Write down your short and long-term GOALS four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer.
~ Lululemon
It is funny how time continues to slip past – days blend into one and it was only the other day that it began to sink in that my birthday is in less than a week. In precisely 2 days I will be celebrating the day I was born. Crazy to think that is now 25 years ago. Growing up I had never really thought much about what it would mean to be 25 years old. I had plans for when I turned 18 (go to University) and when I turned 20 (get married), and when I was 21 (have a child) – but nothing for past that. Those long-ago goals were something I dreamed up back when I was 6 or so and thought that being 18 would make me oh-so adult-like. At the time 25 seemed something of middle-age. I thought it should be something of the time when I would be settled down into my own family complete with a dog, 1.5kids and a white-picket fence. Right. Not exactly what my life has become.
Back when I was younger I never would have dreamed I would be where I am today, doing what I am doing. I never would have thought that I would be hunkered down in an insulation-free house with many layers on while the frost lays thick on everything outdoors. In the middle of June. I never thought I would have learned to drive on the left side of the road, much less just recently finished walking the length of New Zealand. I never thought I would be publishing articles, much less being in the process of writing a book. I never thought I would have the lead in a play – I never thought of the many things I am doing now, even a year ago – I never would have dreamed I would be in this moment now. But I am.
And so turning 25 just makes me realize how much can be fit into a year of my life. How much I can do – how far I can push my dreams. It makes me realize that anything is truly possible if I put my mind to it. And so I have – put my mind to it, that is. I figured such an occasion of turning 25 is only appropriate for starting to get some concrete goals in mind of where I want my life to go. It’s not about making plans with deadlines – it’s about dreaming big and allowing myself to not just spread my wings and fly, but soar up as high as I can. Because I can.
Taking on Lululemon manifesto, I have developed goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years of my life. And they look pretty insane to me. Well – “insane” is probably the wrong word. They are all things I have longed to do for some time, but they are things that are seem so crazy and out of reach it’s hard to imagine them being obtainable. But hey – if I never would have thought in my wildest dreams I’d be here right now, then I reckon anything’s possible. Particularly if I have already had enough thought about it to know it is something I truly want for my life.
Who knows where life will take me. Maybe things will change drastically for me where new goals and dreams take a priority in my life. But that’s the thing – life isn’t about focusing on what we haven’t done but what we have and what we can do in the future. Because if I had done absolutely everything I wanted to do with my life I’d probably be living in a house with my best friend from elementary school where we shared bunk beds and we ate strawberries for every meal. Oh yeah – and I’d have a pet monkey and go to work on my magic carpet. For that I am glad that in life you can’t have everything.
Two days from now I turn 25 and rather than freaking out over being halfway to 50 or something equally ridiculous, I celebrate the fact that being this age allows me the freedom to be who I am. To do what I want to do – the responsibilities and otherwise. Life is what you make it and I reckon my life is pretty alright right now. I wouldn’t change a thing. Well – a magic carpet would still be pretty cool right about now.
