The month of September is associated with ‘getting back on track’ and ‘getting back to routine’. It’s full of back to school and back to work messages and is sometimes filled with some inner self chat of…. "Right, what am I doing and where am I going in my life!".
Setting goals and direction can be an overwhelming sensation. Especially when we have no idea where to start!
Tapping into your intuition can be key and during class this month (either online or in my Wantage classes) I will be giving a number of different techniques to help us build focus and connect with this intuition. These techniques will help us to listen to what we actually want and need in life vs what our ego tells us we want… because from my experience, the ego sometimes doesn’t have our best interests at heart!
*me tapping into my intuition at The Retreat Space, Didcot- or am I sleeping, who knows*
I have always found that breaking our goals and directions down into small manageable and action orientated steps helps to create focus and progress.
As humans we love progression, so if we just have one big goal like… “I want to live in Spain”, that can feel daunting and unachievable as we have no idea how to get there or how to move forward.
Instead- it’s breaking the goal down into small steps that will help us get there and feel great about it along the way!
We will also want to think about some of the barriers that we experience when setting goals for ourselves, and the biggest barrier here is always going to be NOISE. By NOISE I mean either external opinions and feelings from the people around us or our own internal chitter chatter and limiting opinions we may have of ourselves.
So, I’d like to share a little journalling exercise that can help you to focus, set goals, but also work through some of that NOISE that can be very difficult to tune out at times.
Journalling exercise for quieting the noise and setting goals
Find a quiet space and get nice and comfy. Maybe light a candle or dim the lights. Create a space of peace. This may just be in bed at night or in the morning.
Pick up your pen and paper and just free write the next couple of journal prompts. Give yourself a minute to answer each question, don’t think about it too much. You are going to tap into your gut reactions for this exercise, your intuition and just let it guide you.
Write down a goal you are working towards or would like to work towards?
What is currently stopping you from reaching that goal or starting to work on that goal?
Of these barriers – what barrier is opinion and what barrier is fact?
You will be able to identify if something is opinion because it will start with words like “think”, “feel”, or it will be somebody else’s experience.
Place all the opinions to one side of the page – these can be ignored. They are not your reality; they are just opinions.
Don't get me wrong your feelings are always valid and it's important to recognise the fears but for now you can let them pass. If you like symbolism like me, then you could even rip that bit of paper up and throw it away.
Focus now on the facts. Tackle each fact one at a time and write down an actionable next step that can help you overcome that fact. What do you need to do to move past it?
Those actions become your next steps. They become your goals to measure progress against.
I will give you an example.
My goal was to become a Yoga teacher
An opinion that was holding me back was ‘I’m not good enough at Yoga to teach it’
A fact that was holding me back was ‘I’m not trained as a Yoga teacher’
I ignored the opinion as it’s not reality, it’s just my own limiting belief –believe me these are very hard to ignore, but we must; because they are not our realities, they are just our thoughts
I focussed on the fact I needed to overcome and signed up to a Yoga Teacher Training programme and trained to become a certified teacher.
Have a go and let me know how you get on!
Remember this is hard stuff, it’s life changing. So if it takes you a good few go’s to work through these questions then that’s completely fine. This piece of work will never really end as our goals and lives continue to shift and change.
So enjoy the process
