A More Forgiving Way For Goal Setting In A Pandemic

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I usually power up the music, get into a positive state, dig out my Tony Robbins Goal Setting Template & plan my new year.

But I don’t this old approach will serve me this year and whilst I don’t think goal -setting is  cancelled in 2020— I think it needs to look & feel different. 

Setting sights on the future can be a daunting task right now. With the pandemic dictating our calendars and rewriting the days, weeks, and months as we know them, it may seem easiest to just throw out the agenda and go along with the whims of the world.

However, while staying in the present has its benefits, we don’t have to give up on looking into the future altogether; we just need to shift how we’re going about it.

After all, the point of planning ahead and setting goals isn’t simply to achieve them with a 100% success rate but, instead, to create things to look forward to and work towards now I think.

I used to practically beat myself up constantly with over reaching goals that constantly made me feel a failure as I didn’t always achieve them or certainly not in my own exacting time frame.

This year I’ve reflected & now I see a more mindful, gentle way of viewing my goal-setting, which starts with being appreciative of where I am  now and then planning for where I’d like to be more in the future.

So, I’ve shifted from all the rather harsh highly charged questions set by Tony to two basic questions: “What do I want?” and “What do I need?”

Another major change to my mindset is to adapt & be more flexible during the pandemic to stop myself getting frustrated and depressed because one thing is absolutely sure & that is that  life is absolutely not predictable at the moment. So, being flexible and willing to compromise with my goals is especially important right now I think.

I read about a better approach suggested by  Dr. Carla Manly, a licensed clinical psychologist and wellness expert that suggested not putting all my energy into creating one perfect life goal or plan, because it’s likely that the fallout will hit me much harder if things don’t pan out quite right. So Dr. Manly suggests creating multiple plans that can fit with various outcomes or possibilities which I think is far more forgiving & achievable in these times of never ending change.

Dr. Manley also suggests allowing yourself to say, ‘This is disappointing,’ ‘This is sad,’ or ‘I am going through grief.’  This strikes me as really helpful as it allows you to move forward and reset your goals in a more realistic and achievable way – acknowledging that things didn’t always work out as you wanted or in the time frame you set for yourself.

Perhaps 2021 is going to be about relationships, core values, community & friendship ?

So instead of worrying about creating the perfect three year plan or tackling the list of things you want to accomplish by a certain age, start by figuring out what you need to create a more comfortable and enjoyable life for yourself right now.

I hope you find this approach helpful – let me know what you think?

 

 

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