Goals goals goals

A couple of years ago, right after my daughter was born, I sat down at my laptop and spent an afternoon brainstorming as many goals as I could – practical goals, immediate goals, long-range goals, and wild, crazy goals. I divided them into broad categories, such as “physical,” “mental,” “spiritual”, “writing,” “finance,” “skills,” “acquisitions,” etc. I actually reached a couple, such as completing drafts for two novels, meeting with a financial advisor and getting a budget, and starting this blog. There’s a lot I still want to attain. They’ve been on the back-burner for a while now. But now that I appear to be healthy, physically, for the first time in a long while, I may have to start tackling these items again.

There are two big obstacles I can think of that affect our reaching goals. At least for me, they’re the biggest. Time management and motivation. I could write a lengthy post on each one, and I probably will. For now, let me only say that I’ve read elsewhere that the best way to achieve goals is to focus on just one at a time. Until attainment. I’m a hopper and I have trouble with this very concept. So, off this massive list I made, I probably only reached a half-dozen or so goals out of about a hundred and fifty, and this is over three years. However, if I could pour all my resources on one goal at a time, depending on the goal of course, it is conceivable I could reach a half-dozen a year, or maybe even more!

Here’s a quick list representative of my goals: some wild and weird, others practical. Some are daily habits, others will take a long while to complete. I’ve left off the most personal ones, but I kind of like this sampling:

• Get weight down to 175 pounds
• Complete a marathon
• Be able to do 100 pushups
• Drink green tea every day
• Be a habitual positive thinking
• Learn how to be a lucid dreamer
• Memorize poetry
• Stay organized and neat
• Write 1,000 words or edit one hour every single day
• Get something published
• Visit England, Spain, Czech Republic, Japan, Nepal, Italy
• Visit the Vatican
• Tour the historical spots in the US with my family one summer
• Learn twenty or so classical guitar pieces
• Take piano lessons
• Memorize the Bible
• Become a speed reader
• Become proficient at Chess – a “grandmaster”
• Learn Latin, French, German, Italian
• Study physics, astronomy, and higher mathematics
• Study medicine