My Approach to Goals

GUESS WHAT THIS PHOTO MEANS?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It means 2 things. 
1. I now know what I'll look like when I have 2 chins and
2. My new internet is here and it's live and I CAN LOAD PHOTOS ON MY WEBSITE!!!!!!!!! 

Oh my goodness, excitement overload.

But anyway. Onto more serious stuff. Like goals, and why I feel the way I do about them, why I set them the way I do, and why I love the romance of "reaching for the stars" but in terms of practicality, well . . . you'll see.

I happened to be in a meeting the other day, and we were all talking about how a certain lot of goals should be set.
During that discussion, I said, "There's no point setting goals that can't be achieved."

Several hairy eyeballs descended on me, and was I quite surprised at the vehemence from some as they asserted, "Reach for the stars and at least you might get the moon."
And, "Make your goals as big as they can be, they don't have to be achievable."

Gosh, I thought. Maybe I've been doing this wrong.

Except, well, here's my thinking. 

I do totally and utterly believe in Dreaming Big. And not just in dreaming it. I also believe in doing it. I set some seriously big goals as a matter of course. In other words, when ever there are goals to be set, I'm aiming HIGH, baby.

​But I've never set myself a goal that in my heart of hearts I didn't actually believe I could achieve. When I set myself a goal, I set a goal that I truely believe can be reached. By me.

I truely do not see the point in setting goals that I know, right from the outset, are not possible. 

Example.
I am colourblind. Colourblind people are not allowed to be commercial pilots. It's not discrimination, it's for genuine safety purposes.

So would I, knowing this, set myself the pre-failed goal of becoming a commercial pilot, knowing that I would fail, but holding out the hope that I might get a recreational pilot's licence, like some second best booby prize?  No. I would set myself the goal of going for my recreational pilots licence. Then work out what I needed, and I would hunt that sucker down and make it a reality. If that's what I wanted.

Why would I want to taint my triumph of getting as far as absolutely possible by setting an impossible goal target as a way of getting there? I just can't see the sense.
It's setting "pre-failed goals", and it holds no appeal for me. 

If I was limited to only one goal for the rest of my life, I would treat it differently, maybe. But the beauty of it is, I'm not. No one is. 

Even when I aim scarily high, if I get there and see that maybe it's not as high as I once thought and that there's more mountain to climb, I can cast my eyes to the new highest point and I can start the climb to there. And so on. 

But would I set out climbing a mountain with the aim of reaching the moon? No. I'd set out climbing a mountain with the aim of reaching the summit.

Am I limiting my potential by doing it this way? I don't think so. Am I limited to achieving the current goals and not being able to go "further" once they're achieved? No. Because I can always cast my eyes further, set my sights higher again, and go charging on from there. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on goals, and how you feel about them and approach them.

In the mean-time, have a great Monday . . .  what's left of it, anyway.

xx