Notes from this episode:
In the last episode, I spoke about the importance of goals
Why we need them
How to create them
How to measure whether or not we achieve them
In this episode, I want to get real-
What happens when you create goals, but the obstacles seem insurmountable in achieving them?
What do you do when you’ve carefully crafted a goal and the steps to achieve it in a certain time frame, yet you find the circumstances of your life are completely out of your control – you can’t control the outcome in trying to achieve the goal?
I think for those of us who are married, we marry with the goal of having a long, happy life together with our spouse.
We have images of what that looks like – family meals, happy vacations, school graduations, our children’s weddings, and future grandchildren.
When Dreams Meet Reality
Yet, for some, the reality is they’re dealing with a husband who is unfaithful or addicted to pornography or alcohol and they think they’ll never have the goal of a happy life – one of genuine intimacy and trust with our spouse.
Maybe the life you expected – the goals you had – did not include bankruptcy or job loss.
Or after 5 or 10 years you and your spouse feel like strangers to each other. You believe you don’t have anything in common anymore and have fallen out of love.
Some women are confronted with children with severe developmental or behavioral issues that don’t fit into the idyllic picture of family life and milestones that we had in our mind’s eye when we were beginning this motherhood journey.
Maybe you’re someone who wasn’t able to have children when all you ever wanted was a large, happy family.
Or your children have grown up and decided they don’t want to embrace the values and morals you tried so hard to instill in them
What do you do when you find out that motherhood is not what you expected or that marriage seems too hard to nurture and build?
For some, loneliness and distraction with overeating, over drinking, or escaping into the online world has become so much a way of life that you can’t see a way out of it.
What do you do when your goals aren’t realized the way you planned – when you can’t control the outcome?
I’d like to suggest that you can still have a say in your happiness.
It is true that there is much about life that we can’t control.
We can’t control other people’s actions
We can’t control their thoughts or feelings
And we can’t control God’s will for us – trust me, I’ve tried….
What We Can Control
But what we can control is how we think and feel about all of it.
I’m not suggesting that disappointments, betrayals, or heavy crosses in our life are easy just because we think happy thoughts.
But what I am suggesting is challenging ourselves to not give up on our goals when things become difficult or discouraging.
Marriages can survive infidelity and addictions.
I’ve seen it and I’ve spoken to many women who have been in that situation. Their marriage was certainly more difficult and challenging and filled with more pain than they ever imagined.
But they stuck it out, they worked it out, and as a couple, they healed and created a bond that would not have happened without the struggle and pain.
Families with children who have heavy challenges can still be happy and loving families with all the essential elements that create a family.
Again, I’ve witnessed it.
Does it look like the family they had in mind when they were first married with everyone happily sitting around the dinner table?
No – but with every family I know who has embraced the trials and struggles of their children keeping in mind their firm goal of a happy family, THEY are the families with breath virtue and faith, joy and peace. Their children are kind and loving and empathetic to the needs of others. They are the holy ones we all aspire to emulate.
How We Attain the Life We Love
Whether or not we achieve our goals depends on 3 things
Creating goals and keep them always in our mind
- They should be good and true
- Tweaking and being flexible with the HOW of the goal.
The steps of HOW you achieve the goal may change and that’s where we need to keep our eye on the prize while being flexible in the how of achieving it.
- Accepting God’s will for our lives
Sometimes, what we want – our goal – is not good for us nor right for us. Nurturing an interior life of faith and a personal relationship with God, helps us trust that, in fact, HE knows best.
He KNOWS what we need
HE is a loving Father and if we depend on Him, He will take care of us.
How We React is KEY
Again, we can’t control life. But we can control how we react to life – what we think that creates our feelings and actions.
- We can decide it’s too hard and give up.
- We can be angry that life is unfair.
- We can get discouraged and give up on our goals and just survive day in and day out.
Or, we can decide to be happy with whatever comes our way.
We can choose to see an obstacle to our goal as just a challenge we need to overcome.
Stop comparing our life to others who we think have a trouble-free life when, in fact, have struggles of their own.
Choose to be strong and confident and the boss of the day to day challenges – not the victim.
And to be honest, without a life of faith in a God who loves us, I don’t know how people do it.
God’s Infinite Wisdom
God in his infinite wisdom has allowed many crosses – some huge – to be in my life just as I’m sure you have had in your life.
He’s waiting for me to give Him the only thing He needs and the only thing I can really give to God – my will.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t have big goals – it just means that I work to be patient in achieving those goals, and if I can’t achieve the goal the way I expected, I have faith that God knows best.
Set goals.
Be flexible in how you achieve them.
And rely on God’s will for complete happiness.
THIS is how we achieve our goals – and the ultimate goal which is happiness and eternal life in heaven.
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