Goal check-up

We are two weeks into the year and by now most people have either given up on their resolutions, or never began them.  If you read my previous blog entry (Jan. 2), hopefully it spurred you on to forget resolutions, and instead write down some S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & time-constrained) goals.

One of my goals for this year is to rewrite the book I wrote three summers ago, Clearing the Mommy Fog, and actually get it published.  Or self-publish it and hand it out to my coaching clients.  Clearing the Mommy Fog is a self-help guide for women, who have gotten married, popped out a baby or five, and suddenly realize that holy crap - is this really what life is all about?  Putting out domestic fires, having an identity based mostly if not wholly on being someone's mom, and resenting that NFL-obsessed farting lump on the couch who used to make you giggle like a school girl?

Two weeks into the year we are on school snow day four, which does not help one's goalkeeping efforts.  However, I have somehow managed to stare at the computer (without heeding Facebook or email's siren calls) for a few uninterrupted minutes here and there, and I have begun rewriting the book.  It is really amazing what three years' additional experience can do for one's perspective on matters such as happiness, fulfillment, spirituality, priorities.  I imagine that one of the most valuable aspects of having an editor, agent, publicist etc. is that at some point someone has to say, "Enough!  It's done!" - and this has got to be the second hardest thing about publishing a book (the first being the fear of rejection, since you are, after all, baring your soul to some extent, even with fiction).

In the three years since I initially wrote the book, I have become certified as a Life & Career Coach; completed two full Ironman, 2 half Ironman, and countless Olympic and sprint distance triathlons.  I helped to bring Achieve Kids Triathlon camps to the Northeast and am now preparing for our second season, again with me as Head Coach.  Our two kids have switched from private to public school and are thriving there (and our bank account is slowly recovering, without all those exorbitant tuition payments).  We decided one day to ditch our life in CT and one week later moved the family to a tiny island that didn't have as much as a library, for three months.  We started an ultimate frisbee club in our town, in an effort to get families playing together, and in so doing have made some great new friends and proved that everyone is athletic when given the chance.  And the reason to be so.  I have done something that for me is huge, which I always said I'd NEVER do - I agreed to a puppy.

Penny, the day we adopted her (she'd been abandoned) - April 2009

Penny, last week

I ran for office, something else I said "over my dead body."  (I lost, thankfully.)  I have started snowshoeing, learned how to change a bike flat, become addicted to Success Magazine, refused to give in to the Video Game herd mentality, started barefoot running.  I have made tons of mistakes, in fact not a single day goes by that I don't screw up with my kids, my husband, my dog, my businesses, my athletics, my nutrition.  Just right now, while I'm sitting here writing, my 7 year old son came over and asked me to draw with him and I said, "give me half an hour, I still have some work to do."  On Saturday, our dog had to have a painful procedure done because I had not taken her to get her nails clipped and one had split.  Countless occasions where I could have expressed my gratitude for my husband for working so hard so I can do what I feel is my purpose at least for now - care for the kids and build my coaching business, as well as train, teach yoga, write a book, and build Achieve- instead I turned to the dishes or the laundry, or worse yet, snapped at him for being impatient with the kids.  

All of this living and reflecting makes me come back to my book, and what I initially wrote about three years ago.  And I feel like I missed the point back then.  Instead of just a small section of the book, the overarching theme should be GOALS.  When you go through those days where you feel like for every three steps forward to take five back; or it seems you're doing one mundane task after the other; or you're making one mistake after the other, and the mommy guilt sets in - having goals is what keeps you from teetering off that ledge and into the abyss, which for some is a mediocre existence, for others is downright misery.  Either way is not the way that God intended us to live our lives.  By 2020, 1 in 3 adults will have diabetes; I can assure you that at least 9 in 10 of those diabetics will not have any written goals, certainly not in a balanced way: encompassing career, health, relationships.  

When we are doing what we are meant to be doing, thereby living purposefully and passionately, constantly being challenged yet achieving a steady degree of mastery - then we are truly living.  S.M.A.R.T. goals serve as the "destination postcard" to keep us on track, just like each triathlon, certification process, deadline, or picture of an ecstatic child crossing her first triathlon finish line, keeps me on track even when I'm stuck home with rambunctious children and a restless dog and husband for days on end.

Okay, off to do some art with my son :)