If you’ve somehow stumbled across this blog, chances are you’re fairly familiar with social media, and so, like me, since July 1, you’ve been seeing a multitude of reminders on how we’re half way through the year. Given the kinds of accounts that I follow, this means that I’ve been reminded vociferously about how I need to review and re-commit to all those goals I set back at the start of the year, and also that I need to start preparing for all the upcoming holidays, you know, like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
While I do like all the celebrations that come with the fall, I have been able to ignore the entreaties to start shopping for the holidays now – even Anthropologie was rolling out Halloween housewares at the end of last week – please let me enjoy the outdoor dinnerware I so excitedly purchased in April for at least a few more weeks?
But the posts about goals. Those got to me.
This year, I decided to set completely ridiculous goals for myself. Goals so impossible, there would be no way I could possibly feel any guilt about not achieving them come December 31st. What could these goals possibly be you ask? Well, for instance, I set a goal of running 2500 miles this year. No, not because it’s 2025. Because it’s roughly 2500 miles from the Grand Floridian Resort at DisneyWorld to the Grand Californian Resort at Disneyland. How fun I thought to be able to say that I ran from one Disney Resort to another (yes, I do love RunDisney). I also set a goal of reading 125 books this year. This one I did / do still secretly hope I can achieve. But given the most books I’ve managed to read in a given year over the past 6 years topped out at 46, hitting 125 in a year is a long shot at best.
To be fair, these are just 2 of a list of 25 goals (thank you Gretchen Rubin and your 25 for 25 idea). And when I did as I was told and pulled out my list last week to see how I’ve been doing, and what I needed to get working on, the idea of success and failure started to creep into my consciousness.
As a stay at home mom, there’s no annual review, no way of assessing how you’re doing in your job. Sometimes, I like to imagine the comments that a manager might make about my performance – “Could show more enthusiasm for folding socks”, “Meals starting to lack creativity”, “Excellent at coordinating drop-offs and pick-ups even when required to be in two places at the exact same time”. But there is no manager for me to report to, and no way to quantitatively assess the “success” of my life, except by setting goals and seeing how I can stack up against those goals.
Earlier this year, after one of my daughter’s skating competitions, I asked her coach “But why didn’t she win a medal? She is just not succeeding”. Without missing a beat, her coach looked at me and said, “What is the definition of success for your daughter in this sport? Is it just to win a medal? Or is it for her to develop and become the best skater she can be?”.
I was left speechless. Because of course, all I want is for my kids to be the best they can be and have fun along the way.
So, back to my list of “goals” for this year. Ostensibly, so far, I could be considered a miserable failure. There is just one thing I can confidently say I have done from my list of 25 – “Refresh the back garden” – and even this is still not 100% done for this year, but it’s close enough to being complete that I wouldn’t feel like a fraud for checking it off the list.
However, I have run many, many miles so far this year, and I’m already at 44 books read (and it’s only July!).
Put differently, I seem to be doing my best this year, perhaps better than I have in recent memory, and I have been having a lot of fun along the way.
Perhaps I have just found a new definition of success for myself.
nancyhotson 