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Last year I posted about why I wasn’t setting any New Year’s resolutions.
I was already working on making some big changes to my life and I didn’t need to set any new goals just because it was a new year.
But this year isn’t just a new year, it’s also a new decade.
While a regular new year prompts us to think about what we hope to accomplish in the next year, a decade new year gets us thinking further ahead.
What do I hope to accomplish in the next 10 years?
Should I set 10-year goals?
Should I make long-term life plans?
While a decade new year may seem like a good time to set some 10-year goals, here’s why I have decided not to and will be sticking with setting short-term goals instead.
I Don’t Want to Be Stuck Doing Something I No Longer Enjoy
8 years ago, I was in college preparing for a career as an Early Childhood Educator.
2 years ago, I realized that was no longer what I wanted to do with my life.
Yes, there were career goals that I had set for myself when I walked away from that line of work. But I never felt any disappointment for not achieving them because my career goals were never a part of any long-term plan.
By setting short-term goals, I know that I will be willing to walk away from them if they are no longer something I enjoy working towards.
I Don’t Want to Limit Myself
If I set 10-year goals, how willing would I be to give up on them if something better came along?
While I will always have short term goals I am working on, by not having decade-long ones I have the flexibility to change the direction of my life at any time.
I know that if a new opportunity comes up that I’m interested in, no matter how different it is from what I have been working towards, there won’t be anything holding me back from taking it.
I’m Still Learning
Many of my personal goals right now are focused on living a happier and healthier life.
But I’ve only just begun learning about living a healthy, and happier, lifestyle. There is still a lot that I have to learn to be able to really know how I can live a life that is the healthiest and happiest for me.
At this point, I don’t have enough information to determine what my lifestyle will be 10 years from now, but I continue to make adjustments and set new goals as I learn.
I Want to Live in The Moment
I don’t want to get so focused on working towards the next phase of my life that I don’t take the time to enjoy this one.
Sure, I have some ideas of what I would like to achieve in the next 10 years. But right now I am focused on the things that I will be able to accomplish this year.
Not looking too far ahead allows me to enjoy each accomplishment along the way and leaves me able to focus on really enjoying the things that make my life meaningful right now.
Things Change
The most important lesson I’ve learned from the last decade is that what we want changes.
When I was in college one of my professors had us write a letter to ourselves, from our future selves. In this letter, we had to look back on our life and write about everything we had accomplished.
I still have my letter in a sealed envelope. I don’t need to open it to know that most of what I wrote is no longer what I hope to accomplish.
I am not where I thought I would be 10 years ago, and I am no longer interested in the things I had hoped to accomplish back then. I’m living a life that I love, even if it isn’t the one that I had planned, or had even imagined, for myself.
I know that if I wrote out all the goals that I hope to accomplish this decade, chances are by 2030 I will have changed my mind about some of them.
That’s why I won’t be setting any new decade goals or resolutions this year.
Because 10 years is just too long away for me to be planning for.
Instead, I am going to continue to set smaller, short term goals that I will accomplish quicker. I may set some goals that will take a bit longer than a year, but I will be breaking them down into smaller tasks so I can just focus on one step at a time.
Setting personal goals is something we should all be doing, but that doesn’t mean you need to think so far ahead.
Take life one goal at a time, and truly enjoy all that you accomplish.
Did you set any New Year’s resolutions or New Decade resolutions this year or will you be setting short term goals all year long like me?
Let me know on my Facebook post and follow me to see where my journey of life changes leads me this year.