If there’s one word that can set off a cacophony of judgmental cymbals in my head, it is “GOALS”.

And I coach people on a regular basis on how to think about where they are in their life, where they want to go and help them to craft a road map to get there. Seems like those two disparate ways of being could not survive in the same brain, but they do….along with several other disparate opinions!

The older I get the more I believe that we humans are so limited by words. And I think all languages share this limitation to even though each language has words that explain some things so much more effectively than another. Take the Japanese word “shabui”. One meaning of it is to accept the imperfect in the perfect. That’s got to be one keeper of a word if you ask me. We’re all separated by our ability to communicate with each other which is a whole other topic that I’ll save for another time.

The point is that the word “goal” as used in the English language as stressed in the business vernacular has left me cold because when I hear or see the word my brain automatically conjures up some fast talking, sweet spewing guy or gal snapping their fingers noiselessly while trying to make time with our brains so that they can get on to the next thing. I don’t really feel that they really–really–really care what my goals are but rather care more where their next good feeling is going to come from down the road.

The “goal” that I do feel good about is the one used when we are in the moment and consciously thinking of where we are going to take our next step and then the next one and consciously thinking about what we can do to help us bring what we want into our lives. There’s just got to be a beautiful, elegant word that says what I just took three sentences to say, but for right now I think you get my drift. And don’t you know that there are whole cultures that don’t have a word for “goal” because they don’t even have the concept of “goal”? Wow. Now that would be a culture worth exploring!

I’m thinking about goals right now because I got into a conversation with one of my fellow classmates yesterday before class and she asked me why someone my age was going back to school and so I gave her my schpeel and her summation was, “so this is like a very expensive hobby?”. Well, no that isn’t what completing my education is for me…I really plan to use what I’m learning to help me communicate and connect with people better to help them communicate and connect with others better but it may seem odd to a 19 year old for someone my age to set goals. But I suppose now that I think about it, I’m setting more goals more often and more specifically than I ever have in my life. Their time frame is just different for me than it would be for someone who has decades and decades of life in front of them.

So, if you know another word for “goal” as I described in the above paragraph than I’d like to add a codicil that it not have time constraints. That seems limiting to me. Didn’t we humans create this whole time thing to make sense out of what we don’t understand anyway? But I digress.

What or where are you consciously heading in your life today?