23 Minutes
Cecilia loves a good New Year’s resolution or twenty. She starts her new year off with several notebooks and charts, making vows and setting plans.
Hannah’s given up resolutions since most of hers have historically been linked to self-improvement with a negative underlying theme of “not good enough.” But she still expects to grow, and she does have goals.
What’s the difference between a resolution and a goal?
Resolution has a firmness, an all or nothing, do or don’t do, a command. A goal suggests a process, a direction with intention. Resolutions are often about stopping something that is wrong with us, whereas goals are more aligned with our sense of purpose. Resolutions replay the past, and goals direct the future.
What if the new year with all its promise was about becoming, an unfolding of our identity and experience? And what if, as we age, we could package our goals into practices that invoke pleasure, ease and play?
Join us in this week’s Twisting the Plot podcast as we ponder these questions.
As a bonus, Hannah reads an essay from her Dad, Donald Murray’s column from the Boston Globe in 1995.
Don Murray always had goals. He was a striver and a doer until his last day. But along the way, he also savored the passage.
It’s a beautiful piece.
Change is hard. Resolutions fail, goals recede. And yet, we grow.
