Life Goals

We celebrated my mom’s birthday this week and one of my favorite things about her is this silly little bit she does called “LIFE GOALS.” When we think about life goals, we often think about everything we want to accomplish in our lifetime like a successful career, building a family, or following our passions. But when my mom shares her life goals, they are her life goals for THAT DAY. For the most part, they are relatively attainable goals that she sets out to accomplish during the day – think of your daily to-do list but add some flair.

Obviously, I am slightly bias and think my mom is awesome and a total badass, but I feel like there is something we could all learn from this. When we begin to feel overwhelmed with finding fulfillment or our purpose, or uncertain with the direction in which to take our lives, it might be beneficial to look at life on a micro level rather than macro. So, if you’re feeling this way try to set your life goals for the day. For example, my Wednesday life goals were:

• Send email to confirm if I am volunteering tomorrow????
• Drink more water so I stop having headaches.
• Be on time for physical therapy appointment.

See what I mean? These were small goals. I didn’t build a to-do list with 20 different items on it that would be impossible to accomplish and ultimately leave me feeling “lazy” for not achieving them. Your life goals might look the same everyday if you’re working to build good habits like walking more, stretching before bed, and getting quality sleep. Or they might be focused on taking care of your mental well-being by journaling, reading a book, and trying to stay off social media. Or, if you have plans to be social but are more of an introvert you might make your daily life goal to stay at whatever social outing for 15 minutes longer than usual. Regardless of your to-do list, calling it your life goals is so much more FUN and we need more FUN. Also, if we’re keeping it real here, your daily to-dos are likely a reflection of your bigger, more introspective goals.

For example, look at my Wednesday goals. I can easily determine how those three goals are maybe a little bigger than they seem.

• Send email to confirm if I am volunteering tomorrow = Try to engage and serve the communities in which I live.
• Drink more water so I stop having headaches = Take care/prioritize my physical health.
• Be on time for physical therapy appointment = Rush less!

With so much pressure to set and obtain HUGE goals, our (daily) life goals keep us grounded. So, mom, thank you for reminding me to appreciate the little to-dos and accomplishments no matter how big or how small. Your acknowledgement and the way you define success has been so eye-opening for a recent grad who is trying to find their way in this big world. While there is no doubt that you are extremely successful in your career, your contentment and satisfaction in reaching your daily life goals like mopping the sunroom or going to the grocery store is clearly just as important (as evident by your expression of: “I killed that shit!”).