What do you really want in life? Believe actions, not empty goals

By David McElroy · June 12, 2021

Have you ever made a list of goals for your life? Most of us have. I’ve tended to make such lists when I’ve gotten disgusted with myself. When I feel stuck, I pull out a notepad and make a list.

It’s a good thing to make concrete goals and put them onto paper, isn’t it? Sometimes, yes. But I’ve slowly come to realize something about my elaborate plans and goals.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve realized lately that I’ve mostly made those lists as a way to make myself feel better — and as a way to avoid having to take action toward what I wanted.

That’s right. My goal-setting has usually been pure fantasy. Wish lists. I might as well have been asking a genie to grant me three wishes.

I don’t have one of those lists in front of me right now, but I wouldn’t share it with you if I did, because all it would do is show you how ineffective I’ve been at pursuing my goals. I’m really good at complaining. I’m pretty good at talking.

But I haven’t been very effective at doing.

I’ve recently realized that there’s plenty of competition in this world to be heard as a complainer or as a talker — but the field for real “doers” is wide open.

There’s a dirty little secret about pursuing real goals. Every goal comes with a cost. When we’re making lists of goals, it’s easy to write down whatever sounds good.

Yes, I want to lose weight and get into shape. Yes, I want to save a million dollars in the next five years. Yes, I want a better romantic relationship than what I have right now. Yes, I want to own homes in three different places. Yes, I want to build a business that will make me wealthy.

Look at the things you say you want. If someone gave those things to you — like our magical genie — would you take them? Of course.

I’d like to be in better shape, but I really want this ice cream right now. Yes, I want to save a million dollars, but I can start next month. Maybe next year. Yes, I want love and connection with someone, but I’d rather not have to find someone new. That’s difficult. And on and on and on.

I want everything on every list I’ve ever made — but I have rarely been willing to pay the price that comes with each goal I’ve set.

Life is full of tradeoffs. I say this all the time. It’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in life. If I want something great for next year, I have to go through some pain and discomfort right now. It always seems to work that way. And when I’m unwilling to go through some discomfort — to face issues I’m afraid to face — I won’t have that great thing next year.

And my list of goals will remain just a wish list.

I’ve been thinking lately about all the things that’ve been on my lists of goals and plans. They all sound good, but I’m making some tough decisions and marking some of them off my mental list. Why?

Sometimes I count the cost of something I say I want — and I realize I don’t want it enough to pay the price.

What if you’re not sure whether you really want something or not? What if you know you want something better — new job, new relationship, new city, whatever — but you don’t know whether you’re willing to go through the pain and discomfort of making a difficult change?

Flip a coin. I’m serious.

One of two things is likely to happen. When the coin is in the air, you’re suddenly going to know which choice you’re hoping will land. Or when the coin lands and you see what it chooses for you, you’ll feel either relief or regret — telling you what you had really been hoping for.

Go with what you hope for — in that crucial moment — that the coin flip is about to show. That’s what you really want.

Now just go do it, whatever the cost is. And stop making excuses.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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