Feel the ‘Feels’ when Goal Setting
How many times have you held yourself back or separated your emotions from your goal planning during a job search? Often, somewhat, all the time? I am betting you are thinking ‘allot’. That's pretty normal.
Most of us will suppress our feelings and start with the goal then take some action, get a few results and then feel the ‘feels’…for a short while you feel pretty stoked until the ‘feels’ disappear and you are back to square one. This is the traditional way we have been taught to set goals and one that disconnects us with a deeper motivation within us which ultimately makes our goal less pressing or immediate or long lasting.
So - what if you started with your ‘feels’ and went from there?
When you think historically about setting goals in your life, how often were you influenced by what your colleagues, friends, family or even society nudged you to do what you ‘should’ do? This external motivation to set goals does not usually serve us in the long run. Often we simply give up, abandon or just feel plain crappy about them and kick them to the curb and forget about them.
But for us to really grow and learn about ourselves as professionals, we need to feel connected to our goals. This is where our emotions play a key role. As we sit down to think about our goal for our job search, career pivot, skill upgrade, re-entering the workforce etc, we can check in with our feelings as indicators of how likely our goal(s) will be in driving meaningful self-development.
You may think that this seems challenging at first, but simply put, it requires you to pay attention to that inner voice or feeling. So next time when you are sitting down to craft your goal(s) - use your imagination and visualize yourself working toward or achieving that goal. Notice what thoughts, emotional charges or physical sensations pop up for you. Then consider whether each of these reactions feels predominantly good, bad, or neutral. Or as Clint Eastwood would say (back in the old timey days) - the good, the bad or the ugly.
At the end of the day, the most realistic and impactful goals for our growth give us a positive emotional charge like excitement, curiosity, or anticipation. If you feel yourself not feeling much of anything when thinking about the goal you crafted, or worse, complete dread, then dollars to donuts if I were a betting gal the goal isn’t right for you at this moment in your journey.
Next time sit down and try thinking of your goals in this order first:
Feeling - how do you want to feel about X over the next week, month, 6 months, year, lifetime etc
Action - what action or step do you need to take to make this feeling happen over the next week, months etc
Result - your feelings and the action you are now taking is leading you to your results - you can begin to see the change happening over the weeks, months etc
Goal - before you know it all of these steps tied to your personal motivator of emotion has led you to achieving your goal. You stopped focussing on what you are not achieving and all the pressures of an unfulfilled goal and the shitty stories you create in your mind about this and instead focussed on what you can do today, this week, next month etc
As brilliant, feeling, thinking, giving women, we are already intuitively linked to our emotions so embracing our emotions first in goal setting is not only natural it is critical to effective goal-setting and our ultimate success in achieving them.
So get curious about those juicy feelings you are experiencing and the why’s and let them guide you not only to the destination but also to help you plot the course to get there. In your job search and the workplace, this emotional tactic might be as practical and real as it gets.
Ask yourself - have you tuned into your emotional ‘why’ about your job search goals? Have you started with your deeper values and motivators before jumping into goal setting? Do you feel a bit lost when it comes to creating goals that align with who you are and what you want and can achieve in your job search? Are you overwhelmed with your job search and lack of goals and planning? I would love to help you dive into your ‘feel’s and start creating the foundation that will get you the results and goals you are striving for! Feel free to reach out for a free chat rani@livearebellife.com
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