Preface: This blog was originally written to be published in January 2024…but once you see the topic, you’ll appreciate the grace I’m giving myself to publish it in January 2025 instead! Trust me when I say, it applies any year. 

A Delayed Publication with Timeless Lessons

My favorite coffee mug isn’t the one a friend bought me that says, “I’m a mother with a doctorate, don’t underestimate with me!” (sorry, Scooter!). Nope, my favorite mug has this printed on it: 


Embrace.
Selective.
Mediocrity.

The Pressure of Goal Setting and the Reality of Life

I’m a big goal setter. I don’t obsess over my goals, but I do put considerable time into lining up goals in key areas of my life (financial, spiritual, health, professional, family/marriage, learning, social – mostly built from Dave Ramsey’s goal-setting materials, which are great resources, BTW). I have every intention to conduct regular check-ups on my goals and recalibrate where and when needed. 

Then there are years like 2023. 

When I completed my 2023 goals, I neglected reviewing them on the first of each month despite one of my stated goals being to do so, and I even had a monthly calendar reminder!   

Anyone ever been there? Life happens.  

But not to be discouraged, I sat down to write my 2024 goals a couple of weeks ago. 

Commence staring at a blank page of paper. 30 minutes later, still blank. 2 hours later, still blank. 

I prayed, I begged, I threw a minor tantrum. Then, clear as a bell, there it was… 

“Do less to do more.” 

The Paradox of Selective Mediocrity

That can’t be right?! Perhaps it was supposed to be “Do more to do more.” Nope.  

I spitefully scribbled it down anyway.  

What does this mean? How can this be? God, are you sure?  

I looked at the coffee mug sitting on the table next to me…Embrace. Selective. Mediocrity. 

It flies in the face of society, of Type A personalities the world around, and of our culture’s insistence on earning our worth. (See my post on why busyness is the badge of dishonor.) 

Yet it flies right into the person I desire to be… 

Leaving the laundry until tomorrow to play games with my kids. 

Closing my laptop 30 minutes early to walk down our farm road and talk with my husband. 

Turning down an “opportunity” to spend quality time on what I do say “yes” to. 

Not beating myself up when I just need to go to bed at 8pm! (#truth) 

A Journey Toward Prioritization and Joy

Now, hear me when I say this doesn’t mean I don’t care about quality – quality in my personal and professional life. Quality in the details that make up those goal categories above. Quite the contrary. It means making room for what truly matters and giving my best to those things, people, and opportunities that I have chosen to say “yes” to. Catch the difference there. 

My dear friend Matt McGee wrote a fantastic book called The View from the Rocking Chair in which he walks the reader through prioritizing life’s seeming “demands” so that when you are 80 and rocking on the front porch looking back on your life, you can take comfort that you will truly be satisfied in the choices you made along the way. 

Whatever it is for you.  

More than setting 147 goals and jumping on the shame train for not attaining them all, I have found my time is better spent aligning what these priorities look like for me. 

Do I have it down? Not even close! 

Are there areas where I still crash and burn? 100%. Daily. 

But I refuse to give up.  

Embracing the Unknown

This method was so effective for me in 2024, that I’m embracing it at full steam in 2025. I was astonished at how much more balance, peace, joy, and – not surprisingly, productivity abounded in my life. Join me on the journey of Doing Less to Do More!

I accept that it is a journey, not a destination. And everyone – yes, even our closest family and friends – are on their own journey. Living out their own purpose. We don’t get to dictate their journey, we get the privilege of supporting it. 

Yes, it’s counter intuitive. “Do less to do more”. Just like “give to get”. This is where life, and true Joy, reside. 

That is the beauty in it. And I was starkly reminded of that during my 2024 goal setting effort. 

For giggles, I opened my 2023 goals this morning, January 3rd, 2024. And do you know what? Skimming through it, I realized that I surprisingly did accomplish many of them, and the ones I didn’t, seemed totally less important now than when I wrote them last year. 

So, in 2024 I’m choosing to cut back on the lists (most of mine start with “make a list” anyway), the boxes waiting to be checked, the “I can do that, too’s” and the “One more little thing won’t wreck my calendar’s”. I’m choosing to do less to do more. 

Do I know what it means? Nope. Do I know how I’m going to do less? No clue (but I’m getting some ideas). Do I know what the year will hold? Not a chance. Do I trust the process? Absolutely! 

Cheers to you and you crushing your 2024 goals…whatever they may be! Let me know how I can support you along your journey.  

Evoke a thought. 

Table of Contents

Dr. Jennifer Stoll

President & CEO
Cimarron Global Solutions

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