Ego-free goal-setting in 2022

Employing traditional wisdom when it comes to goal-setting can be incredibly effective. But – it also can be incredibly limiting. What?! How can it be effective *and* limiting you ask?! Let me explain.

Traditional goal-setting has us create our goals from a place of ‘I’. What do ‘I’ want? What do ‘I’ long for? What is the vision ‘I’ see? Answering these questions earnestly can be incredibly effective because they allow us to tune out outside noises and forces, and focus on what our person is yearning for / asking for. Moving from the ‘I’ – or the ego – can be powerful if we have heretofore let others’ opinions and wishes play too forceful of a role in shaping our reality.

What happens, however, is that once goal-setting from the ‘I’ is mastered, we bump into a dead end if we want to continue to grow and evolve. Our ‘selves’ are powerful, but our ego remains – ultimately – very, very small if we don’t ‘open up’ to the bigger life forces that are at play.

Therefore, the next evolution in goal-setting is ditching the ‘I’ – ditching the ‘ego’! 

If you feel like this resonates with you – keep reading! It could be that you are ready to try this different paradigm for goal-setting.

Best-selling author and ‘Transformational Truth Teacher’, Kute Blackson, coins the term ‘soul-setting’ when referring to this paradigm. This paradigm is about letting go of what we think we want, and letting ourselves be open to what life wants for us. Given this, instead of asking the question, ‘What do I want?’, we can instead explore the answers to these questions: What is it that life is wanting to express through me? – or – What is it that life is wanting to manifest through me? With this paradigm shift, we let ourselves be used as a vessel and we humbly admit that what we know and what we see is inherently limited…and ultimately it is only in relinquishing our illusion of control that we can continue to evolve.

WHY move into this new paradigm for goal-setting?!

The most compelling reason I have to offer you for moving into this new paradigm is that – because life is infinitely wiser than our little ego – the outcomes and realities that sprout from this shift are infinitely more beautiful and perfect than any outcome that our egos could come up with. Dare to ‘let go’ of what your ego wants, and you can be sure that what crops up in its place will not disappoint.
 
HOW does one employ this new paradigm of goal-setting?!

Silence; stillness; nature; listening; surrender; humility. These are the words that come to mind! Using these words as bread crumbs, can you piece together a goal-setting / ‘soul-setting’ practice that suits you?

Feel free to draw inspiration from this poem (from Mark Nepos’ ‘The Book of Awakening’) on ‘letting go’ as well. Perhaps it makes sense to ‘let go’ of some of your ego-based goals that you have created in the past to make room for some new ego-free goals…?

“A river doesn’t hold all the water that passes through it.”

In our journey through time, we all struggle constantly with what to bring along and what to leave behind. It feels so hard to throw anything away, but if we don’t, we will drown underneath a weight of our own making.

The river is a good model. It doesn’t own the water that rushes by, yet it couldn’t be in more intimate relationship to it, as the force of what moves through shapes it. It is the same with everything we love. In truth, there is no point to holding on to the deepest things that matter, for they have already shaped us.

The purpose of sentiment, then, is to release the powerful feelings that sleep in us. Sometimes books and cards and shells and dried flowers do this. But often we carry more than we need, seldom trusting that what these small treasures represent is already living within us. Often the most useful gift we can give ourselves is to lay our lives open like a river.

Here at Growmotely, we recognize the importance of the ‘self’, and at the same time we recognize its limitations. Every day, we strive to ‘open ourselves up’ to what exists beyond our egos, and be receptive to ‘what life is wanting to express through us’ as an organization. 

We would love for you to join us in this expansive way of being and goal-setting!

Written By: Vanessa Kettner (Growmotely’s Creative Writer and your Remote Work Cupid) …whose ego – by the way – would have never known to set a goal to apply for a job as a writer!