Are You Too Attached to Your Goals?
"Isn't the whole purpose of goals to be very attached to them in order to achieve them?" I hear you ask.
When I first came across this concept I felt that way too.
It has taken me awhile to realise how I can apply this to my daily life.
Let's take an example of someone who wants to lose weight.
Perhaps their goal is to lose 10 pounds in time for their birthday in 3 months time.
What will happen if they get to their birthday and have only lose 9 pounds; do you think they will be thrilled at having got that far or will they be disappointed with themselves that they have failed to reach their goal? Human nature being what it is we tend to focus on the negative so our birthday girl will more than likely be upset with herself.
If she wants to apply non attachment to her weight loss goal then she needs to take a step back and consider what it is that she was trying to achieve.
Perhaps she wanted to change a bad habit and put in place a healthier diet.
This is an idea - about who she is, the best way for her to live and how her life should look.
Her attachment to this idea can cause a lot of suffering.
At the moment when you feel stress or anxiety there is a large chance that you are hanging onto an idea.
Take a moment to ask yourself, "What idea am I hanging onto?" Then ask yourself, "Is it worth the stress and frustration that I am feeling?" The vast majority of the time, it won't be, and you can let the idea go.
This does not mean that you give up your goal rather it's a case of recognising that clinging to an idea doesn't always assist you.
One of my goals is to enter (and finish!) a 5km road race by Christmas this year.
I created this goal as I wanted to break my bad habit of not having a regular fitness plan.
As I was running last week I realised I wasn't going to be able to achieve that goal as I was going to be out of town when the race was held.
I was annoyed with the timing and was considering driving for 2 hours each way in order to be there for the race.
It occurred to me that I wasn't enjoying my run and was feeling angry and frustrated.
I asked myself "What idea am I hanging onto?" That was simple; I wanted to have my previous level of fitness as soon as possible.
My next thought was "Is it worth the stress and frustration that I am feeling?" For me it simply wasn't worth it.
Feeling that way certainly wasn't helping my fitness levels and I wasn't enjoying what had previously been a nice run.
So I had a reality check and reminded myself that the reason that I had set my goal was to keep myself motivated to increase my fitness.
I also laughed at myself getting so serious as it was only 18 months ago that walking for 5 minutes had been very painful due to an injury.
I focused instead on the fact that I had achieved a great deal in the 5 weeks since I had started running again.
With those thoughts I let go of the idea of the race and smiled and enjoyed the rest of my run.
Now that I have separated myself from the idea that I had to run a race to get my fitness back on track, it's easier to realise that forcing myself to increase my fitness level at that rate would decrease the enjoyment that I had gained from starting to run again.
My frustration had been caused by an idea.
I had assumed it was caused by the fact that I wasn't going to be able to do a 5km race before Christmas when my annoyance was actually caused by my attachment to the idea that I must participate in a race in order to increase my fitness level quickly.
When you change your idea about something this changes the way that you feel about it.
When I first came across this concept I felt that way too.
It has taken me awhile to realise how I can apply this to my daily life.
Let's take an example of someone who wants to lose weight.
Perhaps their goal is to lose 10 pounds in time for their birthday in 3 months time.
What will happen if they get to their birthday and have only lose 9 pounds; do you think they will be thrilled at having got that far or will they be disappointed with themselves that they have failed to reach their goal? Human nature being what it is we tend to focus on the negative so our birthday girl will more than likely be upset with herself.
If she wants to apply non attachment to her weight loss goal then she needs to take a step back and consider what it is that she was trying to achieve.
Perhaps she wanted to change a bad habit and put in place a healthier diet.
This is an idea - about who she is, the best way for her to live and how her life should look.
Her attachment to this idea can cause a lot of suffering.
At the moment when you feel stress or anxiety there is a large chance that you are hanging onto an idea.
Take a moment to ask yourself, "What idea am I hanging onto?" Then ask yourself, "Is it worth the stress and frustration that I am feeling?" The vast majority of the time, it won't be, and you can let the idea go.
This does not mean that you give up your goal rather it's a case of recognising that clinging to an idea doesn't always assist you.
One of my goals is to enter (and finish!) a 5km road race by Christmas this year.
I created this goal as I wanted to break my bad habit of not having a regular fitness plan.
As I was running last week I realised I wasn't going to be able to achieve that goal as I was going to be out of town when the race was held.
I was annoyed with the timing and was considering driving for 2 hours each way in order to be there for the race.
It occurred to me that I wasn't enjoying my run and was feeling angry and frustrated.
I asked myself "What idea am I hanging onto?" That was simple; I wanted to have my previous level of fitness as soon as possible.
My next thought was "Is it worth the stress and frustration that I am feeling?" For me it simply wasn't worth it.
Feeling that way certainly wasn't helping my fitness levels and I wasn't enjoying what had previously been a nice run.
So I had a reality check and reminded myself that the reason that I had set my goal was to keep myself motivated to increase my fitness.
I also laughed at myself getting so serious as it was only 18 months ago that walking for 5 minutes had been very painful due to an injury.
I focused instead on the fact that I had achieved a great deal in the 5 weeks since I had started running again.
With those thoughts I let go of the idea of the race and smiled and enjoyed the rest of my run.
Now that I have separated myself from the idea that I had to run a race to get my fitness back on track, it's easier to realise that forcing myself to increase my fitness level at that rate would decrease the enjoyment that I had gained from starting to run again.
My frustration had been caused by an idea.
I had assumed it was caused by the fact that I wasn't going to be able to do a 5km race before Christmas when my annoyance was actually caused by my attachment to the idea that I must participate in a race in order to increase my fitness level quickly.
When you change your idea about something this changes the way that you feel about it.