Does Achieving Your Goals Lead to Happiness?

“Thought creates our world, and then says I didn’t do it” ~ David Bohm

It seems to me that happiness is elusive, changeable and formless.  It means something different to everyone.  And even more, it means something different to the same person at different times and contexts.

Rather than chasing happiness, what might it be like to have a something different to aim for?

What might it like to be comfortable in your own skin?

Equipped to navigate the natural ups and downs of life with grace, grounded in your own certainty?

To be able to fall back to a place where you can feel a sense of knowing that you’ll be OK and that you trust yourself to make the right decisions,  so that you can navigate yourself through the storm and be present to the good times and the bad times, knowing that both come and go?

Grounding is a word used to describe your understanding of life.  Not belief, not superstition, not wishing or hoping.

Goals, Good or Bad?

I’m not saying don’t have goals, and I’m not saying that happiness is bad.  We strike problems when we try to link the two things together.  Something like, ‘I’ll be happy when I get that [thing]’, where the thing is money, a relationship, job or whatever it is you think you need to fill your cup.

For me goals serve the purpose of clarifying direction.  They’re a signpost.  I ask myself, ‘What is it that I’d like’?  I get clear and then start working towards it.  But to put off happiness until I’ve got that thing doesn’t seem to make sense, except where of course I don’t see within myself where I’ve somehow linked the two together.

As my Platoon Sergeant on my Army Basic Training used to say.  “Here’s a tip for young players”.  If you want to make yourself miserable spend time comparing how good life will be when you’ve got the [thing] with where you are now.  While it may seem like motivation, in most cases it has the opposite effect.  It’s better to focus on the next step and then the next, and occasionally look up to see if the direction you’re heading in still makes sense.

Using a goal as motivation for happiness can become a bit like a junkie looking for his next high.  While you may get the outcome and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction you get from achieving it, what do you do when the feeling dissipates as feelings inevitably do?  Have you ever bought something, even something with no buyer’s remorse, felt the euphoria of the purchase, only to notice later, whether it’s days or weeks later, that you no longer feel the same?

What do you do then? Ante up, go again, looking for a bigger hit? Because you figure surely this time the feeling will stick.

Likewise, happiness itself as a goal, appears to me to have a few issues.  Happiness is something we feel when we’re in the moment.  And at least from what I’ve seen, when we are absent of too much thinking.  It also appears to be contextual and individual, what makes you happy might not make me happy, and vice versa.

I could be getting it wrong, but from where I sit, it seems to me that happiness is the result of a deeper understanding into the nature of being human, rather than as the consequence of obtaining something material.  It’s something that happens inside of us and is not ‘triggered’ by anything in the world around us.

At this point I’ll say, linking goals and happiness together might not be a conscious thought, you might need to do a little digging to find your true motivations.

OK You Say, I’ll Humour You, What Next?

If happiness is a pleasant side effect, then what is it that we should be looking for?

A deeper understanding of life, plain and simple.

The role of Thought plays, while obvious once it is seen, seems to be a cause of great confusion.

When first introduced to Thought as a principle most people get caught up in the busy-ness of their monkey mind.  That noisy chatter inside our own heads that seems to be a constant unwelcome companion that rarely goes quiet.

But that’s not the Thought I am referring to.

There is a deeper part of our Minds, beneath our conscious thinking, that either empowers or limits us.  Thought itself is quite impersonal, and at its origin is formless and pure.  It’s once we get hold of it with our personal minds we seem to poke and prod at it, forming beliefs and concepts about ourselves and the world, and that’s where the problems start.  We cloud it with all sorts of conditioning and in doing so innocently limit what we think is possible.

Thought is the source insecurity, and without realising it, we use it to make up our personal reality.

Fear, doubt, self- judgement, looking to the world for answers, positive feedback or good feelings are an attempt to make the ego feel better.  It’s one of life’s hard lesson to find out there can never be enough validation or sympathy for the ego.

It’s not uncommon for people to bemoan that they could do this or that, ask out the girl, start a business, follow their dreams, if only they had the confidence.  They keep themselves trapped inside their own self-contained, self-made prison, not able to fully experience the richness that life has to offer.

Then there is the next level, the school of thought that confidence comes from overcoming your fears and self-doubt, the “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”, approach, the empowerment of positive thinking.

And finally, those that realise that confidence, creativity, and their own flavour of genius is what is present when personal thinking is absent.

Before Thought

Thought is the missing link that connects our inner world to our outer world.  Words that come from the teachings of Theosopher Sydney Banks.

Before our personal thinking is a space that exists within the consciousness of all human beings.  When we rest in that space a remarkable thing happens, our personal thinking settles and the constant chatter that is our everyday companion quiets down.  This leave space for new Thought to emerge.

Through the power of insight, we start to chip away at long held beliefs, themselves made of nothing more than thought that creates a life of limitation.  Rather than shrinking in fear and self-doubt, we begin stepping out into the world and asking, ‘I’m here, what have you got for me?’

We also start to get a sense of our own power.  Not authoritarian power, but the power that comes with self-assurance, knowing that we’re safe, we’re well, that we’re already whole and we don’t need fixing.

It stands to reason, as these things come to the fore, and without the weight of insecure thinking to hold you back you’ll become more resourceful, resilient and experience the possibility and creativity that children take for granted, simply because they haven’t yet learned that they can’t.

Coming Home

In my life as a Project Manager I used to spend quite a bit of time living out of a suitcase.  And while I was able to adapt quickly, there was always something good about getting home.  Being in familiar surroundings, with all my own stuff.

Ironically one of the reasons people struggle to change habits is the familiarity they have with their baggage, they fear what may happen if they, or their circumstances change, and they move from the familiar into the unknown.

To me, one of the major benefits of looking inwards is the feeling, it’s like coming home to an old friend.  And just like when you return to an old favourite, familiar place, you might be surprised find you experience contentment, satisfaction, and dare I say it, feelings of happiness more of the time.

And while it sounds cliched, goals really are about the journey.  The high you feel from the result will only last briefly, while you spend most of your time doing and creating, so you might as well enjoy it.