My Goals and Vision for Myself: Learning to Run Towards
Learning to define my goals and vision for myself for the future is something I have never been good at. At all. That's one thing that has bothered me about myself pretty much my entire life. I am an observer, I'm great at looking at other people's lives, their behavior, etc and saying to myself I do not want to be like that. So, as you notice this is viewing people from the opposite viewpoint that I'd like to encourage my brain to actually do. I want to look at them for the positive that I can observe so I can say to myself I want to be like that. Or I want that kind of thing in my life.
I want to stop looking at the world and noticing the things I don't like and look at the world and see the things that inspire me, that encourage me, etc.
Maybe it's because right now in this season of my life my world is so limited. Not because I want it to be, not because I'm an introvert, but because financially this is what's required of me at this point. We do not have extra money to spend on the gas guzzler to haul everyone around to do things regularly. During the summer we spent a lot of hours at the pool -- so this was great for my kids and my self and for all of us as a family unit since this is the first summer my husband has not had to work through as a new teacher. So, my world grew in that small way. However, pool time is not exactly an opportunity for me to observe any more than mama hawk making sure none of my babies are drowning. I'm a very vigilant mother, for many reasons, mostly during the early years when my two youngest are not really swimming yet. As any parent should be IMO, I do not sit and have conversations with people and I cannot afford to make eye contact or give my full attention to anyone but my children. So please don't think I'm rude if you see me out and about and I seem to be ignoring you, don't take it personally.
We have a size zero social life - my kids interact with children their own ages and make friends - and my two oldest often go down the street with one of our walkie talkies and play with friends, but as a family and as a regular thing we do not have a social circle. We have a set of Grandparents just down the road and that is the extent of our family circle as well.
So if I had to define goals and a vision for myself personally I would start with some simple ones:
I want to stop looking at the world and noticing the things I don't like and look at the world and see the things that inspire me, that encourage me, etc.
Maybe it's because right now in this season of my life my world is so limited. Not because I want it to be, not because I'm an introvert, but because financially this is what's required of me at this point. We do not have extra money to spend on the gas guzzler to haul everyone around to do things regularly. During the summer we spent a lot of hours at the pool -- so this was great for my kids and my self and for all of us as a family unit since this is the first summer my husband has not had to work through as a new teacher. So, my world grew in that small way. However, pool time is not exactly an opportunity for me to observe any more than mama hawk making sure none of my babies are drowning. I'm a very vigilant mother, for many reasons, mostly during the early years when my two youngest are not really swimming yet. As any parent should be IMO, I do not sit and have conversations with people and I cannot afford to make eye contact or give my full attention to anyone but my children. So please don't think I'm rude if you see me out and about and I seem to be ignoring you, don't take it personally.
We have a size zero social life - my kids interact with children their own ages and make friends - and my two oldest often go down the street with one of our walkie talkies and play with friends, but as a family and as a regular thing we do not have a social circle. We have a set of Grandparents just down the road and that is the extent of our family circle as well.
So if I had to define goals and a vision for myself personally I would start with some simple ones:
- Look for and surround yourself with beauty. I do do this, I'm not a super negative person all the time, but when your life has been sort of defined by which crisis you're currently going through it becomes really difficult to not become a broken record with being thankful for basic life necessities. I am thankful and grateful for everything I have, I just wish I didn't have to repeat that so I'm not seen as a negative person. I wish I had more exciting stuff to share in life -- like vacations, or adventures, or projects. My life is just super boring right now, not at all like I would make it if I had the power.
- Curate your life more purposefully to reflect what you want for the future. So, stop accepting things just to fill up the space. I'm grateful for gifts, I'm grateful for the moments we spend sporadically with people as a social circle, I'm grateful as much as I can be while at the same time trying to carefully and purposefully start excluding things that are really not serving my mental health. Be it things or relationships. Dress for success -- not your clothing necessarily, but clothe your life for success.
- Stop accepting punishment for being a human being. I talk about this so much, but I am the worst at just accepting that this (whatever current struggle I'm going through) is something I deserve. I need to stop assuming this persona of the guilty. Ask for more, expect more, believe that it's ok to ask God to bless us with abundance. It's acceptable to want more than just survival.
- Be a happy mom. A forgiving mom. A patient mom. I am terrible at being quick to pass blame sometimes, especially when I'm so very tired at this point being 20+ weeks pregnant with #5. And I can have grace all I want to on myself, but it's really not acceptable anyway because my kids don't deserve that reaction. And I notice they have caught onto my bad habit and I just don't want to continue that.
- MINIMIZE, need vs. want. This is a continuing struggle. The desire to create beauty -- as others see it. There's so many things that are beautiful that I do not need in my home. So many beautiful things that we do not use. So many beautiful things that people want to gift to my kids and myself that just become a burden to us in the end. I have tried my best to communicate in kindness that we would rather have your presence in our lives, than your presents. I really want my children to grow up knowing that true wealth is memories and experiences, not the things they received and played with for 5 minutes. I don't want them to equate love with gifts.
So, these are just a few things I'm going to focus on this year for myself. And hopefully into the New Year.
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