Goals, dreams, obligations

It’s no surprise that entering the new year got me thinking about the nature of goals.

Honestly, I find the advice to “have no expectations” as ridiculous as the obsession with goal setting and constant productivity. Both put you in a weird and dysfunctional relationship with aspirations.

Having hopes and dreams is about as human as it gets. The problem is never in actually having hopes, dreams, and expectations.

The problem is, as always, in our relationship to them.

In what we make them mean.

The following are a few thoughts about the nature of goals and dreams as I have come to view and understand them in my own experience.

The point of having dreams

The point of having goals and dreams is to make you feel better in this moment.

It is not to create criteria for your internal sense of success or for whether or not you are a failure.

It is also not to create a set of unbreakable strict rules for yourself.

Goals exist to give you momentum in this moment. Get you moving. Provide direction.

Once that is achieved, you can always change them.

Turning goals into obligations

How often do you turn your aspirations into obligations?

How easily does your enthusiasm turn into overwhelming pressure?

How quickly do you go from “Wow, I’d really love to do this” all the way to “If I don’t do this, I am a failure”?

No wonder you then feel repelled by the same goal that used to bring you joy.

It’s something our minds do because they don’t know any better. Possibly also because they think the only way for you to actually achieve something is to make it as obligatory as possible.

Notice it.

Rebel against it.

Intentionally.

When you find yourself pressuring and forcing yourself, take a break. Rest. When you feel inspired, take action.

Trust that the same creative force that blooms flowers runs through you and you never ever ever have to rush it. That is how you recondition yourself into alignment.

Setting goals versus setting intentions

Goals are ideas of something in the future.

Never take them too seriously. Their point is to provide momentum and a sense of motivation in the present moment. But it can be tricky to distinguish goals from escapist daydreaming.

Enter Intention.

Intention affects you immediately. It produces a change in this very moment. It changes something right now.

It’s always about the now.

By setting an intention, you tap into your inner power to decide how you want to feel and what kind of experience you want to have.

Setting an intention reminds you to pause and consider what kind of a person you want to be, how you want to react, and how you want to feel.

Goals are external. They are about reaching a milestone or achieving something observable, sometimes measurable.

Intentions are internal. They are about your experience.

It starts here and now

Whatever change you are looking to make in your life, it starts now.

Not in the “go go hurry up start hustling right now” sense.

But in the sense of your experience right now.

It starts with how you think about the thing right now.

It starts with truths you are avoiding right now.

It starts with what you believe about the thing right now.

It starts with what you make it mean right now.

You are always you

It’s not about that one event. No external event is going to make you feel successful if you don’t already feel that now.

Think about the thing you want to accomplish. Let’s say you want to publish a novel, sell a script, make a million euros.

Got it? Okay. Now imagine you achieve it.

You will still be you.

You will still be human.

You will still need to poop. Pee. Brush your teeth. Wash your hair. Deal with that annoying recurring rash on your left foot.

Okay, the rash may go away because it might be subconsciously tied to whether or not you publish a novel. But the rest, I can pretty much guarantee.

Because that’s life.

Achieving that thing you want to achieve is not going to suddenly radically change who you are or how you experience yourself or other people. It might give you a temporary rush but that’s it.

That feeling of success you are looking for and craving?

It comes from you. You create it within yourself.

And it is always available to you.