Chasing Joy -is- chasing goals!
One of the most fascinating things I learned when studying for my Master’s degree was how essential goals are for motivation. You have to set them when budgeting, you have to set goals when setting workout plans, trips, or even vacations. What if I told you that setting goals actually helps you be able to find the joy in life more often?
I talk a lot, and a lot of my talking is centered on the pursuit of Good. For me, Good is what life would be like if everything was working perfectly. In this analogy, Better is the steps towards good, with the resources you have now. So how do we chase joy with goal setting?
You ask yourself what would bring you joy, and it doesn’t have to be something major either. Recently, I’ve started paying more attention to the birds in our yard, at the parks, and the little things in nature as a whole. Picked up a neat monocular, downloaded some great apps for identifying the world around me and started making little games out of understanding the life that isn’t just human. (iNaturalist and the Merlin Bird ID are the apps, I’ll add some links to the end of this for y’all if you’re interested!) Part of the game for me is to take photos of the birds, plants, and other things that I want to learn more about, and then upload the photos to iNaturalist. The software does a good job of helping classify the subject, but others in the community find joy in finalizing the IDs of things. (Which is something that is likely to be true of me in the near future as well.)
Hard to see, but here's a little cotton tail hiding in the plants!
Small Goals count too!
Last week, the Houston Arboretum talked about the migratory Indigo Buntings being in the area. I’ve gotten used to finding the more common, but still wonderful cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds and the like, but this was something I don’t think I had seen before! (I will say, I still have to learn how to tell a male grackle from a crow for the super common birds, but that’ll come with time!) Emily and I brought a camera, our Nocs (Super neat little monocular!) and a bit of mosquito repellent and made our way through the wonderfully maintained trails of the Arboretum, searching for our indigo bird.
We made solid use of the Merlin app, listening to all of the birds singing and talking to each other in the background, until we started to be able to differentiate between the wrens, finches and finally the bunting itself! Reading online that a bird is small doesn’t really mean much, house finches are small, as are cardinals when you compare them to the herons and hawks of the area, but as we played back the calls of the bunting we noticed the call back and flutter of wings as one perched in a nearby tree. Striking blues on the greenery of the leaves doesn’t stand out as much as you think it would! We quickly grabbed our photos, and admired the little buddy before they took back off on their merry way.
Set your direction to "better"
So, we set out with a goal in mind, to see a bird we had not really known before, and left the park after a great hike before the Texas summer finished pre-heating. What is funny is how much more the bird calls you hear mean knowing what bird is making them. You can tell the cardinal kids are begging for food based on their consistent cries for attention. Our goal of finding, and hopefully capturing a photo of the bunting made for a memorable afternoon, and a successful one at that. It was also fun because it was a reminder that birdwatching goes both ways. As we stand out in the fields looking at these little animals, they watch and observe the world around them as well, thinking, breathing, and feeling as we all do.
No, I’m not writing this to tell you that I’m now a birdwatcher, I’m writing this to tell you that building goals that help you find your way and your joys in life are so important. Yes, there is a lot of change in the world right now. But luckily that won’t stop the sun from shining, the birds from singing or you from living your best life. I want to invite you to set a small goal for your weekend. Maybe it is to go watch the sunrise or the sunset, to stop at that coffee shop you’ve been passing for a while, or maybe just knock out an item from your to-do list that has been holding you back.
I hope that you’re safe, happy and healthy this weekend y’all. Be well!
https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
https://www.inaturalist.org/home
