Tonight, after months (maybe years?) of thinking about it off and on, I have come to realize why I don't let to set goals for myself.
A long while ago I had a really unpleasant and defeating belief that I was lazy. I felt like I didn't get things done when they should be done, whether it was me or someone else or some societal standard (real or imagined) that was creating the "should" part.
In a class I took, I reframed that belief and it became "I happily do things when I am fully ready to do them." That means that yeah, I might have a few days worth of dishes sitting in my sink, but when I do them I am genuinely glad to be doing them and they get done well. I'd much rather that than force myself to wash the dishes and hate every minute of it. I do have a list of things that I would like to get done, with notations of deadlines if there are any, that I work from, but doing things when it feels good or right to do them works much better for me.
So the idea of goals... of saying "I will do such and such a thing by such and such a time" seems like a betrayal of this idea. I mean yeah, some things have deadlines and I can respect that and I am generally good at meeting deadlines; especially if I have a fair bit of advance notice so that I can do the task at a time that feels best for me.
I think I've been judging myself for not being "good" at goals. But ya know... I get things done, on time if there is a time limit, and I enjoy doing what I do. How could I find fault in that?
A long while ago I had a really unpleasant and defeating belief that I was lazy. I felt like I didn't get things done when they should be done, whether it was me or someone else or some societal standard (real or imagined) that was creating the "should" part.
In a class I took, I reframed that belief and it became "I happily do things when I am fully ready to do them." That means that yeah, I might have a few days worth of dishes sitting in my sink, but when I do them I am genuinely glad to be doing them and they get done well. I'd much rather that than force myself to wash the dishes and hate every minute of it. I do have a list of things that I would like to get done, with notations of deadlines if there are any, that I work from, but doing things when it feels good or right to do them works much better for me.
So the idea of goals... of saying "I will do such and such a thing by such and such a time" seems like a betrayal of this idea. I mean yeah, some things have deadlines and I can respect that and I am generally good at meeting deadlines; especially if I have a fair bit of advance notice so that I can do the task at a time that feels best for me.
I think I've been judging myself for not being "good" at goals. But ya know... I get things done, on time if there is a time limit, and I enjoy doing what I do. How could I find fault in that?
