The Goals I Started Setting After Divorce

When my marriage ended, I stopped setting goals. Not that I didn’t have dreams anymore, but because all the dreams I had were built around a future that no longer existed.

I wasn’t thinking about promotions, vacations, or buying a home. My biggest goal each day was simply making it to bedtime without feeling emotionally exhausted.

Back then, people would ask me, “So, what’s next?”

I never knew how to answer.

I had spent so much time planning “our” future that I had forgotten how to plan my own.

The first goal I set after my divorce wasn’t ambitious at all.

It was to stop checking my phone every few minutes, hoping for a message that never came. It sounds small, but it was a victory.

Then I set another goal.

To go one full week without replaying the same argument in my head. I didn’t achieve it immediately, but I kept on trying.

Months later, my goals started changing. I wanted to laugh again without feeling guilty. I wanted to build a life that didn’t constantly remind me of the one I had lost.

One of the biggest changes was learning to set goals that had nothing to do with proving anything to anyone.

I wasn’t trying to show my ex that I was doing better and I wasn’t trying to convince family and friends that I had moved on.

For the first time in a long time, my goals became personal.

Read more.

Travel when I can.

Reconnect with old friends.

Take better care of my health.

Learn something new.

Spend less time looking backward and more time creating memories I could actually look forward to.

Looking back now, I smile at how simple those goals were.

They weren’t about becoming rich overnight or finding love again. They were about becoming myself again.

If your divorce is still fresh, don’t pressure yourself to have a five-year plan. Sometimes the bravest goal you can set this month is simply choosing to keep moving forward.

You don’t have to rebuild your whole life today. Just choose one small goal, then another.

One day you’ll look back and realize those tiny goals quietly built a life you never imagined you’d love.

Joseph Abdalla