For a long time I thought that to be successful I had to achieve the goals they talked about in mass media. A certain amount of money coming in every month, owning and doing specific things, looking certain ways. It made me a grumpy man because I failed and failed and failed. And every failure was measurable.
About 3 years ago I stumbled across a YouTube video by Danielle Laporte. In it she talked about her Desire Map planner and how shifting from striving to achieve goals to striving to feel certain ways could improve my life. I thought it was the biggest bunch of new age hogwash I had ever heard!
After stepping back I evaluated it again because she is a very engaging speaker. After listening a few more times and reading more about her I thought through the idea of focusing on how I want to feel and liked the vibe so I gave it a tumble. It improved my life!
I went from beating myself up because I had failed again to acknowledging the successful choices I had made that day/week/month. I "felt" successful. And this shift from the negative to positive helped me change other things in my life. Soon the momentum of my attitude changed and I was happier, more pleasant, willing to try new things in my effort to feel certain ways. I began to grow again instead of staying angry and shriveled up. And I continue to benefit from this shift today.
My desired feelings for the past two years have been: Healthy, Useful, Progressing, Giving, and Ready.
Healthy - I'm tired of chasing after numbers generated from someone else. Instead of trying to lose I am trying to feel good, so I've changed my diet, my activity levels, and my habits in my pursuit of this healthy feeling. And it's working - I feel healthier!
Useful - As a white male I have been bypassed a lot at my job while people with other skills and attributes have been promoted. At my church I was left out because I was an unknown and not part of the "in" crowd. So I wanted to pursue feeling "useful". This change in mindset has given me the freedom to feel better about a lot of things in my job and in my life. And I've been able to get involved in things at church that are different for me but they make me feel very useful.
Progressing - On the back side of middle age I don't want to stagnate and feel like I have "arrived", I want to feel like I am learning and growing in knowledge and understanding. So I have purchased some online courses and started new ventures in my effort to "progress".
Giving - For the majority of my life I felt obligated to give to certain things. It never felt right but I did it. I have made an effort to find things to give specifically to and it made a world of difference in the way I felt about giving. I try to keep it anonymous as much as possible which has helped. Woohoo!
Ready - I learned as a scout leader to "be prepared". I'm not a prepper but I try to keep things ready so I can reduce decisions, speed up processes, and handle whatever comes up. This has helped me feel at times like I could take on anything and come out OK.
Though she can be a little "woo-woo" when she starts talking about stars and the goddess Danielle Laporte has helped me. Check her out at http://www.daniellelaporte.com/.
