Moving with purpose

Alright, so a few days in and I really feel like I'm moving in the right direction. Not just because I'm putting ticks in boxes but I think the real strength of having short term goals that result in longterm goals is that you're less likely to be tempted by instant gratifications. 

I know where I'm going, I know what I want to do, I know what I want to try and achieve in the next few years. Though it's very high level and there are no guarantees that I will land where I'm aiming, I'm moving with purpose. That's a very powerful feeling. 

As I'm starting to find my way on this journey, I notice some side effects. Most of them are positive but some of them I might need to keep an eye on. Let's start with positivity. I've started to notice that moving through life with purpose and having goals will result in less time waisting. There are always moments in a day when your focus drops or you need to step away from what you are actually doing. If you don't really know your longterm goals, at these moments you will most likely turn to things that give you instant gratification. Something that will immediately give you a sense of feeling good. This could be watching tv or youtube, scrolling social media, eating something sweet, ... . If, on the other hand, you are focussed on some objectives, life goals, in my (still very modest) experience, you are more likely to do micro actions that are related to those goals. Like I said in an earlier post, I'm not a psychologist but it's not very difficult to understand why. If you don't really know what you want from life, than you just want something that'll make you feel good. Instant gratification makes us feel good now. We often find it difficult to extrapolate that these things will make us feel worse in the long run. If on the other hand, you do have life goals, you know that you will feel good when you complete something bigger, and you do small actions that will lead you to this bigger thing. You can extrapolate because you have already envisioned the future that you want.

So for instance, I want to have a small kitchen garden. So during my small breaks in a workday, I'm reading about vegetables and how to grow them. Which vegetables should be planted together. How do you wash them when you harvest them. How can you keep them for longer than just a few days. I'm filling the small gaps in my time with purposeful things because I know what I want in a year, a kitchen garden to eat from.

For me, this positive effect ripples even further through my life. I've also noticed that because I'm ticking boxes to achieve the things that I want to reach, I feel like it's easier to pick up things that I have to do like household chores. Before, these household chores felt heavy, because I only felt like I was really doing things that had to be done. But because there is balance to the force now, and I'm also moving towards the things I want, the things I have to do feel less heavy.

There is however one more "negative" side effect that I've noticed. Although, I'm not a 100% sure I would classify it as a negative but it's something to keep a close watch. I'm so excited that I'm ticking boxes, moving in the right direction that all of a sudden I want a million things at once. I cannot reach goals fast enough, I cannot put enough time and energy in these things. I think it's important to keep myself in check and make sure that I also have a bit of "nothing" time every now and then. Not everything you do has to be purposeful I guess, sometimes it can also just be fun or even nothing.