Having goals
I used to be allergic to having goals. For years, and still now, when I think of the word goals and my relationship to it, I think of two related memories from when I lived in Calgary. (This was 2011 to 2014.) The first memory is of paying for private tennis lessons and being asked by my friend Morgan what my goal was. I didn't like this question. The related memory is of Morgan exerting herself at Crossfit sufficiently so as to sometimes vomit, and this being celebrated. (Obviously I heard about this second-hand because there was no way I was going to Crossfit.) The reaction available to me inside myself was one of dismissal. Scratch the surface, which I didn't, and I was probably envious. Safer to not have goals. To have a goal is to see yourself and to be seen.
Actually if I had been in touch with my goals at that time I wouldn't have been taking tennis lessons in the first place. Not so long after that I upended my life and left Calgary. You could call blowing my life up and going traveling a goal-driven behaviour. It didn't feel like that. It was just what I had to do. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe a deep goal doesn't feel freely chosen and pursued, instead it feels like a need that cannot be ignored.
I started writing this blog post because I was going through my notes in my AnyType vault and I came across one that was just a copy-paste from an email or blog post or whatever from the coach and internet famous person Joe Hudson about goals. This sentence remains the most powerful for me: "Everybody has goals. Not everyone is vulnerable enough to admit it."
To have goals is to be vulnerable. When I came across the above sentence, within the last year, it hurt. But it was also a relief to read it. It helped me understand what has made me flinch away from goals.
Having goals means failure. It means being seen in one's desires. It means seeing yourself and maybe having goals that are a bit...well, maybe you wish you had different ones than you do. It means cutting off choices. It means risking disappointing yourself, if you don't do yourself the respect of trying to work towards your goals.
So I have goals, probably always have, because everyone has goals. It's inevitable. This makes it easier to think about them. But I have also (slowly, partially) reoriented towards goals in terms of how I feel about them in general. I have experienced that it can feel nice to have goals. Humans do things because it feels good to do them. I didn't understand what felt good about having goals because I hadn't experienced it.
The parts that feel good to me relate to decisionmaking. I'm speaking here mainly about the goals I have in my work life. I work in communications, marketing, and fundraising. I used to avoid having goals at work (sorry to my employers) because it felt good to be helpful and supportive and to avoid risking failure. And also, because, well, which goals should I even set? I didn't know which goals to aim for, and I sure as heck didn't know how to systematically go about achieving them. You can see how this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Setting a goal feels nice because then the infinite option space in nonprofit communications collapses into figuring out how you might try to achieve your goal. There are still so many things to decide. There is still so much uncertainty. But a goal does reduce the decisionmaking burden all the way down, from the quarter to the day. This is so valuable to me because I usually feel my brain is a blender with all life areas and possible decisions mushed together.
When I can orient at least some of my work around a sense of doing an experiment to see whether it moves us towards a goal, even if the goal is imperfect, the act of pursuing itself can feel good. Also, obviously, it feels good when progress is actually made.
In my personal life I have goals but I have been doing some avoiding of them, because working towards them would require some reorientation of how I spend my time and energy. But it's also true that on a big-picture level I am very much acting on my goals. Funny how we take for granted what's going well. I'm getting to travel with Bell and also do work that matters to me. In those big ways I am living the dream.
Some goals I have in my personal life: be present on cycling days instead of mentally being elsewhere. Aim to camp once a week if the permissions work out, because these experiences are very meaningful. Write here regularly. (What is regularly? Something that feels like devotion. What is that? Let's see.) Learn a new word in the language of where we are, each day. Try to eat protein at most meals. Be more consistent about keeping in touch with my tiny inner circle. Regain my strength and endurance. I have others but I'll leave it there for now.
P.S. The picture at the top of the post is of postcards that were left over from an exhibit at a cafe and bookstore in Chiang Mai, Thailand, called Any Way. If I ever go back to Chiang Mai it will be a visit motivated in part by this space. The exhibit was called Somewhere in Between: Queer Map of Liberia. I feel such appreciation for people who connect us across borders. Also, what a special series of postcards, with handwritten stories of Liberian LGBTQIA+ people, in their own words, shared on them.