Find Direction, Change, and Bravery in Goals
Find Direction, Change, and Bravery in Goals
Humans, by nature, need to have goals as part of their mental health. Even if that goal is to achieve your highest potential, or as simple as planning a weekend getaway.
Goals are healthy attachments to life. Regardless of the nature of the objective, being part of a process in which we work toward and reach a result is what drives us as part of the human condition.
For some, setting goals can be the biggest struggle. So they stay stuck and become unhappy because they lack this vital part of being human. They want more from their lives but avoid setting any goals because they:
- Don’t know what they want
- Are uncomfortable with change
- Scared
Luckily, getting unstuck isn’t as complicated as most feel it might be. With a little bit of focus and dedication, you can get unstuck by finding direction, embracing change, and becoming brave.
Find Direction
Figuring what you want out of life can be overwhelming, especially for those who haven’t learned as children to direct themselves. That’s okay! You can find direction in your life by following these steps:
- Imagine, in your wildest dreams, what your life could look like in five years. Close your eyes and visualize every detail, down to the clothes you wear, the work you do, and the people in your life. Dream until you are in a profoundly detailed trance.
- Create a list of details from your dreamy meditation. Even if any of these dreams feel unreal or unreachable, write every aspect down (those details that struck a heart cord or smile).
- Do you notice a theme weaved within your dream details? Is it career heavy? Relationship heavy? Money, health, creativity? A healthy combination of all these? Write down your themes in a new column.
- In a new column, take one theme at a time and write one possible goal. For example, if one of your ideas is that you want to find love, maybe your goal is to be more social. Want to spend your days creating products? Perhaps your goal is to start an e-store.
- After you’ve written down each theme goal, you are going to take each aim and write down one tangible, realistic step in a new column that you could make today. For example, maybe set up a MeetUp account or plan a night out with friends so you can start becoming more social. Or perhaps, your tangible goal is to set up an Etsy shop.
Embrace Change
Even in the best of circumstances, change is hard. Hardwired toward routine and habits, we aren’t always aware of our resistance to change.
The reason your life isn’t where you thought or wanted it to be is that nothing has changed. Maybe you’ve tried steps before to achieve a particular goal, but only to give up (habit) or continue to work the same strategy (opposed to change).
Embracing change begins with a mindset. You can help your mindset toward being open to change by implementing the following behaviors:
- Try one new activity each day that pulls you out of your routine. Such as trying a new restaurant, a new genre of T.V., a new type of yoga class, try paintballing, lunch with a non-acquaintance, or a new hairstyle. Immerse yourself in change, and it will become more comfortable over time.
- Take your list of tangible goals from above and create a list of sub-tasks that you could quickly complete in one day. Then, assign each task to a day to finish. These new behaviors alone will disrupt your normal routine positively while simultaneously bring you closer to achieving a goal.
- Surround yourself with a constant stream of inspiration and support (via books, podcasts, blogs, and music). If you are continually feeding yourself supportive messages, it will fluff your feel-good feathers making changes just a bit easier to digest.
Be Brave
Bravery is one of those things that feel elusive to most because wacky messages are floating out there that courage is for a certain kind of person. It just isn’t true.
If you want to bring bravery into you life, first begin to understand that:
- Innate (primal) fear is to protect us physically, evolutionary speaking. Separate your fear of failure from your primal fear.
- You don’t have to feel brave before acting brave. The bravest of people are terrified each time they take new steps.
- Bravery doesn’t come in a super-hero package. Most courage exists in the little things we do each day. A mother is brave when she spends her first night away from her child. A child is brave when making new friends. A creative is brave when they share their work with others.
Bravery is similar to embracing change because they both require uncomfortable action. You can exercise courage by:
- Trying one, small thing that demands bravery every day. This is an exercise for your non-primal fear, so don’t go off base jumping. Compliment a stranger, ask for help, tell someone how you feel, show someone your work, invite someone new to lunch, or any small activity to stretch your bravery muscles and allow it to become a habit.
- Taking one task from your new goal list and break it down into smaller functions until it doesn’t feel too scary. This allows you to be brave without overwhelming fear while accomplishing tasks.
- Become an observer of your reactions. Do you find you recoil when someone suggests an action that makes you uncomfortable because it’s different or new? Maybe that’s the action you need to take.
You must put in the intentional work to see the change you want and need in your life pertaining to setting and achieving goals. Find direction, embrace change, and be brave. The world will open its arms to you.