The "Pull" Side of Goal Setting

The "Pull" Side of Goal Setting

It is very common for people to be scared of setting big goals (if this is you don't feel bad - most people feel this way). Why is this?

The primary reason is because we are scared of "getting our hopes up" and then being let down. This seems to be a very natural human reaction, one that everyone experiences (until you condition yourself not to, read on...).

It is very natural to have a fear of failure. I believe that one of the primary reasons that we fear failure is because we don't want to feel less significant than others. We intensely fear feeling inadequate because that feeling cuts directly to our feelings of self worth. When we feel inadequate, or less significant, we feel that "we are not enough". This is a terribly immobilizing feeling. We also intensely fear the feeling of being alone, and "failure" when interpreted in a dis-empowering way gives us a feeling of being alone.

This is why many people do not ever engage in the creative exercise of "lifestyle design" or "dreamscaping" as I call it. They never really truly embrace the creative process of asking themselves the question "what would my life look like in the best case scenario?". If they do engage in this process it is VERY common to censor their desire. If a desire pops in their head that seems unconventional, or "unrealistic" then it doesn't come into their dreamscape. Again, we don't want to feel that "we are not enough", we don't want to feel insignificant or inadequate if we fail. We don't want to let ourselves down, so we are very reluctant to engage in any exercise where we "dream" for more.

As a result, most people focus on "making a living" rather than "designing a life". We set impotent goals because deep down inside we have fear. We don't believe in our ability to pull off the dream, and we are scared to test our own boundaries and fail because if we fail it will cut into our self worth and make us feel worse than we felt before we experimented with this "dreaming" business.

WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU MISS OUT ON AN INCREDIBLE FORCE: The power of PULL

A clear and compelling vision for exactly what you want out of your life (no matter how ridiculous you think it may sound), has a tremendous PULLING influence on you. Dreams are a projection of the life we wish to lead. Therefore, when we allow them to "PULL' us, our dreams unleash a creative force that can overpower all obstacles hindering the attainment of our objectives.

To unharness this power a dream must be vivid, clear and compelling. A fuzzy picture of what you want out of life has very little pull power. The better you define a dream, the better you describe it, the harder you will work on it, and the stronger IT PULLS YOU.

When you live in fear you never get to experience this creative PULL.