How to Set Goals You Feel Connected To
Many moons ago, I went to business school and worked in the world of marketing & sales, so naturally I thought I knew a thing or two about goal setting.
That’s until I came across Danielle Laporte’s The Desire Map and realized that my wellness goal setting process was missing a very important ingredient - heart.
SMART goals, as we call them in the business world, are quantitative in nature. They’re specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based. They allow us to measure our progress and success easily, with facts and figures. When delivered, these goals push us to create more aggressive goals. When not met, they reveal problems in our process which drive us to course correct and get back on track.
SMART goals have many great qualities, but they’re lacking heart and soul. They're often used in traditional nutrition and wellness circles using body weight and measurements to gauge success.
But here's the thing, setting a wellness goal based solely on a number isn’t enough. In some cases, it’s impossible because many truly meaningful wellness goals can’t be measured with facts and figures.
Your journey towards your wellness vision can’t be measured by a number.
So how then, can we set goals with heart & soul that guide our wellness journey and help us bring our wellness vision to fruition?
Here’s an exercise I want you to do, which is very loosely based on Danielle Laporte’s The Desire Map.
Take out your journal or notebook and let's get started:
Make a list of all the ways you want to feel about your body, food, and your wellbeing. Don't hold back. List as many feelings as come to mind for each area. For example, I want to feel happy, calm, joyful, energized, in control, confident, aware, grateful, intuitive, mindful, etc…
Look up the definition of each word and make sure you really understand what it means. Find a common thread between the words and refine the list down to the 3 to 5 core feelings or themes. For example, you might group aware, intuitive and mindful into one category, theme or core desired feeling called "being more present or connected".
State your desired feelings. Create a desired feeling statement based on each of your chosen words/categories/themes. Here are a few examples:
“I want to feel present and connected to my body and my food"
"I want to feel more energized and lighter on my feet"
"I want to feel good about the choices I am making when it comes to my food and movement"
“I want to dress with more ease and feel comfortable in my body”
There you have it, that’s your goal. You can’t measure it with a number, but rather a feeling and your ability to sustain that feeling, most of the time, over the long run.
This isn’t to say you can’t also have SMART goals, but I challenge and encourage you to attach a feeling goal to each of your SMART goals.
