Over the past two days, while working with coaching clients, the tall-tales of the self-development industry came up over and over.
“But don’t you need to set goals that scare you?” one client asked.
“How’s that approach working out for you so far?” I replied.
“Uh, not so good.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Setting goals that scare you” is one of the four pill-errors (not pillars) that the goo-roos teach. And it’s wronger than wrong. It may be the wrongest advice of them all.
If you set goals that scare you, you’ll never get off the ground. You’ll be stymied and stuck. You’ll be so frozen, a hot morning coffee won’t even wake you up.
Think of how ludicrous it is to teach people to set goals that invoke fear, when fear is the great paralyzer.
Instead of setting goals that scare you, consider setting goals that inspire you. Set goals that generate momentum and spontaneous action, goals that don’t cause you to resist yourself.
When you are doing well, you are no longer resisting yourself. You’re taking out the garbage on a daily basis. And with the garbage put away, you are free to accomplish more because you’re now in a natural state of flow.
Almost all goal setters remain nothing more than that: goal setters. Same as those who make a list of New Year’s Resolutions, none of which get accomplished.
The trick to goals is creating and following a system where you are winning the game of life all the time. You win so often that you make other people jealous, without trying to do so.
When you set goals that scare you, you’re beginning way behind the starting line.
When you set goals that rev up your engine and catapult you into action, you are free to swing for the fences. You are free to follow the advice of Dorothea Brande, who wrote, “act as if it were impossible to fail.”
You cannot act as if it is impossible to fail when you set big, hairy, audacious goals that scare you.
But you CAN when you set goals that create zero internal resistance within you.
Just as we resist others who bark orders at us and tell us what to do, we also resist the “self” that imposes goals and demands that are not in alignment with the natural flow of our own energy.
If you’ve been setting goals that scare you and you feel as though you’re getting nowhere, understand you’re a member of a big club. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one who believed the nonsense.
But there is a way out of the mess – and acquiring the attributes contained within Zero Resistance Living is one of the keys. Isn’t it odd that there’s nowhere in the course that tells you to set goals that scare you.
Matt Furey
Note: If you’re interested in my Mind Power Monthly coaching program, drop me a line and I’ll get back to you with the information.
