Resolutions = Goals?

Confession: Resolutions stress the perfectionist parts of me out. Oddly enough, goals don’t.

Maybe that confession seems a bit strange. After all, aren’t a resolution and a goal pretty much the same thing? They might be in your world, but not in Alanna world. To me a resolution is too rigid. It’s a pass or fail. You do this thing or you don’t. And if you don’t, you fail. Do you want to know what one of my biggest fears is? Failure. I can’t think of anything that will paralyze me quite like it. Resolutions feed the fear. And then I realized by making a list of resolutions at the beginning of each year, I was feeding the fear and setting myself up for defeat and frustration. So I quit making them and decided to just live each day being me in the best way I can. However, this has not stopped me from setting goals.

At this point you might be scratching your head wondering, even still, what the difference is! Well, here it is. I believe goals allow for adjustment where resolutions are just so, well, resolute, rigid, and commanding. A goal is something I shoot for but can adjust along the way. I believe we all need goals. By setting goals, we are aiming to better ourselves. We are identifying areas of life where we want to grow, learn, or even change. So, as I promised last week, I have set some goals for my 38^th year. These are flexible. If I don’t complete them, I haven’t failed 38^th year. But if I don’t try to complete them, I will stay right where I am, which is not what I want for my life. So here they are, in no particular order!

1. Visit someplace I have never been.
2. Create a “to cook” board on Pinterest of 38 recipes I have never tried but want to. Cook each at least once over the next year.
3. Bake and decorate a wedding cake, even if it’s just for fun. Wedding cake party at my house, anyone?
4. Tackle one improvement project in my house.
5. Set Tuesday nights as a Girls’ Night and be intentional about keeping this on the nights that don’t already have a committed activity {Bunko, Pokeno, and Book Club} by planning something, even if it's as simple as a dinner out.
6. Intentionally build and invest in new relationships.
7. Share my faith with more than one person, using words.
8. Purge the junk in my house and have a garage sale.
9. Save money {maybe beginning with above mentioned garage sale} and purchase a 7 quart Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I’ve already got $2.89 saved…and I might drool a little thinking about that beauty of an appliance.
10. Eat something exotic for the first time…maybe sea urchin? Where do you even get that around here?
11. Write. Blog. Regularly. About each of these goals. About life. Be real with it and allow people to see me and connect with me. Even if it means admitting where I fail…even if that scares the pants off of me.

It’s a start. I don’t know what’s next but this is where I begin. What do you want to do? Is there something that you want to learn or explore? Life is too short to resist moving forward because we’re afraid…join me? After all, life is less scary when you’re not alone.