Monday, September 10, 2018

28 of 58 for 58: Get Clear About Your Why Before You Pursue Any Goal

I've studied three languages in school: Spanish, French, and German. At one point I could read all of them. At present, I can get by conversationally in Spanish. That's it. 

I entertain visions of achieving fluency in French and Spanish at some point. I've dreamed of ways to do so (e.g., immersion programs in countries that use the languages). Have I acted on any of them? Not yet. Why? That's the problem--I'm not clear about the why.

I have no compelling reason to invest the time and energy to learn either language right now. And I'm not willing to make the time. I'm not ready to give up other goals to expand my capabilities in either language. 

It took me some time to come to this conclusion. I had several false starts. I bought books. I signed up for classes. But I avoided major misdirections of time and money because I knew I didn't know the why. And that feels fine.

I grapple daily with feeling like I have too many interests and not enough time to address any of them well. Redirecting my focus towards identifying the "why" helps me enormously to focus on what truly matters. 

No comments: