Are “You” Lined up with Your Goals?

As a coach, I help you achieve your goals faster. But I’m less interested in your actual goals than how you can most easily achieve them. And, I’m less interested in how sensible your action steps are than how lined up you are mentally and emotionally with those steps. Simply put, if you aren’t lined up with your goals, you wont achieve them. So my most important mission when I talk with prospective clients about their goals is to ask the kind of questions that will reveal any hidden values conflicts, fears, or attachments connected to those goals.

When we work together, our most productive work will be addressing those conflicts and getting “you” lined up with what you want to achieve. Once you are lined up with your goals, then the action steps are easy to take, and over time, with consistent action, there’s almost no way you can fail. But when you aren’t lined up, no matter how clear you are on your actions, no matter how committed you feel when we get off the phone, by the next session, it’s predictable that you will either be frustrated with yourself for procrastinating, or you will cite many legitimate reasons why you could not take the actions required to achieve your goal. You may even be distracted and want to talk about other things, until after a few months you look back and wonder what you accomplished.

How do you know if you are “unaligned” with your goals? Here are just some of the signs:

1. It takes a whole lot of willpower and discipline for you to follow your plan.
2. You feel that you need accountability – someone to push you.
3. You really don’t enjoy doing the specific actions required to succeed.
4. You find yourself procrastinating and feel ashamed, but that doesn’t change things much.
5. Other, more important things keep getting in your way so you don’t have time to do what you need to do to succeed.
6. You keep changing your mind about your goals.
7. You set a goal and work towards it for awhile and then, without even realizing it, you seem to drift into not working on it, until one day you notice you’ve blown it off for weeks.
8. You feel like if you could only just get this one thing worked out and achieve this one goal, everything in your life would finally be ok (the right job, the right weight, the right relationship, etc.)

In contrast, how does it feel when you ARE lined up with your goals?

1. You may be tired or unmotivated, but you take the action steps anyway, and you feel good about it.
2. You might want an accountability partner, but you look forward to the time together instead of feeling pushed or forced.
3. Taking the steps required to achieve your goal feels energizing and exciting even if you feel scared, even if you fail.
4. Once you get some momentum going on your actions, they get easier, more enjoyable, and you feel more efficient.
5. You can see yourself having achieved your goal, and it feels possible, not like a “too good to be true” fantasy.
6. You know achieving this goal will be fulfilling, but you don’t expect it to make all your problems go away.
7. You might procrastinate or get distracted sometimes, but within a few days you are naturally thinking and focusing on your goal again, and wanting to take more steps.
8. As you work towards your goal, you continue to grow your confidence, even when things aren’t working out like you’d hoped.

If you look at the two lists above, you may notice that there is a distinct difference in the overall feeling and forward motion. When you aren’t lined up with your goals, your emotional state is more conflicted, your mental state is more confused, and although you may take some action, you never gain enough momentum to see results. When you are lined up with your goals you still feel all the same human emotions like fear and frustration, and you still face setbacks, both internally and externally, but through it all you naturally hold the vision, want to move forward, and find the energy you need to do what it takes. So eventually you gain momentum and get results.

If you are becoming painfully aware that you are in the “not lined up” category, don’t despair. You wouldn’t “want” whatever it is that you want if it wasn’t lined up with at least one real value or need. And that means the possibility exists for you to achieve at least most of what you want. However, if something isn’t lined up, you will have more long term success working to identify your internal conflicts and working them out than in attempting to force yourself through willpower to take action.

This doesn’t take as long as you might think. You don’t have to go into years of therapy and resolve everything in your past that affects you now. Just shining some light on your values, thinking about what makes you feel happy, fulfilled, and purposeful, and understanding what tends to get in the way for you can make enough of a difference to get you moving forward.

That’s why, at Aspyrre, December is the month of “self-discovery”. January is a big month for goal-setting, so in December we get back in touch with our core values, think about who we really are, what we most want out of life, and identify what gives us a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Then, as we plan for the year ahead we can make a conscious effort to line our goals up with our strongest values and give ourselves the best chance for success.

There is an exercise I have my clients do each year in December that helps shine the light on what is most important, and sets the stage for setting solid, values-based goals in January. The exercise is on my website, and is called “Your Year in Review”. Feel free to go through the questions yourself for this year, and when you are done, see if you have uncovered any gems that help you line yourself up with what you want to accomplish next year. I’d love to hear what you come up with!

P.S. As I write this at the end of 2009, I am working on a new website, so if for any reason the link doesn’t work – just go to my website and look in the articles section, or feel free to e-mail me and let me know so I can get the exercise to you.