Happiness = Goals With A Soul
Recently, I worked with a couple that was on the verge of divorce. They were so sad because they truly loved each other but had grown up and away from one another. They weren’t feeling how they wanted to be feeling in their marriage. They were no longer willing to be unhappy. They’re individual goals, that they had set in their early years had changed. They had changed. They didn’t think the other person understood them. Quite honestly, at that point, each of them didn’t have a clear understanding of themselves. So, we took a few weeks and as their clarity emerged, divorce came off the table and their love for each other re-kindled. They saw themselves in a new light, re-established their goals and accepted that working towards happiness was not the same as working towards not being unhappy. They aligned with happiness.
What if we have it all wrong; setting our goals early, making our to-do list in the hopes that one day, when we accomplish these things, we’ll feel a particular way.
Instead, what if we sat down and really thought about how we truly, deeply want to feel in the different areas of our life. Then, we established our goals and our to-dos around the feelings we want to have, every day.
Danielle Laporte says that in life, we're not really chasing the goal itself – instead we're chasing the feeling that we hope to obtain when we complete those goals. She says "when we make feeling good a priority, everything changes…" and when we get real about the feelings we truly crave, we might surprise ourselves, with some new choices. We might let go of goals and relationships that no longer serve us and hold tightly onto others.
So ask yourself, how do you truly, deeply desire to feel in these areas of your life; your marriage/relationships, creativity/learning, spiritually, physically, financially and emotionally?
You may experience some resistance as you're trying to get some clear adjectives to define how you truly want to feel. You may feel a little vulnerable. Take some time with this practice. This may feel foreign because who’s ever asked you this before? Sit in a peace-filled place as you explore as many adjectives and positive feelings as you can.
Once you’ve established how you want to feel, narrow the words down to 3-4 main words in each category. Now as you revisit each area of your life ask yourself if your goals are aligned with getting you the feeling you want to have every single day. If so, yay! You are truly getting a glimpse of your happiness every day. If not, what needs to go, stay, change so you are experiencing how you want to feel, every day?
Like my couple from a few months ago, your life could change for the better as you align with happiness.
For a cheat sheet of words go to the last pages of this PDF: http://www.daniellelaporte.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TheDesireMap_SampleChapter_TheMagneticsOfFeelings_SinglePages.pdf