I hate the word “Goals”.

This fact does not jive well with my love of self-help books.  I remember as a late teen somehow getting my hands on a Tony Robbins tape set (yes, cassette tapes).  I powered through tape 1 and 2, doing everything Tony said, until tape 3.  Goals.  I never finished that 12 cassette tape set, I stalled out on the middle of tape 3 when I was asked to pause the tape and write out my life goals.

I like to be flexible.  I like to switch things up, I move my furniture around every so often just because. One of my favorite things to do in my house is paint, because I love change.  Setting goals felt like handcuffs to me.  What do I want to do in 10 years?  I can’t answer that, it all depends on where I happen to be at that time upon my meandering whimsical path.

Fast forward 10 years (okay, maybe 15) and my high D task-oriented husband (thank you Lord for providing for me the type of man that balances me out) comes home from a one-day goal setting seminar.  He sits me down and excitedly informs me we get to do a goal worksheet together.  I tense up,  my first instinct is to make up an excuse why now is not a good time.  However I know this stuff is important to him and I love him so I resign myself to the process and pray for God to give me the willingness & courage to feel the goal-phobia fear and do it anyway.

We talked about family goals and finance goals and then we got to my personal goals and the dreaded question came.  “If you can see yourself doing anything in 15 years, anything at all, with no restrictions by money or family commitments, what would you love to be doing?”  Remarkably, I didn’t tense up. All of a sudden, I knew.  It was silly, but I blurted it out anyway, mostly just to have something to say.

“I want to be a women’s speaker & write a book”.  Part of me expected him to wrinkle his brow, give me a weird look or scoff at the idea.  Instead, he simply wrote it down with a cheerful “okay, cool”.  In my head I thought “WHAT?  That’s a thing?  I can want that?  You don’t think that’s ridiculous? “.

“Next, what’s one thing you’d like to do before that that might be a good stepping stone and lead you in that direction?”.

I took a minute to think about this. “I could lead a women’s ministry”.

“Great” he wrote that down.  Again, no odd look, no hesitation.

“What about something before that?”

I replied I could join the leadership team at MOPS and eventually sign up to speak and where were these answers coming from?!?  

“Perfect” he wrote that down.

That was it.  We moved on.  I lived through the event.

That next Friday I signed up to join the leadership team and to be a table leader (check 1).  At the leadership retreat they asked if anyone was interested in speaking, I mentioned I’d like to eventually speak and they put me on the calendar for October (check 2).  That spring the Coordinators both announced they were stepping down and needed someone to take over.  I prayed about the timing and eventually stepped up to be the head of the MOMSnext ministry (check 3).

During that year I met many great speakers and took several out to lunch to pick their brains.  One thing I didn’t think to write on my step list was “get paired up with a writer-speaker woman of God that can be your friend & mentor”.  But in God’s way of providing exceedingly abundantly more than I could ask or imagine he not only paired me with someone, but paired me up with the very writer-speaker who was the inspiration to me to write that 15-year goal in the first place.  As a young christian, her book was one of several we did in my first mom’s group that literally changed my life.  I have followed her ever since and seen her speak a few times and each time left me wondering what if I could do that someday?   It was the feather in the cap.  I felt it was God’s stamp of approval that this is not just something I want but where he wants me to go.

Since then, goals and I have made peace.  A goal is just a wish with legs on so it can actually go somewhere.

Writing something down doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, it’s okay to adjust if I change my mind.

Most importantly, I can leave myself room to still meander around a bit on my way there.