2 reasons why you should not only listen to your head when you want to set AND achieve a goal
What many people don’t know about setting goals is that it is not sufficient to stay in their heads. They listen to their minds that tell them that is a good idea to start a tech career, establish a habit of running each day or to apply Elon Musk’s morning routine.
What they forget is to ask what their heart has to say.
Listening to the heart is crucial when you want to set goals AND actually reach them.
Here’s why:
- Listening to your heart ensures that you are on your own track, not on someone else’s.
Often, people settle for goals that they feel they should pursue. Because the pursuit of those goals is accepted by society. Or because they think their friends, parents, whoever expect it from them.
At the age of 19, I thought it was a good idea to apply for a job at a bank. I would earn a decent salary, have a secure job (back in the 90ies, before the financial crises), and have the chance to work part-time when you wanted to raise kids. That was how my head talked me into this idea. But in reality, these were the arguments my mother brought up. It was her goal more than mine.
Luckily, I failed the assessment center. The HR people quickly found out that I was not any good at selling fridges at the north pole. My subconscious found a way not to reach this goal because it was no good for me.
Selling people on stuff they don’t need like superfluous insurances or finance products that bring profit to the bank, not the people didn’t make sense to my heart. My heart feels content and enriched when I imagine that I can be of help to others. I became a writer and coach and now can now help people by teaching them methods they can use to grow.
2. Listening to your heart gives you the traction and flow needed to pursue your goal.
What changes when you pursue a goal that your heart is on board with is: Your motivation comes from within. Being intrinsically motivated is much more powerful fuel than doing something because someone else told you to or because you are fearing the consequences someone threatened you with.
Immersing yourself passionately in what you are doing will increase your focus.
Focus, then, is likely to trigger flow, which in turn boosts intrinsic even more. Flow experiences trigger our reward system: Related neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins are distributed and we gain trust in what we do. We feel that it is significant and experience joy. These reward drugs in our body then make us want to experience more of this and we willingly immerse ourselves again in the actions that we know can cause the experience. A boost to intrinsic motivation. Flow-expert Steven Kotler explains that there is a feedback loop growing motivation: Passion triggers focus triggers flow triggers intrinsic motivation – repeat.
I love writing. And when I write about something I’m really curious about, personal growth for example, or a person that fascinates me, I don’t mind whether it’s nine in the evening and whether I’ve been working for hours. Whereas when I was writing about car accidents in my early stages as a journalist, I was drained at 3 pm. When I can assist people in the process of working on their growth, I get immersed in the process so that I am in awe how quickly an hour has passed and feel content.
