Insights On How To Act And Achieve Your Goals

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have an easier time to challenge themselves than others? Why can some people stick to their exercise routine and others not? Why do some people take risks and work on actualizing a vision they have in mind and others stay stuck where they are?

Maybe wakeboarding is your goal

During meditation and contemplation I have gained some insights into how the mind works in this regard. At least how it is in my mind, and maybe you will find some of these to be true for yourself. 


Envision these following steps with me here to arrive at these insights for yourself.


  1. Feel what you basic mood is right in this moment.
    1. What is on your mind when you try to be as neutral as possible?
    2. Are you generally in a positive mood or a negative one?
    3. Is something bothering you right now?
    4. Get a general picture of your current emotional situation without reference to one particular situation or object.
  2. This is your baseline happiness. Research shows, no matter what happens in your life, you tend to always come back to this baseline level of happiness.
  3. Now think about some project, some goal, something you would like to do, but are not currently doing because something holds you back.
  4. Now that you have this vision in your mind, notice how the baseline mood which you identified before has blended in with this vision. 
    1. They are not separate
    2. It would take an enormous amount of imagination to actually elicit the feelings that come with that action you envision
  5. What can we take home from this observation? 
    1. It is not possible to judge any of our visions by how we feel when we think of it.

Example:
You have the goal of doing exercise first thing in the morning. You want to go for a run. Now you woke up and you feel tired and not yet energized. Exercising seems like an impossibility. You tell yourself that exercising now will feel way to hard and difficult. How do you come to this conclusion? By observing your current mood. Notice that thinking about exercising didn't give you the same mood as actually exercising does. If you actually end up going out and start exercising, you will feel the outcome of that vision after maybe 10 minutes. 

We can see from this simple example that our visions happen in a completely different state of mind than the actual lived reality of these visions. 

Conclusion:

I think that people who have an easier time acting on their goals and actualizing their visions, have a greater ability to imagine and evoke the feelings they associate with their vision. In this way, when they think about their goal, they actually get a little boost in how good they feel and that motivates them to achieve it as well. Whereas someone who has little imagination will not have an emotional response to his visions, and that leaves him with no reason to achieve his goals. 

You can take this insight and test it for yourself. Try to infuse in your vision or goals as much emotional power as possible. Thinking about it rationally from your current level of happiness won't really motivate you. But actually connecting to the emotional level of your goals will give you a boost.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think it is important to mention that this can be taken too far. I have found that overly indulging in positive emotions associated with a certain goal can be so pleasurable that it seems unnecessary to put some actual effort in its realization. Just something to keep in mind.