The absence of a goal in life does not make a person unhappy, but the meaninglessness of existence creates inertia, and it, in turn, deprives us of a sense of joy and harmony with the world around us. There are a lot of ways to find the goal, as well as options to realize it, and they are all individual, but there are universal methods for determining the formula of your life plan.
Why set goals
“Help me find a goal in life” is one of the most common phrases that psychologists hear, moreover, it is voiced most often by adults, accomplished people who suddenly encounter the problem of a promising vacuum. They perceive the goal not only as an instrument of their future development, which it essentially is, but also as a way of transforming themselves into another, more perfect personality. People want to become wiser, richer, more in demand and see only one obstacle to this brilliant future - the lack of internal motivation.
But in fact, the main obstacle to the realization of this intention is a complete misunderstanding by a person of his true desires. He wants to get rich, but continues to go to boring work with a tiny salary, wants to speak several languages, but is not ready to devote one hour a day to study foreign grammar. His fantasies are not supported by goals, which means that they are ephemeral, unstable and unrealizable.
How to find your goal, how not to lose the incentive, how to recognize your highest desires among the immediate needs?
From one task to another
Throughout life, a person sets himself, even unconsciously, hundreds of large and small goals. Some of them are carried out, but not in all cases, and getting the desired result, a person experiences satisfaction. More precisely, the more internal energy and other human resources are spent on achieving what was planned, the more likely it is that after the completion of the plans, the individual will feel prostrated.
Attempts to organize yourself for new achievements immediately after the implementation of the previous plan will not lead to anything good. It takes time for the new goal to form into a desire, then into a dream, and only after that go into the planning stage. It’s easy to tune in the right way, and it’s better to start by allowing yourself to realize many small goals with instant encouragement. For example, cook and eat your favorite treat, go to the movies. On the principle of "planned - implemented - enjoyed."
After some time, the body’s energy reserve will be restored, and the person will again be ready for long-term planning.
How to define your new goal
A pause that determines the transition from a completed goal to the formation of a new one can last from a couple of days to several months. Difficulties in finding a new task arise, as a rule, for those people who have not learned how to manage their actions and who have been closely monitored by their parents throughout their childhood and puberty. It is difficult for these people to distinguish their own preferences from the mass of imposed desires and duties, and even in adulthood they subconsciously wait for instructions on how to act from the side.
In this case, psychologists advise first to make the return trip - not to visualize your future goals that have not yet been formed, but in the years of a carefree childhood, when the child was free to choose entertainment to his taste and was not yet squeezed into the framework of parental priorities. What then brought the highest pleasure? What interests were defended even under threat of punishment?
Often, using this simple technique, people really begin to relive the feeling of happiness from the opportunity to live their own lives, unedited by other people's interference, which filled them in childhood. I remember old dreams, and often among them is the key to the Higher goal, which was made possible only by abandoning the stereotypes instilled in an adult.
Goal Definition Rules
Psychologists have identified 5 universal rules on how to find your goal and realize it correctly:
- If there are several tasks, and they do not tolerate the order of fulfillment, then they should at least be in harmony with each other (a bad example is the desire to spend several years traveling around the world and open your own store next to the house during this time).
- Goals must motivate for development, for a constant challenge to their capabilities.
- Intangible goals (for example, to become a yoga guru) must be supported by a component that can be quantified (buy a big house, organize your own yoga studio).
- In addition to the "goal of a lifetime", a person needs to have short-term plans for a year, five years, ten. By achieving these goals, a person grows as a person and can analyze his life according to the stages passed.
- It is desirable to divide a major task requiring several years to complete into 90-day segments, each of which will be indicated by its own achievement bar.
An important condition for someone who is just getting ready to follow the advice: “Find a goal and your place in life”: you can’t relax on the path to moving towards the desired, allow yourself a “pause of detachment” from the main idea. It is only necessary to temporarily lower your plan, allow yourself to “catch fire” with new plans that are different from the original ones, as the motivation will quickly fade, and it will be very difficult to return it.
What should be the "big goal"?
Finding a true goal means deciding on the meaning of your life, so you should not rush into assigning to the main role those tasks that fit into the short lead time and do not promise full satisfaction. All people have a big goal with their own criteria and lies in different values ​​- someone wants to become a great singer, someone wants to create their own amusement park.
In any case, the goal should be specified specifically - not just to sing on stage, but to become the best performer according to an authoritative publication, not just to build a couple of attractions, but to have a daily traffic of 10,000 people in the park. If a person has a subconscious fear of such a concretization of the desired results, it means that he did not set his goal, or, before setting it for himself, he needs to work on removing his inner blocks.
A third important criterion for a higher goal is its practical feasibility. You cannot learn to belch flames or become the captain of a non-existent space fleet, but you can master the fakir practice or unlearn the courses of flying an airplane. Everything should be within the scope of the achievable and, of course, reinforced by real actions.
How to find your goal?
Often fear prevents people from seeing their true purpose. What if, being an economist and making good money, a person suddenly finds in himself a long suppressed desire to write books or play the guitar? What then is to give up a good job and start all over from scratch? It’s easier to pretend that all my life I dreamed of doing finances and have nothing to do with creativity. Fear of staying with nothing encourages people to cling to routine work, to go to an unloved job, in general - to run around the circle of their closed comfort zone, where everything is already arranged and adjusted.
However, psychologists are sure: if a person really finds his goal and allows himself to catch fire on it, then whatever that goal is, it will lead a person to a standard of living that he did not dare to dream about before. True, for this to happen, he should be completely sincere with himself and honestly answer the questions below to reveal his inner potential. And after you set a goal, finding solutions is already much easier.
"What attracts my attention?"
The concept of "reality transerfing" (the author of the term is Vadim Zeland), which has existed recently, describes a phenomenon known to all psychologists - a person attracts to himself what he thinks about. If he secretly dreams of becoming a writer, the existing reality will constantly remind him of this desire by coming across newspaper notes, random meetings with other writers or book lovers, etc.
There is also the opposite phenomenon - the individual himself grabs from the general information flow that information that corresponds to his secret ideas, and the more he thinks about it, the more necessary information is sent in his direction. How to find your goal, focusing on this law? We must focus our attention on the information that comes from the world around us with alarming obsession, and analyze it from the point of view of our own thoughts.
Most likely, by directing his thoughts in the right direction, a person will discover a huge number of coincidences between his thoughts and signals sent to him from the outside.
"How am I original?"
How to find your goal? People without talent do not exist, and even if a person himself is only vaguely aware of his own abilities, he must have repeatedly heard about some of his original ability, which others do not. This may be a well-posed written syllable or a rare skill from the field of manual labor.
It is impossible to achieve success, transmitting into the world only mediocrity and conveyor capabilities. Everyone who has ever risen a head above the crowd knows that the main secret of fame is the ability to present one's personality. Finding a goal by setting your talent as a motor mechanism is the easiest and most interesting way to achieve a result.
"What is my motivation?"
Even when it seems to a person that he is inactive and his life is meaningless, this is not so. Something constantly stimulates him to take small steps, makes him look at beautiful pictures in magazines, buy himself various little things that are not included in the list of basic necessities. All these almost imperceptible stimuli make up the dynamics of a person’s movement in life. Of course, they cannot lead to any significant goal, but they are quite capable of becoming a part of some major motivation.
A person should remember some of his strongest motivations in recent years, which forced him to literally shake himself and get down to business with enthusiasm. Most likely, behind strong emotions, a direction will be revealed at the end of which you can find a goal. So far, a person can perceive it at a subconscious level, but it is!
"My interests"
All people, without exception, have a secret or explicit occupation, to which they are ready to devote all their free time, but most often this is hindered by a lot of household worries that take away the opportunity to devote themselves to their favorite business. Time managers and coaching experts argue: it is in this lesson, even the thought of which gives pleasure, that the formula of human happiness, its direct goal, dictating the meaning of all life, are hidden.
If, despite fatigue, a woman is happy to cook dinner with several dishes, perhaps the key to her success is in the field of maintaining her own culinary blog (which also brings a solid income). Either she decides to open her own restaurant, or to star in a popular television show and become a famous chef. The main thing is to remember: what seems to some empty fantasies, tearing a person away from his real tasks, for others is already the norm.