The Type of Goals You Set

The Flyleaf Pages
Jul 24, 2017 · 4 min read

New Year’s resolutions are bullshit. Checklists get ignored. Projects get dropped.

At least for me.

Probably for you, too.

One day, back in 2012, I woke up from a dream that I was living in Ireland. I laid in bed for probably half an hour hoping to fall back asleep. Something in that dream filled me with an immense satisfaction. I NEEDED to get to Ireland. Nothing else mattered.

So that morning I decided I was going.

No money in the bank. No passport. No experience traveling.

I remember learning something pivotal in how I understood goals: They cannot be negotiable. If I am to achieve any goal I set for myself, it must be something that I use as a filter to direct my entire life. Every decision is shaped by the overwhelming need to achieve that goal. There is no room for failure.

That might seem a bit intense, but it the only way I succeed.

Then I adopted a new sort of goal setting in which my entire life is filtered through on January 1st, 2013: Yearly Themes. No more resolutions. Only a simple theme. Something to guide how the year will unfold. How I think about every interaction and decision for that year. A mantra.

2013’s theme was “Adventure.

Simple enough. Adventure. However I choose to interpret that for the year was up to me, but everything was with adventuring in mind. I obsessed over this theme for the year, and my life changed. I went to Ireland. I experienced my first music festival. I met new people. Played my first solo songwriter show. Travelled to a new city alone for a few weeks. So on and so on.

On top of a Yearly Theme, right before I left to Ireland I set another goal in which I (currently) filter my entire life’s journey through: In five year’s time, come my 30th birthday, I WILL travel to these five countries: Ireland, Thailand, France, Canada, Japan.

Nothing else matters. This supersedes all of my life choices. I will drop anything else to make these happen.

I have failed many, many smaller goals I set. I’ve dropped countless projects. But, thankfully, I will be completing that list next month with Japan. And with five plus months to spare.

This year’s Yearly Theme is “With Intent.”

har har

I already know my next major goal(s) I’m setting once Japan happens.

Traveltraveltravel.

The goal comes in two parts that seem similar, but differ slightly:

By the age of 35 I must have lived abroad working, and by the age 35 (might even make it sooner) I must live in a non-english native country and write a novel start-to-finish.

This goal WILL supersede all of my life choices. Potentially in ways that seem fiscally reckless or dangerous towards my career growth. It’s all that matters to me. (Well, soon it will be all that matters, Japan still must happen.)

So, without any plan yet, you may see me make some interesting life choices here soon. Just a heads up.

Back to my original point.

I see lots of friends with big dreams. Talk about where they want to move. Fantasies of what life can be.

You might be that person. I’m certainly that person.

This is both me hitting you over the head with the hammer (or pen/keyboard, I guess) and it’s also me lecturing myself.

Your goals will never happen. They just won’t. Things don’t happen on their own. The only way you’ll ever get there is by changing that goal into a life purpose. A prime motivator. The only thing that matters in your decision making from where you buy groceries to what you do this weekend to whether or not you ever get a dog.

(That last one is personal. I want a dog so badly, but it simply doesn’t align with my goals.)

So here it is, once more, a public reminder to myself of the goals I am setting. I want to be a writer. I’m going to be a writer. This blog is that journey. It is experimental and lacking focus, but I’m on track.

I hope you get there, too.

-Lloyd

I also see the irony in this post and the closing tags I add to each post. :p

Updates | Day 3/179

-Short(ish) term goals: Start writing flash fiction stories for this blog. At least once a week. Wake up a little earlier.

Shoutouts/Inspirations: Any friend that has moved out of the country lately.

-Closing whimsy: I spent around four hours watching Game of Thrones conspiracy theory videos and now my head is stuck in fantasy land. Work meetings are difficult when someone talks about growth and you want to respond with “Yeah, but what is the Night King’s true intent???”

The Flyleaf Pages

fly-leaf | noun | a blank page at the beginning or end of a book.

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