Inspiration Thursdays: What Do You Call a Goal Without a Plan?

Because Thursday’s child has far to go…

When I lived in Tennessee there were more churches in my town, it seemed, than in any other place I’d ever lived. And nearly every church had a sign outside-the kind where they change the letters on it every week to let you know what’s going on or to give people driving by something to think about. A few years ago, driving down the road in the rain after having taken my kiddo to a Kindermusik class I saw a sign that said this:

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

It struck a chord with me. It’s been more than two years since I saw that sign and I still remember what it said. I don’t recall what church the sign was for or what day it was, only the general route I was driving, the rain…and this message. I remember laughing to myself about it at the time. It was so obvious! Wasn’t it? It was so on the mark! Right?

I read a blog post yesterday over on Simple Mom about living with intention and about having an intentional summer. I realized there were a lot of things I wanted to do to create wonderful summer memories for our family. But sure enough we are halfway through June and summer is slipping by. I have yet to accomplish any of the things I really would like to do for summer. Even the simple things. Again. It occurred to me that one more summer is just slipping by me with ideas just floating around in my brain. It became clear, reading that blog post that I have all these great intentions that are going nowhere! I sat back in my chair a minute and really thought about it. And that’s when I remembered the message on that sign outside the church. What I had on my hands was just a wish. I had no plan. And a goal without a plan really is just…a wish. For a minute I felt like I was failing my kids but the reality was, I was failing myself.

I decided, in that moment, to rectify the matter. I grabbed the closest pencil and a scrap of paper within reach and called my oldest over to me because my youngest can still only say things like “ddoowwwwww” which I’m not entirely sure means “dad” or “down” or “dog.” So while the littlest sat at our feet, I asked my oldest what he wanted to do everyday to make summer fun. You know what he said? He wants to walk the dog early in the morning when there are more birds out. He wants to paint the rock he found up in a mountain town near our home. He wants to do more art. He wants to swim and run in the sprinklers. And ride bikes to the library. These are such wonderful simple things. And they are now all on our list. We’re going to make a “summer board” to put up in the kitchen to keep us inspired this summer and keep making plans for these wishes so they become goals-attainable goals. And we’re going to have ourselves a wonderful memorable summer.

What wishes do you have, for summer or life in general, that need a plan?

Jumping into summer