On Being Goals

Because you're a human being, not a human doing

During my first maternity leave in 2014 — which was the first time I’d had more than two weeks off from work since I was a teenager — I realized how burnt out and exhausted I was. Listen, you’ve got to be some kind of workaholic nightmare when maternity leave feels like a Sabbath vacation.

Me in 2014 with my baby boy, just a few hours old. Photo Credit: Jade Brookbank

The birth of my son began a rebirth in me. It was a year of my unraveling, a mysterious undoing of faulty beliefs about my value, work ethic, and relationships. Holding, feeding, and nurturing my baby taught me about the kind of person I wanted to be. He clarified where I wanted to direct my energy and attention.

Motherhood disrupted my life and forced me to take stock of the substance. I worked without ceasing and for what? For who? Toward what end? I hadn’t taken time to consider who my work benefited in the long run, and how it impacted me, my body, my relationships. Suddenly, I experienced the most painful loss a woman can experience: the loss of my autonomy. My margin shrunk; my energy shifted; my capacity changed. And in the end, it was exactly what I needed.

Becoming a mother focused me on being, instead of doing.

Anytime our normative ways of being are disrupted, we are forced to reconsider our passions and priorities. Perhaps a divorce has you rethinking the way you parent and date. Maybe the end of a friendship has you reconsidering the way you access intimacy and connection. Or perhaps a financial challenge has you thinking about pivoting in your career.

Beyond our personal considerations, across the Earth, people suffer genocide and war, poverty and refugee crises, political and social unrest. 2024 is an election year for Americans and I’m pretty sure we’re all still reeling from the last two Presidential campaigns. A total shit show. If I see one hot take or bad take, I’m muting, unfollowing, and blocking. I don’t want to hear one word from people on social media who are not doing a thing about policies or people in their real lives. Hush, fool. Do the quiet work of neighborliness before you get loud on the socials.

As we say in the south, don’t talk about it, be about it.

Anyway, regardless of the pain present in our personal and communal realities, I think if we squint, we can see that humanity is in a rebirth as well. We are all evaluating our quality of life and thinking out loud about the necessary changes we need to make. Whenever I see this happen, I see possibilities, because people begin to ask:

Who do I want to be?

Not what do I want to do this year, but what type of person do I want to become? This framework for thinking about goals continues to transform my life. I make brave, bold decisions about where I work, where we live, how we parent because I’m asking this question and holding myself accountable to the truth.

On that first maternity leave, I decided I didn’t want to work myself into a grave for people who wanted a transactional relationship with me. I was only as good as what I produced and how much I could give to the organization. Being a workaholic, who clearly needed a few more rounds of therapy, was not serving me. So I changed. Cody and I began to deep dive into a contemplative spirituality. We got quiet and still. We started taking one day off per week (no, we didn’t do that, ever, back then). My beloved Spiritual Director, Debi, helped me find courage to quit the things that needed to be quit.

I became a woman who separated my worth from my work. You are worthy because you exist, not because of what you produce. What we make is beautiful, but who we are is the real beauty.

When I almost lost my sobriety in 2019, I confessed to my husband that I was on the edge of losing 16 years of recovery. He was so gracious and so unlike many men. He put his family first and me staying sober meant more to him than the job he loved and the city we’d moved to, together. And I’m still here, sober, 21 years next month.

I became a woman who could ask for help. You deserve to be in relationships with people who are willing to sacrifice to see you healthy and whole. We are competent and self-sufficient, but we are better when we are interdependent.

After I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in October of 2021, I knew all the years of living outside my margin had caught up with me. Bless my little heart, we had to make big changes again. I remember saying to my husband and close friends, “I’m just trying not to wake up with cancer in ten years.” So, we live on a river, with gorgeous, giant trees.

I became a woman who wants and loves the quiet life, a small life. Fred Rogers said it best, “You don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.” Of course you can do the most, but you don’t have to, especially if it’s hurting you.

It’s okay to change. It’s okay to grow. It’s okay to evolve. And while it’s the dead of winter, instead of making a long list of things you want to do, maybe you could try on the gentleness of the question, “Who do you want to become?”

Don’t be scared — I still accomplish a hell of a lot. Asking this doesn’t mean you give up your goals and dreams. But this simple reframe allows your being to inform your doing, rather than the opposite, which typically makes people miserable (burnt out and fed up).

So, in 2024, who do you want to be?

Setting being goals is a steady resistance to the culture that keeps us hustling, striving, and struggling. Here’s a few examples from my rule of life (if you email me, I’m happy to share my PDF so you can see a more detailed example of a rule of life):

Daily:

• Laughing with my family

• Sharing at least one meal with someone

• Taking all my vitamins and meds

Weekly:

• Walking by the river

• Writing for pleasure

• Face-to-face time with Cody and a friend

Monthly:

• Pedicure

• Time with Mama

• Advocacy work

Hope this helps as you think about your year and consider how you’ll live your days. I’m rooting for you, always.

Ashley

P.S. Speaking of Mama, it’s her 65th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Mom. You inspire me every day to keep pushing and to build a life that outlives me. Here’s to many more treasured memories. Thank you for being one of the first people to sign up to read my writing in the early aughts, and for loving us unconditionally, even when we’re jack asses. I love you so much!