The carrot is changing. The more I grow into my life, the clearer I am with what my goals are, what I want, where I want to be, how I want to live, what’s important to me (and my family)…
Recently, my mom took Ollie for the day and gave Matt and me the gift of one day alone with Morgan. This gave us time to go on a long walk around town and talk about our goals intentionally, not screaming over the children competing for our attention—which we’ve also done, with detriment.
What I found interesting is that the carrot we once chased—or at least I did—has changed. The big house, loads of maintenance, big expenses, fancy designer bags, all the things I once coveted, have lost its power over me. (Nice things are important, but it doesn’t need a label for me to love it.)
Matt once told me a story about a watch he passed in Miami Beach when he was just starting his career and it stuck with me. He said:
I used to walk by this watch in the jewelry store window all the time. I promised myself, when I made my first big deal in real estate, I’d buy it. When I made my first big deal, I walked by the watch and didn’t want it anymore. I learned that just because I could have it, it didn’t mean that I wanted it.
So that’s stuck with me, and rings me like a bell more often than not these days. What do I/we really want? For ourselves, our children, our family, our careers…? Not because we can have it, but because we really want it.
One of my liberating shifts went from, “I want to write a book,” to “I want to write every day, Monday - Friday.” I really didn’t want to write a book. I just wanted to write.