Authentic Goals - Crafting a Handmade Life

For many of us, setting meaningful and achievable goals for the year ahead is part of our personal and professional New Year ritual. It can be a way to start the year with a clear sense of direction and purpose.  For your goals to be meaningful and worth the effort, they need to be authentic and reflect who you are and what’s important for you. This week I attended the first Six Seconds Coaches Connect for the year. The focus was on the topic of setting authentic goals and the difference this can make.  This post is about sharing some of the key learnings from this session.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s about taking time to really focus on what you want to achieve this year. The emphasis being on what it is that you really want to do and not on what others expect you to do. If you focus too much on what others want, you risk losing yourself in the process.
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The key difference authentic goals have over other goals that we may feel we have set or pursue is that authentic goals are areas of focus or objectives that genuinely reflect your values, passions, and aspirations. They are deeply connected to your essential self and pursued for personal reasons rather than external pressures or the expectations of others.

Some key reasons you might consider taking the time to set authentic goals include:
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• Tapping into the power of your intrinsic motivation. When your goals are genuinely aligned with your values and passions, you're naturally more motivated to pursue them. This deep-rooted motivation and inherent alignment with your values and passions will sustain your efforts even when challenges arise.
• Enhancing personal fulfillment. Being deeply rooted in your personal values and passions means that working towards and achieving these types of goals will naturally feel more fulfilling, meaningful and rewarding.
• Resilience. When you truly care about your goals, you're more likely to stay committed and able to persevere in the face of challenges and obstacles.

Authentic goals provide you with a practical and tangible opportunity to bring your values to life and to craft a handmade life focused on what matters most to you. To cultivate ways of living and being that are life enhancing rather than soul destroying.

Here is a quick authenticity check, for your goals, from the Coaches Connect session:

• What’s a goal that you’ve set or are considering?
• What value or values do you associate with this goal?
• Now imagine bringing that value(s) to life as you work towards your goal. What are some feelings you experience as you consider this?
• How can those feelings help you with your goal? (or help you revise your goal?)

​Considering these questions and noticing their impact as you consider your goal(s) will help you gain a clearer sense of whether the goal(s) you are considering are truly authentic, aligned and deeply rooted in your values. And if they’re not, perhaps it’s time to dig a little deeper and consider what is calling you forward at this point in time and aligning your goals more closely with that.