Last time I talked about the importance of recognizing what fills us up, so we can prioritize time on those things to feel more balanced. Life really is a balancing act. Every day, we make choices about our time and we cannot ignore how they affect our sense of balance.

And balance is about happiness.

And as long as we are on the topic of goals, happiness should be an actual goal. Yes, achieving and maintaining a state of deep down happiness really is worthy of being a distinct goal.

It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Addressing our own happiness and making decisions based on how they support our happiness often doesn’t match our list of goals though.

So how do we fix that?

I brought this up last time, but it’s worth repeating again here. Sometimes it takes inner reflection within to figure out what is the right choice to make.

I do that by checking in with my heart to pay attention to how things make me feel. I begin by asking myself questions like this: What are the MOST important things in my life that make me happy? And after that, ask if what you are choosing will bring you closer to that happy feeling or do they distance you from achieving it.

And that can be tricky to identify too, I know. Especially if you have so many goals that all seem important and achieving any one of them would make you happy. So, it’s really about digging deep underneath it all. The best example I can offer from my life is about when I decided to become a mom.

I was traveling a lot. My career was a success and I was balancing so many things — my social life, my marriage, practice, working out. I’ll admit I was actually spread too thin and feeling a little imbalanced. I was prioritizing my career and it was hard for me to pay attention to my friends. I would miss weddings. Those were choices that I was actively making but I sensed that I was out of balance and despite my successes, something deeper was missing in my goals.

I remember having a conversation with my husband on our couch in our condo in Chicago. One of my biggest goals in life was to be a mom. At that moment in my life, balancing anything more seemed really impossible though. I could always think of why that moment was not the right time to become a mom because of all these other things going on in my life. I feel like nothing good really comes from that way of thinking though. If it feels right, I think you need to go for it anyway. So we both agreed that there wasn’t going to be a perfect time to have a baby. Instead of waiting for the perfect timing, if deep down it felt right, we should have the baby and figure it out along the way. And so that is what we decided… and we had our son a year later. 

At first, it was really hard for me because I still wanted to be a professional bowler. I didn’t want to lose that part of me. And I was also still coaching. And then I had a new job, being a mom. I felt mediocre, balancing it all. I was feeling like a mediocre bowler, a mediocre coach, mediocre friend. But I knew being a mom was something that brought me happiness despite the challenges it presented. And I knew how much it filled me up to have achieved that goal, that if I could just keep my head down and do the best I could with whatever was in front of me at that time, I would look back on this challenge I conquered with the greatest of pride. And it turns out that a few months later, I ended up winning the first major of my career. The USBC Queens…. With Madden, my 16 month old watching live at home.

Becoming a mom filled me up in more ways than I could have ever imagined and positively influenced so many other areas of my life. Checking in with my heart and prioritizing that goal, despite the challenges, was the best decision I’ve made.

Now, I cannot imagine life any other way. Anyone who follows me on Instagram will see just how much joy my children bring to my life every day.

You always have choices when it comes to your balancing act and figuring out how you’re going to balance all of the things in your life. So, the question is, are you paying attention to your deeper achievements — things that have the potential to fill you up, bringing greater levels of happiness — when setting your goals? Are you choosing not to balance some things at all? And are you avoiding some things because you know they are going to be challenging?

Your goal homework today is to look at your goal list and see if you are avoiding putting something on the list even though it would make you deeply happy? Are you telling yourself it is not the right time for something or that something would be too difficult? Another piece of your homework is to GO NOW AND SIGN UP for my In Pursuit of Goals FREE Masterclass on December 17th at 7pm. This is where it starts. The New Year is around the corner. Time is now.

Sometimes we need to listen to our hearts, not just our logical brains, when reaching for goals. Creating a sense of balance is rarely merely logical. It’s about what fills us up, and sometimes reaching for the least logical goals does just that, especially if our heart tells us it is what’s right.

See you next Thursday.