Almost all of us are caught up in the struggle to achieve an endless stream of goals. We have personal goals, fitness goals, goals for our kids, career goals, goals for our football team, church goals… They go on and on.
Sounds familiar?
In Ecclesiastes, when Solomon was at the finish line, striving and attaining new pleasures, he is called “chasing the wind.”
If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we’d probably agree that more often than not, our efforts to set goals lead to disappointment and frustration. Either we blame the science of goal setting, saying, ‘This goal setting thing doesn’t work,’ or we’re wrong. Either way, we end up feeling frustrated and disappointed. Why do we go around in circles, setting different goals only to go through the same process all over again? We keep ‘chasing the wind’: cars, bigger houses, job promotions, higher sales or higher salaries with the false assumption that if we focus, make our daily affirmations or pin them on our ‘dream board’, somehow way our dreams will come true. It will miraculously appear and we will live happily ever after.
We need to stop this goal setting madness!
Now please don’t get me wrong. I believe in the science of goal setting and understand that it is an essential component to moving forward. However, very often, we start our efforts in the wrong place. We focus on the wrong things. We start at Step 2: Goal Setting, often completely neglecting Step 1: You.
We refuse to reflect on our purpose for being here. We sidestep the fundamental issues involved in knowing who we are and what we stand for. We ignore or are careless in the formation and development of our character.
We have to work hard on developing our characters before we go after “stuff.”
Without a clearly defined purpose, the trophies we accumulate, our achievements, or a higher standard of living have no context in our lives.
I’m not suggesting that you abandon goal setting altogether, but it’s important to answer the questions related to your inner self! Who are you? What do you represent? What is your purpose?
Once we have fully explored these topics and questions, then and only then will we be ready to start racking up our trophies and start setting/achieving goals.
Being versus doing.
Many people grew up with the “do” mentality. Both men and women have been wrapped up in the concept that if they did more for their husbands or families, they would be loved more, or if they earned a higher salary, they would be respected on a deeper level.
People spend most of their time doing things that they overlook, the most important part of growing up and becoming a deeper person.
Many have not taken the time and extended the effort required to discover their core fire or passion and thus fit into a go-ahead format and do things to accomplish one goal after another. That is when we fall into the madness of setting goals.
Taking the time to ask serious questions about ourselves will lead us to find our purpose, which will lead us to discover our passion, and will lead us to joy.
So join me in stopping the goal setting madness by setting one more goal. Set a goal to do whatever it takes to ‘find your passion and feel the joy’.