I’ve been listening to a lot of personal development podcasts lately. I haven’t been blogging but these past 18 months have been a big one for growth for me. When January 2019 rolled around, I wrote what I wanted to be my motto: SLOW AND STEADY. If you know me at all, or have followed my blog for some time, you’ll know that I can get really excited about some things and go ALL IN for a time and then get distracted and do something else. This is why I blogged VERY REGULARLY for awhile and then now hardly at all (but also because I haven’t had much to say regarding goal achievement lately).
Slow and Steady for me means plodding along consistently, not getting too excited and too intense to cause me to sprint, but think of things more like a marathon. Keep it consistent and keep going. Don’t get tired out, and don’t give up. Any time I’ve been discouraged about things, that little phrase pops in my head: slow and steady.
So when I heard this podcast where Bob Heilig talks about life-altering goals, I was very intrigued. In it, he talks about the difference between short-term goals and long-term goals. Short-term goals (he says a short-term goal is 1-2 years away) often only make you work harder, but long-term goals (10 years away) he calls Life-Altering Goals. These are the kind of goals that you need to become a different person in order to achieve.
In a sense, this is what I’ve always thought about with the purpose of this blog. I’ve had these bucket list goals since I was a little girl. Many of them are just ridiculously out of my reach. At least they were when I started the blog. But, over the last 7 years some of these things don’t seem as crazy. I’ve had three kids, I got off my lazy butt and started working out regularly. I lost 20 lbs (and regained it, thanks baby #3), gained a ton of muscle, my metabolism is working again, and my health is the best its ever been in my life! Running a marathon doesn’t seem totally insane anymore because I know what it’s like to work out every day with 3 kids under 5 around.
Back to long-term goals.
When you look forward to the things you want to achieve in the long term, you need to consider what changes to make NOW. Running a marathon might start with grabbing your crappy old shoes and hitting the pavement immediately, or it may also mean eating a giant salad and starting to make healthy food choices. When I first started working out, it didn’t take long for me to realize my nutrition was insufficient to sustain my workouts and I needed to change it IMMEDIATELY. It makes me think back to the idea of Keystone Habits. One change causes a cascading effect leading to all kinds of other changes.
How does this relate to my life now?
This is a good question. It’s something I’m still mulling over. My life is very full in a good way. With three boys 5 and under, keeping our household moving is busy enough, but I always seem to need a project to work on to keep my inner fire burning. I’m like a steam train that runs on projects and goal achievement! The rest of my life doesn’t move well if I don’t have those things. It’s the wind in my sails! I’m a sail/steam-train hybrid!
I was reading a book this morning that was talking about our big life dreams and it also got me thinking. What dreams in your life keep you motivated and moving forward? Right now, I don’t know if I have an answer to that. I have the daily busy stuff, but I want to reflect more on this question and maybe bring some of my pre-kids goals back to the forefront.
