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Joyce Wycoff's avatar

@Stephanie Jucar Cooley Love all the ideas about how to take your life seriously ... along with the freedom to do it your way. I used to make SMART goals ... now I'm not sure I'm smart enough or wise enough to know what the Universe has to offer. I'm more like a frog hopping from one lily pad to the next. Good thing I like lily pads.

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Stephanie Jucar Cooley's avatar

I get discouraged by seeing the rigid ways to make a goal. Sometimes you just want to say “I want to do this!” And that’s it. And that’s ok. You do whatever you want, it’s your life!

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Lisa Dearen's avatar

I love the idea of framing your goals and hanging them where you can see them. I feel like the goals get lost when they’re in a notebook and I forget over the year to refer back to them. The quote from Hunter S. Thompson is genius, thank you for sharing!

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Stephanie Jucar Cooley's avatar

Yes! If you don’t display them somewhere that you can see often, they’re so easy to forget! I wrote that quote a few months ago on a sticky note and have it on my wall! It’s actually longer and even better in its entirety, this is the full quote:

"Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on... So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything... The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all... We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors...but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal... Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life."

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Lisa Dearen's avatar

So good. Thanks for sharing the full quote! I’m saving it in my journal.

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Lydia McDowell's avatar

I loved reading about how your relationship to goals has changed over time. Sometimes we just need to find the framing (ha!) that works for us. Imagery and vision boards bring them into emotional resonance for me. Love the sunlit bookshelves on your board!

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