Hello friends! Thanks for stopping by. In a previous post, I discussed the fact that I prepared for the things that I wanted during 2016 and 2017. I also touched on the fact that things don’t have to already be perfect in order to create a better reality in the year to come.

Today, I’m talking about goals. If you’re expecting the same kind of chatter that you would get from your average Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat “life coach”/”guru”, I’m going to disappoint you. I don’t repeat the words and sentiments of charlatans that make their living spouting off cliches and charging $97/$197/$997/any figure ending in “7” for exclusive “workshops” to tell you what you’ve already heard. I also have no interest in positioning myself as an “expert” in anything but how I choose to live my life.

Goals are as personal as fingerprints: no two people desire the exact same things. Because of this, I can only give you some general advice on setting goals for 2018. But this is the advice I’ve followed, and it worked for me, so take it for what it’s worth.

-It’s okay to start out vague. Most of the time, we are told that our goals must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Results-Focused, Time Bound). The truth is, our biggest dreams are usually fuzzy and not very specific at all. That’s because our big dreams often are some general emotion that we want to feel (happiness, joy, love, contentment and satisfaction, secure, confident, etc.,). The problem with SMART goals is that the concept disregards the WHY behind the goal. Every goal is rooted in how it will make us FEEL. So it’s far more important to understand the desired FEELING than to have a SMART goal.

(plucked from @ImprovUpdates on Twitter)

-It’s important to be honest about how you feel while aiming for particular goals. As the phrase goes, “Happy endings do not come from unhappy journeys”. To the greatest degree possible, avoid taking “unhappy” journeys in an attempt to “justify” your success. In other words, you don’t have to be uncomfortable in order to deserve good things. We often take to heart the phrase “no pain, no gain”. Yes, we can learn a lot from our pain and missteps, and yes, there are often sacrifices that must be made when going for our big dreams. But don’t torture yourself on the path to reaching your goals, simply because you *think* that the only way to get to the goal is to do it the “hard way”. The “hard way” isn’t always the best way. Personally, taking uncomfortable actions doesn’t work for me: the action must either feel neutral (doesn’t make me feel happy but doesn’t cause discomfort) or feel good to me. If the action doesn’t feel good, then it doesn’t serve me in the accomplishment of my goals.

-Get very acquainted with how you want to feel when you reach your goal, and tap into that feeling regularly. What I found is that regularly activating a particular emotion can reveal the fact that I’m much closer to my goal than I initially thought. Some emotions are harder to activate than others: activating a feeling isn’t always a clear, easy-to-do task. How can you feel “secure” when you don’t know if you will have a job next week? How can you feel “love” if you’ve never had a nurturing, satisfying romantic relationship? In cases where it’s hard to generate certain feelings, your best bet is to find someone that easily exhibits that emotion and emulate them and associate with them. Birds of a feather …

If the previous points resonate with you, try putting them into action before you get specific about what you want to realize during the upcoming year. Getting clear on your feelings prior to pinpointing your goal will help you get much closer to what it is that you really want.

adsff

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