Got goals? What are
yours? What do you ‘identify’ as a goal
and HOW do you define what it means to achieve them?
Do you set dates and timelines?
Are you a list maker?
Do you keep yourself (or others accountable?)
How do you goal set and what works best for you?
These are questions which may get asked of you at your work
place, but the bigger question is, how many times have you examined your own
personal goal setting process?
Lines get blurred between the expectations of your
job/career and your personal goals when life tends to get busy.
How many times have you been disappointed when someone
cancels on you or reschedules (or fails to reschedule)? How many times do you accommodate vs. how
many times has someone accommodated your schedule.
There is give and take when it comes to time, which is a
valuable commodity for most. We have overloaded schedules and agendas,
sometimes there are things that are not within our control.
However, what does this mean for your goal setting? Do you push your goals aside? If so, how often? And do you tend to put your own goals last
when it comes to some of these eleventh hour schedule conflicts, cancellations
and changes?
Sometimes flexibility and adaptability can be a gift.
Other times, a derailment becomes a bad habit that is easy
to fall into.
This is when procrastination sets in and completely
sidelines your goals.
While your life goes on auto-pilot, it’s important to take a
look at your goal links within your life to regroup, re-evaluate, reset and
yes, sometimes tweak your own expectations in order to adjust to this thing
called life.
Life happens and more often than not, our own life linked
timeline is readjusted numerous times, either with or without our consent.
Is this an accident? No.
Is it for greater purpose and the highest good? Maybe…
Is it karma? It
depends.
When we take a good look at what we give to our goal setting
vs. what we allow to adapt, we begin to see our own life line with more
clarity. Part if this involves patience,
while we also learn to accept certain circumstances and outcomes for our own
flexibility.
The key is to not utilize any one of these goal links as
something permanent, because nothing is permanent and nothing is temporary.
How we choose to examine our habits, behavior and choices is
a very fine line to walk. Sometimes
without realizing it, we’re creating the set of circumstances happening because
we do not set boundaries. Other times we
are allowing the natural flow of life to take us to places we wouldn’t have
gone had we not relaxed with being taken off-course a bit to re-evaluate.
Still, the whole goal setting link is also attached to our
own intention, will, and determination, while we also must let go of
expectation for certain outcome that is really not in our hands at all.
So how do you map the success of a goal then, if all of the
above is a potential cause/effect participant within your goal planning and
setting?
It boils down to how you define success and satisfaction
with your actions vs. your reactions.
In any situation, you can take your positive emotions and
turn them into your highest good, allowing goal shifting to be for
purpose. You can also take any negative
situation and remind yourself that setting goals vs. achieving them are two
different things.
When time is not flowing in your favor, it could be for your
highest good to prioritize what goals are more important than others. You may have to take a closer look at your
original intention with the goals… as some of your goals may not be applicable
to who you are becoming.
Wait…what?
YES. As you grow,
evolve and change – ‘old goals’ may not be necessary to achieve, as they don’t
apply to you any longer in your bigger picture of who you are. Sure, you may have had dreams as a kid to do
something, go somewhere, be ______, but maybe being an astronaut isn’t at the
top of your list anymore. Maybe your own
bucket list is shifting direction simply because you are not the same person
and attaining certain goals don’t really matter so much as some new plans you’d
like to put in motion.
The beauty of tweaking your goal links, is that you do NOT
have to look at lack of achieving said goals as failure. Instead, your own evolution and growth simply
as the current factor in letting your old goals go. You’ve outgrown them and your new goals
matter more as they are aligned with who you’ve become and more importantly,
where you’d rather go in your redefined ideas of what happiness and
satisfaction you can get from tweaking your own goal links.
Your own life map is yours as are your goals. Sometimes if we get derailed from certain
goal expectations it is a test of our character to see how persistent we can be
to endure.
Other times, the derailment is a gift in order for us to be
more authentic with who we are now and what we really desire to achieve.
Neither case is ‘the only way’ – but rather for each
individual, there is a REASON for your goals shifting and changing depending on
HOW MUCH YOU ARE CHANGING or GROWING or EXPANDING your own AWARENESS.
Individual shifting is natural. Do NOT compare your goal achievement pace
with anyone else’s. Your life track and
chain of goal LINKS IS INDIVIDUAL TO WHO YOU ARE.
No one’s track is going to look exactly the
same. If you ask anyone – no two people
arrived at the same destination EXACTLY the same way, therefore, your own path
is about adapting your life’s journey so you can achieve your goals uniquely to
who you are.
In the end, this actually helps you become what you’re
destined to be within those goals and your character will build, testing your
own strengths and weaknesses to grow into the person who can handle all that
you set out to do! Remember, a
carpenter can have a vision and an idea… but until several practice runs have occurred,
the perfect architectural structure of integrity cannot shine or measure up to
the lofty ideas that were set forth in the first place.
So take the time to check in with yourself and re-examine
what it is that is going to resonate with your being right here and now. Just like we clean out a drawer, garage or
closet – sometimes cleaning out our ideas, goals and plans can help us move
forward with a fresh perspective and choices which work better for us in the
long run.
Tweak your goal links in your life chain… make them sparkle
again and enjoy the feeling of what it feels like to refuel some new dreams.
Namaste.
