What do you want?
Is it more money? A better job? A new car? A bigger house? A vacation? More skills or expertise in your career field? Play a musical instrument? Speak a new language? Play golf? Run a marathon? Or maybe it’s about relationships? Do you want to meet new friends? Find that special friend/mate in your life? The list goes on and on. But there’s something else that lies within us that supersedes all these kinds of things.
If we were to sit down and write a list of our top 10 or 20 or 50 goals, wants and desires, our list would almost always point to temporal things.
But no matter what those details are, underneath it all is the desire to enjoy life, to have fun, and to be happy. This bears true in numerous studies and surveys that are done from time to time. It’s universal. People don’t get up in the morning with a goal or desire to have a miserable frustrating day. (Not that the day doesn’t turn out that way sometimes. But just that we don’t want it to be this way.)
It seems self-evident. But sometimes we lose sight of this simple fundamental truth. Sometimes we get ourselves tied up in knots as we live life and strive towards goals. And this is counter-productive, to say the least.
If there’s any doubt about what I’m saying, just take a look at the goals you may have in your life right now, and ask some probing questions.
I’ll use money as an example because having more money is a frequently cited goal for many people. But you can do this exercise with any goal. Let’s say your goal was to make 10% more money next year. Now ask yourself… Why?
Q: Why do you want more money?
A: Because I want some money left over after I pay my bills each month.
Q: Why?
A: Because I want the freedom to buy the things I want.
Q: Why?
A: So I can have a nicer car, and maybe take some weekend getaways once in a while.
Q: OK, let’s start with the car. Why do you want a nicer car?
A: Because my car is getting old and worn. I want something new and beautiful, and maybe a little bigger.
Q: Why?
A: Because I’ll be happier and more comfortable in a new and bigger car. And I won’t have to worry about possible breakdowns.
Q: Will it have that new car smell?
A: Yes.
Q: How will you feel when you drive that new car off the lot?
A: I’ll feel wonderful, elated, happy!
Of course the details of that little drill will change with different goals. But if you keep probing deeper with any of your goals and desires, it will almost certainly come back to intangibles like feeling good, enjoying life and being happy. Or put another way, no matter what the details of your goals are, underneath it all is the desire to feel good. And the details of your life’s circumstances will never change this. Even though you may have times of pure joy and other times of turbulence, at your core is a rock-solid, unchanging desire to feel good, to be joyful!
But why mention this? Why focus on this point?
Let me answer with a question.
How’s life going for you? Are you happy? Are you where you want to be in life? Are you [now] where you thought you’d be a few months ago (or a few years ago)? Is it all peaches and cream, and everything is working out exactly as you want? Have your goals and desires been working for you? Or have you been looking forward to different circumstances – different outcomes in your life?
For many people, it’s the latter. And if your goals and desires haven’t been unfolding as you want, that means you are doing something wrong. You are focusing on wrong things.
We’ll look at goals and goal setting in much more detail later on. But it’s good to plant this seed right now – to get your thinking going in the right direction. And we’ll start from the inside and move outward. Not the other way around.
If you accept that feeling good – enjoying life – is implicitly understood as an underlying desire of yours, then make it explicit. Declare it and focus on it. Pay attention to it and monitor it so that it stays vivid in the forefront of your mind. In doing so, you’ll be setting your mind, thoughts and attitudes in the right direction. It seems like a small thing, but it will become powerful in your life. No matter what your other goals and desires are, keep this one front and center and monitor yourself – monitor how you feel – as you go through each day. Take notice of what you are thinking or doing when you feel good versus when you feel bad, and then adjust accordingly. As time passes, you will notice change taking place within you.
So what do you want? You can choose anything in life that you might want to be, do or have. But remember, first and foremost, you want to feel good. You want to enjoy life.