With all the stress and responsibility of daily living, it can be easy to forget things that once were important to us. Saving up for a house or car, making it back home for the holidays or whatever your goals may be, those are part of the driving forces to keep going when life is hurried or unpleasant. Allow yourself to maintain the hope and drive to reach your goals, even during the tough times. Sometimes, they take a lot longer to accomplish than they think we will, but it’s a wonderful feeling to finally conquer them.
When my company was cutting back employees, our paychecks became smaller and smaller. The employer thought of different ways to make it harder for us to make commissioned sales and reduced our benefits. It was demoralizing and highly stressful. Many people quit eventually, including myself. We only have so much personal power, and life is just too short to waste it on pursuing other peoples’ goals and having no energy left to go after our own. At the first sign of obvious work decline, my job was to find other ways to accomplish the goals I’d determined for myself, since this job obviously wasn’t going to help me to meet them. It was the catalyst I needed to get out and find a better position, working with a growing and flourishing company, rather than a dying one.
To make sure that my mindset was calm and focused before beginning training for the new position, it was important to take a couple weeks off between jobs and use it to plan my attack on getting my personal and professional needs met. Sometimes, stepping back from the rat race of everyday work is helpful to readjust the mind and remember that you are a living, breathing person who has a life away from work. Being somewhat of a workaholic by nature, downtime was a bit uncomfortable for me at first but it felt good once I got busy with planning. It helps to write down what goals are important, a timeframe (long or short term goals), and which are the most important to tackle first. By organizing thoughts and actions, it makes executing the plan a bit easier later.
If a goal seems highly impractical right now, put it on the long-term goal list. Mine was to get a better car, but that isn’t a good idea right now so for now, my old paid-off Oldsmobile will do the job until my new job is established and steady money is coming in again. Goals may take reshaping and analyzing from time to time, but that’s OK, just don’t give up on what is important to you. As you accomplish each task, cross it off of your goal list, and move on to the next one.
Having hopes and dreams for our futures are part of the morale we need to keep going in this sometimes frustrating world. It feels so good to get something that you really wanted, or take that trip you’ve been itching to get away for. The time to live life is now. Don’t put it off until later because in truth, who knows if later will ever come. Life is too short to just dream, but not do. Find the time to pursue what matters to you and go for it. It’ll make you feel energized and just a bit more confident for having done so, in the end.