How Do I Discover What I Really Want?

The year was ending. I was about three months into my coaching routine. I had made some progress on the key things that made me choose to work with a coach. It was time for setting goals for the upcoming year.

If you know anything about me, you probably know I am not a fan of the annual goal setting process as it is practiced in general. Is there any point to setting random goals in January, taking massive action, and checking back in at the end of the year? It seems doubtful.

You can imagine the level of enthusiasm radiating off me as I started working on my goals for the next year. I wanted to believe the work would make a difference. Deep down, though, I suspected goals could not take you very far without a persistent lifestyle framework behind them. We don’t want to keep “losing” the same five or ten pounds every year. We want the body and the experiences we think we will have after we’ve misplaced the weight.

One of the things I enjoyed about the experience — in spite of my determination not to — was the way this process was put together. There was a thoughtfulness to the way it led me from a vague idea of what my future might hold to a clear, crisp, and full version of a future that was both attainable and exciting.

I won’t walk you through the entire process right now. However, I will lay out the path so you can set yourself on a course to a compelling future. It starts with getting clear about how you want your future to be. If you are anything like me, this can be a confusing and draining process. Maybe you have no idea what you want. Maybe you have so many ideas that you feel as if you are confronting a swarm of loudly buzzing gnats. What can we do to bring some focus and have a sense of progress if we cannot figure out what we want?

Get Clear

If you could collect a few wonderful memories from the last year and use them as the starting point for a new year, what memories would you choose? What did you love about the last twelve months? Did you have any magical moments last year? If so, what were they? Did you have any successes in the last twelve months? What did you accomplish?

Did you have any challenges in the last year? What were they? What did you hate about the last twelve months? If you could place an impenetrable barrier between last year and your future, what would you leave in your past forever? What do you want to never happen again?

What did you learn by going through your challenges? How were these experiences incredibly valuable? What decisions did you make in the last twelve months that were empowering to you? What were some of the most important decisions of the year for you?

Write these things down. Record the beautiful, magical moments and your moments of accomplishment. Record the dark, frustrating moments to be banished. Record the knowledge and power gained through hard work and decisions. Thrilling magic, dreadful darkness, hard-won knowledge. These are the fuel and foundation of your next year.

So, what decisions might you make in the next year as a result of your new perspective on the last year?

Get Certain

Take a moment to look back over the last year. Feel for some things that started out as mere goals and became part of your reality. Write down at least five. Stretch yourself to come up with ten. Of those five to ten items, which two or three were the most impossible?

Imagine picking up each one of these things as though they were a kind of performance playing out on a tiny stage in the palm of your hand. Examine them thoroughly from every angle. Listen for clues about the moment you realized your goal had become your reality. What steps did you take to make those two or three impossible goals become real? Write that down. This is part of your personal map for guiding dreams and goals into the real world.

How do you feel about planning for your future now? Does this seem different from the way you have set goals in the past? I will cover more parts of this process soon. For now, think about what you would want to try if you knew you did not have to feel bad about not achieving it. Write that down, along with any thoughts or observations about what you have learned. After all, the achievement of your goals may pale in comparison to the person you become in order to make them possible.

Remember to reach out. Share your thoughts and breakthroughs. The world needs your story.