Kendamas and Dreams

Recently I was driving with my 5-year-old daughter, and she was talking about the latest school kraze, kendamas. She said, “Maybe when I’m like, in college, I’ll be able to do Swing Spike [a trick on the kendama].”

I pictured her, momentarily, as a beautiful, confident, college student, holding her kendama. Of course, I knew that was a silly picture… and it looked like it in my imagination.

Because we all know that, once my little girl is in college, she’ll have much different priorities and dreams that simply being able to do Swing Spike on her kendama.

In reality, we are always a new version of ourselves, with new challenges and new dreams every day, based on what we’ve learned about ourselves, the world, and what we want next in life.

We can so easily see this with children, as they grow and become bigger and better versions of themselves. But, we are all growing, and becoming more the person we were meant to be every day, as well. Our dreams from yesteryear are no longer automatically relevant, because we have learned and grown. And we must constantly re-examine what we truly want out of life, based on who we are now.

So why do we insist on using old dreams to define what our goals are today?

Most of us get so busy keeping up with life, we lose track of what we really want in life. And often what we really want today has little, or even nothing, to do with what we wanted yesterday.

I wrote about this when I relaunched this blog, but I’m seeing this bubble up again, two years later, as I’ve shaped my career path and life based on my latest pursuits. My path thus far has taken me in a direction I need to re-examine. I’m really good at achieveing what I set my mind to. But sometimes, we must stop and think about, if this is really what we want to be doing.

Being aware of what we want

At a conference about a year and a half ago, myself and a colleague in graphic design were talking about my graphic design business, and what a succesful graphic design business looked like. She stopped in her tracks as I was describing my workday, and (to my astonishment) said, “Wow, I’m so glad youa re sharing this with me. That is nothing like what I want out of my career.”

Ok, it was a little blast to my ego. But this was her life, not mine, that she was crafting. How amazing and awesome of her, to be aware of what she does and doesn’t want, and identify that so clearly in that moment.

May we all have such clarity about what we want for ourselves.

It’s like my painting instructor told me lasst week, “The hardest part is identifying the art that we like. Once we know that, the rest is easy.”

So let us, continually, ask ourselves:

Are the goals I’m working towards really, truly, a reflection of my priorities now?
If what I’m working on turned out absolutely the best way possible, what would that look like, and would this be fulfilling?

Think about your goals – based on who you are today

I’ve created some goal setting worksheets with a great work-life balance chart that helps us think about where we are putting our time and where we want to put our time. You can download the goal worksheets here.