Sometimes we get pretty fuzzy with our intentions. We think our goal is to complete an activity. Then we complete the activity and finish without considering the reason behind the activity. We miss the end results we really wanted.
Our Book
As many of you know, Rena and I just released our first book. As we were getting close to being done, we got pretty excited and started telling people about it. We got all kinds of responses from people. Often people responded with, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.”
So we started asking these folks, “If you wrote a book, what would it be about?” We’ve gotten all kinds of answers from “I want to write a history book about a town,” to “I have no idea. I like to read all the stories, and I just always wanted to write one.”
One person even admitted that their book is pretty much done, they just never published it. This kind of story makes us sad. This person wrote their book, but I would hazard a guess that they initially wanted to write the book so it would be read by other people. So, technically, they met their goal – the book is written. But in spirit, they didn’t accomplish what they really wanted.
What Are We Intending?
This story reminded me of how often we hold intentions for an activity or a certain mechanism rather than holding intention for the end result. For example, we set a goal to make 50 phone calls when we should be setting a goal for 10 new clients. We set a goal to go on a particular diet when we should be setting a goal to release 20 lbs and live a healthy lifestyle.
When we set our intentions and focus on the mechanism only, we often miss out on the end result that we really wanted. We try the mechanism and if it doesn’t work for us, we give up. Or even if it does work, we stop after a while because, well, we accomplished our goal – we used the mechanism.
If we instead set our heart and our intentions on the end result, we will keep trying new things until we get that end result. The activity or mechanism just becomes a means to an end rather than the end in itself.
Our End Results
Maybe this end result isn’t so clear to us. Our vision is clouded. To discover this end result, we simply need to ask ourselves, “Why?” “Why am I setting this goal?” Maybe we need to ask, “Why?” a few more times. But eventually we get to an answer that is the real goal, and the previous stated goal is just one means to get there.
What about you? Do you set goals for yourself? Why or why not?
