Hello! It is now two weeks and a day since I’ve commenced my writing project/experiment, and I am happy to report that it’s been going wonderfully. Obviously, I have not been posting every day in those two weeks, but that was never the goal – the goal was to intentionally reconnect with my creativity and just see what would happen if I made it a point to write every day.
So far, I really have been writing every single day. Some days, it’s just in my journal or on my iPhone’s Notes app. Other times, I write in a blank word document on my computer, knowing that the option to share is always on the table but that there’s no pressure to do so.
I truly think I’ve found something of a sweet spot for me, in terms of writing and creativity, at least for this current moment in time. It’s good for me to write daily – I know that many times, I don’t know what I think about something until I write about it. It gives me clarity, and that’s something I don’t take for granted these days.
It also feels good to uphold an agreement with myself. I think there were times in the past when I would set these goals, and when I would fall off the wagon with them after a certain point, I felt like I’d failed. I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard for me to just do the thing.
I realize now that the problem wasn’t my willpower or work ethic at all. I simply wasn’t setting the right goals, or even if they were right, I was choosing the wrong path to getting there. It’s like, if I set a goal to run a marathon, having previously run only short distances a few times in my life, and once I started training, I realized my body actually really hates the long distances and doesn’t do well with that much cardio. Pushing through that just because I “set a goal” would be foolish – I could end up hurting myself and wouldn’t enjoy the process at all, which would sort of defeat the whole point of setting that goal in the first place.
I think you know you’ve set the right goal when you do feel like you’re pushing yourself, and it requires a certain level of discipline and commitment, but you also feel better for it. There are too many times in my life that I would abandon myself to reach a certain goal. I would push too hard, ignore and shove away my needs and wants, and just grind. I genuinely thought that would lead me to success. I thought, even if the process felt terrible, at least the destination would feel amazing. Of course, it never did. You can’t hate the journey and expect to love the destination – it’s all part of it. I think the right goal is one where the journey toward it may not always feel easy, but it does feel good. I think that’s the only way to make it sustainable, too.
Glennon Doyle (my fave) has this amazing quote in her book Untamed, and it’s been resonating especially strongly for me recently.
“I will not stay, not ever again – in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself. When my body tells me the truth, I’ll believe it. I trust myself now, so I will no longer suffer voluntarily or silently or for long.”
Yes. THIS.
My commitment to myself is this: I will no longer stay with a goal or dream that requires me to abandon myself in the reaching of it.
Simply because, I think it’s a losing game. You cannot get to wholeness from self-abandonment.
As the new year approaches, and many of us start setting new goals and intentions that we hope will help us grow and somehow improve our lives, let’s just make sure that we also make a commitment to ourselves to check in along the way. To ask, is this still working for me? Is the journey I’ve selected the most correct one for me, or is getting me further from the destination I desire? And if the answer to these questions is no, may we find the courage and strength to course-correct and find our way back to ourselves.
Love,
Nicole
I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever set a goal that caused you to abandon yourself? What will you do differently going forward to find the right goals for you?
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