A New Way to View Goals and Desired Outcomes

Goals and desired outcomes seem to come in two flavors: the ones easier to achieve and the ones we struggle with. There’s a word you can apply to both that can shift the quality of your experiences and take some of the “charge” out of struggle.

Goals and desired outcomes—personal and professional—are imbued with an aspect we are, hopefully, aware of but sometimes aren’t. That aspect is our Why—why we want or feel motivated or inspired about what we say we desire to experience. Your Why can be enhanced with this word I’ll share with you in a moment.

You may feel you have passionate commitment, yet experience blocks when you wish to get started or to move forward. These blocks are about beliefs: assumptions, presumptions, habitual limiting thoughts, a need to reframe so you tell yourself a supportive story rather than an unsupportive one, and so on.

If you feel blocked about going for what you want or having the quality experience you desire, identifying what holds you back can feel like one more task added to your list, and not necessarily a small one.

Although identifying blocks so you can go beyond them is important, here’s a suggestion for a more gentle way to assist you to shift this. Its power is in choosing to use one specific word, and to always start with your Self: Reverence.

To be clear, the definition I mean is not religious or to be in awe, but to regard with deep respect, and even love, when appropriate. Deep respect can also be viewed as profound appreciation.

If you struggle with weight or health issues, how does it feel to view doing what it will take so you do what you need to do, if you apply the word reverence to caring for and honoring your body and well being as defined above? How might it feel to take needed steps if you view each step with reverence?

If you struggle with feeling confident or any of the words you could fit into this category to feel strong and authentic, what’s the feeling you get when you consider feeling reverence for your personal journey and process as you explore and expand who you really are underneath layers of limiting beliefs?

Take a moment to apply this word, reverence, to the following: happiness, financial well being, creativity, integrity, enjoyment, life purpose, spirituality, relationships, how you apply yourself in your work, view others, view your Self, life, humanity.

When we work towards goals—even small ones, we often attach judgments about how we’re doing. When we do this, our experience may not be “boring,” but neither is it necessarily a more pleasant one or open to conscious awareness and easier personal expansion at the inner level. And no matter what we think about desired outcomes, we cannot separate the fact we desire them, because we wish to feel a certain way.

Reverence gives you permission to be, permission to honor yourself as you are, and as you choose to become or unfold. It gives you permission to ask yourself questions that help you align with genuine appreciation for you and the path you walk through life, to move forward with fewer emotional burdens so often carried on your “shoulders” like a bag of rocks.

You want to know your Why for doing anything. Then, ask yourself what every moment and choice would be like if you stepped into reverence. This can help you have a better chance of aligning with how you can move forward with more grace and ease, to take all the steps with a better perspective. This can assist you to make conscious choices. It helps you see reverence cannot co-exist with judgment of any kind, which is another block, created in the mind.

Experiences and how we move through them are not solely the means to ends. They are ends in themselves. Imagine viewing means and ends with reverence. How does this feel for you?

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