The big reason I’m going completely goal-less

It’s been six years since I moved from this place…SIX years y’all. It sounds like nothing, but damn does it feel like a life time ago.

The #girlgang nodded in unison, sipping on some weird honey-foam coffee in the back library of a hip Dallas street. They knew what I meant, fully. Because six years feels like a full eternity ago for them, too.

So much has changed. I feel so drastically different from the girl that used to live in this town.

More nods as I waxed esoteric, per usual. And then a question handed back to me: But would you have ever seen yourself where you are now?

Nope. Nope. Hard no. No way. This life I’m living is way more magical than any goal I could have ever set for myself then.

And there, in that moment, we all acknowledged that we’ve slowly assumed a goal-less life. And trust that this #girlgang is comprised of some of the most ambitious I know. The desires are big, but the giant list of far-in-the future goals are pointless. Saying it out loud was like taking off a stupidly, uncomfortable bra at the end of long day. Braless is flawless. And so is going goal-free.

I’m all about visions. I’m all about long-term desires. Equally, I’m all about immediate actions. I’m all about what we want, what we feel, what we’re going toward. But in my own life, I’ve seen that an obsession with long-term, rigid goals doesn’t always get us to where we want to be.

Because oftentimes goals stop helping us. Our heart doesn’t want it, but our head is obsessed. Because it looks good. Because sounds good. Because we said we wanted it. If we’re being honest, there are SO many chapters in our lives and we’re constantly changing within those. It’s important not to resist that reality and rather embrace a new one openly. So openly.

I also know from experience that realities will show up that are way, way better for the trajectory of our lives than some long-term goal list we forced out onto our journal one Saturday morning. They’re things we couldn’t have ever wished for ourselves, but they’re so, SO much better than anything our past self could have had the capacity to believe in.

So try letting the goals go. Try leaving the big picture aside as you walk forward. But whatever you do, don’t ditch your desires or your feelings or your excitement. Not ever.

This article first appeared on MaxieMcCoy.com.