So... a month or so after a really serious hospital visit last spring, I set some 6-month goals and made my first vision board. I was out of work and had no income whatsoever. I set an income goal that would have been my second highest income for six months in my life. I didn't even come close to that goal.
I set a goal to dump my old, refurbished, "Fred Flintstone" laptop, and get an up-to-date laptop. That didn't happen either. In fact, the hinge broke on my old laptop so it's out of commission for now.
I set a goal to have 10,000 pageviews on my three blogs by now. I have about 1700 total.
I set a goal to buy a good digital camera. Nope. That didn't happen either.
I set a goal to lost 47 pounds in six months. Why such an odd amount? Because I weighed 347 at the time, and I wanted to get under 300 pounds. I lost ten pounds and kept it off.
Oddly, the only goal that I did come close to was, "Help the homeless in Forsyth County as much as I am able." A couple months after setting that goal, my mom and I met a family teetering on the brink of homelessness while living in a single room. We sold them a cooking appliance, and gave them some basic items like dishes, food, and a list of local agencies that might be able to help them. Then we went to our Sunday School class, and were able to get the family some shelves to store stuff, more food, a coffee maker, and a few other needed items. Their needs were far beyond what our class could offer, but we helped them stabilize their situation a bit.
So... I basically failed at most of my goals. I'm at the point where many people think, "goals are stupid, I'm not going to bother setting goals anymore." But I come from the action sports world. If you've ever watched a BMX freestyler or skateboarder, you probably noticed that they seem to fail time after time while trying to learn a new move. I don't see failure as an end all, be all. Failure is just part of the process. My biggest lesson from these six month goals is that I set way too big of goals for the position I was starting in. I've learned over the years that that is a way people will self-sabotage to keep from sticking to their goals. If you set a huge goal that is just plain ridiculous, you start thinking, "What's the point?" And you give up on it.
So I just set a new series of six-month goals and made a new vision board. The goals are smaller, and even more important, they're broken down into even shorter term goals that I can use to chip away at the bigger goals. So I don't see missing my goals as a failure, I see it as a learning process, and I've reset my expectations to a more reasonable level. Most important, I've made some progress in my everyday situation. We'll see how it goes this time.
