Chasing accomplishment

I’ll admit that I am a goal setting and goal accomplishing junkie. All too often I hear from advisors, family, and in the Catholic influencer world that avid goal setting and chasing accomplishment is a sure-fire way to accomplish burnout and muddy the waters of our life with futile attempts at self-worth which borders on pride. One article from Catholic Women in Business suggests that we abandon the checkbox life and detach from our attachments in order to attach to our call to beatitude. While I agree that a life of faith cannot be reduced to one where we check the box of “I attended weekly Mass,” “I attended confession once this year,” “I love my neighbor,” I find that the concept of checkboxes and goal setting is far more complex than us setting ourselves up to fail as this article argues we do with the checkbox method. Yes, setting goals which fulfill the minimum requirement for practitioners of the faith does not mean that they actually are enveloped in the truth of relationship with Christ. At the same time, goal setting and achieving enables us to become more fully who God created us to be and allows us to practice virtues for heaven by using the specific and unique talents that God has bestowed on us individually. If we set life-time and day to day goals, we do not muddy the waters of our lives and insert unnecessary hurdles on our path to beatitude. When we correctly set goals for our life (in its big picture) and at the same time set goals for our day to day lives, we can attain holiness and not in a photo-copy type of holiness but in an “I was created as myself to serve God in a way that only myself can do.” 

  In college and earlier schooling, I would take on new projects, teams, commitments and I thrived on the busyness and stress of those tasks. It felt cathartic when accomplishing them, knowing that my unique talents contributed to my success. After college graduation I began working full time in a nonprofit organization and my work became less long-term goal oriented and more project oriented. In one on ones with my manager, I would constantly ask for more tasks and more projects to be assigned. For a year my days were filled with quick assignment completion and then hours sitting at the computer with no work to do. The satisfaction I once received from completing milestones and tasks grew to become a feeling of discontent and frustration that my life was just one menial task after another. 

I thought that satisfaction would come by climbing up the ladder to another position at work, but when that came with unexpected rejection, I was left frustrated and annoyed. It seemed to me that I was perfect for the position but those in hiring ignored my qualifications. I shared this frustration with my fiancée who reminded me that it wasn’t necessarily the prospect of this career move that interested me but the prospect of more responsibility and leadership. I think that this rejection taught me something about myself. I like to take ownership and leadership over the groups, things, and projects I am involved in. The idea of responsibility for myself and a team excites me and the idea that I am accomplishing higher level tasks and doing them successfully is what keeps me running. The thrill of successfully accomplishing a task through wit, logistics, and wisdom at the risk of failing is what drives me forward to accept new tasks. 

Through this initial rejection, I realized that my goal was not to take a higher position within the organization I have been working in but instead to earn higher degrees so that I can work in my dream job as a professor of English. If it weren’t for my rejection from that job, I wouldn’t have applied to grad school. If it weren’t for failure at accomplishing a short-term goal, I wouldn’t have opened the door to a long-term goal and dream for myself that I had harbored for a long time.

When I set daily goals, like exercising or cleaning or checking something off the to-do list, I am not confusing my time with meaningless tasks. I am giving myself opportunities to develop the virtues. From taking care of my physical body, self-control and dedication bear fruit. From maintaining a routine, patience and consistency bear fruit. From finishing tasks, we learn to see a battle through. Doesn’t the uphill battle to beatitude consist in slow maneuvering steps? 

I learn through my daily failures to check the boxes, the virtues that I need to develop. I learn that I need better self-control and to not be a slave to my body every time I opt to not go to the gym. I learn that I need to become more consistent in my relationships and obligations so I can be consistent in my relationship with Christ. I learn that all the times I promise my husband I will do something but change my mind later that I need to develop more conviction and keep my word. If I didn’t set these day-to-day goals, I would not see myself as clearly. 

As for achieving beatitude in the long-term goals, does God not set us all at different locations on the uphill battle to ward heaven? My place where I have been set is different from my neighbor and the path which I must traverse toward the summit can only be achieved by my decision-making through life. In the goal setting and realizations that I have about my vocation, my education, and what my talents and skills are, I realize what my sanctification looks like. After all, God didn’t just create us to be an army of soldiers, each identical to the next. He made us each unique and solitary because it is our uniqueness that carries us to heaven. Goal setting does not hinder our uphill battle if only we remember to look at each goal as a self-examination and realization.