2020-03-18 To Discover Your Goal

Thinking about our ideal lives can be surprisingly difficult. We might have vague desires to pivot in our careers, or improve our health, or strengthen our relationships. But those desires remain desires if we lack a clear focus. Envisioning exactly what we’re aiming for helps us figure out the steps to get there.

Here are some tips for doing The Perfect Day exercise:

• Think about the not-too-distant future. Five years seems about right because it’s far enough for pretty much anything to happen, but not so far that you don’t seem like the same person anymore.
  Start with the moment you wake up. Imagine your bedroom, how you feel, what your day has in store for you, how you spend your morning, and go from there.

• Make sure you write about things you actually want in your life. Even when I was a seriously poor single mom, I was surprised to find that I never really wanted extreme wealth. I wanted comfort. I wanted enough. You might feel differently. Maybe when you think about your perfect day, you’ve got Oprah’s money. If you do, you’ll need to make sure that you imagine the kind of life that creates that kind of wealth.

• Don’t get caught up with titles. It’s easy to write down that you’ll be promoted or find a “better” job, but what does that mean? What is the actual work you are doing on this perfect day?

• Know that your perfect day may change over time. When I was in my twenties, I imagined myself living in New York City. I’d never been there, but somehow I really believed I belonged there. My goals and priorities have shifted in the last 20 years. Now when I picture my ideal day, I’m living in a large Victorian house in a smaller town, not a tiny Manhattan apartment. I’ve evolved, or maybe I’ve finally to know where I’d be the happiest.

• Keep this about you. What’s tempting in this exercise is to start writing about other people’s perfect day. For instance, I’d love to add “my husband is happy and doing work he loves” to my list. But you know what? That’s his life. And I can’t really know what “perfect” looks like to him.