I’m a fan of The Red Green Show.  I have even gone as far as completely and utterly embarrassing myself in front of 200 co-workers and their spouses by doing several skits at the company Christmas Party with Red Green Theme. A co-worker and I wrote and performed a Red Green Show take-off that involved him (my co-worker) dressing up as Red Green, while I took on a guest appearance as Tim “The Toolman” Taylor one year, and Martha Stewart the next. We then basically made fools of ourselves for 10 or 15 minutes while everyone ate and drank. Apparently my brain doesn’t consider terms like, Career Limiting Move, when it comes to attempting to make an ass of myself in front of colleagues.

Rick Green, one of the creators of The Red Green Show, is one of the founders over at TotallyADD.com. His post today rang several bells for me that have been dinging in the back of my head of late. I previously wrote a bit about my ADHD and Goals. The idea that Goal setting is important for everyone, but I feel it is particularly important for someone who is working through Attention Deficit Disorder issues to have goals well defined.  In particular, if you are heavy on the Impulse or Lack of Focus spectrum of ADHD (which I am).

In Rick’s blog post, he speaks about how many ADDers suffer from the problem of becoming a Yes-(wo)Man. Not in the kiss-your-bosses-ass kind of Yes-Manner…more in the, “Yes! I can do that…and that! Oh! And that too!” kind of way. Saying yes to every great idea of flight of fancy to the point where there is no physical way for you to get it all done. Your impulsive side gets excited almost instantly and suddenly you’re chasing another project. Sometimes this is great, other times….not so much.

Setting goals is a way to put a filter on your impulse to say yes. For example, if your goal is to get up at 6 AM four days a week and go for a run so that you can finally break that 50 minute barrier in your next 10K, you now have something to measure against when your buddies call to go out drinking the night before a scheduled run. If the running truly is the priority, a night with the boys can, and should, wait.

Now where all this really starts to sink into the nitty gritty of life, is when you’re setting life goals. How and what do I want to do with my life. I quite envy those who (appear) to have this figured out at a relatively early age. I suspect that as you progress through life, the idea that what you thought was ideal for you at 25 is no longer what turns your crank at 40. I also wonder if Attention Deficit has an influence over this thought process.

Call it a mid-life crisis or maybe it is just a life change, but the reality of it is that I have been putting a lot of thought into what it is that I want to be doing with the next 20-odd years of my career. If I dig a bit deeper with Rick’s thought process in his post, I have a choice. I can either move forward in life doing things that I love to do or I can do things out of fear.

I am sure that fear is a subjective term that is different for everyone. Some might fear their social status being razed by not having their ideal job, other’s it is a paycheque, and others….well, I don’t know. I am sure the options are endless. All I know, is I feel that for me, many of my decisions lately have been more out of fear than out of love. Rick’s post was timely for me in that I do have a tendency to get distracted by the next great idea. But now, if I start figuring out what it is that I truly love to do, then I can start tailoring the rest of my career towards that which I love to do.