Set more focused goals.

It might seem like a funny time to write about goals. I mean we’re about halfway through the year, and we all know we’re meant to set them at the start. Well, I don’t know about you, but with everything going on in the world, I am being forced to reconsider my objectives for the year. Especially given the fact that we’d barely started before it all went to shit.

Despite the internet’s suggestion to throw 2020 to the wind and hope for a more productive and inspiring 2021, I am reluctant to wish away the next 7 months. As if life isn’t short enough already. I have found myself asking, all things considered, what would a good 2020 look like, for me? And make no mistake, this isn’t about becoming a master of quarantine productivity, but rather not giving up and spending the next 7 months wishing my life away.

I’ve had a problem with goals for a long time, both choosing and achieving them. The first time I got serious about goals was when I started to invest in self-improvement. In my early twenties, it felt like it was probably time to get real about getting shit done. So I decided that I would resolve to run 5km, lose 5kg (I think these two were related) and build my social network in Sydney — after all, I was still fairly new there and whilst I had several friends, I wanted to connect with more like-minded people.

I kicked off strong. I downloaded the ‘Couch to 5k’ app, immediately reduced my food intake to salads and no carbs, and accepted invitations to just about every event I was asked to. As you can probably imagine, it wasn’t long before my over-socialising left me hungover on the couch, eating snacks and making excuses why I couldn’t possibly work out. It seems obvious now, but I failed to achieve these goals because the simple act of telling yourself to do something and then setting out to do it doesn’t always work (shock horror!). Not to mention, the congruency between my goals was non-existent: do more exercise with less fuel while drinking more alcohol? Hmm.

But beyond this, it took one other key question to unravel the mystery (and misery): why were these my goals in the first place?

Why did I want to lose 5kg? Why did I want to run 5km? And why was I looking to meet more people? It turns out my responses can be consolidated into a single answer: for no good reason at all.

I hoped if I lost 5kg I’d look thinner and more like the girls I was following on social media, and if I could run 5km? Well, that makes me sound pretty fit, right? And having more friends? Well, that just makes me well-networked and popular.

Of course, If you’d asked me at the time, I’d have never told you the truth. But it was there, hidden underneath my false motivations. I was so preoccupied comparing myself to others, that I didn’t realise that these weren’t my goals; they were somebody else’s. And so, naturally, I stood no chance of being able to withstand what I needed to, to achieve them.

At first, I didn’t worry about it too much. I mean, who sticks with resolutions anyway? But, I ended up arriving back at the question of goals and resolutions the following year, and this time I thought about it differently.

Instead of thinking about external factors such as what I wanted to look like, or what I wanted others to think of me, I asked myself the question, how do I want to feel?

I realised that I wanted to feel energised and full of vitality. I wanted to feel deeply connected with myself and others. I wanted to feel present and free.

On the first read, you might be thinking that I got some of my goals almost right. I mean, losing weight, running and making new friends seem like aligned goals for a person who wants to be energised and connected. However, I wanted to be a fit and healthy person, not just a thin one. I wanted rich and meaningful friendships, not just a phone (or face) book of acquaintances. And I no longer wanted to be a slave to FOMO, anxiety, regret and rumination. I realised that starting with the feeling I am in pursuit of would lead me down a different path of action, with different milestones and metrics, and well… different ‘goals’.

If I asked you to close your eyes, take a deep breath or three, and then describe what you’d like to achieve in the next 10 years, what would you tell me? You might tell me about where you live, what you have, what you do for work or who is in your life.

Now if I asked you to open your eyes, take a moment, then go again. But this time to share with me how you’d like to feel in 10 years, what would you say?

Could you GUARANTEE (put your life on it) that the achievements you listed in the first exercise, would lead you to the feelings you described in the second? And if so, is there anything else you need to consider, or any disclaimers you need to add to ensure that these goals are aligned? For example, I’d like to believe that a high-powered career, owning a big beautiful home next to the ocean and being married to a handsome man will guarantee me feelings of peace, connection, freedom and limitlessness. But the truth is, I can’t be sure.

A high-powered career pursued without purpose could leave me feeling stressed and unfulfilled. And if I am not careful, the blind pursuit of material items (like my dream home) could leave me strangled by debt. Oh and the handsome man I am married to? Well, I better spend a little more time thinking about what in a relationship brings deep connection, because I don’t think it’s just his appearance.

You might roll your eyes and say duh, but the reality is too many smart people fail to pursue goals rooted in intention and purpose, and either fail to achieve them (or are left thinking that their lack of achievement is why they’re unhappy) or achieve them and are left feeling surprisingly unfulfilled (and then realise they might have chased the wrong goals: cue midlife crisis).

And this right here is the main problem. By definition, goals are an outcome; they are the destination of a journey, the endpoint of a race. Tal Ben-Shahar, a Harvard researcher, describes the reason why the pursuit of goals can feel empty as ‘Arrival Fallacy’.

“Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness”

That’s not to say there’s no role for goals. It’s just we shouldn’t start with them or allow them to be the primary focus as we move through our lives.

“Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”

Or we can switch the mountain for a ladder and take the advice of Thomas Merton, who wisely said, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success, only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall”. So, step one: always ensure you’re climbing the right ladder.

Conversely to goals, when it comes to feelings, we accept that they will come and go. We accept that they require ongoing effort and commitment to maintain. They are not milestones. We don’t suddenly feel the way we want to, and then forget about it and move on with our lives.

Now, of course, this is an oversimplified way of looking at it. It’s not just about choosing happiness and away you go. No — the process of identifying your desired feelings is an important one that requires careful consideration.

There are many ways to answer this question. You can start with the vision of yourself, and your identity (or aspired identity). For example, I am a fit and healthy person, or I am a successful and accomplished professional.

You can look back at times you have felt great, and dig into why (this is particularly effective if you have a bunch of journals to refer to, read my thoughts on this here).

You can look at your core values and think about how you’d feel if you were living them fully (you can read my take on values here).

Or you could simply brainstorm words that come to mind when you ponder the question of how you want to feel, and then refine a selection from that list that resonates most (if you’re interested in this, then Danielle La Porte’s Desire Map is one way to do it).

Over the years I have used a combination of all these methods, and it doesn’t matter how you come to them as long as they are considered, personal, they resonate with you deeply and they are yours. Not someone else’s. Not what you think you should want to feel. 100% yours.

And while feelings are one (often overlooked) part of creating a direction for our year or life, they aren’t the whole answer, they’re just the start.

What we are looking to come up with is an intention, theme or purpose. This intention needs to be created, powered and steered by those feelings, along with the other elements: your values, your aspired identity and your motivations.

If desired feelings are your why i.e. your reason for living; your intentions or themes are the how. Nietzsche said, “He who has a Why to live, can bear almost any How”, and this is precisely why it’s wise to start with Why. More recently, Simon Sinek did a great job of explaining why we start with why, and the latitude it gives us when deciding what we pursue and how. I think his famous magic circle approach works in this context too.

Now your desired feelings might be based on your year, your life or even a shorter period, like 3 or 6 months. Either way, your intentions are both in service of and serviced by these feelings.

So, if we think back to my early desire to feel vital, energised and connected in the year ahead, I ended up with intentions or themes (you can call them whatever suits you) including connection and nourishment. I then unpacked these for myself to give them personalised meaning, for example, I expanded nourishment to nourishing my mind, body and soul; connection meant connecting with people, myself, nature and ideas.

So where does that leave goals? If you’re someone who needs a goal to succeed then that’s fine as long as they are in service of the above. Remember, goals serve our intentions, not the other way around. What goals can you set yourself in service of your theme or intention? What does that feeling or that intention look like for you? In my above example, what does it look like to be connected with myself and others? If I were nourishing my mind, body and soul, what would my life be like? (Spoiler: it’s not eating less and drinking more).

For me, better yet are habits and commitments. And yes, even if you opt for goals you will still need these. This is the ‘What’, the final piece to the ‘Why’ (feelings) and ‘How’ (intentions). It completes the magic circles. Which habits and commitments can I adopt in service of my intentions and desired feelings? What will I do in service of these intentions?

At the end of the day, despite all this nice chat about feelings and intentions, the uncomfortable truth is they are nothing without action. As Henry Ford said, “You can’t build a reputation based on what you’re going to do”. You need to do things to change, grow and improve yourself and your life.

But, starting with the feeling is what will give you the power, the motivation, the focus and the passion to succeed. The etymology of the word ‘passion’ is in the Latin passio, which means to suffer or to endure. We think of passion as effortless ease by which we can achieve great things, but the truth is, that passion is indicative of that which we are prepared to endure or to suffer. And those things are only the ones that we have a deep sense of purpose in (and no, desperately wanting someone else’s body/job/life does not count).

Above all else, the beauty of this approach lies in its ability to create focus. As young overachievers, many of us feel like we should be doing everything all at once. We should be going after that promotion, starting a side hustle, saving money, travelling often, getting fit, socialising often and making the most of our youth all at the same time. It’s exhausting.

When we choose a focus, when we align on an intention or theme for a year (or in this case, the next 7 months), we focus our energy, and we prioritise. We can have it all. Just not at the same time.

Brian Johnson says that purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and an economy of effort. We should seek to spend the minimum amount of time and energy to achieve our desired goals. Or as Dan Millman says, “Avoid fragmentation. Find your focus and seek simplicity”.

When you have a handle on how you want to feel, which intentions and themes will enable you to achieve these feelings, and which actions, habits and goals will power you, you will feel more energised than ever before. Your goals will no longer contradict each other, you can attain that feeling in a single instance, and when it disappears again, you don’t give up on it until next year, you simply take action to bring yourself back into that space. It’s a process, not an outcome.

Intention aligns and attracts. You’ll subconsciously begin to notice other opportunities that serve your intentions. I recently rediscovered something I wrote in an old journal that sums it up perfectly, “coincidences happen when my spirit and intentions are pure”.

It’s also much easier to check in with yourself and to keep yourself on track. At any point, and with any opportunity or action you can ask yourself; “does this serve my intention to connect deeply?”, or when faced with a choice to sleep in or workout, you can ask yourself, “In this moment, which choice will serve my intention to nourish?”

So here we are, halfway through the year during a global pandemic. At the outset of 2020, I had identified desired feelings of ‘home’ (I recently relocated to a new country), ‘self-sufficiency’ (mental, financial and professional), and ‘free-spirited’ (fuelled by a desire to explore my new backyard). I identified my intentions (the how), as ‘flow’; to create a routine, and bring structure to my new life, ‘passion’; work hard to find purpose in my career, make more money and save more money, and ‘explore’; get to know the new city and region I live in. Underpinning each of these I had several goals, actions and habits from a savings target to committing to a bi-monthly overseas weekender. As you can probably imagine, it’s not going too well.

I’d barely started my new job before any sort of a routine had gone out of the window, not to mention I experienced professional and financial setbacks as a result of the pandemic. And I’d be lucky to leave my neighbourhood, let alone the country before 2021!

So now, after oscillating between over-consuming Oprah podcasts, meltdowns and drinking far too much wine, I have decided that it’s time to reconsider my intentions for the year, and drastically lower my expectations. To be frank, right now I’d be happy if for the rest of this year, I found a way to feel mentally positive and present.

So my new intentions are self-care and acceptance. I am planning to use whatever energy I have, to focus on being here, right now (and not wishing for 2021, no matter how tempting that may be), accepting how I feel in any given moment instead of desperately trying to block it out, and choosing actions and options that will benefit my mental health and wellbeing (and yes, sometimes that’s sleeping in or a glass of wine in the bath). This is still a work in progress, however, as an example, I have noticed that I spend too much time missing my old home and life, which is causing rumination and anxiety (the opposite of presence). And so I am already thinking that I will need to curb my social media use, which is where I go to feed those nostalgic feelings.

In the next few weeks, why not think about how you’d like to feel throughout the rest of this year? Perhaps, you’re flourishing in lockdown so this is your perfect opportunity to get a jumpstart on life and pursue feelings of accomplishment and achievement. Or perhaps, like me, you’re feeling a little burnt out and emotionally drained and hanging out for a fresh start. Either way, don’t let the next 6 months pass you by. Take stock of where you are today, and ask yourself: When you wake up on 31st December, how do you want to feel?