Maybe we need to prioritise giving over setting goals

Maybe many of us have been misdirected over setting goals.

I want to put forward an idea that goes against my prior views quite considerably.

This is a ‘putting an idea out there’ article.

Not a ‘this is how you should do things’ article.

This article is for you and me.

It is here to invite discussion.

I want to acknowledge the possibility that setting rigid goals is not the only ‘right’ way of doing things and being productive.

Perhaps it is not helping us as much as we think, if at all.

One of my biggest breakthroughs over recent years is something that has helped me:

• Be more at ease, calmer and happier;

• Create more clients and more business;

• Bring more exciting opportunities into my life;

• Be more creative;

• Write and create things that people love;

• And much, much more!

That thing is the power of service.

Being oriented to the helping of others — to the improvement of other people’s lives — particularly those people who matter the most to us.

The world is too big to cater to all. But we can be of service to those we want to include in our sphere.

Serving from a position of self-love and value and a willingness to spread that love.

When I am devoted to helping those people in my tribe, whether they be subscribers, potential clients, customers, family members, friends and collaborators, I am immediately out of painful introspection.

I am out of my head.

When someone says to you: ‘get out of your head,’ do not try to get out of your head.

Your best move is to direct your attention towards the people, the beauty, and the environment around you.

So by redirecting attention, service to others helps them, but it also helps you.

And when you are devoted to helping others that matter, you nurture your village; your tribe. You nurture your very support system.

You nurture you.

So what does all this have to do with setting goals?

Goals create direction. They help focus our efforts and attention to what we need to do right now. This is true.

But goals are also very often missed. We frequently change our minds and hearts en route to the completion of a goal. Goals often make us anxious because we are not there yet. They lead us to compare our today selves to our future selves.

They put pressure on my future, and they go against the very essence of present consciousness, which I have been exploring in much more depth recently.

To be in the future is to not be here.

To be our most open and creative selves is to be conscious and aware right now.

And guess what? All we have is right now.

You knew that.

Right now is when we are most conscious. And when we are conscious, we live in our connection to all things.

With a sense of connection, we realise one of the most gob-smacking truths: the best way to nurture ourselves is to support, lift and nourish those people and things to which we are connected.

I’m not shoo shooing goals. They can be there to point us to our ‘right now’ priorities. But I want to suggest that perhaps they aren’t needed if we rearrange our priority to unattached and generous giving.

Instead of focusing on goals, focus on those things you love creating right now, as a means to better serve those around us and to serve ourselves too.

This isn’t about sporadically giving.

Be a whirlwind force of giving, and creating and sharing, without any attachment or expectation.

Be unreasonable in the attention you direct to your tribe.

Give so much that people start to talk, and question, and probe, and search inside themselves.

Then see what comes back and have fun with those rewards.

See how enlivening it is to be a leader who gives and supports his community and his people.

See how giving is intrinsically connected to an innate and universal drive to create, build and grow value in a way that inspires.

See how this energises you to create at a higher pace than ever before.

Continually ask yourself: ‘what would I love to create right now as a means to serve those around me?’

And then you create things, one after the other, consciously. You don’t procrastinate on goals you feel you should work on.

You create from joy and connection.

Your vision and intention are continually refreshed through your enthusiasm for creation. This is in a way that springs from your soul, rather than from the ‘shoulds’ and assumptions of goals.

See what opportunities begin to arise for you. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Now see what need you have for goals.

Generosity now, over high hopes for later.

Giving over goals.

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If these ideas stirred something in you, I’d love to read your comment below. I read them all.

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Alex