Every night when I walk my dog, we play his favorite game of ‘fetch’. He’s really good at it. I throw a tennis ball, he takes off with tremendous speed, chases the ball, catches it, brings it back and we do it again. It’s completely conditioned behavior; he knows exactly that I won’t throw the ball until we are at a particular place on the field. When we arrive there, he gets all excited, and looks up to me every second as if to say: “Come on now, throw it, I’m ready”. Then I throw it, he runs off, catches it, brings it back and I throw it again. He brings it back over and over until he is bored or tired, drops the ball and we go home, only to return the next day, when he excitedly plays the same game again.
Many people do something similar. They set themselves a goal, get all excited about it, go after it, and when they achieve it, set themselves another goal to chase and the pattern repeats until they are completely exhausted and burned out. They no longer have the energy or feel the excitement. They express it as a kind of ‘numbness’. That numbness is entirely understandable given what’s really going on.
I’m all FOR goal setting. In fact, having clarity about your goals is an essential element in creating a path and process to your success. As the saying goes: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there”.
People often go off-track when they set goals with an ‘expectation’ or ‘reward’ associated with their well-being. When they connect the achievement of the goals with happiness, self-confidence, worthiness, and status. When people have a goal with an (often) hidden expectation, such as:
- I have to lose 20 kg (so I will feel more confident)
- I need to find a loving relationship (then I’ll be happy)
- I need to get that promotion (so I get more respect)
- I need to have 1 / 10 / 100 million first (then I’ll feel successful).
What happens is that people often stop before they reach their goal because they feel that what they are doing is not working. Or they get bored and start running after the next new project, job, diet, or relationship that looks satisfying. Or people may achieve the goal, but still don’t get the expected ‘reward’, so they set a new, even higher goal, believing that the NEW goal will give them the satisfaction they are looking for. The pattern only repeats and ends in overwhelm, burn out and numbness.
What is it that you REALLY want?
What is the underlying FEELING that you’re trying to get to?
Confidence, self-worth, happiness, respect, security, status, freedom?
If you want to achieve these by pursuing external goals, you are looking in the wrong place. When your well-being is made dependent on external circumstances or others ‘throwing the ball at us’, we make ourselves victim to that. We have no control over that.
What we do have control over is our minds, the way we think, and our choices. When we dare to look inside (and sometimes you need a professional, like a coach or therapist to help us do that), that’s where our confidence, our self-esteem, our happiness and our freedom reside. That is our POWER, and it is ALWAYS available to us INSTANTLY.
Once you know how to access THAT, you no longer have to chase goals to feel good. Goals are no longer about what you NEED; they are about creating what you WANT.
Let’s Lead!
