April 5, 2023
Emotional State: Pursuing Goals (Sort of)
Writing
I’m not feeling well, which means this will probably not be a long post nor a particularly deep one. It takes too much energy to mine my emotional well and I’ve just not got the spare to care.
I have been thinking a lot about perception, goals, future directions, and how to get there. I had hoped to kick off Q2 with a roar, jumpstarting my new potential structure created to achieve my goals, but then illness came along and kicked me in the keister, so… maybe next week?
In the way that these things happen – you think of a thing (a VW Bug, e.g.) and suddenly see them everywhere – I’ve been recommended a book by one of the writers I work with called Essentialism, by Greg Mckeown. Who would’ve known that the book connected perfectly with mindset learned through planning out my Q2?
Well, if I was paying attention, I would.
Anyway, the book is about only doing those things that are essential. Essentialists carve out anything that doesn’t serve their main goal and then use that free time to do all the things that do. Nonessentialists say yes to everything (people pleasers or not), and get so overwhelmed, they make small movements on a bunch of things but never hit their goal.
Or that’s the basic gist of the book. He has a lot of strategies and obstacles that people face to become an Essentialist, questions to ask yourself when cleaning out your closet or saying yes to a project at work, but it basically boils down to the same exercise I did when planning Q2. When you have a finite amount of time, you should use that time effectively to pursue your goals, even if your goal is to create a better mental space by reading, exercising, gaming, etc.
It’s about knowing what you want, figuring out how much time you have to get there, and then getting to it. While I found his advice and exercises (i.e., the questions he wants you to ask yourself) buried within the text, I do recommend the book for anyone who wants to reset how they approach their goals and their life. That’s what I’m trying to do with my Q2 goals, which makes this week and not feeling well a little frustrating. But it’s early days yet and I can still catch up.
At least I hope so.