Don’t Let Your Goals Hold Your Happiness Hostage
Goals keep us fueled, inspired, active, focused, and anticipatory. Goals can be powerfully positive and motivating, but also laced with negativity if we aren’t careful.
Goals can indicate that something better is in the future, but we don’t want our goals to discourage us from feeling fully empowered to live the life we want today. If we aren’t meeting a goal on the timeline we hoped or expected, we don’t want to invite shame, self-judgment and low self worth on our journey.
These challenges present opportunities to be resilient—to not put all the “I’ll have my perfect life” eggs in a single metaphorical basket.
So what are healthy goals, and how do we have a healthy relationship with goals? Dream big, but stay present.
We may never explore the depth of our potential without dreaming big. Be bold, brave, and ask for what you want. Simply by asking, you’ll likely have a decent rate of success.
Of course, we can never fully control an outcome. We can only influence it. As Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” It better serves us, as kids or adults, to sincerely believe we can do and be anything we want to. If there’s any take away, it is to find a way to believe this so whole-heartedly that we never shy away from our biggest and boldest dreams because of fear, vulnerability or possible “failure.”
While we’re dreaming big, we can’t forget to enjoy the imperfect and unpredictable experience of being on the path toward a goal. We don’t want goals to stop us from being present or allow the “I’ll be happy when’s” or “I’ll have the life I want then’s” to play a role in our journey.
HOW DO WE AVOID THE “I’LL BE HAPPY WHEN” MENTALITY?
Let inspiration be enough. Live the inspired life now, and don’t make happiness contingent on something out of our influence.
If our goal is weight loss, we’ll lose weight if we eat well and stay active, but it’s hard for anyone to believe that our body is “perfect” or exactly as we want it to be. If we’re making inspired decisions, we’ll feel good about ourselves, regardless of details related to “perfection.”
We can let our goals motivate and inspire us, but we don’t want to let them determine our happiness or self-worth. We could take acting lessons for years and years and still not get the coveted lead role. It doesn’t mean we’re not good enough. It just means it wasn’t the best fit based on someone else’s subjective decision. We’ll continue acting, or whatever your personal equivalent might be, simply because there is no other alternative. We love it, and it is an important part of who we are. Our goal might be to get the lead, but regardless we continue living the inspired life honoring ourselves and what makes us feel alive.
Want more inspiration? Happiness is Overrated - Live the Inspired Life is your friend along your journey to living your happiest life through inspiration!