Goal Setting Cunundrum

I've never really sat down and created goals. Not like, long term career and life goals. This was a new experience. I've done class assignments and that sort of thing, but those were mostly just BS and I wasn't REALLY assessing things - or myself - very closely. Add in that over the past decade or so I've come to know myself much better, understand who I am as a person and why. Remove all of these outside opinions, and suddenly I've got a situation I've never dealt with.

Step one: figure out HOW to go about setting goals. I actually sunk to the level of googling that shit. It proved to be useful. I found some good resources, and starting putting their advice to work. The first couple attempts were failures because I soon realized that I had NO idea what I wanted to be when I grew up! So much of my life had just been the "get whatever job you can to pay the bills while [I] work towards my dreams" that I had lost total focus of what I wanted other than my one passion of riding and racing motorcycles....which sure as shit didn't pay the bills and although a passion, isn't going to carry me into the next decade!

So, taking the advice of one site, I began brainstorming. Literally just writing thoughts down on paper with a pencil. I was focusing on career at this point, so that was the point of the exercise. I had a few things that I was juggling around, trying to weigh the options of, but it didn't take long for me to hit on what it was I've always wanted to get back into - event coordination/planning. Ever since I worked as a training coordinator (basically it was event planning) I have wanted to get back into something similar. I loved that kind of work, I was good at it, and it's actually a marketable skill if its applied right. Plus there are plenty of areas one can focus on, be it weddings to trade shows, so you're not even pigeon holed into one type of work if something else is far more appealing.

As silly as it sounds, it was rather enlightening to actually right down what I wanted to do. Having a 10 year goal in black and white on paper - something I actually wanted to accomplish - was a first for me. That gave me some hope for the future and took away that "floundering" feeling I've been experiencing for YEARS. I suddenly had a goal, and that created focus. 

Breaking that goal down, and incorporating the goals of other areas of my life is for another post, but finally coming to this point has been HUGE. For the first time in my life I finally have a goal that is mine and mine alone and I'm the one who can make it happen. Love that feeling right now. Sure, I'm still working my shitty paying job and barely making ends meet, but at least there's a prick of light at the end of the tunnel.