Goals. Goals. Goals.
We all have them, because worthy Goals give meaning to our life.
Without worthy Goals we stagnate, don’t experience fulfillment and spend our waking hours on a mindless hamster wheel.
Therefore we want to know what processes help us kick those Goals we have our beady eyes on.
And derail us.
Are you ready to hear about one of the places where people screw it up?
Let’s dive in.
Setting the scene with a personal example
As you may have picked up in past posts, myself and my partner (Ferry) are moving, so we have enough land to grow our own food, have free-range chickens (and yummy eggs) and become more self sustainable.
That’s the idea…or our worthy (stretch) Goal.
In a nutshell we lease some land, sell our current house, then build a house and gardens on the new property.
Since we are not into mortgages (or most banks ;-)) we need to sell our current house – for a certain price – to fund the build of our main house.
I had done a range of calculations (I love a spreadsheet) to work out how much we needed to sell the house for, given the estimated price for the build.
Just recently we got the quote for the build and – not surprisingly – the quote was higher than our budgeted number (which I thought I had given enough buffer on).
Bugger!! (and a bunch of other expletives!!)
And this experience – right here – is what I want to focus on today.
What if you have made the best possible plans but the feedback you get is ‘NEGATIVE’?
This is where a lot of people go off the rails and may never get back on the rails.
Let me explain..
The Goal Getting process
In very simple terms it looks like this:
Step 1. Get crystal clear on what you want.
Step 2. Put the effort in to come up with your best plan to make it happen.
Step 3. Take action or commit (aka: ‘Step over the line’).
Step 4. Get real world feedback.
Step 5. If the feedback is ‘negative’ have a meltdown.
Step 6. This step (and your ultimate outcome) is dependent on how you manage and transition from Step 5.
And it is this Step 5, I want to talk about.
Step 5 – Getting real-world ‘negative’ feedback
If we have got really clear on what we want, have come up with a great plan, taken action and then got ‘negative’ feedback this can be pretty (emotionally) painful.
Maybe we have a Goal to succeed in our own business, but when we put our product into the market, there were no buyers plus negative criticism.
Maybe we have a Goal to travel around the world and then some global crisis stops your travels plans (which you were really clear on and had planned extensively).
What do you do in our Goal Getting when we get negative feedback?
This is the weak spot and blind spot of many people.
This can put a stop to the Goal entirely IF handled poorly.
How do we handle negative feedback so it doesn’t derail us?
Handling the emotional bit of ‘negative’ feedback
My first suggestion is not to go too self-helpie and reach for your rose-coloured glasses (or crystals).
Not helpful!
My recommendation is you allow yourself to feel what you feel.
If you are angry, feel angry.
If sad, feel sad.
If pissed off, then feel pissed off.
Don’t suppress it, or imagine it is not there.
Let the steam out of the pressure cooker.
And this is why the inner work of dealing with the gunk in the trunk, is so important.
It is not about not feeling angry (or sad, or pissed off), it is about how quickly you return to homeostasis.
Feel it. Breathe into it. Release it. Breathe through it.
Use whatever techniques you have to bring yourself back to a stable state of mind.
It is only AFTER you have moved too, through and from the survival emotional states, that you can move onto Step 6.
The figuring shit out phase.
Don’t try and figure out solutions while you are in negative or survival emotional state.
Let it pass, THEN roll the sleeves up and get to work on Plan 2.0.
In summary…and the KEY POINT
You are very unlikely to come up with empowered creative solutions, to turn the negative into a positive and achieve your Goals, unless you first learn to feel, process, and release your negative emotions.
This is why mastering our emotions, and influencing our emotional state, is so important when it comes to our BIG GOALS. Our emotional state has a HUGE impact on the quality of our solutions.
Fear-based solutions are very different, limited (one-dimensional) and have a shorter ‘used-by’ date, than solutions that come from a place of calm, stability, curiosity and creativity.
Learn to manage your emotions and master your life (plus kick some really big Goals!!!).
My Parting words
It’s okay to feel negative emotions.
We just don’t want to sit in them for too long – hence why we do the inner work.
And learn techniques (e.g. EFT – check out this video to show you how) to manage, and process our emotional state.
The aim is always to come back into a calm state, before we try to figure sh#t out.
The extra time you take to get back into a calm mental state is worth it.
You will find you have greater access to creative solutions.
Plus back on the rails to achieving your Goals.
Choo Choo!!
So, have a calm and grounded day, and an emotionally graceful week.
See you next week.
Take care,
Carl
