Goal-Setting in a World That Wants You to Feel Guilty About Everything
I’ve achieved a few “unachievable” goals in my adult life. I, always the last person to finish her mile during PE class tests, trained for and ran two half-marathons. I went from being so afraid of childbirth that I planned to adopt, to having 2 unmedicated childbirths. I lost about 30 pounds after my second daughter was born, then another ten beyond that after my third daughter was born. Each time I set-out to reach a goal, I learned a little bit more about myself and my motivations.
What I learned is that the most important aspect of successful goal-setting and achieving is being honest about your motivation.
We all want to “do the right things for the right reasons,” but sometimes, we confuse our right reasons with reasons we assume the rest of the world finds acceptable.
For example, when I got pregnant with my second child, I started thinking about attempting an intervention-free birth. I had been teaching childbirth classes for about a year, and had read a lot of research on the way birth works. I also was starting to internalize everything I was teaching my classes about their body’s amazing capabilities. The more I practiced relaxation with my classes, the easier it was for me to relax. I kind of just wanted to see if I could do it!
Soon after I had made this decision, we visited my in-laws for a weekend. I will never forget the exact moment I decided that I WAS GOING TO HAVE AN UNMEDICATED BIRTH. I was walking up a hill in Manzanita with my mother- and sister-in-law, pushing my toddler in her stroller, when my mother-in-law said to me:
“YOU’RE going to have an unmedicated birth? I’ll believe THAT when I see it.”
That sentence changed my life. She gave a voice to the self-doubt and helplessness I felt when it came to my body, and I knew I had to prove, not just to her, but to myself, that I could do it. I had many motivations for trying to go intervention-free the second time around, and if I wanted to appear benevolent I would have told everyone “it’s what’s best for the baby.” But anyone who knows me well (and now all of you) knows that I had a 19-hour unmedicated birth just to prove to my mother-in-law — and more importantly, to myself — that I could. Bev, if you are reading this, thank you for not believing in me at that moment! The pride and strength I felt at the end of that experience was like nothing I could ever imagine, and my life was changed because of it.
For the first time ever, I got a sense of my own power; for the first time in my life, I knew that I could do anything.
So I had lots of reasons to meet that goal, the first really big, scary thing I had ever purposely attempted. But I believe, that had I tried to be a “bigger person,” and tried to accomplish something that terrified me for the “right reasons,” I probably would not have found the strength to keep going. I had something to prove, goddammit! I honored my competitiveness instead of trying to deny it, and was rewarded with the most empowering experience of my life thus far.
Who decides what the “right reasons” are, anyway? Every human on this planet is unique, each with our own baggage and context and wiring. It makes no sense to assume that we all should have to choose from some List of Approved Incentives for making personal changes or taking on challenges.
When that second baby was about 6 months old, I came face to face with this picture of myself, and I knew something had to change:
I weighed myself for the first time since before the baby was born, and was horrified to see that I weighed 168 pounds. Bryce and I knew that neither of us was making healthy choices, and decided that together, we would make some changes.
For the second time in a year, I was faced with an intimidating test, one that would require me to believe 100% in my goals and my ability to reach them. I could say that I lost weight because I wanted to be healthy and live longer (which is true), or because I wanted to demonstrate good habits to my kids (also true), or even because I didn’t feel like I looked like myself anymore (true as well).
The most compelling reason I had to lose weight was because I wanted to look good in a bathing suit.
It took me a few months to not feel ashamed that this shallow goal was what kept me going to the gym, and prevented me from eating cookie dough every night. Eventually, though, I realized that this is my truth. I did want to be healthy and live a long time and set a good example for my kids, of course! But the factor that kept me going through the frustration and fatigue and sore muscles was how hot I would look in a bikini.
We did not diet — we made small lifestyle changes, so it took a while, but about a year later, I had dropped 30 pounds. I was eating well, exercising a few times per week, was happier, went outside more, and sex was better. And, I looked damn good in my bikini.
The thing is, humans are selfish. Not selfish in the derogatory sense, meaning “devoted to or caring only for oneself,” but in a more realistic sense, meaning “wanting to have a good life for ourselves.” I am an optimist, and refuse to believe our fear-mongering, 24-hour, profit-driven media who are out to convince us that most humans are evil. I believe that most of us default to wanting to be good people.
Somewhere along the way, though, we’ve been conditioned to think that doing what’s best for everyone means NOT doing what’s best for us.
This is especially true for women, and is a crippling, depression-inducing poison amongst mothers in the US. When we set goals for our lives, we feel compelled to convince ourselves that we want things for altruistic reasons. We try and try and try to motivate ourselves to meet intimate challenges for the “good of others,” and we wonder why it is so hard to follow-through.
Every goal a mother publicly discusses, even amongst her peers, has to be “what’s best for the kids”, or she is not a good mother. We see images like this that tell us with hearts and mixed fonts that motherhood is about constant sacrifice:
I mean, I understand what the underlying sentiment is — “just keep your kids’ interests in mind and do your best and you are a good mother so go easy on yourself” — but the actual words used feel more like “YOU MUST NEVER DO ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF YOU SELFISH WOMAN.”
I’ve seen similar graphics circulated on social media aimed at fathers, and humans in general. I know mothers are not the only ones who experience guilt when making what might be perceived as a “selfish decision,” I just know the guilt that stunts our ability to set honest goals for ourselves is at epidemic-levels amongst North American mothers.
We don’t go back to work because we feel guilty about using childcare; we go back to work because we feel guilty if we don’t financially contribute to the family; we don’t exercise because we feel like we don’t have time because we need to take our kids to every activity they ask for plus volunteer; we don’t cook meals we like unless the whole rest of the family likes it too; we don’t set ANY major goals for ourselves because we know we cannot achieve them and also put our entire family’s needs ahead of our own.
We’ll never truly know the heights of our capabilities and the depths of our strength if we live in fear of being viewed as selfish.
I wish every person on this planet has the opportunity to achieve a goal they once thought impossible: to feel the exhilaration of completing a physical task that took months of training and pushed them to the very edge of their limits, or to understand what “bursting with pride” really means after meeting a challenge they believed insurmountable, but kept working at anyway. When you are on a path you have set, feeling both challenged and fulfilled, you will be happier, and trust me:
Happier, satisfied you is much more fun to be around than obligation-driven, guilt-riddled you.
I am so very proud of my kids when I watch them excel at school or music or sports or empathy or just life in general, and I regularly, indiscriminately share all the things I love about them and the reasons I am certain they are all going to change the world for the better.
But I have never, ever, been more proud of anyone than I was of myself when I finished my second half-marathon.
I would not have been able to run 40 miles per week, suffered shin-splints and knee pain, and gone to physical therapy for three months if I had not admitted that the reason I was doing it was because I needed to prove to myself that I could. Not because it was good for my kids (in fact, they hated that I had to go out for a run so often), or because I wanted to spend time with Bryce (his legs are too much longer than mine to run together anyway). Because I wanted to was my reason, and that was reason enough.
