Goals

Hello Everyone

This is not the first time I have written about goals and it wont be the last either. As I sit here writing about goals I ask myself why do they matter. Why do we need goals ? It is a philosophical question but I believe if you are on a journey of self discovery and living life to your full potential these are the types of questions you have to ask yourself. Would it not be weird if we all went around our day to day with no purpose, goals or intention. If we had no creative thoughts that we could follow through. I feel like life without goals and purpose would be rather strange so I feel goals are a necessary part of this thing called life.

I also believe that goals shouldn’t just be for the beginning of the year when we all whip out our notebooks and start jotting down our new years resolutions which we forget by the end of January. I feel goals should be ongoing and they should be revisited regularly. I was cleaning up the other day and I came across some old journals of mine, in them I had the grandest of goals, admittedly I have been able to achieve some of them but there are a lot others that I never followed through on, mainly because once I wrote them down I never bothered to put a plan into action as to how I could make them achievable. This year I tried a different strategy in addressing my goals and it is actually paying off. As the year has progressed I have also been reading and learning from others on how they address their goals and I have been in cooperating these into my own life. For starters I set myself the goal of improving my health and I had achievable goals set out for myself for where I was at.

I knew committing to something like 6 days of exercise a week was way beyond my reach and it would have made me a liar and failure, so I seriously looked at my life and commitments and opted for something that I knew I could achieve and that was exercise three times a week. This made it easier for me to make exercise part of my weekly routine. I had some weeks where 3 weeks was all I could manage and some great weeks where I was able to exercise 5 to 6 times a week. I then also started challenging myself and went completely outside my comfort zone and started running. I had always told myself I hated running and my body used to respond to this ongoing message reacting to the environment every time I would attempt walking or running outside. I would literally itch and scratch and come out in hives. I had convinced myself that I was allergic to running outside and also that I hated running. I actually just hated the fact that running made me feel so unfit.

I would step outside attempt to run and my heart would feel like it was about to burst out of my chest. This was not a feeling I enjoyed and so I never bothered trying until my sister started her running journey and actually run a half marathon. This had me revisit my running fear. I figured I could give it a try and I started off by walking to test out my itchiness. Then one day I just decided to run around our neighborhood lake and I surprised myself by not collapsing. My hurt did not burn as much and I realized that my weekly exercise regime had actually helped be develop my exercise endurance. I was able to recover quickly and control my breathing. As time progressed so did my running to the point where I made running a 5 k a goal of mine. I am happy to share that this past Saturday I run my first ever 5 K and I am here to share it as an encouragement to others.

My purpose in sharing this story is to show you that you can revisit and revamp your goals at anytime. They do not have to be written down once, you can have monthly and weekly reviews of where you are, how you are doing, where you need to slow down, where you need to seek help, and give yourself the congratulations you need to for maintaining and winning at those goals. That is where I am where my health goals are, I am celebrating a small win, I never once saw myself as a runner, but that is where I can now celebrate myself. I have decided to approach my life with a growth mindset. I will look at set backs as learning moments. That is not to say I will not say no to things I have no business trying, but I am willing to take on more challenges head on with the knowledge that if I win I win and if I fail, I will at least have learned something.

With Love and Gratitude

Fatsani Dogani