Living The Real Life Beyond Goal Setting

In many of his wonderful talks the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar states "you've got to have goals." Have you ever asked yourself why?

You are instructed that you need different types of goals. There are fitness goals, financial goals, relationship goals and spiritual goals. Your list of goals can be endless. There are some successful people who are working on more than fifty goals in developing their personal and Business life. There is pride expressed in the fact that the more goals they have the better person they are.

There are more and more people becoming goal junkies.

There will be those of you who will give me good reasons for setting and achieving goals. I ask you a deeper question. This question is "For what purpose?" You think if you do not set goals nothing will be achieved. There are many who when setting goals feel increasingly conflicted.

Rather than more goal setters this world needs people to simply be present to their lives. Rather than live in the future-focused achievement-directed mode just take time to relax. Learn to let go into the present. In this way you can develop real confidence and presence. In this way you learn to live your life on purpose. The results will drive your energy higher than any goal setting routine. You will feel in harmony with who you are rather than simply what you do.

goal setting for some has become obsessive.

You measure your worth by what you have achieved and not by who you are. Then this dynamic is visited upon the children. You rationalise your life into segments. You are the sum of the parts (ratio) but you do not feel whole. You measure your life in comparison with others. Everything in your life becomes a measure. It becomes something to be judged "good" or "bad"

As it says in the beautiful poem Desiderata, "do not compare yourself with others for always there will be greater or lesser persons than yourself.

Do you think Jesus Christ was a goal setter? Do you think Buddha set goals. Can you see either of these Beings sitting down late into the evening ticking off their list of accomplishments? Do you think that they carried the modern equivalent of a filofax? We have much to learn from the leadings of these masters.

You are a creative being.

Learn to trust this experience. Instead of doing a goal setting program learn to be more your SELF. Do you think God is asleep? Allow this power of universal consciousness to move through your feeling self. Then you will accomplish more than you ever dreamed off. Learn the secret of doing more by being more.

This experience of allowing yourself to be will be enough. Your goals are more likely to manifest without your constant interference. Allow your life to flower. Stop forcing the beauty of the moment into some future fixed result. Allow sometime for the spontaneous and the synchronistic. You are part of the play of this world. Play has been forgotten in the rush to achieve.

Remember you are enough now and forever. So be it.

Tony Cuckson is an Anam Cara. This Celtic term means "Soul Friend." He specializes in providing insight for the spiritual journey, Blessings for YOU, words of wisdom and finding