Goal setting minus the pressure
As Entrepreneurs and Artists, we are used to setting goals for our business/art.
At the beginning of our journey, the ultimate goal being: living off our creativity, the services/ products we sell because we absolutely looooove what we do and cannot imagine doing anything else. Right?!
The beauty of being self-employed is that we get to set our goals ourselves but that’s also where the line that separates vision from pressure can easily be crossed! And for peace of mind and health, we want to stay on the vision side! You feel me?
It’s a theme I adore because I’m constantly trespassing towards pressure myself! I thought I dealt with it thanks to all the energetical work I do these days but apparently not yet! They say inner work is like peeling an onion, there are layers after layers after layers, you get the picture, except that they are never ending, we’ll peal that freaking onion until the end! I know, the first time I heard that, I was also a bit discouraged but the earlier you know, the easier it’s going to be to accept.
So let’s say that I pealed another layer during easter weekend!
Side note: this year, I went to a Yoga retreat because I didn’t feel like hiding chocolate eggs in the garden for kids who are not mine and pretend that I’m having fun watching them struggling to find the colorful hidden treasures!
Nah! This year I went to northern Italy, to this amazing retreat center called Mandali. It sent me right back to the time I was doing Yoga Teacher Trainings in the most beautiful places and eating the best vegetarian food ever. An amazing time traveling experience and apparently also a weekend full of insights that I’d like to share with you today.
Here I am in my room overlooking the beautiful lake of Orta, writing this secretly because it’s supposed to be a silent retreat and we are not supposed to read or write, but I’m a rebel and inspiration can simply not wait!
2 years ago I took part to a Vipassana retreat - 10 days of meditation in silence where we were not allowed to do anything basically – and not being able to put my thoughts on paper or typing them, was what had been the hardest and I swear I thought of the best jokes over there because meditating with 50 people 10 hours per day gives you material! But luckily here I was allowed to keep my belongings including my computer! HA!
So when I got to this amazing place on Friday, I was in heaven, everywhere I looked, I saw beauty. The Nature but also the way this place was designed and decorated, everything had its place and was well thought of, it was soul-food for me. I realized I was kind of having my life back, the yoga life, which I had put on pause for a few years (more on that in another post) and it felt very good! And yet, even though my mind and senses seemed very fulfilled, my body was aching a tone, I had headaches and crazy muscle tightness, which made the yoga even harder than usual! I first thought it was the stress of the multiple-train-ride-trip or maybe the altitude or the exhausting week I’ve had prior coming. I thought that a good night sleep would help. But the next day, I still felt the same, so I started enquiring: what is it that makes me feel so tight?! I journaled the whole day in between hikes, meditations and yoga sessions until I started to see an answer appear. But for good measure, the last sentence I wrote in my journal that day was: I’d like to know what it is exactly (the pain).
I closed my journal and opened Big Magic by Liz Gilbert and it’s funny cause lately whenever I asked something to ‘whom ever’ is listening, I got the answer indirectly by Liz, either on a podcast or in her book like last night! It’s already the second time that she indirectly answers to my body related issues! Last time I asked about the pain in my hip, she said that her Guru in India said: ‘any talent you are not expressing will transform into pain in your body’ and this time she said: ‘I would never ask writing to take care of me financially, but that I would take care of it. (…) I held on to those sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing, because over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills. I’ve seen artists drive themselves broke and crazy because of this insistence that they are not legitimate creators unless they can exclusively live off their creativity’.
The other funny thing is that I read that book when I started teaching yoga a few years ago. At that I didn’t feel legitimate saying I was a yoga teacher because it was not paying my bills! That was the only thing I remembered from the book! And approximately 7 years later, here I am on a yoga retreat, NOT even teaching yoga anymore but being mad at myself that I’m not leading retreats and demanding that my creativity and services pay the bills already!
So that’s where the tightness was coming from, thinking: damn I should do that too, I should be there already, I need to set that goal and reach it very soon, etc. Now, there is nothing wrong with setting goals but not when they come from a place of shoulds and of why am I NOT doing that already, or of comparison. But instead from a place of: I have that vision and it doesn’t matter how long it takes, just like Liz Gilbert puts it: writing is so important for her that she will do everything to support that dream instead of wanting the dream to support her! Thank you Liz (again)!
Said in this way it makes a lot of sense but apparently I need to be reminded over and over again. And maybe so do you?!
If you have a look at your goals for a minute, ask yourself:
do they come from a place of shoulds or of pure drive?
where am I putting pressure on myself? And why?
where do I feel that in my body?
could this be where the stress is coming from?
and even if you absolutely love what you are doing, you can ask yourself if you are really doing it 100% because you love it and want to share your passion with the world or if there is a hidden pressure underneath it. Be honest with yourself, do you want to make money? (nothing wrong with that be just be aware of it), do you want recognition (same here), do you want to be loved somehow?
I know it can be tricky to answer those questions by ourselves sometimes so If you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out, I’d be happy to help!
Listen to the podcast version of this post here
