The point of this post is to talk myself (and maybe also you) out of my own over-ambitious goal setting.

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I banned myself from access to my notebooks today. Because I can’t let myself write down any of these goals, because I will simply find them again in about a month and be riddled with disappointment and guilt. Because there is no way that they are all achievable.

And yet.

Away my brain ticks on ideas that I wish I had time for, that I wish were achievable.

What to do with them?

At the end of the day there’s nothing wrong with ambitious ideas. All that’s wrong is the timing.

I would say to write down every idea you have, but from experience, I wouldn’t recommend that either.

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One of my sisters has an excellent rule for when she is shopping. If she sees something she wants, but doesn’t need it straightaway, she leaves it where it is. But if she is still thinking about it, let’s say, a couple of weeks later, she will go back and get it. It is an excellent litmus test, and one I try to use myself.

There is something to learn from this from a creative perspective.

Our heads will be filled with ideas sometimes, perhaps all the time. And even if they are all fantastic, the fact is that not all of them are going to stick. So when my head is flooded with ideas, as it is now, I can play with them, with no pressure. If I remember it in a few weeks and have the head space to keep playing with it, I can.

But let’s let go of goals until we need them. Not every idea will lead to an outcome, and I say this to myself as much as to you:

It’s okay that you can’t do everything.

Let’s do our very best to believe that, shall we?

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Jena Ren, 2022