Setting goals in life

[hurtbeat]

I realized today that my childhood never really taught me how to cope with life and set goals for myself.
My N- mother used to escape from her problems and preferably not deal with them at all and taught me the same "skills" when I needed her to tell me how to cope with life.

It's been almost impossible to set goals for myself, I have often become overwhelmed and any success on my part was always ignored or brushed off as nothing out of the ordinary.
I often felt like life was this endless dark space of time that you just had to drag yourself through, no excitement, no goals to work towards...
So my dreams became unreachable, I would always chase anything I knew I'd never get instead of things that seemed possible.
And I've often been inclined to do things that keeps me going backwards in life and never really succeeding.

I feel at the pit of my stomach that this is something that has really been bothering and stressing me out and it feels good to finally acknowledge that the bridge between me and success was broken from the start.
I have been feeling like all I could do is dream, that a project is easy and fun in the beginning but not worth continuing and finishing.
And I've never been confident enough to start something because it has been so hard for me to follow through.

I guess I never really understood what a big part my mother played in crippling my successfulness though I know she never really wanted me to succeed since I became her scapegoat.
She would prefer that I was mentally challenged and dependent on her for the rest of my life and I almost believed her because she had broken my confidence down so badly.

Man I have a lot of catching up to do but it feels great to have figured this out!
I thought that someone in here might relate?

[Three Roses]

I can totally relate. I have no self-motivation at all! Setting goals for myself is nearly impossible. Until I found out that dissociation is a coping skill, I just thought I was a lazy dreamer.

[sanmagic7]

hey, hurtbeat,

when i was much younger, i never finished anything i started, either.  i'd get bored with it, or just lost interest.  i never thought of the future, just kind of floated through life.  i felt confused most of the time.  whatever came down the road, i went along with it, never thought much about it or where it was going to lead me.

as i got further into recovery, started realizing things and putting pieces of this puzzle together (and, congrats to you for beginning to understand some of the foundations for all this in your life), goals began to make more sense.  one of my biggest goals right now is to continue in recovery, beat down this beast we call c-ptsd so, even if i can't overcome it completely, i'll at least be able to manage it better.  i think that's a realistic goal for me.

one thing i learned along the way is 'progress, not perfection' is an ongoing goal.  i've tackled a lot of issues, haven't been perfect at any of them, but this phrase has helped me get rid of that 'all or nothing' kind of thinking.  that would sabotage my efforts every time.

these realizations you're having sound like victories of progress to me, and you and they deserve to be celebrated.  as you continue to learn and make these connections for yourself, i don't doubt that you'll be finding more victories amongst the stumbles that we all experience.  just keep moving and you'll get to where you want to go.  that would be a goal to set for yourself!  it gets easier with practice.  best to you with this. 

[hurtbeat]

Three roses: Me too! Or so everyone told me anyway so I just assumed that it was true and an untreatable character flaw!

Sanmagic: Thank you so much again for your support  it really means a lot to me!
Yes, it has truly felt like a miracle to finally pinpoint what sort of emotion that have always kept my stomach in a tight knot.
When I wrote down some of the issues related to this topic I could feel a slight relief in my body, that's enough motivation to keep me going!
Just to be in a relaxed state and not have a knot in my stomach would be amazing as I used to think that this could only happen to me if I were dead.

I'll make beating CPTSD my goal too, I think that we can make it! 

[sanmagic7]

a knot-less stomach sounds like a perfectly wonderful goal!  go for it!

[Blueberry]

I can so relate with the difficulties of goal-setting. I remember as a child dreaming about finishing my homework i.e. the end result but not doing the steps to actually FINISH my homework. It would take hours. When I first realised this a couple of years ago, I did beat myself up over it. Like others here, I saw it as a character flaw. Not all together surprising since one FOO member often called me a loser (God, how that word still hurts even now) and the other FOO members didn't make any effort to contradict this or give any encouragement. Now however I realise I was one of those children who could have done with support. Children learn by imitating and if goal-setting is not done in your family, you may not learn it so well. My parents had dreams which were all-encompassing, constantly referred to and the opposing reality complained about and mourned, but no realistic work went into bringing those dreams about.

Of course as usual I focus on the negative. There were goals I set and attained, even major ones like move, study, get a job, long before I started any therapy.

But since being in recovery my goal-setting seems to have taken a nose-dive. Often that's because the goals turn out to be the wrong goals for me at that time, or I'm setting the goal too high, or demanding of myself that I attain the goal every day or that I reach too many goals at once. Or it's really somebody else's goal, e.g. FOO's  (lol, in a sad kind of way).

I've been learning to set small goals for myself and working step by little step.  Like I write goals down for the next 4-6 weeks as well as steps I can think of to attain these goals. I tick off the steps as I accomplish or do them (some of them are repetitive, like if I want to stay stable then a step would be taking my meds and another step would be getting out of bed in the morning).

Congratulations on figuring it out, hurtbeat     
and thanks for posting. It helps me realise I'm not alone in this.

[hurtbeat]

Thank YOU Blueberry! 
And I'm so sorry that one of your FOO members projected his or her feelings of being a loser on you, my mother used to project everything that she felt bad about on to me too. 

You bring up some valid things here, like setting goals too high that are bound to fail or setting the wrong kind of goals.
I think that has been a problem for me too, figuring out the best goals to stick to is really hard!
Some goals are obvious like: I want to feel better but the way to reach that goal can vary so much and it's hard to know the best way.
Trying and failing might be really difficult for someone with CPTSD and low self esteem so any goal we can complete deserves to be celebrated 

[woodsgnome]

Goals were and are hard for me, unless and until I can separate the old 'me' from what's really going on now. I've learned that goals aren't my enemy, but they sure felt like that growing up.

My fear of goals stems from having grown up in a religious charged environment that stressed a whole slew of goals. In retrospect most were quite arbitrary and connected more to power games than any of the values they said they were about. Didn't matter most of the time, I always fell short of the mark; sometimes this was an outright lie as they (parents, teachers, clergy and their minions) could find any excuse to reset the blame on me. I would be declared unworthy, and then punished for failing what was impossible to achieve.  This wiped out my motivation and replaced it with constant anxiety and fear of failure. I became just what they wanted--a pawn in their control and humiliation games. Theirs was an authoritarian structure insuring my failure. Eventually even the word goal--in any context--brought instant tension and resistance.

I've learned to lighten up around goals. The trick is not to regard them as proof of your worthiness, but just as signposts on the road. Goals can then act as guidelines with open horizons. Maybe I'll set a goal and discover something better along the way. I could hold fast to the original goal at all costs or accept the new outlook coming into view and drop the shackles to the past expectations. In the process, the goals become flexible. Personally, motivation remains elusive, but I'm learning to find a way by setting easy self-directed goals; in the process un-learning the habits of giving up and expecting failure.

This has helped alter my reactions to cptsd quite a bit, from hopelessness to acceptance but more important, to an openness that lays less stress on goals and more on self-compassion. Sometimes a goal might even contradict an earlier one; that's okay, it just means you've found another way, perhaps because the earlier goal needed tweaking. I look around and realize I'm no longer in my old movie. Now at least I know my goals are my own, not part of a futile attempt to please those hypocrites who set goals only as part of their control agenda. Goals, yes; that sort of thing, never again.

[Rooter Soho]

Hurtbeat,

This answers my question. I found out about cptsd about 2 months ago and have been wondering if my lack of motivation is a part of it. Guess so.

A lot of the abuse I endured from my dad was related to school work and goals. I never did homework and still got above avg grades. I have completed 2 years of college, but literally screamed for hours at the computer to write a 2 page paper. I can't go back until I get money, but I won't go back until I get some counseling.

I'm at a really low point rn. I started on Wellbutrin 3 days ago. I had a counseling appointment but the day before my gf lost her job and we'll be moving. I have a background, so it's hard for me to get a job in the 1st place, but now, I've lost all motivation. I have 2 *possible* opportunities in the near future, but when I think about actually doing them, I feel no motivation at all. I'm good at things, and people seem to like me at jobs I've had, but I'm close to giving up. Hoping the Wellbutrin helps until we get settled and I find a counselor.

[hurtbeat]

It's hard to have goals when self hatred takes over.
Makes me think I'm not worth it anyway and I self- sabotage because that's what I deserve.

[Three Roses]

Welcome, Rooster Soho! Thanks for joining ♡

[Rooter Soho]

Hurt,

Yep. But I also have an ideological issue - I'm an anarchist/social libertarian. I don't want what there is I.e., money, fame, "success". I believe food, shelter/utilities, HC, education, clothing, and transportation are human rights. All I want is a little land and to be as self sufficient as possible. I guess I can achieve that. Harder than it sounds though, in my experience. I'm great at setting goals, but horrible at meeting them. I've never had a job that could even support me and my basic needs, let alone be able to buy land or support a family.

[Blueberry]

" I'm so sorry that one of your FOO members projected his or her feelings of being a loser on you, my mother used to project everything that she felt bad about on to me too."

I'm responding a bit late, heartbeat, but thanks for this eye-opener! B1 told me often that I was a loser, and M and F never said anything to contradict that. They never said or did anything that might've given me an idea that B1 was incorrect in his estimation here. That this type of commenting could be rude, uncaring, nasty, and just plain emotionally damaging is not anything that would occur to FOO, at least not where me, the SG, is concerned.    My hurting anybody in FOO in this way, especially B1 or M - unthinkable, not permissible.

It's not till you commented on this that I even entertained the idea that B1 himself maybe felt like a loser and was projecting it on to me. B1, a strange sort of mix of put-on-a-pedestal but also physically abused and not protected, but at least the fact that he suffered was acknowledged in the family. And he was even allowed to pass his rage on to me, physically. And he did too. And it's never struck me before that he maybe felt like a loser deep down. I wouldn't say he's a loser for what he did to me, because I know too much about the intergenerational cycles of violence... but it's time I realised that he's got a fair number of shortcomings.

Added April 2: It's not that I never realised he had shortcomings before, it's more that I never even considered the possibility that I might be 'better' than him in some way, precisely because I was criticised so extensively by FOO  - it felt like this  - and because I was so unsupported. There was nobody in my nuclear FOO to show me positive aspects about myself whereas B1 was revered (despite also being maltreated and abused.) My FOO is pretty weird I agree, having one person functioning as GC and sometimes as second SG as well. 

[hurtbeat]

Blueberry: It's not uncommon to switch places from being SG to GC and back again.
It happened in my family too.
I was the eldest and also projected my anger onto my younger siblings so I can relate to your older brothers pain, it's not right but it definitely comes from ones own feelings of being worthless and a looser.
Abusing someone else also helps confirm that you are a bad and abusive person, it makes it harder to forgive yourself and deal with the guilt and shame.

I always thought that I was the worst in my family but when I talked to my siblings it became clear that we were being put down in different ways and that our mother played us against each other.

Rooter Soho: I get the feeling that there is some perfectionist issues going on here and therefore you are setting yourself up to fail before you even begin.

Sometimes I can sneak past my failure setups if I convince myself that I'm doing things just for fun and not because I have a goal with it.
It works sometimes.
So maybe you are taking classes in farming or whatever that might get you closer to knowing how to be self sufficient, but it's just for fun.. nothing serious.

By the way, I can relate to wanting to live off grid. I've thought about it myself many times. It's easier if you can provide for yourself and not depend on others that might let you down.
Same goes for other aspects in life, if we can give ourselves what we need then we won't need to trust in others and we can finally feel safe and certain about life.

[Blueberry]

Thanks for the explanation on GC to SG switching, hurtbeat! That really helps me understand more about these complex, dysfunctional systems, especially the one I come from / am still in. The confirmation about being a bad and abusive person - that's what my M and enF are still avoiding. Your explanation there helps me understand that better too. I have kind of known that for a long time, because I too had difficulty apologising for anything in day-to-day life because of the fear that this admission would obliterate me from the face of the earth more or less. I needed a lot of compassion and just being heard and validated (all in therapy, esp. group therapy), and general healing to get to the point where I could apologise for the most minor things in the present. I know M isn't there yet. It's unlikely that she ever will be, but who knows. I'm not putting my healing on hold waiting for that day.

We were also all put down in different ways and particularly B1 and I were played against each other. We're quite close in age, B2 being the after-thought. I tended to be put down in public so to speak, so everybody in the family heard and B1 repeated it all to me ad nauseam i.e. if even your M says this to you, then it must be true. Whereas B1 and B2 were generally admonished in private. But I know that M just can't 'help' putting other people down, especially children: they "need to be put in their place". But as I said, B1's place was often a pedestal. But I do know that he didn't think that M cared about him.

I don't think I was ever a GC, I think I've always been SG. Not planning on asking the Bs though, even if I were in contact at the moment, because last summer they made it clear I was in grave danger of "ruining the family holiday". The Scapegoat Blues. 

Thank you also for your honesty in telling me in a non-critical, non-judgemental way how it looks from the other point of view. 
I was criticised so much that I don't have ready access to positive, complementary adjectives. I can often only write or say "non-bad thing".

Continued good luck to you in goal-setting and goal-attaining, hurtbeat!