I don't plan my life out: not my days, my weeks, my years. I have some barely defined goals or desires in my mind, but no defined stepping stones for how to reach them.
I used to define goals. I was an awesome project manager at various jobs in the past: if I said I'd hit a deadline, then as long as nothing major like a complete set of new features or a new product module got in the way of it, I hit that deadline with a quality product. I wrote out all the steps required to meet the goal, all dependencies and other resources needed, and could sync of my schedules in my project management software with the schedules of other people. I had one of those personal and professional organizational systems with all the pages for purpose, personal mission statement, and so on.
Then I burnt out of my industry and my career. None of my goals and schedules and mission statements contained burn-out as an action item, nor did they leave room for it. Suddenly, none of that mattered.
After I moved to Oregon and slowly got over being ill and burnt-out, I chose to free myself from goals and organizers. I managed without them (except for when I needed them to remodel the house I bought) for several years.
When I moved again, this time to Houston and to beginning a new phase in my life, and found myself in the position of needing to perhaps return to my old career — certainly I was in a continuing trajectory of unemployment and willing to do whatever would pay me good money — I began setting goals and creating mission statements and defining my purpose all over again. I bought an organizer and all the internal components. As someone who adores papers — stationary, specialty papers, notebooks, and even nice printer paper — organizer packages are a bit like crack cocaine: sparkly, desirable, and ultimately my downfall. Because defining my purpose in life and creating a mission statement have always "blocked" me from getting completely into an organizational system. How can you ensure that your tasks and objectives are in line with your purpose and mission if you don't know what they are? I'm neither a product nor a corporation.
I don't think that goals and purposes and missions (oh my!) got me the work I had last year before I had to go take care of my mom. No goals would have included "return home to care for Mom with cancer," although doing so is within my values, just not specifically stated in any mission or purpose statement.
One of my favorite blog authors, Leo Babauta, who writes
zenhabits, wrote a post on "
achieving, without goals." It makes sense to me, to do and pursue what you are passionate about, what makes you happy (which, hopefully, is more than TV and beer), without creating goals and objectives and tasks on how to get there.
Babauta wrote: "Goals keep you focused on something in the future, instead of being present and enjoying what you’re doing right now. Goals keep you fixed on one path, which might not be the best path in a week or a month or a year." And goals don't take into account changes you might choose to make regarding direction or simply giving up that goal entirely.
Outside of my phases of over-organization in both my professional and personal lives, I have done what Babauta suggested in his post and pursued what I was passionate about. True, a lot of what I did was externally decided upon — go to school, work some kind of job to have money, etc. — but if something I was doing made me unhappy, or even better, if I spotted something that I wanted, something that lit a spark in me, then even if I couldn't pursue it immediately, it kept calling me. It was sparks like these that swayed me away from teaching, for the good of generations of children, and toward the career I followed for over two decades.
Nowadays, I am winging it. I've been working on becoming clearer about my core values and what creates my center, what grounds me in my life (especially as I had made my mother those things). I'm opening myself back up to my passions. I'm giving myself permission to pursue what I'm passionate about, rather than what others might think I should pursue.
I'm not pursuing my old career in my old industry (even though at this point I wouldn't turn it down because I do need an income Right. Now.). Other work strikes my passions: the volunteer work I'm doing (which has brought me into a chairmanship in the overseeing committee!); the smaller, more varied, and infrequent freelance gigs I'm doing for very small businesspeople; and the ideas and work that those I've been working with and for have been encouraging me to do, such as teaching writing seminars to teachers and possibly schoolkids (but not in such a way that will damage their school experience for decades to come).
Not having a defined and concrete path laid out in front of me instead leaves me with an entire world to explore, from horizon to horizon. I'll probably end up at the dead end of paths from time to time, but I'll have learned a lot on my way there and I won't feel guilty for not being able to continue on a specific path toward a specific goal. I'm perfectly able to pursue my passions without a roadmap, thus allowing myself to be caught by "oooh, shiny!" Turns out, "oooh, shiny!" feeds creativity, or is at least associated with the creative mind. None of the pages in my organizers had a bullet item for "oooh, shiny!"
Now I'm flying and floating and running and skipping my way through and toward my desires and passions. Already it feels better than the three-piece Goals suit I used to wear. I feel almost like a kid again, in tee shirt and shorts, creating detective-kits out of flour and paintbrushes and making up my own stories complete with illustrations and cover art, reading in trees and painting with color combinations not considered compatible by most other people. I've earned my wings and I'm not giving them up, ever again.
Anyone have a barbecue grill or an outdoor fireplace? I have some pages I need to burn.
