Sometimes it just feels like we’re going round and round and . . .
Here’s an idea to go from feeling exhausted and drained by the constant pursuit of goals to leading a rich, meaningful life.
It’s a short, 3-minute video, but if you’d rather read about the subject, you can check out the post below the video.
One of the things that can cause us to feel like we’re on a hamster wheel in life is the relentless pursuit of goals.
Not that there’s anything wrong with goals!
Unless we’re relentlessly pursuing them.
In our culture, we tend to follow a formula that looks like this:
When _____ happens, then I will feel ______.
So, “When I get that new car, then I will be happy.”
“When I get that job promotion, then I’ll feel fulfilled.”
And we do feel happier for awhile! But, if you remember from my video about happiness, we have a happiness set point that we always revert to. So, while we feel happier after the new car or job promotion, we tend to come back down to our set point after a while.
Then we want another hit of higher happiness, so we set another goal, achieve it, feel good for a bit, come back down, set another goal . . .
You see how this can turn into a hamster wheel that ends up being draining and exhausting.
So how can we work with goals in a way that makes our life rich and meaningful rather than always chasing after a shot of short happiness?
The importance of values
The key is in identifying our values.
Values are those things we believe and hold dear that are the important things in life, the things that make life meaningful to us. Being more aware of and following our values brings an ongoing richness to life that wasn’t there when we were only pursuing goals. By lining up our goals to serve our values, we slow that hamster wheel down and create a life that is rewarding, not draining.
But how to know what you truly value? Here’s a short exercise:
Imagine you’re at your 90th birthday party. All of your friends and loved ones are toasting you and reminiscing about your long life. Do you want them to say, “She always stayed until 7 pm at work no matter what?” Or, “His cupboards were always immaculate – all the can labels pointed to the front?”
Hopefully not!
Perhaps you want them to say that you have always been a good friend and your ability to connect with others is remarkable. Or that you really loved nature and took meaningful actions to preserve it.
Whatever you come up with, those are likely to be your highest values.
Now that you’ve identified those, see if you can line up some goals that help you move in the direction of those values.
Wouldn’t it be nice to trade the hamster wheel for a rich, meaningful life?
As always, I’m interested in your thoughts in the comment section below.
[…] clear goals: Once you have a clear understanding of your core beliefs, it is important to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. These goals should be aligned with your beliefs and reflect what you want to achieve in various […]