life (and how rewarding it was for both of us to discuss this) and how much better we both felt trying to iron through things.

The first thing that I noticed in all of these conversations is that most people get overwhelmed by goals, and really that's the biggest challenge.  Some people said that they didn't like having someone else know their goals because it was too much pressure to accomplish them.  Others said that they had every intention of achieving something amazing, but they couldn't find the time to fit it into the rest of their schedule.  These are all things that I struggle with as well, and so I wanted to offer up three pieces of advice I find helpful in these situations.

1. Realize Success Takes a While

The reality is that whether it's writing a novel or cleaning out the garage, success takes longer for certain people than others.  Looking at one of my friend's desks at work, I can see that cleaning out my desk compared to hers can run the gamut of ten minutes (I keep a really clean desk) to a full day (hers is not so tidy).  So the first thing to realize is that you need to throw away that measuring stick of "how long" something is supposed to take.

That's really the first part of getting yourself to a mentality where you can start to piece through a project.  I'm going to use my hall closets, which I have two of, as an example here.  For years this has been the bane of my cleaning existence-I could get the rest of the apartment clean, occasionally even spotless, but once the hall closets came into play suddenly I realized that there was no more gas left in the tank and I collapsed on the couch, forever prioritizing more high-profile cleaning tasks in the apartment.

So instead of trying to get that hall closet spotless, I decided to do it just one box at a time.  I would literally grab a box in the closet every day while watching a movie or TV after work or while getting ready for bed, and I'd spend 15-20 minutes sorting.  I would put things back where they were supposed to go, throw away what needed to be thrown, and even kept one last little box of stuff I wasn't quite ready to decide upon.  Little-by-little the hall closets suddenly became straightened and I had accomplished something.

The point of this isn't to bore you with cleaning stories, but instead to point out that you don't have to finish it all at once.  So often I see people who have twenty minutes and instead of starting a little bit of a project, they just idle through the twenty minutes rather than getting that figurative solo box sorted.  If you find that this is you, have a list somewhere handy of all of your goals, and use these moments of down time not to idle or to waste but instead to finish things up.

2. Complaining Gets You Nowhere

This is truly weird advice, and it's weird because it almost always falls upon deaf ears because there's a cold hard fact of life: most of the time we complain about things we want someone else to fix, but rarely are they able to do so.  There are times when they are (when we're complaining about them, for example), but by-and-large the complaints are about a lack of something in our lives that we can try and accomplish.

Frequently wagging finger types will state to children, "if you spent as much time complaining about a chore as you do doing it, you'd get it done a lot faster," and this is 100% correct even if it's something usually reserved for children.  I find it fascinating to overhear conversations on the bus or in line at the movies where people complain about what seem like very basic problems: disagreements with relatives, lack of time, lack of anything, really.  And what this time could be used for is getting something done.  It's oftentimes as simple as that, but realize that for all of the time that you spend complaining without any sort of intention of getting something out of the person, you could be spending fixing a problem.

3. Be Honest with Yourself

This is so hard, but it's truly the best advice I could give in this regard.  We lie so often to ourselves that we oftentimes hinder our goals.  This is 100% true when it comes to common complaints about a lack of time or a lack of energy or a lack of ability.  People oftentimes dismiss larger projects or projects they want to accomplish (or, more often, need to accomplish) not because it's too much of a challenge, but with a series of cliches about not having enough time or not being good enough.

So look in the mirror, and be truly honest about what's hindering you.  If you think it's an issue of too little time, go through your day and realize that you have 20 minutes on the bus or a lunch hour or can cut the amount of time you sleep by a half hour without issue, and realize all the time and work that you can fit into that time can add up.  You don't have to have the ideal schedule to get ideal results.  If it's a lack of ability, figure out why you can't do something, and short of it being growing taller or getting younger, you can find ways to either get around that lack of ability or to learn something new.  And if it's a lack of means or access, figure out ways to either get around that lack of means or access or work toward ways to gain it-like I said in step one, it doesn't have to be a sprint.

And finally, don't lie to yourself about how important something is for you.  Frequently through the years I've heard from people who clearly are frustrated with X but so oftentimes convince myself that a short setback is worth the impact to a long-term goal (I have struggled with this myself).  So be honest with yourself-admit where you are at in achieving something, changing your attitude, and particularly WHY you want something, and go from there.  Don't settle for good enough if that makes you sad, but don't use excuses along the way to stop you from being whom you want to be.  And if you do, make sure you don't believe those excuses.

So for this week's challenge, I'm going to make it a little more inward.  I'm going to be strongly examining my goal list, and finding out what goals I have completely dismissed, why, and for the ones I want to maintain I'm going to try to inch toward success.  It won't all be at the same speed, but I at least will know that I am trying.  And share which pieces of advice resonate with you, why, and what goals you're working on in the comments!