Get Your Goat: To annoy you to the point of getting pissed.
Do you ever have thoughts that just get your goat? Then your goat gets all spooked, jumpy, and agitated. Meanwhile you are left feeling generally, completely miserable.
Yesterday I had lots of thoughts that had the potential to get my goat like:
I’m overwhelmed.
My business is too much of a struggle.
If I was smarter things wouldn’t be such a struggle.
This all should be easier.
What if I run out of money someday?
The flooding in south Texas is so awful.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying being dry here in San Diego.
Who am I to enjoy such luxury?
And you know what? Not only did those thoughts have the POTENTIAL of getting my goat, those darn thoughts
GOT MY GOAT!!!!
And got it good.
Or rather, I LET those darn thoughts get my goat.
Yes, I fell off the Imperfect Best Wagon.
I say “Imperfect Best Wagon,” because all of the thoughts I listed above have one thing in common- They all expect life to be much more “PERFECT” than it is.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with wishing for life to be more perfect. We enjoy indoor plumbing because our ancestors thought that trudging out to the outhouse on a frigid winter night was a tad bit imperfect. And aren’t we glad they did.
But when we let our thoughts of a more perfect life get our goat, they can stop us in our tracks. If I kept letting the thoughts I listed above get my goat, I would make all kinds of changes in my life as I know it.
The tough part is that I would make these changes out of fear instead of love.
So what is there to do so that our Goat Getting Thoughts don’t get our goat and that goat doesn’t proceed to eat the life we truly want to live for lunch?
1. Notice Your Goat Getting Thoughts:
This is very challenging because Goat Getting Thoughts love to pretend to be “just the way life is.”
2. Love Your Goat Getting Thoughts:
Giving Goat Getting Thoughts love tends to calm them down so they don’t feel the need to rile up the goat. The other option is to go to war with the goat. Goats tend to become very nasty, violent and determined during such wars. There’s lots of kicking and often some inappropriate spitting.
It’s not pretty. Just saying.
3. Choose:
Ask yourself, in this moment am I going to get back on the Imperfect Best Wagon or am I going to keep battling the goat?
This is a simple, but often not an easy choice as I found out yesterday.
For what it’s worth, today I’m back on the Imperfect Best Wagon.
(For now, I’m tired of my goats spitting at me;)
This Imperfect Best Journey can be an intense one at times.
May you love your goats and keep them happy and healthy.
For more awkwardly awesome perspectives on life, check out Jason’s book, Awkwardly Awesome: Embracing My Imperfect Best, on Amazon in Kindle or Paperback!
Featured image provided by:
Andrew Branch
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