Scoring a goal..

Sitting with Diann on Monday morning, we were talking about how having had anorexia and being prone to obsessive behaviour can continue to rule your daily life and decisions you make.
The whole process of recovery and coming out on top after having an eating disorder is usually due to determination and getting a grip on the vision of full health to eventually achieve that goal. The person can be so focused on what it is they want, that they go to extremes to get it.. Obsessiveness and determination will always remain a personality trait. But, further down the line, it won't be about the eating disorder, but about achieving other goals, when it comes to anything that can be classed as a passion.

I asked Diann, how good or bad is it to have a goal? This can be so tricky, because I've been so cautious about making decisions as to what I want to do and where I want to go and thinking that having a goal will only put pressure on me and that would be me living as I used to..focusing on something so much that everything else becomes insignificant. A goal isn't a bad thing, it's good, but it's once this goal brings stress along with it and makes you oblivious to other opportunities and it no longer gives you enjoyment.

Example.. A goal of mine could be to go traveling by such and such a date. If another opportunity comes along in the meantime for me to go somewhere else, I wouldn't even consider thinking about what that opportunity could offer me, because I'd be so fixated on the goal of getting to the place I've set as goal-destination. If I've said that I'm going to do something, then I have to follow it through to the end or else I'm a failure.. That's how I've always thought and how I've lived my life. Achievement made me feel like a winner..anything less and I was a failure.

Another Example.. You really want to learn a language and start a course. It's something you enjoy and have dreamt about doing for ages. But when the course becomes fixated on deadlines and on the certificate you get at the end and not on what you've actually learned whilst doing the course, then you probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as you would have done, hadn't it all have been fixated on receiving that certificate.

Diann reckons, that it's when aiming for a certain goal, brings stress and pressure with it, that it's no healthy, you're no longer living that dream and the enjoyment has gone.. The whole point of having a goal was to fulfill your lifelong dream because you were passionate about a certain hobby, interest or subject. What's the point in doing something you love, but not seeing the benefits or the fun while you're doing it..?? It shouldn't be about the achievement, but about the experience while reaching for that goal..

It's the same whilst recovering from Anna.. If I start to focus on being recovered by a certain date, then I'll loose sight of what's really going on and I won't totally get the benefits from the eating disorder.. Forgetting about time and forgetting about pressure and stress, is the only way to embrace the highs and the lows.. I've experienced first-hand how destructive aiming for goals can be, and I can only try to use the determination and passion I have to embrace the experiences that aiming for a certain goal bring with it and to just see the goal itself as a tool to keep on the right track.
As I've been told so many times before..It's not about the destination, it's about the journey..