Thursdays were my favorite day of the week.
Thursdays were the days I taught dance to "my girls".
Thursdays were the days we talked about life, encouraged each other with what Jesus had taught us, practiced skills across the floor, and learned another piece of our routine.
Some Thursdays we learned thirty seconds other thursdays we learned over a minute.
But every every week I counted down to Thursday.
The chatting.
The dancing.
The learning.
We were coming to grow to the ultimate goal of a beautiful dance piece that glorified God.
Week after week we showed up for the journey. We were excited to show up for the journey.
Rehearsal after rehearsal we were proud of ourselves for adding another 30sec to our routine (ecstatic when we added more).
While we were learning and rehearsing for a performance piece I think our goal was showing up every week between no-choreography and noteworthy-choreography. It’s like the between, the journey, the becoming was the goal. The performance piece and dance show were just the reward displaying how far we had come - something giving us a reason to show up.
All my dance friends: Does that sound right to you?!
This is how I want and am trying to approach all my goals.
It requires endurance but it’s how I stay excited about the little goals getting me to my BIG goal (whether that’s booking a dr appointment, qualifying for a competition, meal prepping for the week, or publishing a book).
I stay excited about the little goals getting me to my big goal by making the showing-up week after week my goal. The BIG fancy goal is just a nice reward - like a dance performance - displaying how far I’ve come.
I’m always thinking about my big goal, just like at dance class I’m always thinking about how I’m going to know choreography to this entire three minute and twenty-three second song.
I plan a sequence of mini goals, just like at dance class I know learning this thirty seconds of choreography means I’ll get to learn the next thirty seconds of choreography. A sequence of mini goals helps me see how knocking out each mini goal is getting me closer to the BIG goal.
When I get stuck along the way, I ask myself, “Is this mini goal life-giving to me?”, just like at dance class there are times a difficult move requires me to focus until I get it and there are times I need to take a break and try again when I’m less tired or hungry.
If you’re tired, or hungry, or lonely you need to take care of you and come back to your mini goal later.
If you’re just frustrated and the mini goal is just plain hard, dig in and get the work done, more than likely your next mini goal will be more enjoyable.
If you only take one thing away from this post, I hope it’s this: All that energy you experience around your goals, instead of linking it to the achievement of your end-goal invest it in your achievement of every step you take to get there.
Afterall, it’s the showing up that changes us, the journey that shows what matters to us, and follow through that gives us a boost of confidence because we showed up for ourselves (instead of throwing in the towel).
P.S. Thursdays are still my favorite day of the week.
P.P.S. If you're needing some inspiration on setting BIG goals and coming up with the steps to get there I got you: How the Get the Stuff Done you Want Done PART 1 (this was the most popular one) & PART 2 (the ending of this one gets me EVERY time).
