recreatingreality.com

If you read “Mind the Gap” (previous article) you probably realized that you have drifted away from your life’s goals.  We say “drifted” because most of us did not wake up one morning and say to ourselves, “Gosh!  I don’t want to achieve my goals and dreams.”  Instead, most of us got caught up in life… not our life’s goals.

Take a few minutes to think about how long it has been since you worked on your goals.  When did you lose sight of your life’s ambitions?  Was it the birth of your first child?  Was it when you got married?  Was it when you were hired at your first job?  There are numerous events in our lives that can be the turning point… the time when we begin to put life ahead of our own goals.

The first step to getting on track is to restate your goals.  Write out your goals using the 7 steps to goal setting.  No excuses, please.

Set some time aside each day to work on your goals.  Again, no excuses!  Of course, we all know that our lives are full of activity.  Some of us would like to say that we don’t have time to work on our own goals because we are too busy.

So, let’s take a little reality check.  Do you “live” to follow your goals or to assist others?  Unfortunately, too many of us live to assist others.  I can remember when I first got married… years ago.  My husband, even before we said “I do” began to plan his activities as if I would just follow along.  Don’t start bashing my husband.  He’s just like everyone else in the world.  But, I’m a believer in starting out like you can hold out.

It’s hard to start a relationship as a doormat then become the feet.  If you are in the doormat status right now, it’s time to take control of your life.  You do not have to try to change the lives of others.  They, too, have a right to their choices.  Just take control of your 24 hours each day.

When I realized that I was acquiescing to my future husband’s wishes and plans, I decided that I could not happily live the rest of my life that way.  We had a talk.  It was short and sweet, but it was the pivotal point of the relationship and perhaps the beginning of a happy marriage.

The talk went something like this.  I explained to him that in his life he had 24 hours that were given to him each day and that life had awarded me 24 hours a day.  Saying “I do” would not change the ratio to 36 hours for him and 12 for me or 48 for him and 0 for me.  I would still have 24 hours and so would he.

That’s not to say that we have not always enjoyed shared time.  We do lots of things together.  But, it does mean that we make no assumptions about the other’s time.  In other words, before I commit to an event for the two of us, I ask my husband if he would like to go with me.  If he says he would, great.  If not, the decision to go alone or not is up to me.  That works both ways for us.

The example above is not an effort to disrupt your life, just a few of your habits perhaps.  The point is this.  If you are off the track to your life’s goals it is probably because you handed your hours over to someone or something… like your job.  And this certainly does not mean that you should totally stop doing whatever you and your husband share and in today’s economy it does not mean that you should quit your job.

Perhaps, you can start with an hour or two a day.  Just recover a couple of hours for yourself.  Take control of a small part of your life.  There should be no guilt in reclaiming what is yours.  If you think about it, YOU are the only thing that has been with you every step of your life.  Parents, spouses, children all come and go.  But, YOU live with YOU 24 hours a day.  So, reclaim YOUrself!

That’s the first step to getting your life and your life’s goals back on track.