I’ve been consistent about setting goals and writing them down for the past three years, maybe a little longer. But there’s one thing I never did.
I never shared them.
Why?
Because I was hanging on to limiting beliefs. Afraid that people would laugh at me. Mock me. Tell me I’m crazy.
But at some point, you have to stop running from yourself. I had to stop running from myself.
If there’s one thing I took away from Gary John Bishop’s Unfu*k Yourself, it’s this: “I am not my thoughts; I am what I do.”
There are, for me, two parts to “I am what I do.” One, I am a writer. That is what I do. No other job in this world will give me the high or a stronger sense of purpose and self. Second, showing up every day to write, and to share it with the world is also what I do. If I don’t do any of those things, if I don’t take action, then there’s no possible way I can achieve my dreams.
[Read more…] about The Scary Part of Goal Setting
In life, we’re always waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity that we believe will allow us to pursue a dream or goal. I hear people say, “When I retire…” or “Once I get a new job…” or “When I’ve saved ‘X’ amount…” The problem is that when we wait, we’re kind of tempting fate. We hope that when all those perfects align, we’ll take the plunge and do the thing that calls to us. But, sometimes, life has other plans for us.
They say patience is a virtue. Maybe that’s true. And I often thought of myself as a patient person … until I became a flight attendant. At 38,000 ft, in a pressurized cabin, and when the only thing on offer is recycled air … human behaviour changes dramatically. Maybe the frontal lobe suffers some form of damage. I don’t really know. Or maybe it’s the stress of air travel and passengers trying to figure out all the different rules and restrictions that vary from one airline to another, from one country to another. Whatever the reason, it’s an opportunity to see people at their best and — unfortunately, and growing more frequently — at their worst.