How Do You Want to Feel?
The question that changed how I think about goal-setting.
Previously in this series:
Here's a question that might seem out of place in a series about planning and goal-setting: how do you want to feel?
Not just next month or next year, but in general. What feelings do you want to experience more often in your life?
Last week as I was working on my Annual Review, I wrote down a few feelings that came to mind when I asked myself the question. The short list included:
CENTERED
STEADFAST
INTEGRATED
PURPOSEFUL
I've learned to pay attention to these desired feelings because I noticed something: when I experience them, everything else tends to work better. And when I set goals that align with these feelings, I'm much more likely to follow through.
This connection didn't always come naturally to me. I'm pretty analytical! I love systems and frameworks. But over time, I’ve realized that the best planning combines both structure and intuition.
Yes, measurable goals matter, as does having a clear framework for making progress on them. But ultimately, we're going through this process to create certain experiences and feelings in our lives.
So as you work through your Annual Review (or any kind of planning process), try starting with this question: How do you want to feel? Write down your answers. Sit with them for a bit.
Then, when you set your goals, check them against those desired feelings. Will achieving this goal help you feel more of what you want to feel?
Sometimes the connection is obvious. Other times it's subtle. But it's always worth considering.
You might find, as I did, that this simple question makes all the difference between setting goals that look good on paper and creating a plan that truly resonates with who you want to be.
Danielle LaPorte, a longtime friend of mine, produces a series of “heart centered planners” that might help with this process. 📝
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), the difference between how something looks on paper and how it feels to your soul is the difference between parts of you, named managers, who are controlling your life, versus your true Self running the show.
Managers have great ideas, but often they fail to account for intangibles like joy, connection, and meaning.
The end of the year is a great time to discern the places in our lives where managers have slowly but surely eroded our joy and connection to our deepest creativity.
I’m definitely hitting a wall on this issue myself! I started offering online workshops called “IFS demo watch parties” because my parts thought it would be a great way to teach IFS—an IFS demonstration session that we all watch together, and then a Q&A afterwards. I had about two or three people attend every single workshop for four months.
Every single time I had such a low attendance, my whole entire system got more and more depressed about it. I tried changing the marketing, I tried lowering the price—nothing. Still only two or three people in every workshop.
If my managers had their way, they would just keep trying and trying, but I know that trying and trying is not the answer!
Happily, I sat with the sadness of this workshop idea not being received and accepted that for some reason people don’t want to watch IFS demos together in a little watch party structure! Just because it seemed good on paper, doesn’t mean that’s what people want to do!
So happily, I’m discontinuing these workshops and looking forward to more satisfying and meaningful ways to share my IFS expertise next year.
Taking the time to step back from what we’re doing and recalibrate so we can feel fulfilled, received and happy is such a great use of the end-of-year energy!
If it’s not working, let it go!
Here’s to a fulfilling, happy 2025!
Michelle De Montag said in his quote the use of time and not just the amount of time is what matters most in determining the quality of our lives whether we put good use to time or not and just let the days and years pass by. So, my list of feelings were 1. Empowered 2.Secure 3. Determined 4.Serenity 5.Connected