Today’s topic is something that I think is very, very important and is a realization that I had that was a breakthrough moment for me.
Those breakthrough moments or breakthrough experiences are aha moments, those moments when things click and suddenly start to make sense, when life just starts feeling better. Those are the moments that I’m talking about.
One of those moments for me within the last year was realizing that achieving my goals didn’t actually make me any happier.
Losing weight was not going to make me happier.
Traveling to every country in the world was not going to make me any happier.
I’m still going to be the same person even after I do those things.
Thinking happiness comes when you reach your goals is not your fault
So how can you be happy if you’re not achieving goals? First off, it’s not our fault for thinking like this and don’t put it on yourself for thinking like this. Our society constantly says you have to set goals, you have to achieve goals.
We’re so business and process and efficiency oriented. Everyone around us always wants us to do more. And if you’re not achieving or doing anything, what are you doing with your life?
That’s such a backward way of thinking. As human beings, we’re meant to be happy and experience joy every day, not just when we lose weight or when we get to travel more or whatever it is that your goal is.
One of my goals has been to write a book, but even if I did write my book and achieve it, I’m not suddenly going to be so much happier because I have a book selling on Amazon.
I’m still going to be the same person as a published author. I’m still going to have the same thoughts.
So what’s the point in achieving goals if we’re not actually going to be any happier and how can you actually be happier with your goals?
You’ve been setting the wrong goals
Most of us, myself included, have been setting or are still continuing to set the wrong goals altogether. We haven’t been taught how to look at what we want and what we need. We have just been brainwashed and have been told what we should want and what we shouldn’t want, which is always to get healthy, lose weight, travel more and accomplish big things.
Why is it that we’re not achieving our goals but then we’re setting the same ones year after year after year? Why can’t we follow through with our goals?
If we believe that our goals are truly going make us happy in the end, shouldn’t that be enough motivation for us to actually go out and do what it takes to accomplish a goal?
I am a huge goal-getter. I love to set goals and I used to believe that hitting them, achieving things was going make me so happy.
I thought that when I hit a certain number in my bank account or I told myself that I’m going to make a certain amount of money by the end of this year, that suddenly my life would be together. Everything would be great. I would wake up just so happy and energized every single day.
But it doesn’t work like that. Hitting a goal is not like a switch to happiness. That would be too easy. Finding happiness is simple, but it’s not easy.
If we reached happiness and our peak just by achieving a goal, it would be too easy. Instead, there’s a lot of things that we can do in the process to help make us happier, help us get a little bit closer to that feeling of bliss and joy and enlightenment.
Happiness is not about the end result
Being happy and falling in love with your life is not just something that happens when you achieve something. You have to fall in love with the process of achieving what you want to achieve in order to experience those happy and joyful emotions.
You have to fall in love with your life and fall in love with the things that you are doing every day in order to achieve your goals, in order to feel that happiness and joy and wonder and excitement.
You absolutely must fall in love with the daily tasks to experience all really good, high vibe emotions every day. You can’t just chip away at projects for days, weeks, months or years at a time and be miserable in the process and then expect happiness to be delivered to you on a silver plate once when hit your end result.
You have to work for your happiness, joy and bliss every single day.
Falling in love with the process is what needs to happen.
What’s the point in living your life if you’re just going to be waiting for moments in the future?
Let me tell you from experience that I have absolutely fallen in love with the process of the things that I’m doing every day and that’s what makes my day great. That’s what makes me happy. That’s what makes me so excited when I wake up in the morning.
Not every morning. I still have my off days. I’m human. But I am so excited every time I sit down at my laptop and I finish a session of writing my book. I’m probably more excited when I’m writing and getting the words out and flowing than I’m going to be when I actually release my book.
I’ve fallen in love with the process of the things that I’m doing to achieve my goals. One of my goals for this year is to write a book, but I’ve changed my goal from wanting to just write a book to wanting to put something out into the world that I believe will really help people.
Do you notice the difference in my goal? I want to write a book versus I want to put something out into the world that makes a difference for people.
I just want it to be in the shape of a book because I love to write.
There’s a definite change in my wording and the feeling I have around my goal when I changed it. Having a less vague goal that I feel passionate about completely changes how I do things on a daily basis because suddenly I’m so much more excited for my goal.
How to set goals and achieve them
So how can you start creating goals for yourself that will make you happy not just when you achieve them, but during the entire process?
These steps to achieve goals will help you set into motion how you can live every day happy and they’re simple.
1. Create goals with soul aka find your why
Goals with soul are goals that have a why behind them. You have to get crystal clear on your why. If you don’t know why you’re pursuing a goal, why are you doing it? Or if you have a stupid reason behind doing a goal, why are you doing it?
And yes, I believe there are stupid goals that people make. For example, if you’re doing something because so-and-so’s doing it, then that’s stupid. So-and-so is not you. Or if you’re just doing something because you saw it online or on the media.
You’ve got to get in your head and into your body and understand what it is that YOU want. What YOU need. Stop doing things just because other people are doing them. By looking for inspiration online you’re doing yourself a disservice because most of the time you’ll just end up copying what others are doing and not listen to yourself.
Get crystal clear on your why. Why do you want to achieve your goal?
If you don’t have a why behind anything that you do, there’s no point in doing it. You’re probably doing it out of alignment and it’s not working towards your true passion or your true purpose.
If you can’t sit down and get crystal clear on why you have a goal and why you want to do something, I would say just don’t do it.
a) Give yourself a break from social media and the news or anyone that gives you opinions on your life.
b) Get into a good mood by lighting a candle or reading a good book. Maybe try EFT tapping which helps move energy around and leaves you feeling amazing. I recommend tapping with Brad Yates, he’s got a guided video for every topic.
c) Write down what your goals are.
d) Write your why for each goal.
For example, why do you want to lose weight? Do you want to lose weight because you want to fit into those jeans that you wore in high school? You’re probably not going to feel much better because you’re the same size as you were in high school and you’re probably not going ever be the same size as you were in high school cause you were a teenager.
Or do you want to lose weight because you want to feel, lighter or maybe stronger?
e) Reread your goals and sit with them. Do they make you excited? Or fearful?
If it’s scaring you, it’s probably a good goal. You want to sell yourself on your goal. If you sell yourself on your goal then you’re going to want to work on that goal every day.
2. Determine how you want to feel when you achieve your goal
Once you figure out how you want to feel from achieving your goal, you need to make sure that you feel that way every single day.
Do you want to feel excited? Adventurous? Passionate? In alignment? Strong? Light? Creative? Successful? Accomplished? Empowered? Abundant?
a) Sit down with each of your goals, close your eyes and visualize the moment you achieve your goal.
Feel exactly as you want to feel in that moment.
b) What are you going to do to feel that feeling every day?
This is where the magic starts. This is where you really begin to fall in love with the process instead of just the end result. If you can feel happy every day working towards your goals, it’s not going to matter if you achieve your goals or not.
3. Practice self-integrity
Self-integrity is following through with what you promise yourself. Why is it so easy to make a promise to someone else and follow through but it’s so difficult to do it for yourself?
When you can’t uphold your self-integrity for yourself, you lose trust with yourself.
You begin to lose or lack confidence in yourself. If you start holding some self-integrity for yourself and start following through with some of your goals and doing the things every single day that are going to make you feel like you will feel when you achieve your result then your confidence will increase, your trust with yourself will increase and it will become even easier to achieve your goals and feel happy in the process.
To sum things up, pick goals with soul. Those are goals that have a good why behind them. Determine how you’re going feel when you reach your goal and do whatever is you need to do to feel that way every single day. Lastly, practice self-integrity to build trust with yourself because building trust with yourself will help you be happier and achieve the results you want too.
Know that you are fantastic whether or not you achieve your goals.