Almost all of us are caught up in the striving to reach 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.
Sound familiar? In Ecclesiastes when Solomon was on the goal-striving and attaining new pleasures, it was referred to as "chasing after the wind".
If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we would probably agree that more often than not, our goal setting efforts lead to disappointment and frustration.
We either blame the science of goal setting, by saying, 'this goal setting stuff doesn't work' or we make ourselves wrong.
Either way we wind up feeling frustrated and disappointed.
Why do we go around in circles, setting different goals only to go through the same process again? We keep 'chasing after the wind' - the cars, larger homes, job promotions, increased sales or larger salary on the false assumption that if we focus, do our daily affirmations or pin it on our 'dream board' then somehow our dreams will miraculously appear and we will live happily ever after.
We need to stop this goal-setting madness! Now please do not misinterpret me.
I believe in the science of goal setting and understand that it is an essential component to moving forward.
We do however, quite often, begin our endeavor in the wrong place.
We focus on the wrong things.
We start at step 2 : Goal Setting, oftentimes completely neglecting step 1 : You.
We neglect to reflect on our purpose for being here.
We skirt around the fundamental issues involved in knowing who we are and what we stand for.
We disregard or are careless about shaping and developing our character.
We need to do the hard yards in developing our characters before we go after "things".
Without a clearly defined purpose, the trophies we accumulate, our accomplishments or higher standard of living, do not hold context in our lives.
I am not suggesting to give up goal setting altogether but it is important to answer the questions pertaining to the inner you! Who are you? What do you stand for? What is your purpose? Once we have fully explored these issues and questions, then and only then are we ready to start accumulating our trophies and start setting/achieving goals.
Being vs doing.
So many individuals grew up with the mindset of "doing".
Both men and women have been enshrouded with the concept that if they just did more for their husbands or families, then they would be loved more, or if they just earned a larger salary then they would be respected on a deeper level.
People spend the vast majority of their time on doing things that they overlook the most important part of growing and becoming a deeper person.
Many have not taken the time and extended the effort required to discover their core fire or their passion and so slot into a format of going through the motions and doing stuff in order to achieve goal after goal.
It is then that we fall into goal setting madness.
Taking the time to ask the serious questions of ourselves will lead to finding our purpose which will lead to discovering our passion and lead to joy.
So join me, stop the goal setting madness by setting one more goal.
Set a goal to do whatever you need to do to 'find your passion and feel the joy'.
We have personal goals, fitness goals, goals for our kids, career goals, goals for our football team, church goals...
They go on and on.
Sound familiar? In Ecclesiastes when Solomon was on the goal-striving and attaining new pleasures, it was referred to as "chasing after the wind".
If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we would probably agree that more often than not, our goal setting efforts lead to disappointment and frustration.
We either blame the science of goal setting, by saying, 'this goal setting stuff doesn't work' or we make ourselves wrong.
Either way we wind up feeling frustrated and disappointed.
Why do we go around in circles, setting different goals only to go through the same process again? We keep 'chasing after the wind' - the cars, larger homes, job promotions, increased sales or larger salary on the false assumption that if we focus, do our daily affirmations or pin it on our 'dream board' then somehow our dreams will miraculously appear and we will live happily ever after.
We need to stop this goal-setting madness! Now please do not misinterpret me.
I believe in the science of goal setting and understand that it is an essential component to moving forward.
We do however, quite often, begin our endeavor in the wrong place.
We focus on the wrong things.
We start at step 2 : Goal Setting, oftentimes completely neglecting step 1 : You.
We neglect to reflect on our purpose for being here.
We skirt around the fundamental issues involved in knowing who we are and what we stand for.
We disregard or are careless about shaping and developing our character.
We need to do the hard yards in developing our characters before we go after "things".
Without a clearly defined purpose, the trophies we accumulate, our accomplishments or higher standard of living, do not hold context in our lives.
I am not suggesting to give up goal setting altogether but it is important to answer the questions pertaining to the inner you! Who are you? What do you stand for? What is your purpose? Once we have fully explored these issues and questions, then and only then are we ready to start accumulating our trophies and start setting/achieving goals.
Being vs doing.
So many individuals grew up with the mindset of "doing".
Both men and women have been enshrouded with the concept that if they just did more for their husbands or families, then they would be loved more, or if they just earned a larger salary then they would be respected on a deeper level.
People spend the vast majority of their time on doing things that they overlook the most important part of growing and becoming a deeper person.
Many have not taken the time and extended the effort required to discover their core fire or their passion and so slot into a format of going through the motions and doing stuff in order to achieve goal after goal.
It is then that we fall into goal setting madness.
Taking the time to ask the serious questions of ourselves will lead to finding our purpose which will lead to discovering our passion and lead to joy.
So join me, stop the goal setting madness by setting one more goal.
Set a goal to do whatever you need to do to 'find your passion and feel the joy'.