I have written on goals before. What I am about to say may not quite match up to that, might actually be the opposite of what I have said before. If you know me, that is not unusual. I do change my mind from time to time. I also can hold many beliefs, even conflicting ones, as truths in my mind all at once. So saying something contradictory now does not necessarily mean I do not believe what I said before. It does mean, I also now believe this. Your job is always, choose what you want to believe for yourself.
My recent study and research, combined with over 30 years of being required to create and work on official formal goals with people has taught me many things. I have learned that: Goals are useless. Goals will help you achieve your dreams. Goals are counterproductive to your dreams. Goals create really bad habits. Goals can harm self-esteem and self-awareness. Goals create long-term anger and frustration. There is a much longer list, but you get the idea. Goals have the potential to be everything from useless, to awesome, to harmful. The question is why?
It is spiritual. I just realized this point in the last half hour. This is the third time I have tried to write this blog. In the previous versions, I stated that the key factor to goals was whether or not you felt the goal was truly important to you. In fact, it had to be more important to you than the other things incompatible with it. I do believe that with my whole heart. What I also now realize, is that what you hold in your soul as the most important things are exactly what your spiritual, higher self tells you are important to you and your purposeful life path. While my ego tells me that I want to be “Hollywood Hot”, my higher self knows that being that would not fulfill my life path. It would not fulfill the path that my soul laid out before I was born, the one that I choose with my spirit guides, and that my higher self is always looking out for in my life. While my ego thinks I would like to be rich and have tons of money, my higher self knows that would not fulfill my chosen life path. I can name any number of failed goals in my life, and no matter how much I thought I wanted them, it was my ego that wanted them, not my higher self. Also I can name any number of things that turned out to be exactly what I wanted when I only had a vague idea of what that would be like to achieve, and the achievement of them was so easy, because my higher self knew they were the right things for me.
When someone tries to force themselves or another person to achieve something that goes against their higher purpose, it will fail because it is never going to be truly important to the person. If someone tries to force you or themselves to do something that is part of the greater plan, it will not be forced. It will just work. The person will find it important enough to them to do it without the force.
Seek inside your heart. Seek inside the hearts of others. What does the soul really want? What does the soul see as important to achieving the person’s life path or purpose? That is a goal the person will succeed at. They will be able to create a solid plan and do it. They will also be able to achieve it without a sold plan, just by visualizing it, or thinking about it sometimes. If it is in the overall life path purpose, you will not have to try that hard.
Hard part is, sometimes life paths are not what we think they “should” be. We tend to think a good life path means health, intelligence, safe, no suffering, no pain, no hardship, no mistakes, no failure etc. No one’s life path is that. No one planned a life with nothing interesting in it, with no challenges, no work to do, no growth to find, nothing to experience that is anything but peace and joy. Why wouldn’t we choose that for ourselves, because that is boring and does not allow for opportunity for true experiences and growth. We have to choose a life with difficult things, hardships, failures, struggles and pain. How else would we know when we are happy, healthy, successful. That is the true Yin Yang. Not opposites, but both in harmony with one another.
My beautiful, happy life is full of struggle and pain, and is more beautiful, happy, fulfilling and joyful than I could have ever imagined it could be. Without the pain, suffering and struggle I would not have had the experiences I have had. While I did not always see the joy and purpose in them, I see that sometimes the purpose was to contrast to joy, contrast to love, contrast to success so that those things were all the more beautiful when they came.
When you choose a goal, choose it for yourself. Do not let anyone choose it for you. If you do not wish to choose goals, do not. You do not need them. Your life is unfolding exactly how it is designed to unfold. Keep in mind, that if you and your ego choose a goal that does not match up with your life plan, and closes off the spaces for your higher self to bring in experiences that are in your life path plan, it will be more dramatic when your higher self has to open those spaces to insert the things you need to experience. If you have a goal, with a loose and flexible plan, with spaces for opportunities and change, then when life has to change to accommodate the plan, it will not feel so dramatic.
If you are suffering greatly, consider if you are fighting against or for something that is important to your ego, instead of important to your soul. If you are doing the former, it will seem way harder and painful, but it will be necessary if you are to learn to stop planning from your ego mind, and listen to your higher self. That path is always easier, although still full of enough drama to be interesting.
Namaste