How Taking A Break From Setting Personal Goals Can Support Our Well-Being
- Jul 24, 2024
- 4 min read
Monique Newton is a Yoga Therapist, C-IAYT, Mind-Body Coach, and Conflict Coach. As a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, Monique works with the embodiment of our individual and collective lived experience.
Have you ever set a personal goal and then ignored it? Do you find yourself getting caught up with other people’s achievements, then losing a sense of yourself and what matters to you?
Our Westernized social context often seems fixated on achieving personal goals. Sometimes endeavours don’t feel worthy of our attention unless there is a plan of action, a program to follow, and a potential for high success.
There is considerable advice in social media about setting personal goals, achieving goals, what to do when you don’t meet your goals, and how to set more personal goals to help you meet your original goals!
In this context, we can become less interested in how we show up for ourselves, for each other, and for the environment around us. In our striving to achieve an individual goal, we might be focused on doing and getting and then lose sight of our being and presence.
Shift from goal setting to being in practice
This article considers ways that nurturing practices rather than goal setting can bring our attention back toward what supports our well-being and sense of peacefulness toward ourselves.
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh taught that to sit in meditation is to “cultivate peace and joy, not to endure physical strain.” He invited practitioners to adjust their sitting position if they felt uncomfortable and to come back to what is important about meditation – our practice of cultivating peace and joy.
Shifting from goal setting to being in practice is like giving ourselves permission to move out of a position of discomfort to one that allows us to be in relationship with our growth. When we are in practice, we can allow for our human complexity. We can acknowledge our lived experience. And we can take some time to reflect on what “moving forward” really means to us; in some moments in our life moving forward may be a step sideways away from what we thought we should do, or be, or have.
Being in practice supports our well-being
We each have our own sense of what well-being means to us. And most of the time, our well-being does not have much to do with products or fixed achievements but rather our sense of ourselves, the quality of our relationships, and the moments we feel really connected to what is important to us.
I often ask myself the question, what am I practising these days that supports my well-being? For me, my sense of well-being is nourished when I live with integrity, when I connect with my body, and when I am not being defensive (my go-to pattern!).
Some examples of my practising statements
I am practising
having a wider emotional response to challenges I face
taking a pause with conscious breaths before I do or say something
standing, or sitting, fully in myself with both feet on the ground and my heart lifted, gaze forward
moving organically
having a deeper understanding of how privilege impacts my life
allowing myself to respond, “I don’t know” when I do not have the answer
taking time throughout the week to walk among trees.
You might start by reflecting on what well-being means to you, for your lived experience, and then create two or three practising statements for yourself.
Being in practice supports our capacity for compassion
There is something authentic about acknowledging that we are evolving beings.
If we have qualities that we are practising, things we want to shift in our lives, then our colleagues, family members, friends, and community likely have them too. Looking through a lens of practice, we can meet each other in a different way.
No matter our roles in life, parent, colleague, friend, activist, caregiver, business leader, service provider, support worker, when we are in practice, attuned to what supports our well-being, we convey a sense of equanimity about ourselves.
In practice, we can perhaps find some ease in our journey, what we are learning along the way, and how we want to be, rather then what we want to achieve.
In closing, here are 3 reflection questions that you might consider as you explore your practices
Is there something I would like to change about the way I show up for others?
What activities most support my sense of well-being?
When I am truly attuned to myself, what do I most notice?
Read more from Monique Newton
Monique Newton, Yoga Therapist-C-IAYT, Mind-Body Conflict Coach
Monique Newton is a Yoga Therapist, C-IAYT, Mind-Body Coach, and Conflict Coach. Monique believes in the generative power of somatic awareness for social justice, conflict resolution, and personal transformation. She has dedicated her own healing journey to becoming more self-aware, decolonizing her presence and body, and living with humility.
Monique supports individuals and teams with intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict and working through change. In providing services and support, Monique focuses on trauma-informed approaches and emotional and mental well-being.
Reference:
See for example, Thich Nhat Hanh, 1990, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment, Parallax Press.
