Goal Anxiety
As I begin to resume sessions with clients at the start of this new year, I am cautiously approaching the topic of goal-setting because “Goal Anxiety” is real!
Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with goals and totally understand the resistance I am often met with. Perhaps you also feel some anxiety and will resonate with one or more of the reasons behind it:
→ You have had one too many experiences of setting goals and not achieving them. Goal-setting can activate a fear of failure.
→ You hate the rigidity of goals. What if you change your mind? What if you get a different idea? What if something more important arises? Goal-setting can feel stifling to a creative.
→ You set a goal, but then don’t know where to begin. There are a lot of steps, there a lot of things to figure out, and you might not even know what you need to do yet. Goal-setting can feel overwhelming.
→ You know you start out strong, but then fall off. Somewhere along the line you tend to become uninterested and/or unmotivated. Goal-achieving can feel too far into the future to hold your attention.
All of these reasons are relatable and totally understandable. And, because I have felt them all, I decided that I needed to redefine the idea of goals for myself and for my clients. The question we now ponder together goes something like this:
What if the value of goal-setting is less about the end-achievement and more about creating a path that we can make progress on?
How does that land for you?
I hope it’s helpful because as much as I believe we need to focus on creating joyful, meaningful processes, goals help us channel all that energy and investment into something satisfying. We all want to create AND hold the creation in our hands!
Here are a few approaches that may be interesting if you want to engage in the process of goal-setting, but have some reservations about diving in:
Use a different word. Maybe “goals” brings up too many bad feelings or fears or annoyances. Other words people like and use are Visions, Intentions, Desires, Wishes, Wants. (Some people might get into the semantics of the differences between all those words, but I say, “Who cares!” Use what feels good and motivating to YOU! Make your own definition of the word!)
Don’t make a long list of goals. I know it’s tempting to want to tackle a lot of different things. I try to think of a few things (1-3) that will have a domino effect. For example, I know if I doodle every workday, I stimulate the creativity needed to make my businesses thrive.
Let yourself contemplate it for a while. Seriously. I know it’s the beginning of the year, but there is no rush! What if you take a whole month or two months to really contemplate? What amazing clarity might you have? How calm could you feel about it?
Get simple and concrete. This is another reason I am a fan of contemplating your goals for a while. Clarity takes time. I have seen over and over again with myself and my clients that simple, concrete goals feel immediately more actionable. Your brain doesn’t have to figure anything else out first!
Consider how you want to feel. Maybe it’s hard to name something you want to achieve. That’s ok! Identifying how you want to feel and coming up with ways to practice that feeling is a powerful way of creating things in your life that you want. In fact, I think the feeling state should always be a part of the goal-setting process!
Use your creativity. Create an image capturing what you want to feel. Dance your way into how you want to move through your days. Write a story about the coming year. Through your creation, your goals can be a breathing, living, evolving inspiration!
☆★ Creative Challenge ★☆ How can you define goals in a way that inspires you?