If there is one thing we introverts like doing, it is thinking. I’ve spent countless hours imagining stuff, working out hypothetical scenarios, dreading imaginary disasters.. you get the picture I am sure. However if there’s one thing I’ve found genuinely useful and learnt to enjoy, it’s regularly revisiting my life goals and priorities.
It has always seemed slightly tragic to me when people rue the choices they made in times past. Everyone of us has some advice for our past versions, courtesy hindsight. We know ourselves better today than we did five, ten or twenty years back. We are usually more confident in our skin, have a better idea of where we’d like to go, and a better sense of how the world works. That is natural. Yet I don’t want to be the woman who achieved a much greater financial success at 45 than she dreamed of, but has no clear memories of her son’s early years. I don’t want to be the woman who sighs at 50, rubbing her aching, swollen knees, and wishes she had not given such a low priority to her own health while she was young. I don’t want to be the woman who at 60 wishes she had developed some of her hobbies enough to have something interesting to do today.
If you can identify something you may come to regret badly five, ten, twenty, forty years down the line, then it seems to me that that potential regret should make it to your list of concerns. You need to figure out who you are today, what makes you feel happy and excited today, what your short term priorities are, and align them with your long term vision of your life. You need to continuously and regularly be aware of what you ask from this life. Identify those aspects in life which will guide you throughout life. And you need to adjust them as and when required.
I think I’ve identified my basic life goals. I wish for myself and my loved ones to be healthy and happy. That’s pretty much it at the core.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. If I want to make these the guiding principles of my life, I need to know what makes me happy and excited today. Which futures scare me? What can I do in the short term that will increase our present and future happiness and health? Which behaviours and habits should I try to incorporate in (or weed out of) our daily life?
As I keep trying to answer these questions, over time certain themes emerge. It would be difficult to be healthy and happy without a minimal level of financial security. That means I need to pay attention to our finances and my career. Which for now might mean evaluating if I need to learn that new programming language, or switch companies. Strained relationships would definitely make our family unhappy. This makes me think more in the direction of what kind of a home atmosphere and family dynamic I want to promote today. Which tendencies in myself do I want to avoid. Maybe I need to listen more, judge less quickly, cultivate patience…
You see what I mean? If you know what you want in you life, you can ask questions to yourself that will help you figure out the areas you should be concentrating on today. These exercises of course involve attempts to chart a course with minimal inputs. But in any case you need to decide on today’s actions based on your understanding and wisdom today, not your advice from five years later. This approach works well for my mental peace, and I no longer feel quite so overwhelmed with things after one of these sessions. I just need to remember that these are tentative plans, and should be re-evaluated whenever new inputs arrive, or whenever something disruptive happens.
This way I hope to avoid serious regrets later in life. I know that’s probably overly optimistic, but it’s better than having no plan and trusting to luck…
What do you think?
Coffee, Spice & Ink 