The week after Christmas, we went to the beach.

Annie and Norah tried digging a heart in the sand in order to frame their cute faces for a picture. It didn’t work out very well. The heart was too wide and their initial plan changed into digging a massive hole instead.

A short while later, I asked if they wanted to attempt the heart frame in the sand again. At this point, Annie was actively being buried in sand herself, but Norah agreed to try with me. I will be honest—it seemed like a pretty straight-forward goal. Not too hard. I figured it would take about 10 minutes, tops.

Well.

I was wrong.

Norah and I tried scooping out sand in a heart shape again and again. Norah had some tips she had learned from her first failed attempts, and they were quite helpful. Regardless, our heart was pretty abstract in form. After trying for quite some time to get the best shape we could, we decided to start placing my phone in the hole and take some pictures.

This is where it really got funny.

Pictures don’t lie. What looked pretty good from our view up top became a hot mess in my camera. We made adjustments.

Click. Look. Dig deeper.

Click. Look. Fill in some sand on the left side—it needs to be more shallow.

Click. Look. Turn the phone the other way.

Click. Look. Maybe use the selfie camera?

Click. Nope.

Click. For the love…

Click.

Over an hour later, and Norah and I were laughing so hard we could barely breathe. The pictures we had looked nothing like a heart frame. I suppose that part was a little disappointing—but not much. We had laughed and giggled and spent a great afternoon together. The heart frame would have been cool, but it really wasn’t the point.

Most of us set goals in the new year. Awesome. It’s a great thing to do. I believe in having gigantic goals! Things that seem impossible! Just be cautious to not miss the point of the goal you set…it’s your personal growth, not the goal itself that matters.

In this particular case, it’s the fun you have with your kids while trying to make something in the sand, not the perfected heart frame.

I would offer three things to work on this new year:

Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Don’t be a perfectionist.

And please, please, don’t miss the point.