Goal Setting: Why Don’t We Succeed?
Goals can motivate us and give us energy. If that is really true why wouldn’t everyone want to set a goal? I keep hearing people say they want more energy, and if a goal is the simple answer, why wouldn’t we set one?
Logically we would choose happiness over suffering. But, many people have disempowering beliefs such as, “I don’t deserve to be happy”, or “I am not good enough”, or “I am not an achiever”. These “unworthy” thoughts don’t simply go away by themselves. Many people don’t realize they can identify those negative thoughts and that because we can choose our thoughts, we can change our thoughts. We have the freedom to take a thought and attach ourselves to that thought and then we become what we think about. When we don’t understand that we have the power to choose an alternative thought we simply accept that programming from our childhood or past experience as truth. Our past becomes our “now” because we keep bringing up the programming from the past and living it in the now.
The idea of setting goals in life to empower or energize yourself isn’t new. Perhaps what you don’t know is that goals require a constant stream of energy behind them to keep them alive. In reality, you need to keep your goals in focus all the time to make them come true.
But attempting to “push” your goal is like trying to push spaghetti up hill. “Pushing” is damaging to the actualization of the goals themselves. We are looking at what we haven’t got and so we begin attempting to force the goal into reality. That is when all the negative thoughts of justification come up, and the fears. Goals are a visualization that are artificially created by the mind and must be backed up by the heart and values that allow them to become a reality. When we believe the goal is possible and it is congruent with our heart, the goal will chase us down because all of our attitudes and actions will be in alignment. We see it as done, we act as if it were done and the brain brings about serendipity to make the goal a reality.
When the foundational concepts and beliefs are not congruent with the goal your goals will evaporate in no time at all. We MUST go back to identify the paradigms that we have about our goals to create the worthiness to achieve.
I am working with a group of people in my coaching business that are all on a lifestyle-healthy eating regime. It isn’t about “losing weight” per se, because what you lose you look for and find it, and the celebrations begin. This is about valuing life and wanting to care for our body so we can enjoy it to the fullest with vibrant energy and happiness. This program then requires us to take on a whole new way of thinking about food and healthy eating and to identify the habits we have around when and what and why we eat. It requires us to look back and ask ourselves what happened in my life that made me start eating the foods that created this excess weight?
When we identify that time, we now have a choice to make. We can knowingly allow that event to control our now, or we can now choose a new belief and live that out in our life. When we do that we come to the realization that we aren’t eating any more to give us comfort and eliminate the pain of that event. We no longer need to eat to mask the old feelings of pain or inferiority. Now we eat because we are feeding energy into our fabulous body to give us the vibrancy that we want. When we let go of the old, we create a vacuum and the new belief can fill the space; the new belief of how we want to look and be. A “diet” isn’t necessary and diets become a thing of the past. Now we eat to fuel this magnificent body with the best possible foods to get the highest benefit from it. We no longer need the weight to protect us or the food to console us…and the body releases what it no longer needs–the fat.
Many times people need a ‘wakeup reason’ to choose lifestyle-healthy eating when so much junk food and sugar-filled stuff is promoted at every turn and it is our ‘way of life’. Sometimes it can be the sudden death of a loved one from a heart attack or the diagnosis of cancer. That ‘wakeup call’ can motivate us to change the direction in which we are headed and create and achieve a new direction. If our goal is simply to ‘lose weight’, then we succumb to the temptation when our favourite food is there in front of us. Research shows that people are ‘on and off’ diets constantly. But if your goal is to be healthy, then “health” becomes our focus and we can walk away from eating anything that doesn’t fit that description. If we look at junk food and sugar as poison then we don’t want to put “poison” into our body. Whatever the reason behind the goal, you absolutely need to have that emotional “must have”, otherwise you won’t have the motivation to even start or the discipline to continue.
The ‘reason’ gives the power to decide and the discipline to persevere in making the necessary changes in our life and the goal gives the motivation and the energy that creates the change. No “pushing” is necessary, it flows.
Making the decision to pursue any goal can be extremely demanding as it involves being willing to transform some of our basic concepts in life. Going into our hearts to discover the foundations of our old beliefs can be very challenging. Now we can begin the changes in our old habitual behaviours and start the journey of making new habits. This can take time!
Concepts are changed in the mental and emotional domain first and then our behaviours are changed in the physical domain. When the heart is changed both the physical and the mental align themselves successfully.
Because our mind and our thoughts are what create our reality, if we attempt to change only our behaviour, we will have only temporary success. Our new habits haven’t been established yet so we automatically revert to and live out our old habits. That is what a habit is…something that we do without thinking.
The problem with just setting goals that have no heart and emotional connection is that life circumstances can interrupt the process-–and the old resurfaces. The heart must be involved in life-changing decisions. And when the heart, brain and body get connected to the same objective…your life will be amazing!
