I am embarking on an online course for wellness. The first task was to set goals for the course. I am also beginning training with others at my job on goal setting with other people. That is, I am training people who will be goal setting with others related to the others’ goals, not their own. As I study goal setting as a science, I am realizing that people really don’t know how to set and achieve goals. There are so many theories about how to do it and be successful, and science to back up every single theory. No one theory has the right answer for everyone.
The studies I looked at had several common themes. Things that across researchers and studies, designed by many different people in many different ways, seemed to come out with similar results. Those are the ideas I plan to share for the Meditation Minute. I haven’t always believed in “goal setting” or trying to achieve things. I am not sure I do now, but I am taking a course, and teaching this skill, so it seemed important to figure out how to do it. For each idea I find with some validity of some kind, I will give it a foundation to include into meditation. I believe that meditating on things is one of the best ways to achieve something. While studies do validate my theory, it is more because when I meditate on things, whether I have a goal for them or not, I am more likely to be successful in them.
The first idea that had a commonality among researchers was to dream big. Setting goals that are as big as you can imagine gives you something to constantly keep moving toward. It can refocus your stalled attempts at smaller things. It can keep you on track if you start to stray from your path. Big dreams can also be discouraging if they take a long time to achieve, so they have to be something that is truly, really important to you. Big dreams are sometimes about your ego wanting to be safe. I have no science that says that will fail, but I personally know that egos lie so trying to please your ego’s sense of validity will probably come up short on your big dream actually making you happy, even if you do achieve it. I think that dreaming big means dreaming bigger than your ego would allow. That to me is a little bit scary, and also exciting. No fear dreaming!
What would I want to do and what would I want to be if I knew I couldn’t fail? That is ego dreaming. Your higher self would ask you to consider what would you want to do, and who would you want to be if you knew that failing didn’t matter? The idea of failing often prohibits our dreaming, and actual failing almost always brings us closer to our dreams. That is not scientific research saying that, purely my own observation of life.
For my wellness course I went big. I am choosing some big dreams, but one in particular is scary to me. I am choosing to dream of no pain. I have been in pain every day all day on a level of 4 at minimum and 10 maximum for decades. I have numerous diagnoses that are the “causes” of my pain, but no treatments for those “causes” have eliminated my pain. The only thing that has ever made a significant difference is my meditation practice. Most days I am at that lower level 4 and the pain is ignorable for large periods of time during the day, and then rises to higher levels for short bursts as I move or don’t move. Before it was pushing 7-8 all day every day, and I was not able to move much at all, so much improved, I say. Meditation has helped, but not eliminated the pain. It has done better than any other thing I have tried, so I will continue. This wellness course promises to be holistic, so, “Bring It On!” I say. That’s my goal, no pain. Learning about wellness will bring me “no pain” days. I do not know whether this is realistic or not, and I am choosing to follow my goal, not my ego telling me I can’t have that. I have long believed that my pain is just here to stay and there is nothing I can do, so trying to change that is hard. Ego wants me to be in pain. It keeps me attached to its ideas of who I am, which is limited. Dreaming of “No Pain” is also a dream of being limitless. Ego does not want that for me. My higher self does.
What does your higher self want for you? What is important to you to create in your life? If your goal has a word like should or shouldn’t in it, that is your ego talking. It is “shoulding” on you. Don’t let it do that. A goal will not work if you are doing it because you think you should. It must be something that you want, and something important to you. It would be a get to achieve, not have to work on. Ego says have to. Higher self says get to. I get to work toward no pain days. What an awesome thing to have as my focus.
Mantra for Meditation: I get to focus on what is important to me. I am perfect as I am, and my goal is about increasing my life experiences to something truly important to me. My goal is not a burden. It is a treat. I will focus on ____________ as my goal. (Write down what goes in your blank space here. Many studies talk about accountability to something written down.)