Reaching a goal never brings lasting fulfilment
- Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It’s no coincidence we call them ‘deadlines.’ Tom Robbins
- Here’s the thing with goals: you’re never satisfied. Goals are a way of saying, “When I’ve accomplished this goal (or all these goals), I will be happy then. I’m not happy now, because I haven’t achieved my goals.” The problem is, when we achieve the goals, we don’t achieve happiness. We set new goals, strive for something new. Leo Babauta
- Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. John Dewey
- The biggest lie on the planet: “When I get what I want, I will be happy.”
- Goal setting, Fulfilment, Life is a process, Life is a journey, Let go of striving and end-goaling
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Goals can fixate us on the future and blind us to the present
- We’re always thinking about the future (goals) instead of the present. I prefer to live in the present. Leo Babauta
- The more attached we are to a vision of the future, the less present we are to what is actually trying to emerge here and now. Peter Merry
- You get lost because you think there is somewhere to go. If you give up believing in a goal or a destination, then you cannot get lost. In the present moment, there is no destination. Leonard Jacobson
- The past, The future
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Fixating on goals can put us on autopilot and close us to new possibilities and chances to connect
- The humanity, the ease, the grace and compassion that we each are equipped of carrying with us in our daily lives become buried. Perpetuated by a movement of goal seeking, we operate on an autopilot of checking, listing, scheduling, planning, doing. We’re so busy with our measuring sticks, we forget to open our hearts, to truly connect with others and with ourselves. Cat Li Stevenson
- Possibility, Connection
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Imagine living life without fixed goals or plans
- What would a journey without a goal be like? No destination in mind. Nothing to achieve. Just curiosity, fun, not knowing. What would it be like to live life without a fixed plan? Without knowing where you’ll be living in five years, or what you’ll be doing, or what you want to achieve? Leo Babauta
- Imagine setting out for a walk with no particular purpose — you might go in one direction because there’s a nice explosion of flowers over there, but then explore a different direction when you see someone playing music, then go in another direction because you’re curious about what’s there. Leo Babauta
- A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu
- Once you realise that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy. Nisargadatta Maharaj
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Let go of your plan of what today was going to be and allow it to unfold
- You wake up, excited about being alive. You wonder, “What do I feel like doing today?” There’s no set plan, and the destination doesn’t matter as much as the process, the journey. You start, but you might shift as you go. You let go of your idea of what today was going to be, because these ideas of what should be are lightly held. The important thing is the flow. You learn to be flexible instead of set. You learn to be good at change and uncertainty, instead of fearing it. As things arise, you adapt. Leo Babauta
- In the measurement world, we set a goal and strive to achieve it. In the universe of possibility, we set the context and let life unfold. Zander, The Art of Possibility
- Go with the flow
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Instead of chasing goals, follow your passions and do what makes you happy
- So if we are content now, and we abandon goals, does that mean we do nothing? Sit around or sleep all day? Not at all. I certainly don’t do that. We should do what makes us happy, follow our passions, do things that make us excited. For me and many people, that’s creating, building new things, expressing ourselves, making something useful or new or beautiful or inspiring. Leo Babauta
- Do what you love, Passion
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Instead of chasing a fixed plan, be open and flexible to whatever possibilities and experiences the day brings
- Experiencing each day, open to new possibilities – versus attaching to a fixed plan and a constant chase – is being awake in our human experience. Cat Li Stevenson
- I’m discovering that a life open and flexible to experience is something a carefully accomplished goal – an extrinsic prize – could never satisfy. And this peace of mind is something I am not willing to trade in for a few more accomplishments. Cat Li Stevenson
- Embrace the gift of today
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The destination doesn’t really matter if you are present, compassionate and have fun on your journey
- You move with the flow of water, with the changing landscape. You are free to do this because you don’t care where you end up — you just want to be present in your journey, be compassionate with each step, have fun each moment along the way. The destination becomes irrelevant. No destination or goal matters if they are all good. Each step along the way, then, becomes the destination, and is exactly where you should be. Leo Babauta
- Presence, Compassion, Fun
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By all means have intentions but don’t let them rule your life
- Do I still want to be fit? Of course. Do I still want to travel? Hell yes! Do I want to make money? Mmm hmm. Do I want to continue to be an entrepreneur? Yep. But these are not the guiding forces in my daily life. These wants do not pull me out of bed each morning – they are by-products of feeling in-touch, balanced, well on the inside. Cat Li Stevenson
- You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea. Pablo Picasso
- Intention
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Let go of the need for fierce effort and constant will power
- The power of transformation (the reason we set goals to begin with) delivers not through willpower and fierce effort, but instead through a deeper awareness, and a relaxing into who we are. Cat Li Stevenson
- By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning. Lao Tzu
- Effort, Will power
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Focus on being engaged and fully alive now and the future will take care of itself
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Final thoughts
- I don’t have a goal, because existence has no goal. It simply is, flowering, blossoming, dancing – but don’t ask why. Just an overflow of energy, for no reason at all. I am with existence. Rajneesh
- I have been running so sweaty my whole life, urgent for a finish line, and I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete. Alanis Morissette
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