Do you have any life goals or are you just drifting, confused, with too many choices, too many options and life is all just too much? How do you decide where to go and what to do? Probably like me and a lot of other women, you feel that your future life isn’t really in your hands. Most women allow what they do with their lives to be too heavily affected by their friends and family.
I can hear you now, starting to type on your computer, kids come first, husbands, significant other, ageing parents all have to be considered. Yes, we have to consider how our lives and actions will affect others, I’ll not dispute that, in fact I spent a large part of my life putting my family first while I homeschooled my kids. But, I still had interests and goals that I wanted to achieve for me even if many of them had to be put on hold for a while.
Living true to yourself does not mean pushing your own interests all the time, it means not forgetting who you are and what you believe in and living by your values everyday.
With so much choice in our lives, with the advent of the internet and increased international travel, we can be overwhelmed and find ourselves running in circles We forget us, who we are, what we believe in. I like to think of life these days as a roller coaster that’s getting faster and faster. We have no button that can slow us down, even when it gets too scary. The only goal we really have is to go round and round.
How Do You Get Control?
If you really want it there are some things you can do to get back control and slow the ride down, maybe even get off and change ride. One involves stopping to look at what you really enjoy in life? What makes you happy? What’s really important to you? If you’re not sure, think back to a time when you were really happy, really content. Go back to that moment. What were you doing? Who were you with? Where were you? What was different about your life then from now?
How could you bring that feeling back into your life? Are there any small changes you can make that would bring that feeling into your life more often? Do you remember your hopes and dreams? We don’t need to give up all those hopes and dreams, we may have to amend a few, or bring a little realism into the picture (I don’t think my chances of being the next Queen of England is likely to come to fruition), but we don’t have to give them all up.
Life is about choices and I know it’s getting more and more difficult to believe, but we do get to choose the speed and direction of our ride. Choices we make everyday affect where we go in life and they affect the life of everyone around us, particularly our kids. When they see their parents making their choices and you explain why you make those choices it empowers them to be true to their values and in also helps them discover what their values are.
Working out what your values in life are makes setting your goals easier. Next week I’ll give you some tips on how to get started with your goals.