Goals

Do goals you once cared passionately for now leave you cold?

Goals, for me at least, conjure up a similar image to New Year’s resolutions. The impression is it all kicks off well but as we progress through January our expectations of being able to stick on track dwindle.

 

 

This happens because the goal is too big for us to handle. In fact, the part of us that gets stressed out is our amygdala. This is a part of our mid brain which houses our flight-or-fight response. If the goal is too big then the amygdala gets triggered and we become emotionally overwhelmed and run for the hills!

 

 

 

The challenge is to take little steps by duping the amygdala and staying under its radar!

So breaking down goals into tiny steps really can help. The trick is to know how small the step needs to be in order for you to be successful!

Well that’s all very well when you are working towards goals that you choose to follow yourself. But what happens when the goals are imposed on us by our work, our family and by circumstances and commitments? 

These kind of universal goals can create an intense negative feeling within us. Feelings of awkwardness and unease arise and the result for you can often be a loss of power and control. You have to ask yourself if this feeling comes because your heart is not in it? Does it come from you feeling imposed upon? Is it because what you are being asked is out of alignment with your morals or values? Or are you being asked to do the impossible with little or no resources?

If this happens then it is very challenging to stay on target and to see things through. In a work situation this can be the time when people choose to leave an organisation because there is no shared vision.

Other times we know that what is being asked is a potential opportunity for us to grow. What we do need to do is manage what is being asked of us and create a good work/life balance so that the goal does not take over our lives.

To manage the situation well means to manage your responses effectively. How would you like to cope with what’s going on? Thinking about how you would like to react, visualizing how you would like to be different in the given situation and what a successful outcome would look like is helpful.

Perhaps you now find yourself in a place that feels familiar, as if you’ve been like this before and it feels like an old pattern. Old patterns have a habit of repeating themselves, so, it’s time to find a new way of reacting.

If that’s the case, then maybe we could have a conversation. I am sure that I can help you feel better and add more meaning to the things that you are working on in your life right now!

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