Why Daily Goals Are Unnecessary OR Confessions of a Former Control Freak

This is a wildly unpopular note about daily goals and why they are unnecessary to people who are on their spiritual journey…

Daily or weekly goal-setting is futile and it only creates opportunities to feel like a failure. Don’t believe me? How many times have you felt like crap because you only accomplished half of the things on your “To Do” list? And did anyone die because you didn’t accomplish those lost tasks? Of course not. They probably weren’t even as important as you convinced yourself that they were. Some of your “to-do” tasks may have actually even been counterproductive to what you actually hoped to achieve. So then, how do you succeed if you don’t micro-plan? How do you stop obsessing over your activities and start celebrating success?

ALLOWING is our greatest tool. Allowing Spirit to influence and guide my actions brings me to everything that I want and need. Nothing that truly needs to be done is missed. But many things that I would have unnecessarily done are easily forgotten. More importantly, the Divinely-inspired actions that I do take lead me to surprisingly rapid, very efficient and often mind-blowing success.

I didn’t always know this to be true. Like most of us in this society, I was taught from a young age that if I did not:

1. set a goal, 
2. work diligently toward that goal, 
3. check in with that goal every day and 
4. beat myself in the head with that damn goal until it’s done and 
5. beat myself up if I forgot to do any one of the things that I believed would get me to that goal… 

whew, well, I was taught that if I didn’t do all of that, then I would surely fail.

I believed wholeheartedly in the goal-setting paradigm for most of my life and it kept me miserable.

There was a time in my life when I was not on my most spiritual path. Of course, we are always on our journey and everything is a learning experience, yadda, yadda, but…

What I mean is that I was doing work that I absolutely hated. I was working for the money and while my income was good, my soul was barely scraping by. I did yoga to calm my nerves and to help balance my mind but my health still suffered. I was not actively living toward my heart’s purpose on this earth.

During that time, it was very important for me to organize my day by making “To Do” lists and utilizing a day planner, either on paper or electronically. I always felt rushed. The end of one task overlapped the beginning of the next. There were never enough hours in the day. I couldn’t possibly drink enough caffeine. My heart was not at all in what I was doing, therefore in order for me to accomplish anything, I had to force it and regulate it and micro-manage myself through to completion. I was successful in that because I was diligent with my time management and planning. Even still, I worked about 12 hours per day. What was ironic is that even though I was meeting and usually exceeding all of my goals, I had no happiness regarding my success. Sure, the checks were nice, but I didn’t even enjoy spending the money because I was too busy working and rushing on to the completion of my next goal. I worked on "vacation". I worked through lunch. Goal, goal, goal.

Since 2007, I have moved into a new line of work which completely feeds and nurtures my soul. This line of work has developed entirely from the union of my heart with my Spirit. I find that, these days, I am MOST productive when I completely leave my "thinking brain" out of the planning equation. That was counterintuitive for me and quite scary at first.

What I have thankfully come to KNOW now is that when I am ON MY SPIRITUAL PATH, doing work from my heart and feeding my Spirit, I AM in line with my Divine Purpose. Therefore, I AM in Divine Flow. When I have done my morning meditation and I am living my life as a meditation, being present in each moment and living in gratitude and openness, Spirit IS my Day Planner.

I don’t have to write down the things that need to get done. I don’t have to make lists and micro-manage myself. As I listen to Spirit guiding me throughout my day, I naturally find and do all of the things that are toward my highest purpose. I accomplish all of those things in perfect timing.

It has taken me a full four years to learn this new way of achievement. At first, I was constantly defending my newfound knowledge. Associates asked questions such as, “What do you MEAN you don’t know whether you’re going to yoga this afternoon?!?” or “HOW do you NOT KNOW whether you’re going to be working tomorrow?!?” These days, when I do make commitments, I am easily able to keep them because they are from my heart's desire and for my highest purpose.

For the peace that this new paradigm has brought to my life, the re-learning has been priceless. It does take a bit of getting used to. When I first began focusing on my spiritual journey, I tried to plan my day the way that I used to in my corporate life. When I look back now at old paperwork, I laugh at my former self. My first "spiritual life" schedule looked like this:

6:00am – 6:20am            Meditate

6:20am – 7:00am            Yoga

7:00am – 7:20am            Shower

7:20am – 8:00am            Breakfast

8:00am – 9:00am            Check messages and follow up with clients via e-mail

9:00am – 11:00am          Appointment setting and follow-up phone calls

11:00am – 12:00pm        Work on website

12:00pm – 4:00pm          Appointments

4:00pm – 6:00pm            Paperwork and Client session review

6:00pm – 7:30pm            Dinner

7:30pm – 10:00pm          Free time   (HA! Can you believe I even scheduled my FREE TIME?!!)

Did you notice that I did not schedule in any time for lunch? I never took time for lunch in my corporate life, so I had decided that in order to be successful in my “new life” as a Spiritual entrepreneur, I could not afford to take time out for lunch then either. I might grab some fruit at my desk while working, but I believed that frivolities such as a “time-out lunch” were out of the question if I wanted to be successful.

What I found in that first year was that my new business felt strained and stressful. Even though I was doing my heart’s work, I was far from content. I was always rushing and if anyone pulled me off schedule with an unexpected phone call or visit, my day (my attitude) was completely ruined.

As I began to allow things to happen more often and as I structured things less, I found that the time I did devote to my business was far more fruitful! Instead of spinning my wheels, doing those things that I thought would make me successful, I allowed my Spirit and Divine Intuition to guide me throughout the day. Because I hadn't set any daily plan or expectations (opportunities to fail), I always felt happy with myself. I found that when I was happy with myself, I was naturally motivated to do more of whatever Spirit nudged me to do! When I reviewed each day and each week to create an account of what I did accomplish, I felt amazing because while I didn’t always accomplish those things that I would have thought I needed to, the things that I did accomplish always turned out to be far more worthwhile and effective!

I began to notice that whenever something “unplanned” happened, such as a friend stopping by or even just following the urge to take a walk, magic always followed. I literally met new clients in random conversations on the sidewalk. I found myself speaking to people who had valuable information about how to easily and honestly grow my business. I spent time in discussions with other entrepreneurs with whom I could co-support and discuss things that benefitted us both. I found myself attending events and having experiences that enlightened me and gave me new insights to share with my clients. These are all things that never would have fit into my SCHEDULE, yet they were all the things that Spirit knew that I needed in order to move forward and to be successful. And once I was out of the way with all of my blasted day planning and schedule making, there was room for me to grow and to succeed in so many fun and fulfilling ways.

Many of us are still trapped in the idea that we have to DO more than we have to BE. Just by being present in each moment, we are able to hear the voice of Spirit and to allow ourselves to be guided to do that which is most productive toward our highest joy, income and purpose.

Even some spiritually-minded people have lists of goals that they think they must review and force themselves to make action on each day in order to succeed. To me, those people always appear to be very rushed and discontent. They still believe the old paradigm that if they are not forcing what they want then it will not happen. But how often do they really find joy or success? By living in Your Divine Flow, and allowing Spirit to guide your actions,  joy and success happen every day!

I know that ALLOWING is my greatest tool for success.

I dare you to try it for a day, or even for a week. Wherever you have flexibility in your obligations, throw away your friggin list. You may be an entrepreneur (or aspiring entrepreneur) who can do this for an entire day. Or, you may be employed by someone and have just a few hours of self-controlled time. To whatever extent that you can, implement allowing.

Wait, that makes it sound hard. To implement allowing, you simply DO NOTHING. Just wait to see what comes. When you have down time, just meditate and await the next instructions from Spirit. I guarantee that you will be pleasantly surprised by how much you can actually accomplish when you just quit trying so hard.

You may find that some of the things you thought you wanted are not in line with your heart and you may be able to release them to focus your energies on your true purpose. If you are already working toward your true purpose, you will find that you suddenly have a jet pack on and are hurtling toward the completion of your Divinely-inspired goals.

I do still make goals. I do believe that it is important to identify the direction in which I want to go. But my goals are not hourly, daily, or even weekly. My goals are yearly and beyond. I do not need to reconnect with my goals daily to drill them into my psyche because I am never disconnected from my goals. My goals come from my heart. In the same way that I do not need to remind myself to call my sister and I do not need to make sure that I feel love in my heart for my family, I do not need to remind myself of my goals. They are always a part of me. What is very cool, though, is that I sometimes open old journals and re-read my goals and discover that I have achieved almost all of them. That’s when I make new goals and tuck them away into my heart so that Spirit can begin work on the fastest and easiest way to their fulfillment.

Wishing you peace, love, and ALLOWING.

~Shaun