I love a good goal as much as the next person. Run a 5k! Write on the blog once a week! Get to one million followers on Instagram!
But, the older I get, the more I realize that there are lots of things that I want to do, but that the actual activity or goal or achievement isn't the motivating part. And even more importantly, I don't feel nearly as good as I want to even if I accomplish the goal if I'm miserable the whole time I was working towards it.
The goals just don't feel as good when I'm only focused on the outcome, and not the process. And the easiest way for me to tune into the process is to pay attention to how I'm feeling.
There's a popular planner that a friend recommended to me - the Desire Map Planner - which I ultimately had mixed feelings about. BUT I loved the core prompt:
What are you going to do today to feel the way you want to feel?
The idea is to pick "core desired feelings" - but you can also think about them intentions. How would you like to FEEL this year?
My feelings for 2020 are:
Grounded. Capable. Engaged.
I might have enrollment goals for Thrive, for example, but when I'm doing the marketing and writing blog posts, I want to *feel* engaged. I want to feel like I'm doing that work on purpose, that I have something important to share, that it means something to me. So that way, if I hit my goal, then I did it because it was authentic and came from me. And if I don't get there, then I still can rest knowing it was authentic, and it came from me. I felt the way I wanted to feel while I was working, and that counts. It means that I'm giving myself permission to feel the way I want to feel WHILE I work on things, WHILE I try to achieve my goals, and not as reward for afterwards.
I definitely won't feel grounded, capable, and engaged every minute of every day this year. But I have the goal of feeling that way when I can, how I can. I have a place to aim for. I have a bar to measure myself that isn't about achievement, that isn't about metrics, that is a little more in my control. I might not be able to fully control my enrollment metrics, but I can offer myself a five minute meditation when I'm feeling anxious about it, to get a little more grounded. It's a different way of thinking about taking care of yourself.
How do you want to feel this season? This month? This half of the year? What makes you feel that way? How can you build in checkpoints for yourself around how you're feeling, and not just what you're getting done?