My only goal in life
You know how some people always seem to have a plan for exactly what they're going to do in life and how they're going to do it?
Well, I'm not that type.
I sometimes feel that life is nothing more than a succession of moments in which people ask me what I want to be when I grow up while I panic and try to make up an answer on the spot to make myself sound human.
I didn't know the answer when I was younger, and I don't know today.
And it's been an eternal source of frustration for me because I should have a plan, right? But I never have, just another one of the many things that have always made me feel inadequate and that I wasn't getting life quite right.
I remember as a teenager having to decide what to study in uni, a decision that was painted as the gateway to what I would be doing every single day for the rest of my life.
What a tremendous amount of pressure to put upon an 18-year-old!
What type of person do I want to be until I retire? What kind of impact do I want to have on the world? What do I love to do more than anything else, so much that I'll be happy to repeat it for the next 50 years or so?
Simply thinking about it is enough to make my head spin!
I can't remember if I tossed a coin in the end, but I do remember that it seemed the best way to decide!
Next, I had to choose a job and again commit to giving my time and passion to only one cause or organisation.
And again, it felt so overwhelming even to decide the criteria to base my decision on that I just went for the first offer I received, completely by accident.
I loved my time there, and I could write volumes about how not all 9-5s are something to be escaped; instead, they can sometimes be a great place to learn, have fun, and grow.
But every year came the torture of the annual review, where I was again asked, "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
And the more I got older, the more people started asking me about my 5-year plan, for my career, for my life, for my legacy... To be honest, I can never even say that I know where I'll be living a few months from now.
After many years of frustration and feeling that surely, if I didn't have a plan, I lacked ambition, drive or other elements that all other successful human beings clearly possessed... At some point, I started becoming comfortable with the idea that not everyone lives their life according to a grand master plan.
Some people just live their lives.
And we're happy just to be. Today. With whatever it brings.
But I couldn’t get rid of the sense of dread whenever someone asked me about my plans.
Until last week, I was talking on Voxer with the spectacular Selina Gray, my mentor, coach, muse, and all-around fantastic human.
And when the conversation turned to goal setting, I realised that for the first time, I didn't panic, and I knew exactly where I wanted to be in the future.
All I want is to be more of myself.
That's my goal. And yes, you can't SMART that or tick anything off a checklist... but I'm absolutely fine with that.
Over the past few years, I've been feeling more and more that I am exactly where I need to be and, more importantly, who I need to be.
I trust that life will unfold exactly how it needs to.
And the funny thing is that the more I surrender and the less I think about planning every single step of my life, the easier my life becomes and the faster good things seem to happen for me.
So a year from now, I just want to be more of who I am.
And I can practice getting there every day.
It's not always easy, and some days I do let the external pressures or internal judgements take over and run the show.
But more often than not, I can come back to myself, know that all I need to do is just be me, and the rest will work itself out.
Paula
P.S. For any overachieving type As out there whose head is spinning round in circles like the girl from The Exorcist after reading this, I'm sorry! (Except... I'm not really! But I hope you can still love me just the same!)