Are you moving away from or towards the life you want?
There are a few different concepts to consider when thinking about your goals. Vision is important, that’s why we day dream and nurture imagination and creativity with music, dance, art, design and play.
Insight is equally as important so we’re heading towards achievable goals. Have you ever heard the story about the elephant that spent his whole life trying to swim with the dolphins or the fish that kicked himself because he couldn’t climb trees? If a fish knew his strengths and weaknesses he wouldn’t be so mad at himself for not being able to climb a tree, if it was truly his life’s ambition to be high up in the sky like a tree would allow he would navigate himself to higher ground and swim in a river on top of a cliff. The insight would allow the fish to use creativity to reach goals without causing strain and frustration. Confidence, positive self talk and encouragement or cheerleading is another essential concept to understand and master.
Vision
Practically you want to think about what your goals will look like. What does the end result mean for your life? What does the journey look like? How will it feel? How does it feel? Hold in your mind a visualisation of each step or externalise it if that works for you. Vision boards are an effective reminder of what you’re getting out of bed for.
2. Insight
With insight into the reason for your goals, an understanding of why you’re striving for it, you won’t be lead astray. For example, you might think I want to be like Barack Obama. You may then work tiresly to get into politics because your reference point for him is when he was president. If you ask yourself why, you might realise the thing you admire about him is his confidence, his self assuredness and that’s what you picture when you remember him as president. So while your visualisation of him is at a conference speaking as a president its the way in which he speaks that you admire. This opens up more doors, you could achieve that goal with acting classes, going outside your comfort zone, travel, public speaking seminars or workshops, any number of new avenues towards your actual goal.
Insight also allows you to know yourself. Spend time thinking about your values, what ignites passion, what feels right, what doesn’t. The closer you are to knowing who you are, or in the earlier metaphor the sooner you realise you’re a fish and what a fish is best at, the sooner you can use your strengths to achieve things. The more you achieve, the more trust you’ve developed for your own ability.
3. Confidence
Confidence comes from an innate trust in yourself. Trust requires a positive relationship with yourself. If you think about your friendships, question what works about them, how do you speak to each other? Do you speak to yourself the same way? To build a positive relationship with yourself you need to check your self talk, are you having your own back? Are you practicing self compassion? If you do right by yourself you’ll trust yourself. This is an essential part of success. You can’t set appropriate goals if you don’t trust your own judgement. You will take steps in the right direction with vision, insight and confidence in your own abilities.
Christine Halden
Psychologist