5-Step Conscious Creation Cycle to Combat Self-Sabotage

You know that time when you feel that “something isn’t right” when you’re setting goals at the beginning of the year? Or you feel you’re doing it for the sake of it and everyone else is doing it? Deep down, you know that it’s never going to work out as you think it will?

Or that time you’ve set a goal, you’ve focused and worked hard on the path to realise it wasn’t the right one? At the end of it, you’ve drained your energy and there was no fulfilment regardless of the external result?

In this email, I share the problem with setting goals.

Over the next 5 minutes, I will share:

Why do we often experience such pressure and anxiety when it comes to setting goals?

Because deep down, your inner guidance, intuition, the higher version of you chuckles at your intellectual mind thinking it knows the path or at least trying to dictate the path ahead.

Our mind wants to feel safe and certain.

But as artists, creators, entrepreneurs, and athletes who Lead From Within: we must embrace the uncertainty.

What goals are good for?

Are goals good to have? Ofcourse.

The studies show people who set goals are more likely to achieve them. Many studies in the past have shown that those who set goals ended up earning more money and in higher corporate positions over time.

What are the benefits of goals?

Goals can be set to:

Do I set goals? Yes. Only when it excites me.

For me, they are a place to “come from”, not a place to “get to” as I have written about previously here.

The problem with goals

Goals can be a fucking nuisance, mainly for 2 reasons:

Some of the greatest inventions and innovations were not created because the creator had a goal to create them. They allowed it to come into their consciousness. They created space to receive it, many times by complete accident. They were open to the new, unknown, and uncertain.

Think about penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming. Same thing goes for plastic, post-it notes, and pacemakers!

In The Creative Act: A way of Being, Rick Rubin shares:

What is important is being open to possibility.

So, how do we use goals to our advantage and still be open to receiving the muse?

Here is what I recommend…

The 5 Step Conscious Creation Cycle

It’s a hybrid approach of setting yourself a direction and still creating space to be guided and open to being taken on the path by a greater intelligence.

Aliveness and Excitement as your barometer

Contrary to what most performance gurus teach, one of the most accurate signposts are emotional, not intellectual. Excitement is the best barometer for selecting which direction to focus in. When we are excited internally about a project, or something we’re creating, or attending an event unrelated to your vision, it makes us feel ALIVE. We want to lean in. It’s a sign from the natural intelligence from within us. Who know’s who you’ll meet at that event. This is far more sustainable approach in life than forcing yourself. As many wise men and women have taught – joy is the path.

Even with goals itself, whether I set goals or not is something I base on whether it excites me or not.

Does this goal seem expansive to me?

Does it feel like it’s allowing me to step into more of my potential?

Or does it feel like it’s blocking my creative potential?

Reflection for you today