Happy New Year: Goals and Not Resolutions

January 1, 2009.

This is about the tenth time I have rewritten this lead. There are so many things I could start off with, but given the mission of this blog being coping, I will strive to stay focused.

It is a new year and a new milestone. Where am I aiming? What do I want to accomplish in the next 12 months? I have learned that if I want something, I must focus.

Focus indeed. I have learned something different about focus this week. I did a mens group where there were a number of men who had been hurt very badly in their past. They had trauma from childhood and younger adulthood (some pretty bad @*#& I cannot mention here). Two in particular indicated that they were often distracted by their flashbacks and lose focus on life in general. They would get irritable and upset quite often, and of course they wound up in the psychiatric hospital.

I think that the Christmas season is that time where people get so distracted by their pain and suffering that they cannot see anything else or think about anything else. I can relate.

December 31 comes somewhat as a day of mercy that the holiday is almost over and that we can get back to the regular suffering and not the extra-crispy suffering. For some, January 1 is a regular time for people like myself to think about the new year.

Of course with this January 1 there is still the recession talk. However, the recession news is being over-shadowed by the latest incursion by Israel in the Gaza strip; one piece of bad news being pushed away by worse piece of news.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I can focus on the bad news, or I can put my mind somewhere more productive. As I mentioned up above, I am asking some questions of focus.

I am working with a legal pad right now. I am making myself a list with different categories of accomplishments: Academic, Home Improvement, Professional, Personal Improvement, Financial, Recreational. I plan to limit myself to 30 items on the list--too many items makes for feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

I have decided that I do not like resolutions. Resolutions are too general and easily forgotten. Resolutions are also something negative in nature.

How do you decide what goals you want to work on?

It is my opinion that we decide our goals by looking at where we are dissatisfied in our lives. Goals should resolve our needs and dissatisfactions when they are accomplished. The accomplishment of a goal should bring us pleasure in the form of satisfaction.

Goals (if they are good ones) are measureable, concrete, specific, and achievable (and may I add legal and moral). Goals tend to be positive in nature.

Goals also are both long term and short-term. Long term goals are going to take some time--like redoing the floor in my garage. Short-term goals are tasks that can be done in a short period of time like rewriting my will, or reading Oliver Twist.

Even if the economy stays sour and I am still a social worker on the line at the end of 2009, I plan to have completed a number of goals on the list in the next 12 months that I can feel good about. I plan to create some feelings of satisfaction but more so feelings of accomplishment and contentment.

Satisfaction versus contentment

Satisfaction is probably what many of us are wanting in this day of discontent. Satisfaction is what we all want as human beings--it is a place where all our needs and wants are taken care of.

However, I think of what we are best to go for in this day of recession is contentment. Contentment is more accepting that our needs are met and that is okay. It is not terrible that we do not have everything we want as what we want changes from time to time.

We are powerless to get everything that we want when we want it. Even the richest men and women in the world cannot get everything they want when they want it.

Thoughts on making goals meaningful and getting them completed.

I am going to write the list down and then I am going upstairs and printing out several copies. I plan to put the copies in several places where only I can see them.

This year I am going to plan a schedule for different tasks. I am going to dedicate different days of the week to different types of goals. I think that will make life a little more interesting if not less boring. It will structure my time and leave less time for worrying and fretting.

The point of it all

In the end we can sit around and watch the news and fret about what is happening or what could happen. Making the list of goals for the new year can help focus on what you can do versus what you cannot do. Focusing on the possible things and the controllable things makes for a more stable and less anxious person.