How can you use your felt sense to come up with goals that are congruent with yourself?

Focusing Tip #536

“I’d like to know more about how to use Focusing on goal setting and achieving…”

Bhavani writes:

I’d like to know more about how to use Focusing on goal setting and achieving, especially how to come up with right goals (long-term and short-term) that are congruent with myself.

Dear Bhavani:

For me, the most important thing about an inner conversation about goals is to make sure I am not imposing them on myself. That would mean I’ve gotten identified with an anxious part of me that thinks it can’t trust the rest of me to take congruent actions.

If I ever find myself resenting or resisting the goals I have set, then it’s likely that a part of me has gotten hold of the goals as a “should” and is tyrannizing over the rest of me.

And no good can come of that!

So I want to use my body’s felt sense to check if I feel an enthusiastic inner “Yes!” about the goal I’ve chosen.

Then I want to keep checking in with my body sense to see if the goal needs to be adjusted so it still brings that inner sense of “Yes!”

Where do goals come from? I like to picture myself one or two or five years in the future. What will I be doing? What would make my heart sing?

If I’m not sure, if I get a sense of “not-quite-right” about a particular goal or vision of my future, then that is a great starting place for a Focusing session. The felt sense of “not-quite-right” knows an enormous amount of what would be more right. It just needs some time and attention… and then it becomes a compass needle, pointing you in your best forward direction.