New Year New Feelings

As the New Year gets well underway, a lot of us are reaching for goals and new year’s resolutions. To make this year better or to improve something. And we can’t argue with that. We love things getting better and better. But, sometimes blindly setting goals without knowing the ‘why’ behind them can leave us feeling depleted, demotivated, and back where we stared.

What can be the problem with setting goals?

Goals are amazing motivators, when they work. And when they don’t they can end up making us feel like we’ve failed. Or we simply don;t try. Why is this the case? Have you ever set a goal, achieved it, and then wondered why you don’t feel what you wanted to feel?

Often goals are things that we THINK will make us FEEL how we want to feel. For example, the age old example of this is “I want to lose 5kg” you do and then you want to lose more. Because the goal isn’t to lose weight it’s to feel better in your own skin and confident in how you look. You see?

On top of this, sometimes we set goals, think about how daunting they are, get demotivated, stop trying, and end up back where we started.

What can help us set motivating, heart filled goals?

For goals to motivate us, they need to be of a high value point for us. Meaning we value the outcome a lot. For whatever reason. But it’s also been shown that to move towards a goal, we have to believe that we can actually achieve it. So we must value the outcome and believe it’s possible. Then we are more likely to stick to the goal.

But on top of this, the goals should be around how you want to feel, in order to limit the chances of us getting to the end or ‘destination’ and not feeling any better. Because at the end of the day, we all want to feel good about our lives, rather than just have them look good.

How can we set these goals that will enrich our lives?

Take some time to sit down and notice what your gut reaction is to goals. Is it lose 5kg, be able to do a yoga pose, get a promotion. The list is so so long.

Once you have that list, write down how you think these goals will make you feel and notice, if in fact, that’s what you want to bring into your life instead. Then write a list of the things that already help you feel that way.

Take these goals and feelings and think about how much you value these things. Are they simply things you THINK you should want. Or do you actually think they’ll enrich your quality of life. Plus, is it realistic? And we don’t want you to stop that blue sky thinking, but if you’re going big, set interim goals as well to keep that pesky distractible mind on track.

So what can we take away from this?

Ok we know this sounds like a complex process. But here are some questions to ask.

How do you want to feel?

How can you bring more of that into your life?

What needs to change in order to bring more of that into your life?

What do you really value on this list?

What can be broken down into achievable chunks?

Now, go forth and make 2018 full of heart.

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