Setting Goals

Intro

Recently, I have been feeling a lot better about myself and where I’m at in life. And it’s not because I have achieved anything of significance or I am where I want to be in life. It’s quite the opposite actually. I’ve been at this job that I know I don’t want to be at for a while (still am), and it has been pretty tough recently because it’s felt like there was nowhere better to go and I didn’t know what to do. And that can sometimes be unavoidable, you’re never going to always know what you’re next move is. But it’s important to accept the situation for what it is and keep faith that things will turn out okay.

Finding my next move was the hardest part for me. I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be, yet I could not find a path that I truly thought would lead me to something better. I didn’t know where to take my career. It took a lot of patience and thinking. It was frustrating because a lot of times it felt like there wasn’t anything I could do to make progress, I just had to wait until I figured out what I wanted.

“it is important to open yourself to a vision of what is next. You stay open to a vision of your deeper purpose by not filling your time with distractions. Don’t watch TV or play computer games. Don’t go out drinking beer with your friends every night or start dating a bunch of women. Simply wait” – David Deida in The Way Of The Superior Man

I had to avoid distracting myself when I was feeling the pain and discomfort of not being where I wanted to be, but to focus on finding a solution. Sometimes I found myself lying to myself or trying to convince myself that I was in a good place. Sometimes I believed it. But I always fell back on the same truth and gut feeling that I am not where I should be. Maybe some of you who are reading this are going through the same thing (I would like to think a lot of recent college graduates are), so hopefully you can find something helpful from my story, enjoy!

Why Setting Goals are Important

Goals are what helped me get out of this rut, especially writing them out. Writing is essentially thinking, so writing about my goals really helped me start to think about things that would help me achieve them. This is why I’m a big believer in manifesting, journaling, and visualizing your goals. It forces your brain to think about them, and the more you think about them the more aligned you will be with them.

When you give yourself a goal, you brain remodels itself to define things it encounters in the world as “Does this help me achieve my goal” or “Does this hinder the pursuit of my goals”. This is happening all the time whether you realize it or not, and it is important to harness this tool for the better. We are goal achieving creatures. We are always pursuing and achieving goals as individuals and as a species, and it is important to be intentional and thoughtful about our goals, so you do not wander aimlessly through life, or worse, help someone else achieve their goals at your peril.

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” - Pablo Picasso

The more you think about your goals, the more concrete they are, the easier it is for your brain to categorize things as helpful or not. Writing about your goals is helping your brain put time aside to think about how you are going to achieve your goals.

Visualization and Manifestation

This is also the same reason why visualizing your goals is so important. When you do this, whether it is imaging your goals or physically seeing some part of your goal, you are giving your brain an image of what the end result should look like and naturally reminding it to think about it and strive towards it. Visualizing your goals is almost like you are giving yourself a hint for figuring out how to achieve them.

This is the same for manifesting as well. I have a journal that I write in, and some of my writings are me manifesting and praying for my goals in life, among other things. Writing about your goals is encouraging your brain to think about the things that are important and helpful to your goals. These are the crucial times where your brain remodels itself to better align with these goals you are setting out for it. Also, genuine prayer is always answered.

Conclusion

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes” - Andrew Carnegie

Your brain is a powerful tool, it’s important to use it to the best of its capabilities. I’ve found that learning how to set goals and effectively think about them leads to more enjoyment from life and a more efficient path to achieving your dreams. You’ll also be surprised by what you can achieve. Challenge yourself with your goals! The more challenging, the more fulfilling pursuing the goal will be.

Without setting goals intentionally, they will forever stay as dreams. These vague ideas in your head that have not been defined or thought through will stay that way forever. You cannot stumble into your dreams, you have to go get them, and step one of that is figuring out what it is you want, exactly. I’ve found that the tools that I outlined in this article (writing, manifesting, praying, visualizing) have been beneficial for me and I hope they are for you as well. Thank you for reading!

Side Note

I was writing this tonight and really was just letting my mind roam, and it was really fun. I feel like I can take myself too seriously with these articles and create something that I don’t have fun making and talking about. This is something I find myself battling with on most of these articles. I don’t want to find statistics on my topics or back things up with data. It might be better to drive the point home, but I don’t enjoy researching statistics on things that I already generally understand. I get more enjoyment from these when its more of an open forum and opinion piece. I’m pretty much speaking to myself and just thinking through my ideas. This is supposed to be a passion project and something I have fun with, so I’m going to do that.

This is not to say I don’t want to hear constructive criticism from people in the comments, I still very much appreciate it. Help me become a better writer!

I also want to be clear that I do not want to leave this company that I am at because the company itself is terrible or that there is anything wrong with it. It is just not the right fit for me. I have been treated with a lot of respect at this company and I wish them nothing but success and prosperity in the future.

I leave you with a cool minute clip from Jordan Peterson I stumbled upon on why writing is so important. Check it out.