Natural born showgirl talks about being 'unambitious' without a goal

Was buying garlic and potatoes earlier today, while recalling my recent conversation with a few of my colleagues, along the line of setting goals for a company, or an art collective. My initial response to the topic of 'having goals' was that I just happen to be the kind who don't operate on setting goals first, and then work towards the goals. 

I stood in front of the broccoli shelf while I worked this out about myself and decide to write – writing, it’s a good way to check if my thinking is through, or sound or not. Now that I am back at my work desk I am going to expand on it. 

So this piece is about how I have been living all my life without long terms goals (at least that's what I think I have been operating all this while), and the long and short of it; and on the joy of doing things for the joy of the act itself without setting an end-result…definite goal.

This is an entry that I would like to invite you to share your thoughts and your stories, opinions, suggestions - let's make conversation. 

Earlier this week I had a casual work meeting with my TSS gang and a potential business partner. One of the topics centred around understanding what we want as an artiste and setting goals. I bluntly confessed to everyone that I don't have goals.  A round of laughter later (mostly at my blunt honesty), my partners Winnie and May both said that they are well aware of my lack of fixed long term goals.  I never hide the fact that I am not a visionary team player. I am grateful for having Winnie in the pack, the one with more foresight and vision, to tempt me and May to leap ahead.  In that aspect, I think I have been playing a supportive, and useful partner, despite my lack of long term vision for the group. 

You see, while in a group – whether at work or leisure travelling with friends - I am willing to follow and give my best in support  for a common group goal.  Whether it is to wake up with my travel mates for a 6am run, or taking my TSS agency to the international stage, I see the goodness in achieving a common goal, I see that as a human trait – pursuing something as a collective.  Being a good team player has been something I work on in the past five years, it has become part of who I am.
The answer I found was that the “goal” was just to dance, and to sing. I have this innate desire and need to move, and sing. So I did it.  Went through it in the most elaborated troubles, of producing, funding, rehearsing, and performing the concert - just to cross the finish line.   Of course, by the end of that two-night concert I was still far from being excellent in dancing while I sing, but I only cared that I did what my heart wanted me to do.  I did what made sense to me (maybe only to me), and was lucky to have a bunch of colleagues and teachers who went along with me on the ride to “just dance, and sing.” 
So what is it that I do?  Or rather, what is it that my heart wants me to do?  To sing, dance, act, read, write, cook, to style a look, to listen to stories, talk to everyone and anyone.  I’m happy to just do all f that, a life packed with doing all of those above, and then I die, happy.

But on my own, I am an entirely different creature.  I’m probably a lot more like an animal who is driven by her ‘animalistic instincts’. 

Before I staged Cinnabar Rouge the cabaret concert – a project that I initiated solely for the purpose of giving myself a stage to sing AND to dance, that was what I told my old friend Nell Ng, whom I asked to direct the show - I asked myself many times over – what is the point of it? Why do I need, and want to be a singer who dances on stages? What did I need to prove? And to whom? I was never going to be dancing professionally in this life time.  So why?

So in a way, I do have a goal, right?   That my goal is to indulge in what makes me tick.  Many thing happen to make me tingle with excitement and desire. The list is long, and my resources are limited, so I have to pick and choose.   Even so, I still choose one too many, this explains why many look to me as the girl who is everywhere, doing ‘everything’. 

In my short 42 years of life,  I realise that whilst carrying out what I love doing, I get the chance to be taught how to live as a better human being. 

Yes, I truly believe that the bigger picture of doing the things we love, is to eventually become a better human being.  For example, while I’m learning to be better at singing, and dancing, I am also learning perseverance, self-care, patience, acquiring an intellectual aptitude, and curiosity about music and arts – all these will make me a better, probably a kinder person towards others. 

And I care about being kinder.  

While writing all these, something hit me – I wonder if my lack of concrete goals and ambition is in fact, my subconscious way of protecting myself from rejection and failures.  You get me? You see, I can never fail in anything that I do if I never set up an end goal, or a measurable benchmark.  

Wow, I have never thought about it this way.  Not until now.  I guess I will have to dig deep.  Wait for my findings later on when I have.

Mark Manson said that the best part of a country or culture is also usually the worst.  I suppose in this case – the best thing about my attitude towards pursuing something I love, is also my worst trait – in that I don’t push myself to greater, and measurable heights in my pursuits of things I love. 

More than 10 years ago at a chance gathering where Joe Sidek had a moment with me, asking the younger me what was, and if I had a goal in 5 years. I said, err, that I’d be still singing and happy that I was still singing. He suggested that I start to visualize what kind of couture gown I’d be wearing in 5 years, what kind of stage I’d be performing on, to whom I’d be singing to...in 5 years. I can’t say that I’ve bought into the concept since then but that was the first instance that a teacher and friend introduced the idea of ‘goal’ to me.

Bringing it back to the present.  I fluctuate between complacency and a basic sense of ‘hungry for more’.  I know this is not a very…organised way to live, work.  Haha, so that’s where my friends, teachers and colleagues come into the picture - to fuse, and to nudge my pure energy of “moving and doing” into actually working towards amazing goals, or achievements.  I give myself plenty of headspace and flexibility to be inspired, into working for something bigger and grander than what I would do on my own. 

If you have read this far, thank you.  And for that, I let you in on something…

I DO have a future goal…two goals in fact.  One, I would like to still make a third album, I even know what color of album cover I want (white); two, I would like to work on a solo comedy-musical show and stage it, before or by the time I turn fifty.

That's all for now.  I hope to hear from you on this topic.

p/s - I was writing so much that I had to reread a few times to crop away some unnecessary bits.  This passage here was one of those I edited out: 

  

To break it down into something easier to visualise, let me use examples to illustrate my lack of 'ambitions'. I had no goals, no vision of what I want to be when I leave school, when I was a teenager.  In fact, I probably prayed very hard that I don’t end up one day old and destitute, and living on the streets.  Years later when I quit a full time salaried job to be a performer, I hadn’t set any goal to see me through the unknown waters ahead, gee, I did not have any superstars dream, don’t ask me why, I don’t know. (I think it has a lot to do with my subconscious pessimistic mind).  I only made decisions to quit, and to set out to execute a whole bunch of action plans, which included printing new name cards, set up a website with my bio and contacts on it, and network like crazy.  I didn’t set any financial goal, any musical goals, I lived from project to project and frolic my seasons through high spirit of ‘doing what I love’ and I truly love all of it – including all the pains and struggles that came with the love.