Setting Goals: When you believe the answer is having more
Part 2 in a series
We live in a world that is continually sending us the message that our value comes from what we have and what brands we consume. It’s all about our image and how other people perceive us.
I didn’t know it then, but I have a better understanding of it now. Living your life by the rules and perceptions of other people is the road to misery. Back then I thought it was important, although it wasn’t necessarily a conscious understanding, but somewhere in my mind I thought it was important to look good to the rest of the world.
Until that stage in my life I’d never been into a formal process of setting goals. I would get an idea of what I wanted and most importantly for me, what I thought I could achieve given who I was, what I deserved, where I’d come from and then set out to do it. It’s obvious now I was limiting myself, but you do what you know, until you know better.
My big goals were set loosely around the things I thought would bring me happiness. Health and fitness, money, and relationships. None of these things are bad objectives in and of themselves, and they’re common. But as I have learned over the years, when we place our happiness on something ‘out there’ in the future or create an image in our minds of what the perfect future will look like we’re playing a losing game. Just because you set a goal, doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful, or that it will turn out just as you imagined.
More on that later.
During my search I came across NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and hypnosis as techniques for changing beliefs. New beliefs mean new goals and bigger opportunities. No longer would I be tied to my past, once I understood that I could change myself and the way I saw the world, there was no stopping me. There was nothing that I couldn’t do or get, or so it seemed.
My happiness was going to be bigger and better than I’d ever imagined!
