Debbie Hatch | Family & F.I.T.
I was talking to my daughter-in-law the other day about her desire to travel. I explained to her that I never had a plan to do so much traveling myself!! I love it, but I had never been on a plane until I was 28 years old. Now I am on a plane two or more times a week. Not only have I traveled, literally, around the world but I’ve also lived overseas. As a small-town girl with more than my fair share of family “issues”, I could never – in my wildest dreams – have imagined the life I have now. I didn’t plan any of it.
The fact is; I’ve never had a plan. I’ve had a lot of dreams and plenty of short-term goals but that’s it. My husband would attest that this has frequently bothered me. I’ve always felt like I needed long-term goals. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was taught that we all needed both long and short-term SMART (specific, measurable, aligned to our personal mission, realistic, and time-based) goals and, more than once, I’ve been distraught about my lack of that very thing. My comment about me being lazy in this week’s blog https://familynfit.com/trashtalk/ was because I don’t have everything nailed down in an ironclad plan.
To be clear, this is not the same thing as a lack of ambition. It’s also not the same thing as the vision boards or massive to do lists I have created on numerous occasions. I’ve dabbled in Covey and enjoyed a multitude of strategic planning classes – but I never figured it out. I never created “THE” du, du, duh…..end-state goal. Of course there are things I hope to accomplish but I still don’t know what I want to be.
I guess the difference is that now I know I don’t have to choose just one. I am a jumbled mess of things and I can be any or all of them each day.
I had an epiphany when I was talking to Ash. Every single thing in my life has prepared me for where I am and what I’m doing right now. Plan be damned.
My childhood taught me to fight, and to stand up for others; to compartmentalize when necessary, to petition my mind and to become resilient. Dispatching at the MSP reinforced my “calm under pressure” mentality. Taekwondo taught me peace in the midst of adversity. My passion for health and fitness is now helping many other people, not just myself. Playing Tetris on all of those over-night shifts comes in very handy in storing luggage on the plane. I (sincerely) fight the urge to reposition people’s luggage on a daily basis. If I bought myself a flight attendant suit just so I could Tetris-ize luggage in the overhead bins, would that be weird? I joined Toastmasters in Alabama as a means to meet people at work. I had zero intent for a future in public speaking. I now use those skills on a daily basis.
My point is, you just never know. If you don’t have it figured out, it’s okay. Do any of us? Really? I can count on one hand the number of people I personally know who became what they dreamed of being when they were children.
Even without a plan, somehow everything you have done has prepared you to be right where you are at this very moment. Maybe we need to stop stressing out about the goal. Have aspirations – yes. Set personal goals – yes, but be perfectly happy with where we are now as we move towards wherever it is that we’r
e going.
This sign was hanging in the Durham, NC gym I used last week. I think it’s perfect!!! For physical transformations, and for life!!
Be-YOU-tiful.
xo