How to keep your goals when life changes things.

Life got in the way of my goal. Life reared its head this morning, and I was left with a myriad of feelings. When one of my in-person kids woke up sick today, I had to take care of him while contacting those necessary in order to make them aware of what was going on that changed my timing. When the internet went out for my virtual kids, and I had to try to fix it and keep the necessary people in the loop as to the situation that changed my timing. When my sick kid went back to sleep in my room, and I chose to wait to get myself ready for the day in an attempt to let him sleep as long as possible, that changed my timing. When I finally sat down, opened my laptop, pulled up the blank page with a blinking cursor and then both my virtual kids needed help at the same time it changed my timing. Then it hit me. The light bulb went off in my head. 

It may have changed my timing, but it did not change my goal.

Life has a way of changing the timing of things, but that doesn’t mean it changes our goals. It can, yes. Yet how often do we use that as an excuse? Adjusting to meet our goals isn’t the same as not meeting them at all. I can testify to that right here, right now. I am writing this many hours beyond the goal I had originally set for myself. I could have very easily said, due to timing, that I would do it later.

And I almost did

But then I sat with my feelings

I was frustrated with myself because I felt I had let myself down. I was concerned about my sick kid, and knew there wasn’t much else I could do. I was annoyed with our internet. It brought up the disdain I have for our internet provider, and the lack of options we have. I was annoyed that my virtual kids had both needed help at the same time. Then I felt guilty for feeling annoyed because I knew it wasn’t their fault .I was proud of myself for recognizing my emotions, sitting with them, working through them, and not allowing them to alter my goals. I also didn’t allow them to be an excuse for poor behavior nor to act out poor behavior. 

Which I did not. I knew that none of those feelings, while valid and present, actually had anything to do with this blog post — or lack thereof — at the time. My feelings were real, valid, and present yet not an excuse to avoid meeting my goal. They were powerful emotions yet they were distracting me at the same time. Just because life changed the timing of my goal didn’t mean I needed to allow it or my feelings to change the actual goal.

But I had to allow myself time to process them. I had to slow my brain down enough in order to see that I was being my distraction. I was keeping myself from meeting my goal because I was trying to NOT work through my feelings. It was easy for me to use them as an excuse; easy for me to tell myself what I was going to write about wasn’t great anyway. Easy to excuse. 

However I chose differently

So I sit here, typing out this in a real and raw a moment that I am sharing with all of you. It wasn’t even the original topic I was going to blog about.But life happened. Frenzied life happened. Unexpected life happened. Mom-life happened. Stay-at-home mom life happened. Emotions happened.

And I rocked it

I win today — in this moment, with the accomplishment — no matter what else happens.

 Life can change timing. It doesn’t have to change goals.