wishful thinking does “not” = goals

I used to see the prospect of setting goals as the same thing as writing down a wish list.  Or talking about what one would do if they won the lottery.

“Wow, if I won 10 million dollars…I would travel and buy this…and..and….”

Those crazy hypothetical conversations we have with ourselves and other’s about things that probably will never happen are wishful dreaming in my mind.  Certainly one would not set a goal of winning the lottery because logic would tell you that no amount of doing things would cause this to come to fruition.  That to win the lottery is pure luck and ok…doing the deed of purchasing tickets.  But really logic tells us that winning is not something one can simply go and “do”.  I used to associate goal setting and goal reaching as the same thing.  Lists of goals were things that I would like if I could wish my dreams true.

I once wrote down 1001 goals and oddly I met all the financial ones because that wasn’t about wishing them into reality.  Last year when I bought a house, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I set that goal and then I went about doing all the necessary tasks…often ugly tasks of facing the reality of my finances, to make that goal come to fruition.  I came across that list, blogged about it somewhere here, and the fact that I met the top 5 things on my finacial goals.  This was only because I got serious about those 5 goals and did the “doing” of bad tasks to get them done. 

Then I graduated from college and again the hard realization that my desire to gain a college degree wasn’t a wish, it was in fact a goal and I had gone about all the hard work of doing those necessary tasks to make it happen.

Wishing is a wonderful thing, a dreamful thing, a pie in the sky thing.  We wish for peace and yet we don’t do the necessary things to make it come to fruition.  Now, don’t get me wrong on all of this. I still dream big. I still wish things that probably will never happen.  But I now realize that looking at someone else’s life and thinking “It must be nice” is really quite ludicrous.  What’s nice about doing all the necessary tasks to achieve wealth, success, and happiness?  There’s nothing nice about it.  It’s just hardcore work and task doing, most often a lot of tasks being done, and really just a lot of “doing” in the end.

I used to think “it must be nice”.  After finally figuring out that by doing I could attain a goal, I now think “wow, congratulations, look at you go!” when I see someone else achieve something. 

I now realize that if one knows beforehand what needs to be done in order to achieve a goal, then that’s a worthy goal to set. Especially if you realize that you can do the doing of those tasks systematically.  IE: Clean up your credit means…write letters, dispute wrong things on ones report, save money, pay off bills, have a plan, stick to the plan, etc.  You know…the “doing” of it.  Most people want to reach a goal but don’t consider the “task doing” and then they don’t have a plan for the “task doing”.  They just have the goal in front of them.  And sometimes since there’s no logic in the goal, only wishful thinking, it is a total impossiblity before they even start.

Now, I once set a goal to read 52 books in one year.  That was some easy doing because those tasks were tasks I enjoyed.  Ahh meeting a goal that’s simple….but wait, now I realize that was ludicrous because a goal is not easily attained.  That was merely me putting my normal behavior on the line and then rewarding myself for my normal behavior.  Doh….stupid really.

Recently I’ve had a lot of wishful thinking. “I wish I didn’t have to work so I could write a memoir”.  Or “I wish that I could be on vacation every week for a few days, or that I could work only a few days and get paid the same thing”.

I’ve been doing a lot of wishing.  I’m now trying to determine which wishes can be converted into goals and coming up with the tasks associated with those goals.  Because without a task list, I’m sunk because that’s just wishful thinking.

A blog friend..er..acquaintance…er….quite a nice blogger person I know…wrote about re-evaluating her life. I get that. I’m doing that now. I’m re-evaluating my goals, my dreams, and trying to spy my wishes so that I can get down the the doing of goal setting and meeting. I saw a magazine today called “clean eating”. I almost bought it because I thought “gee I could do that!”  but man I don’t know if I could because I don’t know if I’m ready to do the doing of those tasks.  I’m just being honest here.

Now, I realize this is a lot of round and round I go talking, but what are your goals?  What goals have you met?  How did you do it?  Can you tell the difference between wishful thinking and proper goal setting?  Oh do tell…do tell.

And just so you know…technically….

Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing toevidence or rationality..