At the beginning of every year, we talk about goals. We think about our new year resolutions. We set the direction for the year to come.
This is a very important exercise, even if jokes abound about new year resolutions that make an appearance every year because they are never done. But if we think about the year as a journey, and if we never set our goals, it means the whole year we would be walking without a direction. How many people do you know who are so energetic and driven but never seem to reach their destination? That's the very definition of going nowhere, fast.
But very often, in the setting of these goals, we rarely review the year that came before. How have you performed against the past year's goals? And this review is not about making yourself feel small or sad that you haven't achieved all that you wanted to.
This should be a time for quiet reflection and building yourself up.
- Did you reach a goal? Take some time to celebrate it!
- Didn't quite get there? You probably made some progress towards it. Appreciate this progress, as these are the foundations to getting there.
- Didn't make any progress? Why? Understanding the blockages, or even if these goals are still what you want will help you understand what stopped you.
Recently my partner, Stanley was looking through old photos and found this handwritten set of goals that I wrote back in 2010. He took a photo of it when cleaning out the house in 2017.
In 2010 I had already stopped working because I was so ill, but this was a few years yet before I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I think looking at this set of goals really revealed a lot about my state of mind at the time.
I had lost a lot of self-confidence, not that I had a lot to begin with. I had a lot of life skills I had yet to acquire. I also had been someone who was really ambitious to climb up the corporate ladder, and falling out of work and experiencing a new shift in priorities caused a lot of friendships to go sour as we no longer valued the same things. I was unhappy, lonely, and isolated, and didn't know how to deal with the emotional rollercoaster I was experiencing.
I'm not that person anymore. But I meet so many young women who are still stuck halfway through their transformation; at this point, they are aching and tired and lost, and do not know yet how to move forward. One of the common things they all think is that they are alone in this. And I just want to tell you out there: you are not alone. You are not crazy. You are not a bad person for setting new boundaries. You are transforming, and it's painful.
It was actually really fulfilling to look back at this list and realise how many things I had ticked off this list, and to reflect on how far I have come on my own personal journey. So many of the young women in my team have never seen me as anyone other than the confident public speaker who is calm, assertive, and who helps steer them through difficulties and confusing times. But a good half of the things on my list were attributes of a woman who is self-possessed and confident in her own skin, because I wasn't.
Today I am confident to speak in public, and I don't freeze up trying to talk to others or make new friends. I can make myself heard; I can even command a room if needful, but I now know that one of my greatest strengths is in quality, one-on-one mentoring where I can give someone my full attention and they can feel safe, heard, and supported, but also challenged to grow.
I set those difficult personal boundaries and learnt how to reinforce them, and to say "No" if it wasn't something I was willing or able to take on. And in doing so I became less overloaded and managed to improve my interpersonal relationships including the one with my partner. I also did travel extensively by myself, went to Japan, got a job, got promoted, left a job, left the corporate world entirely and decided to build my own business. In the process of doing so, the languages started to matter less and less until they fell off my list entirely, because it turned out I didn't need them to feel I had accomplished something in my life and I took on other challenges I was passionate about instead.
I did lose the weight in time for my wedding in 2011, getting down to 57kg. But my focus since then has been on managing my health and feeling as strong and as energetic as is possible given physical limitations, and accepting those limitations as part of my life. I haven't gone totally organic because I know better now than to think that is the pathway to true health, but I have become flexitarian in my dietary approach whilst still enjoying food as it is one of my passions.
There is a lot involved in a personal transformation journey, but a few important things to note are:
- Give yourself space and permission to change, knowing that the journey will be tough, but oh-so-worth-it in the end.
- Remember to stop and reflect, and appreciate the small changes that you have carried out. Don't look at how far you are from your goals, but instead of far you have moved from the starting line.
- Find a mentor, and find your peers, because change is uncomfortable and messy and you will need people who can guide you, but also people you can just cry with. And remember: when you have the capacity, help someone else on your way.
May 2022 be the year you achieve something for yourself that makes you radiate joy!
And if not, just pat yourself on the back; reflect, reposition and start anew.