Is making goals a good idea? Is it how human beings achieve and succeed?
Last week I mulled this over with a client. The gist of our conversation went like this…
Client: Fiona, I’m ill in bed for the second time in 3 weeks feeling out of sorts and not quite ready for this new year. I’d like to press pause and regroup, gather myself together until I feel ‘ready’.
Response: I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling out of sorts. But what if what you’re doing now – resting in bed – is the pause and re-set you need?
Feeling out of sorts may not be how you’d imagined taking time out. But it is what’s happening.
Could you allow yourself to feel the way you do? Could you meet your experience with friendliness?
When you’re at odds with what’s happening, you generate resistance. And resistance = stepping on the brakes.
Frustration, anger or worry about the ways things are. Wishing that things are different than the way they are. Gets in the way of your innate intelligence. Which, if left to do its job, operates the re-set mechanism.
C: OK. But I feel like I’m missing the boat. I need to make plans for my business this year.
R: It’s funny how human beings put so much store on the ‘new year’. Have you noticed that January, 1st is like any other day. The sun rises and then sets.
I’m all for making time to reflect on the year ahead. To contemplate what’s in the pipeline that needs attention. And discern what priorities need to move up the ‘to-do’ list.
But it doesn’t help to put pressure on yourself to ‘have it all together’ if that’s not what’s happening.
Common sense would say; give your body the rest and care it needs. This maintains your connection to your wisdom and clarity.
C: Hmm. OK. But I’m not sure if I should be making goals or just be open to new possibilities for the year ahead. Writing goals feels like an effort whereas being open feels easier. But how do you steer yourself in the direction of success if you have no goals?
R: This is an interesting and potentially life changing question.
Have you noticed that for all your tiredness and out of sort-ness your body energy is giving you clear feedback?
Making goals feels like an effort. Being open to possibilities feels easier.
I encourage you to go with what feels lighter. The lighter feeling is the feeling of life energy flowing through you. You want that! Your business benefits from you being energized. Your family benefits from you having energy at the end of the day.
Goals. By themselves. Are dry and lifeless. They tend to be contaminated with ‘should’, ‘ought to’, ‘got to’ thinking. They often come from people’s ideas, industry standards, or pumped up expectations driven by insecure thinking.
The lighter feeling that comes with opening to possibilities allows fresh insight and inspiration to bubble up.
It doesn’t mean that what comes to you will always be easy. Being receptive to inspiration may surprise and even challenge you.
But being open means that you’re open to your deeper grounding and connection to Universal Mind. And this combination means that you’re not left on you own to do the heavy lifting. The flow of Life does that.
You’ll likely come up with some goals. But they won’t be lifeless. They’ll be hand holds and footholds. And you’ll be flexible with them. Because you’ll recognize them as a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
Enter this new year open to possibilities. Accept the feeling of lightness as a valid way of navigating your life and business.
What’s really possible for you and your business is beyond the horizon that your everyday mind can fathom.
