Happy Friday!
And welcome to today's edition of ‘Conscious living with Purnima’. Hope you are having a good week. Going forward you will receive posts from me on Fridays instead of Sundays. This change is part of a little reorganization that I am doing of my life.
In today's post I will bring to light a few things that we miss paying attention to while goal setting. I also have a little exercise for you to do in the end.
Let's get to it.
Two hard truths that we are better off facing at the start of the goal setting process:
1. Achievement of your goals is not going to bring you everlasting happiness nor increase your worth:
The only goal that has the potential to bring you everlasting happiness is enlightenment. NOTHING ELSE. If you are not familiar with hedonic adaptation, then look it up. The other trap we unconsciously fall for is thinking that achieving our goals will make us more worthy. Attaching worth to accomplishments is a sure shot way of never being happy or content. We are better off dropping that idea.
Keeping this first truth in mind helps you set clear expectations and also pursue goals with the intention of learning, exploration, curiosity & personal growth.
2. Achieving most goals require that we change. Sometimes it requires that we embrace a whole new personality:
Our attachment to our old familiar ways of thinking and behaving can stall our progress towards the newer experiences that we seek - better physical, mental or emotional health, better financial health, better relationships, you name it. But this is something we don’t think deeply about.
We seldom call out our attachments, instead we cover them up, hide them, don’t address them at all as if it’s something to be ashamed of. And like shadows they lurk, and every time we decide to follow through on the steps we need to take to succeed, lure us into failing. They have a strong hold on us because we haven’t looked at them in the face and told them that they don’t serve us, and we don’t need them anymore. Maybe because we are unconsciously afraid to let them go. Change is frightening. But it needs to be addressed.
To give a few examples: Our attachment to not be seen making mistakes stalls our learning & growth, our attachment to eating foods that only satisfy our taste buds & emotions stalls our progress towards better health, our attachment to what people think of us interferes with authentic self-expression, our attachment to our ideas of how our life should be interferes with our ability to see the unique possibilities that exist in our life.
A little exercise in Goal Setting:
Step 1:
Remind yourself that achieving your goals will not increase your worth or be your happily ever after. Knowing this, you can choose goals that add value to your life and are meaningful to your heart.
Step 2:
Define your goals in a SMART way. Refer to this post on ‘Getting Unstuck’ to know how to. Being vague is a sure shot way of getting side-tracked.
Step 3:
This is the key step. Write down in your journal what ideas, beliefs, values and attachments that stall your progress towards your goals are you willing to release and let go of?
Please take some time to do this exercise and reflect on your answers.
2 Quotes:
Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others choices make us.
- Richie Norton
2. Life is so subtle that sometimes you barely notice yourself walking through the doors you once prayed would open.
- Brianna west