Merry Christmas! 38 Sales (and Kat’s Top Five)…

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1. Ladies, I just ran (okay, 25% jogged, 75% walked) my first 5k today, and had to share. Happy holidays!

   1. Awesome!!! Congrats!

   2. Congrats!

   3. I have to run tomorow with Myrna, but it is goeing to snow, so mabye we will NOT have to. I have lost 2 pounds so far, so I have alot more to do by January 2. I have to loose 5 pounds by January 2, so that means NO Crumbs! FOOEY!

      If I run a 5K how far is that?

   4. congrats! you will soon be addicted to running!
      Great head-start on new year’s resolutions :)

   5. Major congrats! What a great thing to do over the holidays :)

2. Looking for some goal-setting and-achieving advice from the smart, motivated ladies of [this site], since I (and probably most of us) tend to do some reflection at the end of the year.

   I’ve come to the realization that I have never really been good at setting and achieving goals, especially in my personal life. With age 30 around the corner, the result is that I feel my life lacks meaning: my job is okay, but nothing special, my boyfriend of almost a decade is my best friend but I fear we’re missing a deep enough connection to work out long term, and I’ve been incredibly lazy about maintaining friendships and hobbies. Add in a dash of anxiety about being indecisive about wanting kids and the whole biological clock thing.

   Not surprisingly, things like checking Facebook contribute to the inferiority complex. I know, I know, comparison is the thief of joy, as someone said a few days ago. I usually avoid FB, but the few times I do log in leave me feeling boring and meaningless. At the same time, my usual FB avoidance contributes to my decaying friendships, since my friends depend so heavily on social media to stay connected. Being a natural introvert doesn’t help – I enjoy spending time with people, but it just doesn’t occur to me to initiate anything.

   This is getting kind of rambly, but I have two questions:
   1. How do you go about choosing and working toward goals that help you lead a fulfilling life?
   2. Any advice for being more diligent about maintaining friendships and trying to rebuild a social life without your brain going to comparison-land all the time?

   1. I think you must have more interesting friends than I have because most FB posts I see are: (1) photos of babies; (2) photos of pets; (3) complaints about weather/traffic/rude people; or (4) photos of food (“I’m eating a giant ice cream sundae!” “My oatmeal looks like a dog!” “Big glass of wine!”). But as for your questions, I guess on #1, what do you think makes life fulfilling? That’s just so wildly different for different people. For some people home and family are paramount. For others, feeling like they’re helping others is what matters. For some having a prestigious position matters. Ultimately I think you need to identify what your personal values are before you can take any steps toward fulfillment. I’ve learned that I value hard work, efficiency, and intellectual curiosity. If I’m doing something that involve these things, I feel I’m making a meaningful contribution. I think if you try setting goals for things that just don’t matter to you, you’re not likely to reach them. If you think they “should” matter to you, you’ll fail to reach them and feel inadequate because of the failure. So what matters to you?

      On the second point, jeez, just reach out to people. Or don’t. Do you miss your friends? Do you feel lonely? Or do you just feel guilty because you “should” keep in touch? If you miss your friends, just send an email/text/chat or call one person once a week. If you don’t, then don’t worry about it. But I really don’t buy the “I’m an introvert” bit. Introvert vs extrovert has more to do with how big a group you enjoy and whether socializing re-charges or drains you. Not taking initiative is about being lazy. (Unless you’re depressed. Are you? In that case, not reaching out still isn’t about being an introvert. It’s about being depressed.)

      Now you also mention social life in the same breath as comparison-land. Is it just seeing friends on FB that makes you compare yourself to them, or is this broader? Are you not reaching out, not because you’re an introvert, but because you worry that your friends are off doing fabulous things and if you don’t reach out to them you never have to hear about it? Because believe me, their lives aren’t that fabulous. No one’s is. The thing about FB is that people only post their highlights. If you actually interact with people, you’ll learn that, yes, they have a beautiful new baby and new house and just went to St. Kitts for vacation, but you’ll also learn that your friend’s job sucks and she misses her baby but her husband is worried about getting laid off so she can’t quit her job just in case he loses his, and her sister had a health scare that had them all frantic over Christmas etc etc. This isn’t to say that you should seek out schadenfreude, but that FB is a two-dimensional world and shouldn’t scare you off interacting with people in the real 3D world.

      Okay, sorry this is so long. Clearly there’s no reason for me to be at work today since I have absolutely no work to do (something you won’t see me posting on FB, btw — I just post how great Mr. TBK is and photos of our dog).

      1. This was PERFECT. Great thoughts, TBK.

      2. Thanks TBK, this was a great response.

      3. Thank you so much for this response. Exactly the encouragement + kick in the rear I need. I may have to bookmark it to read again. And you’re right, I’m not depressed, just get lazy sometimes, which I am trying to work on :)

   2. Thank you to everyone who has responded. Even just reading these comments has helped snap me out of my funk. The support of this community is truly amazing.

   3. Sometimes when I set too many goals (usually happens around this time) I try to be “perfect”, as in… a better friend, better wife/mom, better at being organized, work out like all the time  and eat super healthy. Those are great goals, but I tend to focus on the end result and not the effort it takes to get there. I get so overwhelmed. What I have found to be helpful is to remain in the moment and only do what I can at the time. For example, if one of my goals is to be organized then I will take five minutes and organize something! It doesn’t have to be perfect, I just have to try. If I need to be a better friend, I send someone a text message or call them on my drive home. I don’t have to plan an extravagant get together (for which I have no time) but I just reach out and make a connection. It sounds like you are struggling with perfectionism maybe? I say that because I definitely do and it paralyzes me and causes me to do nothing lest I do it imperfectly.
      Also, if you think you are depressed, don’t be afraid to get help.

      Good luck!

3. I am in similar place as you but 27 right now
   I broke up with the bf + best friend of 4 years last month as I realized we were never going anywhere forward and were just safe/comfortable in a status quo. He wasn’t ready for marriage or moving in that direction and I was feeling anxious with everything remaining just the same. Am still getting over the shock and grief of the breakup/loss of my best friend but it also feels liberating to finally look for something new or with realistic potential. I am not back to dating yet, not sure how it will go.
   I would recommend closely evaluating your relationship and not be afraid to make a tough decision if needed. A decade is a very very long time.
   As for friends/fb, 100% agree with what you said. I have turned off auto-log on to my facebook account as I often get sad/anxious/feel inadequate when looking at my friends lives moving on to next stages (engagement/wedding/honeymoon/kids etc) while I am basically at the same place as I was 6 years ago when I graduated college and started working.
   Sure, I have moved up the corporate ladder and significant jump in pay scales+bonuses over the years, but that does not make for exciting facebook newsfeed. I am proud of what I have achieved so far, and I don’t want fb to take away my joys by comparison so I barely log in these days.

   Not much of advice as I am in same boat, sure other wiser ladies will have words of wisdom for us, I will be watching this thread.

   1. This was in reply to “goal challenged” above

4. A really important thing to remember about Facebook: nobody posts their horrid credit score, child’s behavioral problems, fights w/ an SO, bing-eating low moments, bad performance reviews at work, student loan debt, health problems, etc, etc.

   Don’t compare yourself to peoples’ Facebook pictures (even though I am guilty of it sometimes)

   1. This! People also often stretch the truth or downright lie on FB. My bil’s wife’s life is nasty right now and you would never suspect it by what she posts on FB. It kind of ticks off those of us who knowwhatsgoing on that she’s so ‘la la everything is fine & normal’ when its really not.

   2. You’re right, I have to remind myself of that. It’s too easy to see just the highlights and jump to conclusions.

      1. TBK’s life goals advice is excellent!

         On maintaining friendships, it often seems to me that I don’t feel the passage if time as acutely as others do, so over the years I have sometimes gotten in touch with someone I consider a good friend, only to find I’ve been filed in the “old friends” file, and my greeting is a blast from the last, greeted cheerfully and perhaps with nostalgia for the old days, but not as anything current. I dont attrivute this to laziness or introversion, more to a sense i have that friendship is rooted somehow deeper in us than daily events, which not everyone shares. My advice to you there is to get disciplined about it. Sounds like no fun, but it is so good to be with friends I’ve known for decades, I don’t think we should just leave the survival of friendships to chance. So figure out how often your friends need to hear from you and do it. This probably means cards at birthdays and end of the year, as well as regular–calls? Texts? Emails?–in between. And we yourself a posting schedule. You don’t have to be as rigid as a business that posts something every day at the same time, but you can certainly decide you want to post maybe once a week and keep yourself to it. Look at other people’s posts for the style and topics, and keep your mental editor open all week, looking for post-able tidbits and figure out how to say it in FB. Of course, you can post more often if you want, but at least post often enough for your friends to think of you as connected, and comment on theirs as well. That doesn’t have to be brilliant, btw. An adjective “beautiful!” “So clever!” or standard response “wow” “congrats”, etc usually work just fine. Good luck.

         1. Oh wow, the “passage of time” thing is so true for me and I never thought of it that way.

5. 1. What I do is that I have one or two soft goals, and then force myself to say yes to every opportunity that could further my goal. I don´t have to create opportunities, but I must never turn one down either. The goal can be to be a better friend, or to strengthen my skills in some field. And when I look back at all the little things I´ve done in the past to move towards my goals, and the places I´ve been thanks to that, then it all looks kind of well thought out and intentional. (I assure you, it isn´t.)

   2. Comparison-land can be a nice destination if you take care to only compare yourself to the “less fortunate” among your friends. ;) Count your blessings, and grab every hand that reaches out towards you in friendship so that your 2013 may be awesome.

   1. Also, we usually compare our worst to other people’s best, which results in a no win situation for us.

   2. Thank you Pip – your strategy for soft goals sounds completely doable.

6. Agreed. “Comparison is the thief of joy”, isn’t that the saying?

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