Instead Of Goals, Try This

A few weeks ago I was thinking about what I wanted to do this summer and the thought came to me:

One of my GOALS is to spend more time in the mountains.

Even though it was my own thought (hello past programming!), I immediately recoiled.

I didn't want to have a GOAL to spend more time in the mountains. No!

That word felt way too achievement-oriented for something that was supposed to be just straight-up fun!

So I immediately flipped it around to something that felt SO MUCH BETTER:

One of my DESIRES is to spend more time in the mountains.

Doesn't that have a completely different energy?!?

Desire is fun and light and makes you want to move towards it as opposed to something you have to do.

Desire is your longing and truth, not some arbitrary number or achievement-oriented end game that may or may not give you fulfillment.

Desire comes from YOU - what YOU truly want instead of what you are "supposed" to do.

Desire has no proving, pleasing, or perfecting.

It's just you, moving in the direction of what fills your soul.

If goals work for you, go for it! I'm not on a personal mission to take down every SMART goal in the world.

But if goals feel like they have an unhelpful weight or they set you off into overachieving perfectionist mode where you feel like you HAVE to achieve them or you feel awful and the inner critic swoops in with super fun mean guilt trips, then flip it around.

Instead setting goals, ask yourself: What do I desire?

My example here is related to my free time, but you can do this for your career as well.

What do you desire in your job right now? What do you desire in your next role or company? What do you desire in your business? What impact do you desire to create?

Change one word and change everything.

Aren’t sure what your desires are?

Get my 10 journaling prompts to reconnect to yourself - they will help you figure it out!