Don't Make Enjoying Life a Goal

Don’t make enjoying life a goal

Introduction

I’m still not sure whether the title of today’s post is a good representation of what I’m going to write, but I wanted something simple and concise. Something with the words enjoying life and goal. Why? Hopefully you will understand in a second.

In this blog post I want to share my experience with goal setting and my decision to enjoy life more. I’m not going to use any external references for this, except one. Hence, this post is not informational in nature; it simply explains my own self-reflection. In so doing, I hope that it can help and inspire some of you.

What do I mean by “don’t make enjoying life a goal”

I started reflecting on this after a coaching session I had, during which the coach shared an observation with me saying: “It sounds like you made this idea of enjoying life more a goal of yours.” What came up for me when he said this was a feeling of surprise, as well as utter discomfort in admitting the truth of such statement. I had an “ah ha” moment. Deep down I knew that this is what I had been doing all along. Why? Because I tend to make everything in life a goal (and I know I’m not the only one doing this…)

In deciding to take a year off university and pursuing my coaching training, my plan was that of enjoying life more. Little did I know that enjoying life was more complex than that. I decided to take a year off without first defining what enjoying life really meant to me. I thought I just wanted to spend more time getting to know people, hanging out with friends, trying new things and experiences, and going with the “flow.” I wanted to have more free time, time to sit and reflect on my feelings and my life. I knew something was missing in my life then, and I thought that was it. But now that I have what I wanted, I realized there is something else still “missing”.

What’s the missing piece?

I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t look for that something somewhere else. There is nothing really missing. The thought of there being something missing is an illusion. This makes me think of a passage from the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle that says: “There is nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve things. The mistake lies in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, for Being”.

It is not by having more free time, traveling to new places, meeting new people, and having new experiences that the “missing” feeling will go away. It comes from within, from Being. Yes, I made this “enjoying life more” a goal for myself this year. And let me tell you, I am sticking to it quite well. However, because I set it as a goal, I feel like now that I got it, I want something else. And that’s the tricky part.

What does goal setting do?

If we set anything as a goal in life, satisfaction is probably less likely. Every time we reach a goal, we will want something else, something more. So we set another goal, then another one, and another one… and the list goes on and on for months or even years. And the satisfaction? It will fade as soon as we reach that goal we wanted for so long.

All this to say that most of us are addicted to the thrill, to the dopamine, or whatever it is that makes us crave something and makes us addicted to getting it. We are addicted to doing and achieving, more than Being and feeling. Maybe it’s always been like this, but my perception is that it is getting worse over time. This might also explain the rise in mental health issues like anxiety and depression among the latest generations.

I’m in no way here to tell you how you should live your life. However, if there is one thing I learned from my experience – the goal setting tendency and the promise of enjoying life more – is that, when making any other future decision, I should really ask myself what meaning I associate with the experience I am seeking. In this case, I would ask myself what enjoying life more means to me, and in what ways do I think this enjoyment will make things better.

A takeaway message

More often than not, if we are seeking something, such as a feeling, outside of ourselves, you can rest assured that the feeling is not going to last. In addition, you will realize that for any decision made, if you set something as a goal to be reached or achieved, you will not feel better once you get there (or at least not as good as you thought you would). Things never appear as good or as bad as we imagine them to be. Our minds can be really powerful. It is up to you to decide how you want to use that power.

My advice? Use it in a way that serves you, and don’t forget to enjoy what you have now while you have it. One day you will look back to the good old days and wish you had the life you used to have.

Life happens now.

Keywords: enjoying, life, goal, feeling, feel