Setting Goals: What do you want and WHY do you want it?

0:04 This is Crappya Happy, and I am your host, Cas Dunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappia Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Hello and welcome to another solo episode of Crappy to Happy. This week, I want to talk about goals and why we want what we want.

0:49 I'm going to try and keep this quite short and sweet, but I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I am a coach, as many people know, I started life coaching over twenty years ago. I have then become a clinical psychologist. I have a master's in coaching psychology, so I've worked across the spectrum of coaching and therapy for many years now. And you know, coaching is all about creating goals. And there's loads of research that says that having goals, setting goals, and working towards them is really good for you. Like, it's really good for your well being, even if you're like a bit of an anti goal kind of a person. And I have definitely gone through those stages myself, and I am a little bit scattered and distractable, so I'm not that great at sticking to what I say I'm going to do. That's a whole other story, says the life Coach. But it is really important to kind of have some sense of the direction that you're going in, and we all know that if you don't do that, then it is very easy to just kind of go with the flow of life and end up going down a path that you hadn't really necessarily intended to because you didn't actually have any clear intention about where you wanted to be. So all a goal does is really give you a sense of direction. And it is not to say that you are then locked in to something that things can't change, that you can't change your mind or unexpected circumstances pop up and life takes you in a different direction. But it is really helpful to then kind of reorient yourself and decide what it is that you want in the new kind of world. If that has happened to you,

2:20 it just gives you something to work towards, you know, and we humans are kind of driven to evolve and grow and develop mastery and to have some sense of purpose and meaning and contribution and having some idea of where we're headed can help us with that. Anyway, I don't want to go down all of that path and convince you of the value of goals. That could potentially be another topic. But what I did want to talk about is the question of why we choose the things that we choose when we think about goals. I think this is an important conversation and I want to talk about two different but related aspects of this. So one is what it is when you set a goal for yourself, and it could be in your career. It could be finances, could be health, could be your weight, could be what you want for your family, or travel or personal development, skills, hobbies that you pursue, upskilling in different areas as anything like that you can pursue. But the question is what is the feeling that you perceive you are going to have when you achieve the goal. So if you set us a goal to achieve a particular level in your career, or to achieve a certain level of financial well being of financial independence, you know, money goals, career goals, weight goals, health goals, whatever it is that you're working towards. I think it can be really useful to ask yourself, and as a coach, I've always asked my clients this, what is the feeling that you believe you're going to get?

3:53 How is it going to feel when you achieve the goal? Like what is it that you perceive that that goal is going to give you? Because anytime you're pursuing a goal and you're thinking about, yeah, i'd love that, that would be really amazing, that would make me feel so satisfied and proud, But there's something more than that, and typically what it is going to give us is a feeling of freedom, of happiness, of inner piece of safety, security. So whatever it is that you are working towards, and if you haven't thought about this for a while, it can be really useful to even start to spend a bit of time thinking about where am I headed in life? Am I just coasting going to work each day doing the things that I do each day, managing my house, managing my kids, my relationship, you know, all of that sort of stuff. Like it's very very easy to just be busy doing the day to day of life without ever giving a whole lot of thought to where might I want to be in a year's time or two years time or five years time, like where is all this headed? You might have some vague kind of notion of what you would like for your future, but it can be really helpful to take that vague notion I love a fuzzy kind of vision of the future, and wind that back, reverse engineer that a little bit and bring it back down to something that's quite concrete that you can work towards. It can just give you kind of a bit of a spring in your step, a bit of motivation and inspiration to take certain actions or change certain behaviors if you have a sense of this leading to something bigger and desirable in your future. So

5:23 if you haven't thought about goals for a bit, have a think about where you're headed, what you want, and then ask yourself, what is the feeling that that's going to give me? And the reason that I think that this is important is because for many people, and this is what really struck me. When I first trained as a coach and I started working with people closely towards achieving their goals, what I began to notice was that when I would ask people as a way of motivating them and as a way of getting them really invested in doing what needs to be done to achieve the thing that they're working towards, we would talk a lot about evoking emotion and what's it going to feel like when you achieve this thing, and people can often very readily tap into that feeling. But the problem that I found, which caused me to just rethink everything, to be honest, was that all of these people were attaching their happiness to the goal they There was a story running, even if it wasn't conscious. There was this kind of idea that when I get the goal, that's when I'll be able to feel free and peaceful and happy and successful and proud and confident and safe and secure, Like when I get that, that's going to be great, Like it's going to be amazing, and this is how I'm going to feel. But while that's great for motivation, what it does is it implies that none of those feelings are available to you now, and that all of my happiness

6:55 and wellbeing is on the other side of achieving that goal, which kind of just leads to this, yes, motivation, but also this feeling of lack of dissatisfaction with where we're at right now, and then the striving towards the goal is kind of coming from a place of scarcity and lack and dissatisfaction as opposed to it being driven just from you know, like things are great and I'm fine, and I've got everything that I need, and it would be great to also achieve this thing, but not because I don't have everything that I need right now. I don't know. That might sound a little bit paradoxical, but what we don't want is this idea of attaching our happiness to an external circumstance that I haven't attained yet, to something that I don't have right now. When I was doing my coaching and when this struck me, this whole attaching happiness to a goal and putting my happiness on the other side of a goal, and all of my sense of satisfaction and confidence and competence and well being and worth was all attached to achieving this particular outcome.

7:56 This is what led me to going down the whole Buddhist path, and not Buddhist, but you know, mindfulness, acceptance, act, acceptance, and commitment therapy, like all of that idea about living by your values and being able to tap into what is really good about life now. So the point of all of this is to say, when you are able to articulate, when you're able to identify what it is that you perceive that this goal is going to give you, then the next part of that exercise should always be where is that in existence in my life already? Where do I already have freedom and happiness and satisfaction? And where can I already cultivate feeling of confidence and security and safety? Like what's going well right now? All of these things that I think this goal is going to give me, How can I look at my life now and see that those things already exist. I can still want the goal, I can still go after that thing, but it doesn't come from a sense of lack, and it doesn't come from a misunderstanding that my happiness is attached to the outcome. That's what we want to avoid.

9:07 We don't want our happiness attached to an outcome. This is that whole Buddhist idea of non attachment, you know, like the cause of suffering is attachment. When I believe that something else needs to change or something else needs to be different in order for me to feel a certain way. Then that is the root cause of suffering. I am always going to feel dissatisfied and my happiness is always going to be outside of me, always out of my control, because something else outside in my world needs to change. So I need to change someone in some way before I can feel happy, and that is what we don't want. So it is this balance of, yeah, have a goal, be inspired, live your best life, fulfill your potential, do what you're capable of, and feel good and strong and confident, and evolve and grow because that's what we're designed to do, but all the while knowing that I have everything I need right now that I don't need that in order to feel a certain way.

10:08 So I hope that makes sense. It's a useful exercise to do, and it might just help you to shift your perspective a little bit, and it just helps you to let go of some of that grasping and scarcity and feeling of lack. Now, the other thing on this is why you want the things you want. And this occurred to me because I was talking to one of my coaching clients a little while ago, and if she's listening, she'll know who she is. And basically her story is a very very common one, and that is having a feeling of being behind and having a feeling like you're not able to achieve what you are capable of because she's got young children. This is the eternal struggle for women, and it is women. You know, there's not really an issue for men who have professional goals, have career aspirations, worked and studied and built yourself up to a particular level in your career, in your own business potentially, and then there is this pausing and stepping out and stepping back in order to raise young children, and then seeing everybody else progressing and moving ahead and feeling in some way that you're being left behind. And we were having a lot of conversations about how she manages that, how she manages those feelings, and this is something that has come up in my group, in my Beyond Confident group, which is opening again next month. I'm very pleased to know.

11:34 If you're interested in that, go to my website and get yourself on the waiting list. Women who return to work after having a baby often feel the lack of confidence most strongly because they feel like they're out of touch, they feel like they've been left behind. They often go back part time so they can't contribute at full capacity. So there's this constant kind of comparison with other people and where they're at in their career and where you could be potentially. It's not an uncommon problem. Everybody who has maybe taken a step out to have young children, well to have children, will be familiar with that feeling. And she said to me one day that she had been listening to a different podcast and she heard this term mametic desire, and she realized that some of what was going on for her was mametic desire. So that that's a really interesting concept and it might be something worth sharing because it could be something that you relate to as well. So if you're not familiar with the term, mimetic desire refers to wanting something or having desires or preferences, because that is what society and culture portrays as being desirable.

12:44 So it is being influenced by the world that you live in, by the society that you live in, and the cultural aspects. It can be media and can be advertising, it can just be what everybody else is doing. It's amplified by social media because we can see so much more about what everybody else is doing and what they're achieving, and it causes us to want what they want, or it causes us to feel like what we should be aspiring to. The goals that we set for ourselves are the things that the world tells us. The things that society tells us are what we're supposed to want. And because we're so marinating in these influences, because they're all around us, it can be very hard to pull apart what is authentically me and mine and aligned with my values and my preferences and how I want to live my life and what makes me happy, and separating that from what I think I want because it looks really good for other people. When I see other people achieving things and doing things and aspiring and making a lot of money and living this life and all of the things, then I feel like that's what I want. But do I really or is that me being kind of influenced by the world around me. It's a tricky one, you know, because you can't escape. But the fish doesn't see the water that it swims in. But it's worth doing a little bit of exploration around that, because what it can lead to if you're not really paying some attention to

14:16 this memetic desire, is it can lead to social comparison. It can lead to you comparing yourself negatively with other people and what other people have got and what they're doing and what they're achieving, and coming up short and having that cause you to feel unhappy within yourself and your own you know, where you're at in life and what you're doing and what you're achieving, and things that would otherwise make you feel pretty happy and contented can actually make you feel like you're coming up short somehow. It can cause you to feel envious of other people, you know, getting a little bit jealous of other people's successes. And that was certainly something that I think was coming up for my client when we had this conversation, like there was this bit of envy about what other people were able to do. So it can be and you know, mv's not a bad thing. I just want to make that point to if you look at what somebody else is doing and you feel a little envious of that, then rather than just shutting that down and not wanting to go there or feeling like you're a bad person or just staying stuck in the envy. It can be really worth using that as a little bit of a prompt to explore what is it about that person and what they're doing that you envy, because what envy is, what fuels envy is seeing what somebody else has and wanting it but not believing that is available to you.

15:36 And not believing it's available to you is a misunderstanding. Like it's not the truth. But if at any level you believe that somebody else has got something that you are not able to have, that is not something that you could potentially like, that you could have, then that's what sparks envy. If somebody else has got something and you really love it, but you could go out and get it today or tomorrow, it's not such an envy thing, right. You can be happy for that person. You can feel really excited for that person because you could have that, You could have the same thing. Yeah, we could all be happy. But it's when they've got something that you feel that is not available to you that that's what fuels that feeling of MB. So if you get rid of them is understanding. If you get rid of the idea that it's not available to you and just tap into what is it about that, what that person is doing or what they've got that I really am envious of.

16:21 It can help you clue into what is it that you want? What is it that you really want, and that can help you to set some goals. But again ensuring that it's not just a mometic desire, that you're not just wanting it because it looks good on them, if it's not actually intrinsically desirable for you and aligned with your deepest values and what makes you happy authentically, it's really really important. So these cultural kind of narratives of what we should all aspire to in terms of success or beauty, lifestyle, you know, all of these things, they can really cause us to all end up feeling dissatisfied in an inadequate and wanting things for the sake of this, Like the world has told us that this is what we should all be aspiring to, that this is the thing that's going to make us happy, and we need to really be honest about that. And so it's really important to just examine that and to ask yourself the question of is that really what is going to make me happy because at the end of the day, if you are pursuing a goal, or if you're pursuing something that is fueled by this memetic desire, the world has told you that this is going to make you happy.

17:33 This is what everybody else is doing, so this is what I must need to be doing. Then ultimately you're going to feel just as empty and unfulfilled and dissatisfied. And we see that in the world all the time, like people who are the most successful people can be the most deeply unhappy if they're not really connected to what is most important in life. I know it seems really simple, and I know what feels like stating the obvious, but I think it's really important to stop and just check in with ourselves occasionally and ask ourselves. Are we feeling down about ourselves, dissatisfied, you know, feeling like we're not measuring up, we're not achieving as much, we're behind, or that we're somehow lacking, when in fact, if we let go of that story, if we're able to just drown out that story and drown out all of the influences about what we think we're supposed to aspire to and drown out all of that social comparison and really just examine our life in relation to how well we are living by our own values and what already exists here that is good and abundant and feels safe and secure, it gives us a sense of freedom and connection. Then we might all just have a bit of a rethink about what it is that we're working towards. So I share that because I do believe in the value of goal setting, but I want you to be sure that when you set goals for yourself, that you are starting from a place of abundance, knowing that your happiness is not attached to the outcome, and also being very clear

19:03 that the thing that you're pursuing is deeply important to you and aligned with your values and what makes you happy and what will make you feel good and satisfied and content in your life, not based on all of the messages swirling around you about what you're supposed to want. So I think that ultimately is what it means to be really living a good life, and it's very easy to get pulled away from what's most important. There's a lot of influencers all around us. Something to think about if you're concerned that you don't know if what you're pursuing is authentic to you or not, then it can be really useful to do some work tapping into your values. By all means, if you need the support of a coach, if you want to join my program, hit me up.

19:48 Love to have you in my community. But maybe just starting from what does bring you joy, like, what are the things that are meaningful to you, what is ultimately important to you? And I would encourage you to even give some thought to what the research says about what makes for a good life and a satisfying life, because often what we're pursuing all of this stuff outside of us, at the end of the day, it is not the stuff that is going to make you happy. Meaningful pursuits, having a sense of purpose, a sense of contribution, contributing to something that is bigger than your own self interest, connections, social connections, and the quality of your relationships. All of these things are the things that make for a satisfying life, a longer life, happy life. So if you're working yourself to the bone, cutting yourself off from all of your friends because you're busy chasing some goal, or chasing some business success or career success or financial or you're depriving yourself of social situations because you're pursuing some sort of health goal that is very extrinsically motivating. It's not aligned with your inner well being, like you're trying to achieve a particular body shape or whatever. Then maybe just stop and have a think about it, and maybe just spend it a little time, maybe writing in your journal, doing a bit of meditation, and asking yourself what is most important and are the goals that I'm currently pursuing, the things that I'm chasing, the way that I'm spending my time and my energy right now? Am I investing in the things that are ultimately going to make me happy

21:18 and satisfied? Hope that is helpful. And I have a fabulous guest coming on the show next week to talk about her experience of not just postpartum depression, but postpartum psychosis, which is something that is not talked about a lot, but I think there's a lot of you that are going to really really be interested to hear her story. So hope you'll join me for that one. I can't wait to catch you next week for that episode of Crappy to Happy