Soul is the NEW Goal
“Do your soul setting and role setting, then do your goal setting!”
~ Yours truly
Happy New Year!
Do you find that New Year’s resolutions often cause more stress than success, and create more frustration than liberation? We know how fast even the most committed “resolutionist” falls off the wagon.
I’ve read that stress costs America $300 million in lost production every year. The greater price is loss of life, livelihood and lifestyle.
Three sources of stress not talked about are silent killers that eat away at us from the inside out. You won’t see these in medical journals, holistic health periodicals or anywhere in the physician’s desk reference.
You may not have heard of these gremlins, yet they likely afflict you. This time of year they come out to play in a big way. Most of us have one, many of us have two, and some of us have all three of these gremlins.
Actually, they have us.
Soul Frustration: “I’m not fully expressing myself or being who I really am.”
Role Frustration: “I’m not doing what I value or valuing what I do.”
Goal Frustration: “I’m not where I think I should or ought to be.”
Which gremlin has you?
You cannot be your best, do your best, or get the best when your mind, body and spirit are compromised by soul, role or goal frustration.
How do you eliminate them?
RECOGNIZE: Identify the source and cause of each frustration you have.
REMEDY: Shift your attention, and reorder your value hierarchy.
Do your soul setting and role setting, then do your goal setting.
Recognition is simple.
Remedy is not.
The old game remedy was “more” goal.
If you’re not being all you can be, doing all you can do, and going as far as you can go, raise the bar. Set higher, bigger, loftier, more challenging goals.
This old model puts goal at the center of our success circle. Goal is god, and it can be a harsh master. Goal demands you do whatever it takes to get it, even if that means despising your role and selling your soul.
The old success formula was based on a GOAL –> ROLE -> SOUL value model.
Here’s how we played the old game:
Goal first – GO… the farther the better.
Role next – DO… whatever it takes to get goal.
Soul last – BE… with whatever time is left over after going and doing.
Goal is the alpha and omega. We start and end with goal. Success springs from goal seed. We elevate GOAL ACHIEVEMENT, the lowest value, above and ahead of the higher values of ROLE SATISFACTION and SOUL FULFILLMENT.
Our success model is upside down.
It’s why we have epidemic stress.
We believe the mantra:
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people won’t do.”
This philosophy places goal accomplishment and achievement as the highest values, even if the price you pay is to play a role you don’t like or despise. It defines success by doing “whatever it takes” to achieve the goal. This mindset causes:
Goal frustration – you are not where you “think you ought” to be even though you’ve done “whatever it takes” to get there. UGH!
Role frustration – you are not doing what you like, what you are good at, what your heart calls you to do, because you “have to do what you have to do” to accomplish the goal. YUK!
Soul frustration – you feel like no matter how hard you work, how much you do, or how far you go, there’s still a hole in your soul. OUCH!
GOAL is a zero-sum game:
It’s all or nothing, goal or no goal, success or failure.
To get goal, you relinquish your role and subordinate your soul. You believe you should “do whatever it takes” even at the expense of enjoying your role and satisfying your soul.
To sacrifice your soul and relinquish your role to “get a goal” creates stress. When you subordinate your soul and role to a goal, you invert the natural hierarchy of value. This collision of values causes conflict that disrupts the mind, diseases the body and diminishes the spirit.
Is it really success if you spend your precious moments of life ignoring your natural talent to attain something you think is important, or what someone told you should be important?
Is it a winning trade off to give up what you want, like or love to do (ROLE) to seek a “concept” of some future payoff (GOAL)?
When you spend so much time in future GOAL you have trouble BEING present in ROLE and SOUL.
Being is life.
Doing happens now.
Going arrives in the future.
We miss the true value of life when we give up the present for the future. When we trade SOUL and ROLE for GOAL, we exchange the higher here and now for the lower someday maybe. If that someday maybe doesn’t come, we have given up the REAL NOW for an imagined future.
Unwittingly, unknowingly, unintentionally (or not) many self-help teachers and personal development communities fuel soul, role and goal frustration by perpetuating the GOAL –> ROLE -> SOUL success model.
Millions of people who built their success on the sand of GOAL instead of the bedrock of SOUL and ROLE are now suffering. They embraced getting, going and having as ultimate success.
What happens when the getting, going and having stop?
What happens to your SOUL (self worth) and your ROLE (self-confidence) when your GOAL (net worth) is wiped out?
SOUL is who you are, the immeasurable intrinsic value of your life.
ROLE is what you do, the expression of your talent in a livelihood.
GOAL is where you go, the journey toward a better lifestyle.
Life. Livelihood. Lifestyle.
SOUL -> ROLE -> GOAL!
Pay attention to how these frustrations are causing you pain and suffering, blocking your flow, and interfering with having a good life.
To better adapt, be more adept.
Shift your value hierarchy.
You can eliminate frustration with a NEW model, a NEW value hierarchy!
This New Year, play a NEW Game.
“Do your soul setting and role setting, then do your goal setting.”
First, set your SOUL.
Be who you are. Come alive. Express yourself.
Love yourself regardless of what you do or how far you go.
Next, set your ROLE.
Do what you like and what you’re good at.
Play roles that resonate with you, and play for the love of the game.
Then, set your GOAL.
Go where you want and get what you want.
Whether or not you get there, enjoy the journey.
You enrich your SOUL and enliven your ROLE.
Play for the love of the game.
Satisfy your SOUL.
Relish your ROLE.
Get your GOAL.
SOUL -> ROLE -> GOAL!
Let me know how it works for you.
Happy New Year!
Fill it with plenty of plenty of what matters most.
You’re a player.
You DO change the game.
I’ll meet you on the field in 2014.
Mitch – CEO, Chief Encouragement Officer™
“Soul is the NEW Goal!”
