Aspirations and Goals and Reinvention

As we enter into 2010, many of us start to think about our aspirations and goals. The New Year brings about new opportunities to achieve something that we may not have achieved before, to try something new, different, exciting… The New Year gives us a launching pad for new goals, with new ways of measuring those goals and new challenges in achieving them.

I am an executor of and believer in short term goals – what do I want to get done this month or next month. I have a more difficult time with the longer term goals – what do I want to do in 3 years, 5 years, or 10 years. I think this has to do with the constant transformation I go through, the constantly reinvention of myself – but more on that later. So, here is the question… Does the quest for the short term goals drive the long term goal, even if I don’t know what that long term goal might be? Meaning, if I continue to drive towards short term goals that get met and added to as time passes, am I really driving towards a long term goal, without having truly identified that goal? Would I be able to achieve a long term goal faster or more efficiently, if I knew what it was from the beginning, and designed my short term goals to meet my long term goals?

Back to the issue of constant transformation. Does the fact that I am constantly changing better suit short term goals vs. long term goals??? What if I had a long term goal but halfway towards meeting it I decided I no longer wanted it. I had changed in some major way that made the long-term goal no longer relevant. Would I feel like a failure for not achieving it? Does having only short term goals give me the flexibility to be constantly reinventing, or does only having short term goals keep me from achieving greater things? Is it more important to be able to be reinventing myself or drive towards long-term goals? Could constant reinvention be a long-term goal, only achieved by short-term goals?

What comes first, the chicken or the egg!!!

I set a short term fitness goal and did not achieve it. I felt like a balloon that just had the air let out of it. I tried to achieve it, but perhaps I did not try enough. Or perhaps the goal should have been a long-term goal. Or maybe it just wasn’t important enough.

I did not achieve the goal. Could I have achieved it if I had really focused on it and worked every day towards it? Or was the goal too lofty, and therefore unachievable in the time allotted? After some evaluation, I have determined that I need to continue towards this goal, and make it a longer term goal. I have worked 6 weeks to achieve it. 6 weeks was not enough. So rather than writing it off as a failure, I will re-align my timeline for this goal and continue to try to achieve it. Perhaps I will achieve it by my birthday. That is nearly 6 months away. It is still a short term goal, but a longer-term short term goal. (WOW, is that possible???) I feel confident that I can achieve it, should I not go through some other major transformation that leaves it irrelevant… (LOL)

What are your goals? Do you set long term or short term goals? Or both? Do you set goals that are easy or difficult to achieve? How do you respond to an unmet goal? Post thoughts to comments.