[Note from the future: The embedded link seems to not be working, but the URL at the bottom of the page is active.]
I told my team today about all the things I want to do with my life, and I was surprised how positive they were about it. There was no mention of “Well, you might not succeed.” It was unnecessary because of course I’ve considered the possibility that I might not succeed. Very few meaningful ventures come with zero risk attached. After years of being told by well-meaning people from the Department of Mental Health and similar places that the best thing I could ever hope to achieve would be to be a “peer specialist” for other people with mental illness, it felt good to be seen as a complete human with dreams and ambitions. The individuals I’m working with now have actually never shot down my dreams, but it’s still hard for me to trust because I’m used to a different response.
My doctor told me about the benefits of “reach goals.” I googled it and the link above was all I could find. Basically, a reach goal is like the old cliché, “Shoot for the moon and you might just land among the stars.” It’s hard to google because I just get a lot of search results for “how to reach your goals” with “reach” being a verb rather than an adjective to describe a specific type of goal. But it made me feel amazing that I didn’t have to hide the part of myself that still has some self-esteem, as I have done for years. Usually, if I dared to express my ambitions, treaters seemed to think I was bipolar and hypomanic. I asked my doctor today if I was hypomanic (despite the fact that I have no diagnosis of bipolar disorder) and he reassured me that this was motivation, not hypomania, and it was good and I should “capitalize on it.”
So, I’m going to!
References
Oshinsky, D. (2016, January 14). Setting A Reach Goal [Blog post]. Retrieved October 12, 2021 from https://danoshinsky.com/2016/01/14/setting-a-reach-goal/