This new year felt a bit different.
Normally when the new year rolls around, I engage in constant reflection on the year that just passed and think deeply about new things I can do to change my life for the year coming. I would set long and short-term goals, declare my upcoming success in my journal and create a vision board to guarantee my dream comes to life.
In previous years, I’ve set money goals to get out of debt, get a better job and increase my net worth. I’ve even set goals to finally find my dream relationship so my grandmother would stop bugging me about when I’d find a decent guy and settle down.
Now that I’ve hit that point where I have the career and man of my dreams, I guess you can say I got complacent.
What can I say? I was genuinely happy.
Towards the middle of the year I felt like something was off.
For some reason, I had no reason to wake up in the morning. I started to get bored with my situation. I started to wonder why I couldn’t find that happy space and inner peace that I had at the beginning of the year.
See, it's very easy to get comfortable when life is going well. But, life is consistently changing and we’ve always evolving. If you’re not setting goals when you’re happy, you can’t have any control over life’s changes - you’re simply drifting with whatever life throws your way.
Why Should I Set Goals When I Love My Life?
Goals Add value to your life.
Having a goal gives you something to work towards. Creating value in this world connects you to your values and purpose in life and positions you to act on those intentions.
Without goals, you’re simple enjoying the fruits of your past labor, but you’re not sowing new seeds so that the future you can enjoy abundance tomorrow.
Goals help you avoid complacency.
Complacency is being overly satisfied with one’s achievements.
I want to start with saying that it’s totally fine to enjoy what you’ve accomplished and where your life is right now. Be happy in this moment. Do not allow goal setting for tomorrow to take away your ability to enjoy the things you’ve worked for today.
However, the downside of complacency is being so satisfied with what you’ve done, that you settle in stagnation. You stop setting goals because you’ve reached the highest point of success you could imagine.
Here’s the deal: There’s always more out there for you, if you want it. (If you don’t then totally disregard. :)
You can use your state of happiness and success to build into your next step.
Goals allow you to Choose Your next adventure.
When you don’t have goals of your own, the goals of others will take over your life. If you don’t have anything for yourself that will fill your time, then you’ll open yourself up to filling your time with other people’s agenda.
Over time, you’ll notice that you’re less excited about your life because it’s turned into something that doesn’t align with you.
Setting goals put you in a position of power over your time and energy. You know what you want to do next with your life because you’ve chosen it. You know what to say “NO” to because you have your own set of goals to work towards.
How To Set A New Goal When You LOVE Your Life
Identify the things you love about your life right now.
The happy moments of your life are genuine and it’s important to grab hold of them and notice what about that moment brings you joy.
Do you love that you’re spending time with friends? Do you love that you have more responsibilities at work? Do you love that you’re expressing yourself in a genuine and authentic way more often?
Understanding what aspect of your life is making you happy helps you know what to keep in your life as your life changes.
Let’s be real. The only constant part of life is change. You change as a person, your environment changes, your financial position may change, but when you understand what brings you joy, you can make an effort to focus on those aspects of your life as change occurs.
tackle your secondary goals.
When you’re happy with your life, it’s a great time to start taking care of the small things you’ve left hanging. You could make more time to spend with your grandchildren or do all that random household paperwork you’ve been avoiding.
Hitting a moment of happiness in your life is a blessing because you no longer have to worry about the big things that keep you up at night so you can make time for the little things that make a big difference.
Ask Yourself: How Can I Go Bigger?
The best point in time to take a risk is when you’re coming from a position of strength. Getting to a happy space with your life if DIFFICULT.
Once you’ve reached it, take that opportunity of peak confidence to take a leap of faith into unknown territory.
For example, after you’ve worked hard to pay off your debt, save money and reached a point where you feel financially secure. You'll also be in a better position to try your hand at a side project or investment that could further increase your financial position. You’ve built great money habits to help you reach this point, those habits can take you even further.
It might seem counterintuitive to continue setting goals once you’ve found your “sweet spot” in life, but everything becomes stale at some point, including the life you love. Recognize that change is a normal part of life and take time to re-evaluate what you want. That way, you can drive the change that happens in your life instead of drifting into it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cyrene is a fun and accomplished workshop facilitator, learning and development guru and Human Resources professional. Being at the helm of Thrive Lounge has been a long-time dream. Through vision board workshops she plans to accomplish two-way learning. Sharing her vast years of knowledge to motivate and encourage others; while simultaneously getting the reward of great energy, ideas and questions to ponder back from each group. A super win-win. Please join our Thrive Lounge community so you too can benefit!
