Part 1: Get Clear and Determine Your TRUE Goals

Is It Even Possible??

I don’t know about you, but I know very few people who have achieved all or most of their life goals. Thinking about this may be upsetting and even downright disheartening. How can I achieve my life goals, when I don’t even know anyone who has?

First, let’s talk about perception. If you ask everyone you know if they have achieved all or most of their life goals, their answers may surprise you. Maybe on the surface, it looks like they have, but really they have not. Or, maybe they actually have achieved a lot but don’t show it. We all perceive success differently, and we all have varying life goals.

The most important step and the first one to achieving your own life goals is to stop comparing yourself to others! It is irrelevant whether or not they have achieved their life goals. You won’t get anywhere if you are always looking to others, instead of concentrating on your own life.

The second step is to change your own perception on what even success or achieving these life goals mean. Maybe your life goals are a little far-fetched, take time, hard work, and possibly blood, sweat and tears to achieve them. For instance, the goal of becoming a millionaire. In this case, maybe you need to really look at what you have achieved so far to get there and celebrate those smaller wins.

Reconsider and Allow Change

Or, maybe your goals need a complete re-vamping because they simply aren’t in-line with who you are anymore. Maybe when you were a teenager you thought for sure you wanted to become a lawyer. But after school and having some work experience, you realize it does not match your personality.

Also, take your life circumstances into consideration. Maybe you had to overcome a learning disability, or, you came from a poor family. On the outside, it may not look like you achieved much, but overcoming adversity is one of the hardest things to get through in life and deserves way more recognition and celebration.

Remember, it is more than okay to change your life goals. However, to help avoid doing this too often, (and avoid feeling like you never achieve anything), here are some steps to help you A) Get clear on what you truly you want and your goals, and B) Start achieving them!

1. Write down your current goals—even the “old” ones that seem to have stuck in the back of your mind for a long time.
2. Look them over and see what some similar factors are. For instance, maybe it is all about creating a happy, healthy home and family. Highlight and/or write down these words as they come up and how you can link them together.
3. Ask yourself WHY you have these goals. I recommend doing a brief meditation to help you get clear on these WHYS. Envision yourself achieving these goals. What major feelings come up? Is it love, connection, freedom, etc? In the end, we all strive to achieve certain goals because it gives us something else in return which translates into what happiness means to us. i.e. financial freedom, more time with family, etc. Keep in mind, there could be a few layers to your goals.
4. Let’s look at a direct example, to give you a more clear idea. Asking someone: What is your career goal?

Layer 1: Graduate law school—WHY?

Layer 2: To become a lawyer—WHY?

Layer 3: To earn a substantial income—WHY?

Layer 4: To have the freedom to buy an awesome house, nice car, travel, etc. WHY?

Layer 5: To enjoy life (which in essence equals happiness)

Okay, so let’s look at this realistically though. Often lawyers can have long hours and stressful situations to deal with. Therefore, you may have the freedom to buy those things, but will you have the freedom to actually enjoy them and enjoy them with people who you love? 

In this instance, to this person, I would ask: “What career could you do that may get you the same result, but be even better?” To be more specific, a career that would also A) be something you enjoy that allows you to have more time on your hands, and B) be something you really feel you can sink your teeth into and makes you feel like you are contributing somehow.

What do you Really Want?

I’m not saying being a lawyer can’t bring you happiness and make you feel like you have a purpose, but it is the individual that determines that. For instance, another person’s layer for this same goal may read they want to be a lawyer so they can defend victims of sexual crimes, and they want to dedicate their lives to this cause. This will bring them happiness because they are fulfilling a purpose that is in-line with who they are. The secondary benefit to them may then be to earn a decent living.

Most of us want nice things and more freedom. But choosing a career path needs to be about more than survival and achieving only the niceties in life because you spend most of your life doing your “job.” What is the point if you spend 20, 30, 40+ hours a week doing something you hate and don’t believe in just for the money? It will seriously rob your soul and your happiness.

Another thing to consider is maybe TIME freedom is truly more important to you. For example, the freedom to explore the world and/or spend lots of quality time with family and friends. You may be surprised to know, you don’t need to be rich in money to have this. It can help, but usually, people are sacrificing their TIME for money. So then, they actually never truly get what their heart desires because they don’t have the time for it.

So I hope it doesn’t sound like I am telling you what your goals should be. But, I do hope this helped you get clearer as to what your WHYS are, and therefore help determine what your happiness-inspired goals are.

Overcome Your Fears

Now that you are clear on what your TRUE life goals are, let’s move on to get them accomplished! Ironically, this article has been taking me longer than any other to complete, because I am finding it hard to find the motivation to finish it. It is not that I don’t believe in its message, and it’s not even something like writer’s block. I just have felt tired even thinking about doing it, and writing normally feels energizing for me—not the opposite.

So I had to ask myself, “Why is this article so hard for me to write.” I then realized it was because motivation is actually something I have struggled with my whole life.  Therefore, I feel inferior teaching about it. This feeling then leads to the whole “not-good-enough” syndrome, which is one of my main thought-habit battles.

I will leave that topic for another day, but my point here is to use it as an example of what stops us from taking the actions necessary to accomplish our goals. In observation of my own life and others, it is that FEAR that gets the best of us. But is it not the type of fear you might suspect. You may not even realize it is fear.

For example, my “not-good-enough” syndrome is derived from the fear of not being accepted and loved. Because I’m in awareness I ask myself, “good enough for what or whom?” And the answer is silent, or “I don’t know.” I could answer, “People in general,” but that is kind of a lame answer. So then I think, “my family or my readers?” Ok, well, family is supposed to love you unconditionally; so really if they do not accept me because I am trying to inspire others, then…why would I want their acceptance?? As for my readers, obviously, if they are reading it they are already interested in the content—DUH. So there you have it, my fear is debunked!!

Becoming aware and asking yourself these types of questions, allows you to really get to the root of your fear and hopefully debunk them with common sense, so you can feel OK again to move on to achieving your goals.

You can Achieve only if you Try

Although a little cliché, one of my favourite questions for this is “WHAT IS THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN?” Let’s take the lawyer example again. Maybe you are just at the beginning and you need to go ahead and apply to law school. But, you feel drained from the stress of worrying about the outcome. Maybe you fear you won’t get in. Well, if you ask yourself the above question—the worst that can happen is that you won’t get in. BUT guess what? You DEFINITELY won’t, if you don’t TRY! So, there you go, you might as well try because if you don’t, your worst fear will happen anyway.

Also, keep in mind that if you do try and your worst fear becomes a reality, you can always try again to the same school or another one. OR, you can take some time off of school and work in a law office to make sure it really is a good fit. Maybe it turns out it was not, so that worst fear becoming a reality, may end up becoming a HUGE blessing because you didn’t waste time and money on something that was not even for you!

Stay Tuned & Free Gift

I got so carried away with writing this article after overcoming my fear that I made it SUPER long—ha! So, I am splitting it into two parts so you can really take your time to digest the information. Be sure to check back next week for the 2^nd part of this article, “Getting it Done—the Heart-Based Way” so you can slay your goals! [UPDATE: Part 2 is now available to read here.]

In the meantime, I have a special free gift, which incorporates the exercises from this article and the 2^nd part. Even though it does include the 2^nd part exercises, I encourage you to only finish part one exercises this week. And then move on to the other ones after another week (or at least a few days). This allows you time to get even clearer about your goals and your WHYS before jumping onto any kind of action plan.

For now, I would love to hear some of your WHYS and awesome goals that you came up with below! Also, remember I am only a message away for any assistance!

Inner-Motivator Worksheet