Goal Setting Might Be A Good Thing?

So here we are, New Year's Day - the day of resolutions that never go anywhere.

This morning I get up, I'm milling around getting ready, and I'm thinking about my own New Years resolutions. How I'd like to lose 10 pounds a month, how I think I want my health goals to be to 1. Add in Exercise to my daily routine; 2. Drink my daily Water Requirements; and 3. Allow my Body to sort out from there how much or how little food/calories it needs to operate the most efficiently.

I got thinking about how when I had started this blog, my goal was to do three back-to-back fasts: a 14 day, which is now completed; a 21-28 day, which would be next, and a 40 day, which I would like to do over the Easter season. Am I ditching that goal? Did I just drop one and run to another? What's the point of all this?

This got me thinking about before I started the blog, when I had intentionally gained 35 pounds to break my thinking on what defines a likable person, and the effect that that person's weight has on that person's likability. All I did was set the goal to gain the weight. I kicked around some ideas on how to lose it after the goal was attained. But the one part of the goal was clear: to gain it.

Now, as I ponder the new year, it seems clear to me that combining the desire to fast with the weight loss goals is my next steps. Generally, my next steps would be to sabotage myself. Oh, yes. Once I set a goal with myself, or tell someone else a goal I've set for myself, I seem to go out my way to make myself fail. It's as if I think someone else might try to sabotage me - so if I do it, I keep them from doing it to me. Ha HA! Brilliant!

I'm thinking about all of these things as I am up this morning. I'm also humming a tune from last night. And all of a sudden, the whole goal of setting goals became crystal clear to me.

I saw the Poseidon Adventure at a movie theater here in Chicago last night as a fun and non-alcoholic (I think I'm a borderline alcoholic) based way to ring in the New Year. Mick went with me.

We're watching the movie, and as we're watching, there are some very powerful and symbolic elements that are resonating with me; I won't bore you with all of them, but they summed up as being: you can't get everyone to see it your way, even if you turn out to be right; there comes a point in time where you have to let them go and let them lead their own lives, come what may; and you have to have faith that the steps you are being led to are leading you to safety.

I liked the movie a lot, and I think if they say you spend your New Year the way you spend your New Year's Eve, then I will be learning how to implement these elements into my own life in the year ahead.

In the past, I have always run screaming from goal setting. What if I don't accomplish it, what if I do, what if the goal changes and I know that, but other people think, "Well, she just can't make up her mind!" This morning, it all came together for me: action creates action. Change creates change. Goals create other goals.

This used to be completely overwhelming to me. If I set one goal and attain it, and then all there is is another goal sitting there waiting for me, then ... FUCK! When's it ever gonna end?

I suppose the answer is ... it won't. One thing will lead to another and another and another. And maybe that's the most fun way to live, to just allow things to unfold. I look back on the things that have been presented to me to accomplish; there've been some pretty fun things that have come my way. Things that I have enjoyed doing, but then ran away from. So what if this year is about learning to allow myself to roll with the opportunities that present themselves, and trust that it will lead somewhere?

The biggest thing that I took away from watching the movie last night was the arc of Gene Hackman's character. He plays a modern-day preacher, one who teaches people to Take Action! Make Things Happen! Find the God Within Yourself and YOU Make Your OWN Life Better! His character has a crisis of faith at the end, and it seemed to me then, as it's been becoming clear over the last couple years for me, that faith is kind of a both-and proposition. It's strange water to navigate - they say to surrender to God's will, and at the same time, take action. I've never understood this. How do I surrender and take action at the same time? Doesn't God help those who help themselves? How can surrendering, which to me is doing nothing, lead anywhere? Last night, the way the movie played out, it became clear to me that taking the each step as it comes is the faith in God. Trusting that it is leading somewhere is the faith. Trusting that God has a good outcome in mind for me is the surrender. I lack in this trusting/faithing/surrending department greatly. I don't know that God has a good outcome planned for me. What if I have faith and it turns out that God is this sadistic fuck who led me on some wild goose chase and is up theresxdc laughing while doing shots of Wild Turkey with Elvis? Trusting that God might have a good outcome in mind for me is probably the biggest leap of faith I've ever known.

So, with my new view on goals in mind, here are the goals I a setting for 2010:
- Lose the weight. All of it. This year. Done.
- Fast 40 days over Easter. This has intriqued me for years and I really want to see if I can do it.
- Get a financial plan in order to both pay down debt and create savings for a house and travel.
- Get a new job? This is one I feel strongly that I don't control. How about I begin searching for jobs and see what comes up.
- Create a stronger social network. I feel so lonely, that I don't have people who want to go out and do the same things I do. I just gotta believe there are others who feel that same way and want to do the same stuff.
- Control my own preachy and self-righteous ways. Learn how to have compassion be my knee-jerk reaction, instead of, "That's totally crazy. Here; this is what you SHOULD think." It aggravates me, too.
- Allow.

That's it for my New Year's Day entry. Hope you have a safe, fun, and HAPPY 2010! Until next time!
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