If you don’t believe in goals or have trouble setting them or achieving them, this article is for you.
If you have always set goals and achieved them with any level of success, I think this article may also be for you.
For the majority of my career, and I guess my life, I have been a goal setter. I have thought about them. I have written them down. I have shared them. I have obsessed over them. I have achieved them. I have failed them. And more importantly, they have failed me.
In recent years I have completely changed my philosophy around goals. In fact, I have abandoned them (almost) completely, and have adopted the following philosophy:
“Forget goals…move instead in the direction you are organically led.”
So, what precipitated the development of this new philosophy for me?
It was simple! I had found myself being offered some pretty cool opportunities. Many of those were not even on my RADAR, because perhaps, I had been too focused on “my goals.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my goals were obscuring opportunity. They were taking my career and neatly organizing it into little boxes labeled: “Goals.” Yuck!
Meanwhile, various opportunities were jumping up and down, waving their arms at me, holding up signs, and trying to get my attention. And it worked! Before I knew it, they had fully distracted me from my goals, but in the best way possible. They had begun to lead me in a different direction…a much better direction.
I could feel myself slipping away from the corporate world and following my need to be creative and my overwhelming need to write.
People often joke and say that I follow the beat of my own drummer, quite literally! And it’s true. I only want to wake up every morning and follow my own agenda, on my terms, and do things in my own way.
I have spent my life as an amateur writer, but when I became a professional writer almost two years ago, I began to see things very differently. The lens from which I viewed the world started changing colors. There was no longer just black or white or shades of grey, but vibrant colors, full of possibilities.
And I followed these brightly colored possibilities, and I let them organically lead me in the direction that I am aparently meant to go.
I don’t have a business plan. I don’t have a marketing plan. And I definitely do not plan on setting goals.
I only plan to keep writing, and see what new doors are opened…
You sound like you are happy and enjoying life. Wonderful