Subtle but powerful difference between Goals and Desires.
The more sensitive you are, the bigger difference you feel.
Being born into this world, we all have one crucial thing in common – we are equipped with emotions. Some of us choose to embrace them, some of us choose to mute them, and some choose to use them as guidance. How to distinguish what to do with our emotions is a topic for another blog.
For today, consider subtle differences we feel when we train our mind and body to pay attention. I used to feel a certain tension in my body each time I would sit down on January 1st of any year and try to write down my goals. At first, I got excited. However, as more time passed and my goals remained goals despite all the action I was taking, I got discouraged. Well, I didn't stay only discouraged. I felt sad, disappointed, inadequate, unaccomplished, unworthy, and more. I had to change the way I thought about the goals.
Recently in my coaching, I was challenged when a client wanted to set up goals. I started researching goals and why they are often not met. One word kept coming up – tension. Whatever goal we have, we tend to assign importance and a deadline to it. At first, all is well; we hustle, bustle, work hard, take action steps, apply all we know, and then our deadline arrives. That date we may be avoiding because we are not where we want to be. Or we wish we were a bit further than what we set out initially. This creates tension. The more tension in your body, the higher resistance to completing the goal. The higher resistance to meet the goal, the stronger force and push we give. We give it more importance, more energy, more force, more time. We don’t want to be perceived as weak, non-achievers, so we hustle even more. Sometimes we get there after a long, winded, exhausting road, and sometimes we don’t.
Have you ever heard the expression that the ‘Fun is not in the destination, but in the journey?’ Given the fact you are on that long, winding road with so many obstacles to overcome, so many hoops to jump, my question to you is – are you having fun? Here is the reason for my question – if you are having fun and flowing through your journey with ease, your journey will not be long, winded, and full of obstacles, and because you’re having all the fun during the process, the result to you is unimportant. On the other hand, that hard, long, winding road of hustling, bustling does not feel good, so obviously, there is no fun. Plus, when you reach that destination, you will feel good for about three days before falling back into that trap of goal setting and achieving.
Instead of playing with the word ‘goals’, entertain the idea of the word ‘desire’. Desire emits a different frequency than the word goal. When you are clear on what you desire (what you want), you will logically know what steps to take. Here is a big difference between goals and desires. Goals imply force, deadlines, action, and a lot of grinding, while desires suggest ease, knowing what is wanted, and allowing it. A wonderful Tao saying states that ‘Nature doesn’t rush, yet everything is accomplished.’ Connect this to the word desire now. Knowing what you want, allowing the natural unfolding of things instead of forcing, now you have a completely different vibrational arrangement.
Now, I’m not suggesting to stop taking any action but when you feel a nudge to drive to the beach or go for a walk, or call a particular person for no reason, please listen to that nudge because that is one of those ‘inspired steps’ that will lead you to the next ‘inspired step’. Inspired steps feel like you’re listening to your intuition, the emotions that always guide you, and in that unfolding is all the fun! You are eager to see what else will show up, how it will show up when you allow without forcing. Once you’re at ease and allowing fun while enjoying the process, you start to emit completely different vibrations. It is no longer the frequency of hard work, forcing, tension, and so on. Now, it’s more about ease, flow, and enjoying the process.
We always pay attention to what my clients want; we write it down and feel pressure, tension, and resistance in their goals. Those are the goals that should receive more ease and allowing at the moment. That said, if you have goals that feel easy and fun, that is your green light to pursue them. This is how it goes – you dance where music is fun. The moment music starts to feel dull, slow, or heavy, take a look at another goal of yours and see how you can turn it into a desire with fun music and dance. When you do this, you will be fine-tuning. The more sensitive you are to how your goals/desires feel, the bigger difference you will notice and better results you will get!