Keep Moving Towards the Goal

I am a big goal-setter. I love the process of setting goals. I love helping other people set goals. I am a health coach, so the idea of having a goal just excites me. However, I am extremely critical of myself; I’m sure many can relate to this. Being extremely critical of myself leads me to easily feel like a “failure”, which then leads to quitting what I started, which then leads to self-resentment, which then eventually leads to being so disgusted with myself that I end up setting another really big goal to try to completely fix everything. Then when I ultimately do not reach this goal, I enter the same negative cycle of feeling failure, resentment, and then quitting again. I could talk about this situation and how it relates to dieting all day long, because this is how I have lived my life since I was about 12 years old - a roller coaster of weight gain and weight loss (which I am finally getting a handle on in a healthy way). I will most definitely write about this in another blog post, but today I wanted to write about something that happened very recently, that is not food-related.

Up until recently, I have never purchased my own car, and have never had a new car. My last two cars were my mom’s. I believe the first time this happened, my mom’s car had been paid off, so she gave it to me. I purchased the second one from her 11 years ago, a year after she had purchased it new, so that was almost a new car! (I felt terrible about that). I am forever grateful for her help with my car situation. However, starting a couple of years ago, I really began to want my own car that was completely mine, that I had worked hard for, and picked out myself (and that was a color other than gray). With 2 little kids, my car being in bad shape (to say the least), and longing for that feeling of purchasing a car of my own (an SUV would be ideal), I was determined.

At first I began to loosely plan out a goal for buying a car. Finances were very tight, after having a new baby and the expense of 2 kids in daycare instead of just 1. Throw in a job switch with some months of being unemployed…my goal to purchase a new car remained a loose plan. A mere daydream, if you will. However, I still saved what I could. At the end of 2023/beginning of 2024, I got my first bullet journal. I wrote down a huge goal - to purchase an SUV by the end of 2024. I even added a “bonus” goal of wanting to purchase the car outright so that I would not have a monthly car payment (I told you, I set big goals). I had never had a car payment, so I thought it would be cool to continue to avoid one, if possible.

Throughout 2024, I put as much money as I could into savings. This was not a lot, but I did what I could. After my son graduated from daycare, we were relinquished from a big chunk of monthly expenses. I was finally able to start saving more money towards my car! However, I also ended up spending more money on my current car, which was starting to decline more quickly than ever. I always had an array of warning lights on in my dashboard. New sounds developed, the most strange one being a loud clicking sound in the glove box area whenever I turned on the car, or turned on/off the heat or AC. The clicking would last for several seconds. I took my car to the mechanic multiple times - they were not able to figure out the issue with a basic diagnostic test, and they told me that the cost of doing a more thorough test would probably be more than the car is worth at that point, and there was the risk that they still might not figure out what is wrong with the car (I really appreciated their honesty). I even took it to the dealership twice, where they were also unable to fix it. It was coming up to the end of the year, when I needed to renew my tags, since my birthday is in November. At this point, I had spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to get my car fixed enough so that it could pass the e-check. Side note, I really don’t like how some counties are required to do an e-check to renew their tags, and some counties are not required to do so. Anyway, my car still was not fixed, I had spent a lot of my savings on trying to fix the dang thing, and the car market was still horrible. I was extremely disappointed, but I decided to pay the fee for failing the e-check, so that I could get my tags renewed - if you spend a certain amount of money trying to fix the car, they can waive the e-check. Which basically I am interpreting as if you pay enough money they no longer care about the safety concerns of the car that cannot be fixed.

It was the end of 2024, I had thrown a bunch of money at my car, and I was still stuck with it because I could not afford a new car. This is one of those moments where I felt like a failure, even though I had worked hard to save money. At the end of the year, I disappointingly noted in my bullet journal that I had not reached my goal to purchase a new car at all, let alone outright.

Then it came time to make my new bullet journal for the new year. I entered the same goal I had the year before - to purchase a new car, specifically an SUV, outright by the end of 2025. I was still feeling hopeful because of the hundreds of dollars extra I now had to put towards savings each month with my son being out of daycare, but I was still very concerned about the safety of my current car, and the state of the car market. But I pushed onward, as I did not really have much of a choice. Purchasing another used car just seemed pointless to me, when I was trying to save up for a new car, and the price of used cars was insane compared to what it used to be. My husband and I figured if my car broke down for good, and I still could not afford a new car, that we could somehow make it work with just his car until I was able to afford a new one.

I kept hoping and praying that somehow my car could make it until I had enough money saved up, or that somehow I would miraculously receive a large lump sum of cash. At this point, I had given up on trying to purchase a car outright and accepted that a monthly car payment was going to be my fate.

Mother Nature decided to be very brutal this winter season. Lots of snow, lots of ice. Not good for my 12 year old car that was already hanging on by I don’t know what. After the second major snowstorm of the year, I was driving through the grocery store parking lot, when yet another light appeared on my dashboard. This time, it was a welcomed sight - my ABS brakes kicked in because it was very slippery. I was finally proud of my car for doing something right. Well that pride was fleeting, because then my brakes would not get out of ABS mode. Actually, every time I started my car, I would have no functioning brakes until the ABS mode kicked in, even when there was no ice. It would take anywhere from 5-20 seconds for the ABS brakes to kick in so that I could actually stop my car. Sometimes if I just sat in the car after turning it on, the ABS brakes would activate without me needing to actually move the car, so at least there was that.

After dealing with this lovely new defect for a couple weeks, my husband and I joked about when the next light would appear on my dashboard, and what it would be for. Then we looked at each other and he said “I don’t feel safe with you driving your car”, to which I replied “Yeah…maybe I should just somehow get a new car now.” It was either a Tuesday or Wednesday night, and we made plans to go to the dealership on Saturday. My husband asked his parents if they could watch the kids while we were car shopping, and they were able to. Everything was all set for me to finally get a new car. But I still had some doubts. I hadn’t been able to afford a new car just a few months ago, so why would I be able to afford one now? What if my credit score isn’t good enough and I get denied for the loan? Should I lease a car instead? I had already picked a car that I was really interested in, so my husband and I looked into what leasing the car would look like. After doing some research on leasing, I decided that buying the car would be the best option for me. This would raise the monthly payment (basically double it), but we did the math and used a price estimator, and I shockingly would be able to afford it. I started to get excited, but of course did not want to get my hopes up in case it didn’t work out.

Over the next few days, I didn’t tell anyone about my plan to buy a car. My excitement and nerves continued to build. On Saturday morning I felt anxious. I talked it out with my husband - I expressed my nervousness, my doubts, and my worries. He reassured me that I did not have to buy a car today, even though it would be ideal to get a new car as soon as possible. He reassured me that I didn’t have to say yes to anything I wasn’t comfortable with (I was so glad that my husband would be there to help me if he saw that someone was trying to be tricky with me just because I’m a woman). I felt better, and said “Ok, let’s do this.”

He left to bring the kids to his parents’ house, and I stayed back to clean out my car. This entire scenario is a story in itself, but I’ll keep it brief here - my car was like a combination of a garbage can and a time capsule from the past 10 years. I can blame most of the mess on the kids, with their cracker crumbs that are as permanent and messy as glitter. But…I will admit, I was definitely part of the problem. Driving was a big part of my previous job, so I spent a lot of time (and meals) in the car. Over the years, I had done clutter cleanups, but a deep clean…not so much. Anyway, as I was cleaning out my car, I found some artifacts. I discovered not one, but two iPod classics. One of them had my beautiful nail polish artwork on the back. So basically, cleaning my car was a very strange, hectic, nostalgic, and cathartic experience. And freezing, might I add, as it was a very wintry first day of March.

My experience at the dealership was great. The sales person was awesome, and I was actually able to purchase a higher upgrade to the car I had originally been interested in. I stood my ground when speaking to the finance person when he offered many additional bells and whistles to the agreement, although I had to say “I’m not comfortable with paying that additional amount” about 4 times, and my husband firmly said “No, don’t add anything else”. After about 6-7 hours at the dealership, I finally drove away in my new car. I was so excited to show my mom that I purchased a car, because she understands all the car trouble I had been having. Also, because I love surprising her. I drove my new car straight to her house. She was so surprised and happy for me. It was a really cool moment. It was a huge accomplishment and I actually felt very proud of myself, which is difficult for me to do.

Later that evening I was reflecting about the day. It still felt surreal. Then I realized something - I had been so disappointed because I hadn’t met my goal to purchase a new car by the end of 2024 at all, let alone outright. But after just a few more months of saving money, combined with the car buying market improving a little bit, I was able to finance a brand new car that is fancier and bigger than what I thought I could afford. The overall goal of getting a brand new car was achieved - it just wasn’t achieved in the original timeframe that I had planned on. Just because a goal is not achieved by a specific deadline - which, let’s be honest, we tend to set goals that are way too difficult to accomplish in the amount of time we have given ourselves - does not mean that we should just give up on it. In this situation, I did not really have the option to give up on the goal, because my family’s safety and needs were on the line. But in other situations where I have set goals that will only affect me directly - like with weight loss, as I mentioned earlier - if I don’t reach the goal by this crazy made up deadline, I get so discouraged and give up on the idea altogether, until I ultimately get tired of being stuck, and then I set yet another extreme goal that I will inevitably not reach. Therefore, it’s just this maddening cycle of starting and stopping, without giving myself a reasonable amount of time to actually make some progress. This all-or-nothing mentality is very damaging to our mental health. First of all, we need to set more reasonable, realistic goals so that we are not setting ourselves up for failure from the beginning. Second of all, if we try hard and still do not achieve our goal by the deadline we have set - yes it can be disappointing, but giving up on the goal is not going to do us any good either. If we just take time to evaluate the situation (what worked, what didn’t), adjust our daily goals if needed, and set a new deadline, then that allows us to continue working towards the goal. At the same time, it encourages us to work hard to make positive changes, but not from a place of self-loathing. It will be from a much more positive, loving place internally. Now say you get to the next deadline you have set for yourself, and you end up getting about ⅔ of the way to the goal - hey, that’s amazing progress! Then you can evaluate, adjust, and set another deadline. Then say by the next deadline, you have successfully achieved your goal. All in all, say your goal took 6 months longer than you originally had hoped for - this is still way less time than if you had quit altogether, waited awhile, gotten mad at yourself, made another impossible goal, inevitably failed that one again, and on and on and on.

Bottom line, of course we want to reach goals. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try our best to reach a goal by a reasonable, realistic deadline we have set. But life is going to slow us down at times in some way. If we had all the time in the day to dedicate to our goal, of course we would be able to reach it way faster. But we have other things going on. I still like to set deadlines, because this gives a specific benchmark to work towards. But if the goal is not met by that original benchmark, as long as forward progress is being made, it is ok! I have started to apply this concept to all areas of my life. I didn’t lose 4lbs last month like I wanted to - I only lost 1.5lbs. In the past I would have gotten so down on myself, given up on the weight loss goal, and binged on a bunch of food because I “ruined” everything anyway. Then I would gain all the weight back which then actually ruins the progress I had made, and then I would enter a stage of self-hatred that brings me right back to setting another impossible goal that will ultimately lead me to weight gain instead of weight loss. This time, I thought, “I did not reach my goal, which is disappointing. I acknowledge that. But I still made a little progress, which means I’m doing something right. Let’s reevaluate, make adjustments, and set a smaller goal to lose those other 2.5lbs within the next few weeks.” It’s been slow progress, but steady progress. I just keep chipping away at the goal. I encourage everyone to just keep going - if the goal still matters to you, of course. If you decide that you no longer want to try to reach the goal because it no longer aligns with your values, or now is just not that time to be working on it, then that’s ok. But if you really truly want to accomplish something, just keep going and adjust as needed. There are going to be times when you feel more motivated and can move the needle farther. There will also be times when you are overwhelmed with life and need to slow down on your progress towards the goal. This is ok. This is life. We don’t always have the energy or capacity to put 100% effort into a goal, but giving 50% effort into a goal for a while is better than 0% and giving up.