This song helps me focus on my goals...

I love to read the lyrics, and listen to, this empowering, goosebump-inducing song by Natasha Bedingfield whenever I doubt myself and/or whether I can accomplish my goals. It reminds me that I am writing my own page...:

Unwritten
I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Gals and goals...

Our book club is a collection of amazing women who came together last year after a chance encounter at a local Starbucks. Our common link: we’re all, unapologetically, Moms.

Aside from that, some of us are former military members, ultrasound techs, fitness instructors, reporters, coaches, counselors, artists, business owners, decorators...all very diverse, with much to share.

Our self-imposed assignment this month was a deviation from our normal monthly book-reading. We agreed to bring in something we learned from the internet.

I took a leap and, at the risk of seeming self-promoting, I brought in an entry I made in my relatively new blog. I did this for two reasons: first, because I’m in the process of learning about blogs by actually creating one, so I thought the process might be interesting to share. Second, I wanted to talk about goal-setting since it’s been on my mind so much lately, so I brought my entry from January 13th, titled “Have You Listed the Top 110 Things You Want to do Before you Die?” On the back of the entry, I pasted several of the goals that appear in the right-hand margin of my blog.

I wondered whether the idea of listing the “Top Things You Want to do Before you Die” would get people talking, and was pleased to find that it did. In fact, the rest of our meeting was consumed by the topic.

I witnessed my friends come alive with the scent of possibility. Their eyes flashed as their imaginations soared into realms I suspect many had not ventured in a while. I saw sly smiles as they reached into their hearts and, in conspiratorial tones, laid bare dreams they hadn’t shared with anyone in years.

But just as quickly as it appeared, the spark seemed to quell as reality set in:

“Writing my goals would just make me frustrated if I couldn’t achieve them...and I can’t achieve them because there are too many demands on me as a Mom!”

It was as if they experienced Paradise, took a bite from Eve’s apple, saw their fate, and forlornly banished all hope of ever returning to the Garden of Eden.

Oddly, I’d felt the same way when I created my list. I remember thinking,

"Dreams for myself? Isn't that selfish? Shouldn’t I be thinking of someone else instead? And who IS this person otherwise known as “Mom,” “Honey,” friend, volunteer, shopper, chauffeur, housekeeper, and cook? Where did her dreams go? Better yet, where did even the concept of dreaming go?"

With superhuman effort, I pushed the whining aside and wrote my list, but afterwards I felt embarrassed that it sounded so boring!

“Learn to embrace silence?”
“Accept challenges with grace?”
“Run a 5-K in 24 minutes?”

I mean, if this is a flight of fantasy, where was the sexiness? Where was the “climb Mount Everest,” or “parachute from an airplane?”

Then it dawned on me that I actually might have grown during this always challenging, sometimes difficult, journey. By working to be a good mom, wife, friend, community member – and despite fearing that I’d lost myself along the way – I found that I’d actually become a better self. A new, improved, stronger self. One who can appreciate little things and realize how little I need in life to be happy. Who’s to say that my “Mount Everest” isn’t overcoming “my aversion to running in cold weather?”

Okay, so I added the PhD & UN Committee in lieu of extreme sports but, hey, one can dream, right? And if I never attain these things, the very act of making my list helped me to realize that I'm doing just fine.

I really hope that the next time we meet, my dear friends at book club will dare to dream - and share - lists of their own...

Have you listed the "Top 110 Things You Want to do Before you Die?"

Lately, I've heard a lot about the importance of setting goals. The first mention was a news article I read about a study done with Harvard MBA grads. In 1979, a group of these high achievers were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only three percent said they'd written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and an overwhelming 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the group was interviewed again, and the findings were astonishing! The 13 percent who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. Most amazingly of all was that the 3 percent were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together!

My husband was a goal-setter. From the 3rd-grade, he knew he wanted to fly fighter jets and everything he did from that point on was in support of his goal (e.g., going to the Air Force Academy, making good enough grades in high school to get into the Academy, etc...). He's been flying fighters since his graduation from the Academy: first, the F-4, and afterwards - till now - the F-15. This is a photo of him shooting a missile during a training mission.



I was not necessarily a goal-maker. I guess there were a couple little ones I set for myself: I knew I would go to college & graduate in 4 years. I wanted to study abroad, and did for one semester. But there were many things I just didn't plan for: my career, having kids. They were just sort of things that happened to me, and I patted myself on the back for being 'flexible,' while beating myself up for not feeling like I was accomplishing anything.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that raising two wonderful children and maintaining a 20-year marriage isn't an accomplishment. I'm very proud of that! However, in hindsight, I think I would have liked for it to have been part of a greater plan.

With forty-three years into my life, I'm finally of the opinion that I need to write goals because after the next 40 years passes, I won't have another 40 to tell myself, "Shoot! I need to write my goals!" The next 40-50 years represent THE REST OF MY LIFE - a sobering thought. Yet, I look at it as a challenge. I'm so much wiser than what I was when I was in my 20's, and I have lots of good years to do lots of good things. Heck, I have 50 years to accomplish my GOALS!!!

So, I guess that the Harvard study resonated with me more than even my husband's example because I was sufficiently mature and ready to hear the message. I finally understand that time can sneak away without feeling like you're moving forward if you don't have goals.

Shortly after reading about the study - as if to underscore the message - I met with a new friend, Donna Wissinger (pictured below), who told me that she's been a goal-writer all her life. She's a concert flutist and has played Carnegie Hall, which was a goal she expected to accomplish in 5 years, but did it in four!

Donna also showed me an on-going list she's compiled of the 'top 110 things I want to do before I die." Some items are mundane, for example: keep my skin nice. Others are more serious: play the piano, play the cello. While others are more spiritual: something like, find beauty in small things each day. Once she accomplishes them, they don't typically come off the list, in case she wants to do them again - or, just so she can refer to them to see how much she's done.

I've started my list and have over 30 things that I want to do before I leave this earth. I can't imagine finding 110, but I'm going to try. I plan to type them and post them in my office so I can refer to them each day. For today, I'm going to write my very top goals. The ones I will focus on seriously - the ones that will spell out my future...

Learning (only days after first learning) how much I need to learn...

Just when I felt sufficiently martyr-like after creating my first post, I came upon this guy: Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Melon University who gives the "Lecture of a Lifetime"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQtwEKlUutA&feature=related

He isn't just writing about his desire to make the world a better place before he dies, he's actually DOING it...has been all his life, in fact, and will continue to do so right up till the end, which could be just six months away if his doctors are right. You won't pick up a bit of self-pity in his talk, though. It's all about making the most of what time we have on earth - leaving things a bit better than what we found them when we arrived. Simply amazing.

I plan to watch the whole thing again with the hope that even a smidgen of his hope, vision, optimism, and energy rub off on me. One thing, among MANY, that he said which really resonated with me: "the brick walls are there to show us how badly we want something." I've been my biggest brick wall.