This question is the biggest question of the year. How do you want to feel at the end of 2022? It isn’t about what gets accomplished, it is about how you want to feel. Many of us probably don’t agree with that, and that is okay. Many of us think the story I thought for most of my life, “work hard, play hard.” Focus on your goals and accomplish the tasks to get there. Push hard, don’t let up, work 60 hours a week (or 70 or 80, etc) and don’t take vacations. Focus on the success, the money, the clout and status, and what it gives you, i.e peace of mind, security. We never really focus on feeling good, being happy, being joyful. This paradigm is partially our societal paradigm and partially how we were raised. For me, my family was definitely focused on working hard. Nothing short of perfection was expected from me at least, I do think each child was parented a bit differently. That’s all I knew, work your tail off and remember nothing is ever good enough. That led to the belief that I wasn’t loved unless I was perfect, and to be perfect meant to work really really really hard, along with being as giving as possible to others and never tell someone how you really feel or what is really bothering you. Passive aggressive behavior until you blow up was what I learned. If you tell someone how you feel about what they did they may not love you anymore, that was the result of that belief system. And I never was perfect but boy I tried to be. Even to the point of getting a 100 on a certification test many years ago, showcasing that over achiever status!
But all of that keeps you playing small. It keeps you from being authentic to you, it keeps you from telling people that their behavior bothers you and it keeps you focused on small results. The ones you have in your head, versus letting the universe help you with a bigger plan. The attachment to the outcomes; money, status, etc, keeps you living in fear that you may lose it. It may keep you in fear that this is the only way people will love you, if you can do for them because of your financial success. And more than anything, the only answer to the question “how do you want to feel?” will be successful, or accomplished, or productive, or the result of the goal, i.e. pay off the car, move into new home. Nothing about how you will actually feel. These are outcomes and not feelings or emotions.
This doesn’t mean we should not have goals, however it does mean that perhaps we should think about them differently. If we focus more on our intention, and the feelings we want, we may find different ways to get there. We may find more choices, happier choices.
Once you get this, you get how different life can be for us. How we can be in the flow instead of working and pushing so hard. How we can co-create our life through our choices and our energy so that the Universe’s response moves us toward our intention. How we can change our thoughts and choose to be happy, filled with joy, creative, collaborative, wise, and grateful. Once we figure out this change from pushing so hard to taking inspired action, focusing on the feeling we want and allowing ourselves to receive, we receive what we desire.
These concepts are far from easy and for people who have lived their entire lives as “goal oriented”, this change seems counterintuitive. These concepts seem like a lazy persons way out of having a goal, of being accountable, etc. I would now beg to differ. As someone who has focused more on intentions than goals over the last few years and more on feelings and changing my thoughts to create those feelings, I am happier than I have ever been. I don’t feel locked into anything in particular, I get to be as creative as I want and I no longer feel bad when something doesn’t come to fruition. In the past I would beat myself up if the goal could not be met, or if something or someone got in the middle of it and fucked it up. That is not on anyone else but me, yet I could find ways to blame others or situations instead of understanding that perhaps there is a better plan. Perhaps God or the Universe (whichever you believe) has a plan that is far better for me and others. And I see new opportunities and choices everywhere. No longer am I stuck in an old paradigm of what I do or who I am. I try new things, and if they don’t work, I try something else.
For me, I want to feel joyful at the end of 2022. Filled with joy! My focus for the year is adding play into all I do. Being more playful, less serious about me. Adding more play into my life’s work. Adding more play into where I live. Adding more play into everything.
My intentions for the year are focused on playing out loud, being fully unapologetically me and focusing on what brings me joy and what does not.
I want to feel joy at the end of 2022! How do you want to feel?