Milestones

You won’t be hearing from me for a few days. My husband is hitting one of those milestone birthdays so we’re off on a trip to celebrate it.

Milestone birthdays (21, 30, 40, etc.) are often surprisingly difficult for creatives. Often, one will feel like s/he hasn’t achieved “enough” by that birthday–like there is some sort of scale and if you don’t have $X or a house (or the RIGHT house) or X awards or whatever, you’ve somehow failed. Of course, there is no such scale. It’s only in our heads, if we have one (a scale, not a head), and we can choose not to hold ourrselves up against that imaginary scale if we want.

That’s not to say that having goals is bad–it’s not. In fact, having concrete goals is a great thing. It only goes bad when you beat yourself up for not achieving a goal. So, instead of using a milestone to hit yourself with, why not choose to look back on all you HAVE accomplished instead? Then you can set more goals, and move forward knowing that you can do it.
My goal for the next few days is to help my husband have a great birthday and to enjoy a couple of days R&R. Of course, a couple of days off for me will mean I’ll probablly have plenty to say when I get back into the office–on Tuesday.