Disability and my goals for 2024

(Please note that this blog is personal and about my own experience and perspective - it will definitely not apply to all disabled people.) 

Not long ago someone asked me what my long term goals were - both personal and business.

The question left me unexpectedly lost for words - I couldn't answer it. It made me realise I don't have any traditional goals except 'Manage my health as best as I can' - but even that has no specific end point. No specific 'if I can do this, I have succeeded'.

Does this mean I intend to just drift through the next year not doing anything? No. 

I have a list of practical things it would be nice to achieve - but these are a list of 'potential options' to be used if the opportunity arises at a time where it is possible and practical, or if it seems like the best decision.

Things like:

• Grow Stickman Communications
• Create new products
• Take my stickmen to some of the big disability events
• Run a series webinars on communication around health
• Run a series of in person evens on communication around health
• Run some events around accessibility for small businesses
• Increase the number of hours I can work in a week
• Improve my swallowing
• Improve my fitness
• Do some home repairs/improvements
• Spend more time with friends

etc.

So why don't I make them goals?

Because I know myself. 

If I set myself a goal, I will go all out to achieve it. 

Which sounds good....except that with very limited energy that would mean reducing the energy spent on other things. And with unpredictable health that is affected by everything from the weather to how much I talk and sleep, what I eat, how long I am upright etc - my time and available energy is unknown and hugely variable. I have to chose what I spend that precious energy on - I can't add things in, I have to make either / or decisions. 

In addition, I live on my own so I can't hand over daily living tasks for someone else to look after while I meet that goal, to free up extra energy/time.

So if I set my goal as running a webinar series - I would almost certainly achieve it. But at what cost to my health? Pushing through my limits to achieve it would mean a negative affect on my health that lasts months. Any positive impact on my business would be lost due to the months of reduced capacity that would follow. So while I would technically have achieved my goal - I would also have lost a lot of things that I consider too valuable to lose, and the achievement would have no long term positive effect. It would, in fact, be worthless to me. Worthless and meaningless.

For anyone who thinks this is catastrophizing, it's not. It's something I've experienced in the past, and based on my current health would almost certainly happen if I tried it again now. If my health improves a lot then I'd be up for trying it again - which is why it's on my 'possible options'. I am currently thinking to try running one or two webinars during the year as I've improved enough over the past year to think a few individual webinars should be doable - then I'll see how I react to that and make decisions from there. But at present a committing to a series just isn't wise.

And when it comes to health goals, there is only so much within my control.

For example, I have a goal to do my best to manage my health effectively. 

The effect of this might be that my health is better by the end of the year. But it might not. There are so many external factors beyond my control that will impact my health and ability to function (anything from catching COVID to a summer heatwave or family stressors) - why would I set myself a goal where external factors are highly likely to dictate failure? 

So instead, my goal is to be able to look back on 2024 and say:

- I did my best with what I had

- I made some good memories

- I gave other people some good memories