What was the last goal you set for yourself? Did you make it? How did you feel afterwards? Was your success of that goal the motivation for your next one?
Goals are critical in assisting us with determining a direction that we want to go and ultimately sustain a level of satisfaction and contentment within our life. And the process of setting goals is a very empowering, as long as we don’t set ourselves up with limits at the same time.
This happened to me the other day as I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill. I had set a goal to work out for 30 minutes. The problem was not the goal of working out for 30 minutes, it was the fact that as soon as my fancy little timer hit 30:00, I immediately hit the “STOP” button. As I cooled off and got my heart rate down, it occurred me that I could easily have worked out for another 10 or 15 minutes or engaged in another type of exercise. In my head, all I had to do was the 30 minutes. It didn’t matter that I could do more just as it would not have mattered if I had started working out and realized that I could only do 15 minutes that day. The goal of working out and moving my body had become my limitation of working out for only 30 minutes.
This is a very concrete example, but it lends to thinking about more abstract goals in your physical, emotional, and spiritual life. Have you ever created a goal for yourself and simply stopped when you reached a particular finish line? Or perhaps you didn’t meet the goal and quickly negated all of the work you had successfully accomplished because it didn’t meet the ideal outcome that you had created in your mind. You have to consider if a particular goal results in feeling exhausted and relieved or if the goal instills satisfaction and inspiration within you.
When we set a goal that speaks to our deepest intuition, the simple acts of working towards it create satisfaction within themselves. It is crucial to create an environment that is compassionate, understanding, and realistic versus critical, absolute, and judgmental.
As with anything, this is a practice. The next time you are working on a particular goal, remind yourself of your intention, your abilities, and your resources. This establishes guidance, strategies, and determines direction. Goals are meant to be specific and measurable, but they are not meant to limit or restrict us.
When we start with the awareness of ourselves and all of our amazing potential, our actions become more fluid and goals become our new reality. When we do all of this, we can easily increase experiencing life with more Love, Understanding, Compassion, and Kindness. After all, a little LUCK is always helpful when we are working on any goal. 🙂
