The Feelings in Your Goals

At the beginning of the year, everyone talks about goals and how to set goals. 

But goals are only a vehicle or tool and goals without feelings are pretty useless.  

What truly matters is how we want to feel when we achieve our goals.   

The feelings can be experiences in life, at work and in your sports performance.  

I will share with you a 4 Step process to bring more meaning into creating your future:

Feeling – Application – Specifics – Actions.

In my recent group call, participants shared that they want to feel confident, at ease, connected, balanced, calm, committed, focused, energized, and more…..

Imagine how it would feel when you are confident at work?  What would you be doing? 

Here is an example to illustrate the process:

Choose the word that represents how you want to feel.  Or if you are not sure, name the opposite of how you don’t want to feel, for example: 

“I am afraid to start my business, new job, sports…. “ So, you want to feel more confident.  

Let’s take this example:

Step 1 – Feeling: I want to feel more confident.

Step 2 – Application: In which situation?  I want to feel more confident in my interactions with people.

Step 3 – Specifics: How would it look when I am more confident? What would I be doing when I am more confidentI am approaching people who could help me, I am communicating with confidence and getting out of my comfort zone. 

Step 4 – Action: What actions do I need to take to feel more confident (your feeling word)?  

Actions are there to conquer the barriers, what holds you back, one step at a time. Identify your barriers and develop actions accordingly.  For our example: 

  1. Skills – I will improve my technical skills by taking a communication class
  2. Behavior – I will seek out every day a situation that is out of my comfort zone and appreciate my efforts for doing it.
  3. Evidence that I can – I will write down examples of when I acted confidently and felt confident.  I will look at these examples daily and add to it. 

Use the 4 Steps with each of your “desired feeling” words. I ask my clients to identify at least 3 feeling words and work through each step.

Going through this process will allow you to set your inner GPS toward your desired future. 

We need an inner GPS to direct us to where we want to go.  And actions will get us to where we want to be and how we want to feel.