I have talked a lot about why it’s so ineffectual to make goals that make you feel bad, and about why it’s so important to be kind to yourself. But I wanted to go in to a bit more detail about how I learned this. I have shared snippets of the following stories before but not fully. 

So, I have decided to share 3 goals I totally failed. You’re welcome! I love a failed goals post as much as they next person! 

You’ll notice that each of these “failed goals” are not really failures at all, which is kind of the point. I still call on and teach from these experiences now, they shaped the whole Life Book process. 

I have packaged everything I have learned so far about making goals that stick into a free downloadable checklist to promote the new self paced version of The Life Book e-course. The checklist makes it as practical and as applicable as humanly possible! 

Sign up below to get it. 

3 failed goals

Ok, on to my “failures”!, the story behind them, and what I learned as a result. You ready?!

1. GOAL: RUN AWAY TO THE WOODS!

In 2016 I began the year with the goal of training as a Forest school leader. I have always loved the woods and spending time there with my babes. Because my business evolved from my multi-topic lifestyle blog, I was still figuring out what it was. But my love of the woods combined with my content around embracing the seasons meant training as a forest school leader felt like a no brainer. I made contact with my local training centre, made a plan to save the money required for the qualification, and began volunteering once a week in my local woodland. But… well. It was cold and I was often alone and realised I wasn’t enjoying working in the woods. I was also starting to feel more of a pull to the interiors and styling side of things. I ultimately decided that I wanted to keep my love of the woods as a hobby! So that led to a relatively drastic U-Turn in my career at the mid-point of the year. I aborted my forest school training plans, and instead began focussing on interiors content.

I didn’t get to the end of the year and mark that as a failure though. I tried something, it felt wrong, and I responded. I was flexible, free of guilt and kind to myself. My feelings around the forest school thing gave me interesting information about what I enjoyed and what I wanted to focus on. That was all. This was a huge lesson to to learn (no failures- just interesting information) and I now refer to this ALL THE TIME. 

2. GOAL: PUBLISH 4 E-BOOKS. 

Last year I made a goal to publish 4 ebooks. My ‘A Soulful Gathering’ e-book had sold really well and I wanted to write and publish more. I ended the year having published a total of…. one! A Christmas version of A Soulful gathering. 

This taught me something I already knew but in a deeper way. In order to reach a goal like this, it needs to take into account what’s actually happening in your life; your time, energy and resources. It also needs a plan and some sort of accountability. I had put these in place, but I now know I needed to break down this goal further and integrate it more into my daily life, and add more accountability too. So, from this “failure” I learned more about the beauty and necessity of good planning and for me, working with someone to help keep me on track. 

3. GOAL: RUN EVERY DAY. LOSE A STONE. 

This goal was a clanger from around 2009. You can probably all see where this one is going. This goal came from a place of believing my body was unacceptable (bs, obvs).  It doesn’t matter what size my body was. I had fully internalised the fat phobic cultural narrative that women are valuable only if they fit in to a tight definition of femininity.  Unsurprisingly, because this one felt like such hard work,  and it came from a place of disliking myself, it petered out after a few weeks. This of course came with it’s own additional layer of shame (why couldn’t I stick to things!) This lesson took a few more years to figure out. Learning more about self (and body) acceptance, internalised fat phobia and feminism helped. When I learned to move for the sake of joy, rather than as a punishment, it changed everything. 

This “failure” taught me that when goals are rooted in a place of kindness and self acceptance, they are much much more likely to happen (i have since seen this play out hundreds of times with Life Book students.)

There are more failed goals, of course. Many more, because i’m human, but these were the ones I learned the most from. 

So- lets embrace the fail.

What about you? Have your failed goals taught you anything? Where are you at on the kindness-to-self scale? (0 - I’m my own worst critic and enemy. 10 - I love myself confidently and am my own biggest cheerleader.)