A year without goals

and life without a plan

When I was in chrysalis. I remember seeing this Butterfly on one of my walks during my depression and feeling called to take a photo of it. I think it symbolized hope.

A year ago I wrote ‘A goal worth pursuing’ a piece in which I confronted head on my relationship to work, goals and my unrelenting ambition. At the time of writing that there was so much unknown, and in many ways I felt like I had blown my life up into a thousand shards of uncertainty. I walked away from so many good on paper things, the very things I had dreamt of, but like the saying goes, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

I had prided myself in the past for always having a direction, a goal, a purpose. My identity was very much intertwined with how much I achieved and how quickly. But the joke was on me because ultimately I was in a race against myself, and that is a race that’s impossible to win.

I was the person who had a million and one to do lists, color coded, planned out to a fault. I lived my life in quatres, Q1, Q2 and timelines. My biggest fear was not reaching my potential, and ultimately getting left behind. I’m a stickler for ‘i’d rather try than not know what could have been’ and while that’s helpful, it’s also exhausting at times.

But what is it really like, when you decide to live without a plan, without a goal insight and without a clue what it is you actually want?

At first, terrifying!

I can’t stress this enough. Every day I woke up with a mixture of guilt and fear having a little dance party in my gut. I felt an impending need to do something, clean the house, write a book, cook something, seize the mother fucking day!

But that’s not what happened. Instead, I let myself stay in the discomfort of fighting every urge to prove my worth through action and productivity. Despite being diagnosed with depression and severe burnout, the voice in my head cursed and threw tantrums that we weren’t ‘making the most of this time’. (Lol as if I was on some kind of vacation) Compassion for myself was slow to arrive.

I experienced a fatigue that was unshakable. There seemed to be no amount of sleep or rest that could bring me back to myself. I don’t know where I went, but I went somewhere. Somewhere far far from here, and far far away from myself. At least, a self I recognised.

The question that caused me the most pain was ‘what do you want now’, for I believed if I could just figure out what it was that I wanted, we’d be back on course, and everything would return to ‘normal’. Knowing what I want had always been obvious to me, and when I know what I want, I go after it with haste. But try as I might, no grand plans revealed themselves. At some point I had to wave the white flag and accept I didn’t know. Ironically the more I could lean into ‘I don’t know’ the more free I started to feel.

As time went on, glimmers of hope would appear. Not my old self returning, but a new self, one who had yet to stake her claim in the sand. She was open in a way my past self had never been.

Instead of following goals, all I could do was follow joy. That three letter word that we all associate with pinterest quotes or house plaques from TJ Max was all I could cling to. Joy has many guises, and trusting which one’s were worth following was in itself at times a landmine. I feared being heartbroken by desperation to latch onto a new dream.

But everything taught me something, even if it was a just the opportunity to rule something out. To clarify more of what I didn’t want in a bid to get closer to cracking the code of what I did want.

Some days I would literally write a list of things that brought me joy and then think how could I spend more time doing those things? I always came back to writing, reading books and getting dressed. It is kind of funny when something is staring you right in the face, but you protest…i’m not allowed to do that, I don’t deserve to do that, surely I have to stop fucking about now, especially if I’m going to potentially earn a lot less than I did before? But as time went on, I realised not only could I live with less, but it was time to enjoy the things I did have. The kitchen I worked so hard to afford, I finally spent time cooking in. Our beautiful garden we had meticulously designed, became a place I enjoyed daily. Each day was allowed to be its own.

I understand the privilege of having this time to explore life without goals and without anyone else depending on me. I don’t have children and i’m married to a wonderful human being whose job has been able to provide for us both during this time. Allowing someone to support me after being financially independent for such a long time has been humbling, and while I will be forever grateful for that privilege, it’s still something that some days I struggle with.

The reality is, I may never make the same money as I used to. I’ve had to look long and hard at what I’ve made what I was earning mean.

There is still no vision board. There is no slack, no trackers and no way to measure myself externally. My journal is no longer a place to ‘fix’ myself, but instead a place to record memories and get to know myself better.

After a long break on Instagram followed by a short return I decided it’s still not a place I want to spend time. I’ve been able to focus on Substack along with two YouTube videos a month and for now that feels sustainable.

Certain truths can not be ignored once your face is pushed up against them. When you realize that in this season, you still need to go slow, you can follow that or push against it. I’m tired of pushing, of forcing things. Even when I recognise i’m trying to fit a square peg in a round hole there is an initial tendency to ‘make it fit’, just like the step sisters and the glass slipper in Cinderella. I believe there’s always a way, but what I come back to, is just because there is a way, doesn’t mean it has to be done, let alone by me.

Living life at a slower pace is something I used to associate with recovery. But prevention is better than a cure. Living life without goals has taught me to embody a different way of living, one I don’t have to earn. An existence that while far from perfect, is one I don’t want to escape from.

There are many lives each of us lives in this one precious lifetime. We are continually faced with new segments of ourselves, some we turn away from and some we embrace with open arms, but they all serve a purpose. They are all teachers, and learning to love every single self is still, even now, the only true goal.

Thanks for reading

Harry x