Overwhelmed By Your Goals? Try Something New!

My coach recently gave me an exercise to get clear on my goals. After all, it’s pretty hard to get somewhere if you don’t know where you are going.

Always a fan of goal setting, I eagerly got out the Sharpies and my giant flip chart and went to work. I thought about each area of my life and what perfect would look like and started listing things like crazy.  As the list got longer, I started to feel my anxiety level rising as well.

I was creating more work for myself, not less.  Each time I added something to the list, all I could think was, “How on earth am I going to get this one done when I am so busy with everything else”?

Setting goals and working on your business is supposed to be exciting and motivating and I was feeling neither excited nor motivated.  The interesting thing, though, is that, while I was doing this exercise, three words kept coming up very strongly.

Abundance                           Freedom                               Inspiration

What I realized is that it wasn’t so much about specific ‘things’ on my list, but what they represented to me. How would I FEEL once I had them? The answer was found in these three words.  Each one of my goals resulted in me either feeling abundant, free or inspired.

What I realized is that I didn’t need to worry so much about the ‘list’.  After all, goals change and evolve over time, but these three feelings are core to my being.  So, rather than worry about how I am going to accomplish all of the items on my ever-expanding To Do List, I find it easier to use these three questions as filters for my decisions.  Each time I need to make a decision on whether or not to take on a project, I just need to ask myself if it will support these three things.

So, the next time you do a goal setting exercise, start with the list but be looking for the pattern of how you will FEEL when those things are accomplished. Then stop stressing about the list and focus on your filter words instead.

Let me know how it goes and post in the comments below what words came up for you.  It will be great hearing your personal feedback.