Go For the Goals

This past weekend I made my annual pilgrimage to the very east end of Long Island. My longtime friend's parents have had a house in Montauk, a stone's throw from the beach way before the Hamptons became a playground for idiots.

Every summer we'd sit on the beach at Ditch Plains and talk about the past and future. We've known each other now for 30 years so we could spend hours discussing silly things that happened in grade school to our intimate hopes and fears when it came to relationships and who were dating at the time.

We both would have our journals in tow and between gawking at tan surfers and watching with envy the carefree teenagers off from school, our minds would spin with thoughts about who we once were and who we wanted to be and we'd record them in our books carefully with greasy, sand covered pens.

Some time in the last five or six years, those hours on the beach became like New Year's Eve for us, where we'd make resolutions for ourselves to check in with each other throughout the year. One summmer I happened to read the book The Seven Spiritual Laws to Success by Deepak Chopra which I recommend to anyone looking to simplify just about everything. http://store.chopra.com/productinfo.asp?item=55&deptcode1=512

We called these sessions "Goals" to mask their inherit significance. Plus it was easier then saying, "Let's make those lists that keep us from becoming slackers satisfied with personal and professional mediocrity." They started out with three types of goals in sets of three; what we wanted to complete in the next week, what we wanted to do by the end of the year and what we wanted to acheieve by the time we were 30. The benchmarks proved to be a challenge because some goals like, 'Own real estate,' didn't really budge for a few years so we decided to change them to what we wanted to do in a week, by the end of the month and before our next birthday.

The process of goals, having them, concrete goals, checking in on them, becoming active about acheiving them, my guess, is probably a key attribute of success for people who are DONE.COM. If you're starting to get the idea of what DONE.COM means then I think you understand goals. It's not just about cashing out. It's also about simplifying life while at the same time living with intention.

An interesting side note: my friend and I did NOT get to do goals this weekend. The plan was we'd go for a run (she ran the marathon two years ago incidentally) and then sit on the beach and do our goals but the weather and my significant had another plan. I'm hoping to get my friend on the phone later tonight so we can do our goals because this change of plan was an interesting metaphor and influence on my goals. How do relationships affect a DONE.COM plan? The possibilties are altogether thrilling and icky.