How would you respond if I asked you:
What do you wanted to accomplish?
Think about it.
What do you want to accomplish?
If you asked me this question two years ago, I would have told you that I wanted to build my own speaking business and reach young people across the country with messages of positivity and action.
I think this purpose still rings true for me.
However, having now built the business and spoken to young people across the country, I've also had a revelation.
This is it:
We are not seeking our actual goals - we are seeking the way we think completing our goals will make us feel.
I'll say it again. It's the entire point of this post.
We are not seeking our actual goals - we are seeking the way we think completing our goals will make us feel.
When we set a goal to lose weight, what we are really seeking is the feeling we believe losing weight will bring us.
When we set goals to make more money, what we are really seeking is the feeling we think more money will bring us.
When we set goals to get better grades, or get a promotion, or run a marathon, it is always about a feeling associated with our perception of success.
I have a bold idea.
What if you felt that way today?
What if, today, completely separate from your goals, aspirations, and accomplishments, you allowed yourself to feel successful, pretty, confident, proud, etc.
What if the accomplishments themselves are simply there as reminders to ground yourself in these feelings all the time?
Because I'll let you in on a little secret:
The mentality you create throughout your life doesn't change when you've accomplished something big.
There are people all over the world with their dream homes...and they're still miserable.
There are people with more money than they could ever spend...and they're still miserable.
There are people who have gotten all the promotions, lost all the weight, gotten the best grades...and they're still miserable.
The mentality they've created their whole lives doesn't change when they finally have what they think will make them happy.
What they are truly seeking is a peace of mind that doesn't come from external circumstances or accomplishments - and they could have been fostering this peace of mind in their lives all along.
What they are seeking is an internal sense of accomplishment that only comes from continuous gratitude, and a mind trained on seeking out joy in everything - not just the big things.
My hope for you today is that you place value in yourself, right now, as you currently are, that you push for big things, but your happiness doesn't depend on you achieving them, and that you continuously find ways to build gratitude, joy, and peace of mind.
I believe enough people pursuing life in this way would drastic change the type of world we live in. Don't you?
So I'll ask you one more time:
What do you want to accomplish?
Comments