Goals

I habitually fail at reaching my goals. I’m great at coming up with grand ideas and dreaming big, but that’s all they ever are. Dreams. Things I think about doing, but never follow through with.

When I was in college, I wanted to be an entrepreneur and open my own book store/coffee shop. I was obsessed with reading (and still am), and couldn’t imagine a better way to spend my days than helping others find the perfect book that would set their soul on fire.

When I first met with my college advisor, I said I wanted to major in business and marketing. I had my sights set high on a double major, and thought this would be a perfect combination. I could learn how to run a business and market it to be successful. My advisor however thought they were too close- meaning both majors required the same classes for the most part, so it wasn’t really as ambitious as I had assumed. He convinced me that economics was a solid major that would still help with my business, and explained to me how I would need to know the ins and outs of supply and demand if I was going to run any type of company. The fact that he was an economics professor helped.

I loved my economics classes, and breezed through all of my business classes, but calculus caused me to hit a road block. I had always been good in math, but this wasn’t math to me. I simply couldn’t grasp it, and ended up failing the class. Fast forward to my senior year, and because my advisor was on sabbatical, I found out that because I had to retake calculus, I was going to be one class short of my business degree. Stupid calculus!!!

Fast forward 12 years, and here I am with a degree in Economics, still one class short of a degree in business. I am not a business owner, and I haven’t worked in a field relative to my degree at all since graduating from college.

As I look back on what set my soul on fire in college, the first class that comes to mind is a non-fiction writing course I took to meet the gen- ed requirements of my degree. Not a business or economics class. The thing I remember most about college, and the work I was most proud of, was a paper I wrote about one of the most difficult times in my life when I was a senior in high school.

Writing that paper was terrifying because the topic was so personal. Only a select few people knew about my experience, and here I was putting it down on paper for 30 people to read and critique. It was the most amazing experience. As scared as I was, I was also proud of my work. I kept telling myself that no matter what, I was glad to have written it. Putting those words down on paper released the secret I had been holding onto, and brought me a sense of peace. I was so relieved that it wasn’t a secret any more.

And the best part was- not a single person judged me in that class. A few people pointed out grammatical errors and typos, but no one said anything about the topic. The feedback I received was so positive, that I started writing non stop.

But nothing I wrote after that day was any good. I would sit for hours, wondering why I couldn’t find any other topics to write about. It took me these last 12 years to realize that I didn’t have enough life experiences at that point in time to write more than that one story. That one thing in my life that was real, and that grabbed my heart. The one thing that was such a huge turning point in my life.

As I take a hard look at my life right now, writing is starting to play a bigger part again. This blog isn’t to make money or to help anyone. It’s my way of working toward a goal for myself. It’s a way for me to work on my passion, and put myself out there for others to critique. It’s amazing how putting my thoughts down on “paper” helps me to work through everything that I’m going through.

So for now I am going to make writing my goal. I’m going to focus on the good, the bad, and probably a lot of ugly that no one is going to want to read. I am going to stick with this goal. For once I am determined not to quit on myself. I will make writing the ONE thing I don’t give up on. Because even if no one cares, and no one reads a word I write, I am still proud of my work.

This is just me, a girl throwing her passion out to the world, hoping it helps to heal her own heart.