Perhaps driven by school, university and work, my belief was – I must set clear ‘SMART’ goals in order to succeed. It’s not something I questioned. I consciously and unconsciously set goals in most (all?) areas of my life. On the surface I was ‘successful’ good job, nice house, great friends/family/partner, but the risk with this approach is that you may reach your goal and realise it hasn’t made you happy, hasn’t fulfilled you, hasn’t made you feel the way you want to feel.

This isn’t to say I wasn’t grateful for all the things I had in my life, but more that I’d ended up there by accident. I’d not been making conscious decisions about how I wanted my life to be, rather doing what I ‘should’.

I wasn’t in the driving seat

I’ve spoken before about The Desire Map here and here. It’s provided me with a far more meaningful and useful way of both planning my days and defining my goals.

The Desire Map has put ME in the driving seat

The idea of having a set of feelings as a signpost to use to make decisions both big and small is so freeing. This year after following The Desire Map process the Core Desired Feelings (CDF) I want to feel are – balanced, joy, light and empowering.

What do they mean to me?

1. Balanced

Perhaps an obvious one for me and in some ways this could be my only CDF as it covers all areas of my life. I am a walking contradiction and have very extreme interests and likes.

For me balanced means so much, including:

• fulfilling my need for a stable base by making my home safe, comfortable and secure and balancing this with my desire for travel and exploration
• balancing the feminine and masculine within me so that I can be soft, empathetic, strong, collaborative and rely on my masculine in times I need unrelenting focus
• interspersing activity and productivity with rest and relaxation

2. Joy

Rachel Taylor from The Joy Effect has taught me the difference between joy and happiness.

For me joy includes:

• connection with others including love and cuddles
• seeing the beauty around me
• taking pleasure from simple things

3. Light

This could be tided up in Balanced as there is a balance to be has between light and dark or light and heavy, however for me it felt like an area that was out of balance and I wanted to focus on.

For me light involves:

• having less ‘stuff’
• not holding grudges or feeling resentful
• eating the way my body prefers

4. Empowering

This is the one I feel most shy about sharing. I almost seems boastful or arrogant to feel that I could empower others, but through this work I do love my ability to empower women. I want to share my skills and all that I have learnt to empower others to go out and grasp the future they desire.

A rather personal slant this week, but I hope it helps to see how goals can be turned on their head to be meaningful and fulfilling. No need for that sagging feeling of an anti-climax when you reach a goal and it doesn’t feel how you expected it to.

Find Your Core Desired Feelings

If you’d like to find out more about The Desire Map and define your CDFs to achieve your goals I’d love for you to join our special workshop – Don’t Wait:Make 2016 Great. All the details are here.

If you enjoyed this article you might also like:

• Why I’ve Ditched the Goals
• My Birthday – a time for goals with soul
• Is Your Job Ruining Your Goals