What is my Goal?

Here’s something I learned this morning about Goals and decisions.  

Its not uncommon to get stuck when faced with a difficult decision in life. I get stuck all the time, paralyzed with indecision; I’ll never forget the grueling task of trying to decide between two different yet equally wonderful pre-schools to work for one year when they both had a job opening. Or trying to decide between private or public education for my kids.  then of course there are the smaller decisions in life that still make me uncomfortable do I want salad or a burger for my lunch out, do I want the black sweater or the orange one? Life truly is a series of decisions we must make and its what makes life interesting. Which movie should we watch tonight? how should we spend the tax returns? My mother has a tough decision to make presently, stay with her husband who has been lying to her for three years about their finances, or leave him and forfeit both her companion and financial security? Some of the decisions we make change the course of our lives, others just remind us of our freedom and power to choose.

Decisions are attached to goals or not. When they are not, they are difficult to make if not impossible; and without making decisions in life we do not move forward or grow. The soccer field has two goals. Without a goal to attach your decisions to or aim at people get bored, confused and frustrated. asking what’s the point? what are we doing? Goals are hardwired into humanity. People would have fun kicking the ball around for a while, before losing interest. Soccer is only exciting to practice play and watch if it is attached to goals and keeping score. Having a goal and being challenged to make decisions on the field creates energy and excitement You always hear coaches and athletes say things like we had a lot of hard decisions to make on the field.  The team comes together with a common goal. How to get the ball into that net and score a point. The players aren’t confused about their mission and purpose. They don’t have to discuss at the beginning of the game why they are there. Sure, they might get a pep talk that goes like this, “we’re here to win.” And everyone knows what the point is? They just have to figure our which decisions to make to score and win.

Indecisiveness will keep the dishes in the dishwasher. I was loading my dishwasher like any good housewife at 6:00 a.m. and I stood there frozen in a sleepy haze for a moment, first I put my hand on the glass pie plate, then the saucepan, then back to the pie plate. “Which do I want to put away first.” then in a moment of sheer Pixar inspiration, “get a hold of yourself” who cares which plate you put away first, just put them away. Iit occurred to me indecision, prevents us from doing things, important things, completing tasks, moving forward and ultimately winning. If we don’t know what we are aiming at how will we ever succeed? If we don’t know where we are going how will we ever get there, we will spend our life wandering in circles with no purpose and no destination. We have to attach our decisions to goals if we want to make good decisions in life and succeed.  The goal is not to put away the cups, the goal is to unload the dishwasher however it gets done doesn’t matter -just that it gets done! If my goal was to put away the cups it would be easy decision. but it is the goal that drives decisions.

I wonder how many times in life I have forfeited the right or power to make a good decision because I don’t have a goal in mind beforehand.

Setting goals will make every decision easier because it narrows choices. If your goal is to go to a school with a volleyball program. Your choice is instantly narrowed by every school that doesn’t provide volleyball. If your goal is financial freedom then your decision to go out to eat on the credit card is am easy one. If your goal is to stop being controlled, manipulated and lied to, then the decisions to separate yourself from a relationship in which your being lied to suddenly becomes an easy choice to make.

Before making any big or small decisions and if you feel stuck when making a decision, ask yourself what is my goal here it might help?

We have to attach our decisions to goals if we want to make decisions in life and succeed.