Kellen Zeng, Period 2, 5/12/2021, Day A

Kellen Zeng 

Period 2

5/12/2021

Day A

Blog #3 - Goal Setting and Growth

For the past two years, I’ve felt as if I have been suffocated by an endless list of goals that I cannot accomplish. In fact, I don’t think I have ever managed to fulfill any of my goals simply because I cannot, for the life of me, find a way to be content with myself so instead I find a way to self-sabotage until I end up wallowing in a pit of self-pity. Typically this process can pan out in two ways, (1) I actually do achieve my goal, but because I don’t think that it is good enough, I end up changing my initial goal so that it becomes more and more unachievable, (2) I never even try to begin with because I’m so afraid of not achieving perfection. For instance, I have spent the last few weeks looking for an internship to do over the summer and not too long ago, I was given the offer to be a summer intern for the NYCLU. Although I have accepted the offer and am extremely grateful for the opportunity, I feel as if my accomplishment is nothing compared to the successes of my peers, so now I’m looking for more work to do over the summer because supposedly one internship isn’t good enough.

Fortunately, I’m self-aware enough to recognize my patterns so in an attempt to ground myself, at this point in time, my only goal is to focus on myself and do what makes me happy. It’s a very vague goal, but this way, I can do anything that I want and not constantly feel as though I’m failing. Although it’s difficult to get past all the voices in my head reminding me of the hundred different things I should be doing, I’m trying to recognize that in order for any structurally sound building to remain upright, the foundations need to be strong first. 

I’ve always been one to fall back into my old habits so in order to demonstrate resilience, I’m going to start off small, set up a routine, and hopefully develop new habits. Maybe I’ll set a specific time each day to do an activity that’ll bring me joy or maybe I’ll just listen to my body’s needs and do things in the spur of the moment. I’m not 100% sure yet, but that’s okay. I do know, however, that some things I want to do are to read a book, bake a cake, go on a walk, clean my room, begin going to therapy again, and a bunch of other things, but I’m not going beat myself up if I can’t do every single thing that I want to do. Although a part of me thinks my goal is silly because a goal for a student at Staten Island Tech typically looks more like “I’m going to get better grades” or “I’m going to study for my AP tests,” I don’t want tests, grades, and meeting crazy high expectations to be the thing that I’m working towards. I want my purpose and intentions to be set entirely around doing what makes me happy because at the end of the day that’s what’s most important.