I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. I've always been big on making goals, whether big or small I love having something to tick off a list. Unfortunately for a long time I got into the habit of making goals without coming up with plans to achieve said goals. I was just sitting back and hoping that things would turn out how I wanted them. Basically, I was living very passively and not going after what I wanted.
A while ago I was talking with a friend and he mentioned a leadership seminar he had gone to where they discussed making goals. The leader of the seminar had all of the attendees do an exercise where they wrote down a goal they had and then wrote down everything they would need to do to accomplish the goal. Without overthinking about it (as I often do), they had come up with a plan to achieve their goal. Even though this seems quite simple it resonated with me for some reason and got me thinking about why I hadn't been doing that to begin with.
In all honesty, I think the reason for my holding back is two-fold. One, I think that a lot of my generation has been taught that we can be/do anything. This has created a lot of "kids" with big dreams who grow up feeling entitled to their dreams. Obviously not everyone is like this but in my experience in the workplace I have noticed quite a few twenty-somethings who don't understand why they are not C-level execs straight out of college. The other thing that holds me back is my fear of failure. Again, I don't feel that I am alone in this, I am sure that most people have some level of fear or failing. However, instead of accepting failure as a possibility and going for what I want anyway, I have held back from pursuing the things that I want to prevent failing at them. Unfortunately for me, while lack of trying does prevent failing it also guarantees that I won't ever succeed.
Having spent some time thinking all of this through I realized it was time for me to grow up a bit. I can either let my fear hold me back and stay in limited jobs forever or I can throw a bit of caution to the wind and go after what I actually want. Obviously the latter sounds more exciting and so that's what I have chosen to do. While I happen to have many goals at the moment (hello, 101 in 1001) my main goal is to be accepted to graduate school for next fall. As terrifying as it is to tell people knowing that come January I may very well have to tell them that I didn't get in it is also thrilling. Thrilling to know that I am going after something I really want and thrilling to know that I just may get it. At the moment I am in the beginning stages of mapping out my application process and while it will be a lot of work I am super excited about it and having a great time planning it all out!
What are your goals right now? What methods are you implementing to achieve them? I'd love any extra input!
