The hard (and totally worth it) work of contentment

Raise your hand if two weeks into 2023, you already want to ditch your goals. Even if you love writing goals or “words of the year,” it’s easy to be like, “Ugh what does it even matter?!” 

If you’re asking yourself this…you’re on the right path.

Goals can trick us into being singularly focused on a destination, rather than being present through the twists and turns of the journey. 

Focusing on the journey gives us an opportunity to check in, be curious and sit with the exciting progress or tough discomfort. It helps us detach from the future and allows us to change course without judgment.

Erosion of Contentment

There’s nothing wrong with having goals and wanting to grow. I’m the biggest proponent of writing stuff down and making it happen! But, it’s easy to fall into the mind-trap that achieving stuff will make us happier.

“Once I go on vacation, then I’ll be relaxed.” “When I lose 10 pounds, I’ll officially feel good about myself.” (And sidenote: if I hear one more girl demanding she, “better get a ring this year,” I might scream.)

My relationship with goals has changed a ton. I used to be compelled to achieve as much as possible. Whenever I checked another box of achievement, I felt a hit of satisfaction. That hit doesn’t last as long. Pretty soon you’re looking for the next achievement to feel worthy/impressive/successful/loveable. 

At some point, you realize you checked all the boxes, and still aren’t as happy as you expected to be.

Leaning on happiness, validation and satisfaction from places outside of ourselves slowly erodes our contentment and pulls us further away from what we truly want. 

Contentment means in our yucky moments, we have self-compassion, trust the yuck won’t last forever, and sit with our discomfort even though we want to escape. In our incredible moments, it means we stay present, celebrate ourselves and appreciate it. Contentment means no matter what we experience or achieve, we know we are ok. In fact, we’re actually better than ok. We’re fucking amazing.

Time to evaluate 

If your enthusiasm for your 2023 goals is starting to wane, you’re not alone. There are hundreds of books and podcasts telling you how to stay motivated and make habits stick. I trust you’ll find the method that works for you. But before you dig into any of that, start here:

• Take an honest look at your goals and figure out why you set them

• What do you believe will be different if you achieve them? Why does that matter to you? 

• Is my goal coming from a place of believing I’m “not enough?” If so, how can you reframe it so it’s not coming from a place of “lack” or punishment?

• How will you check in with yourself along the process to make sure these still feel like the right goals?

• If you don’t achieve a goal, what will be the outcome? What will you take that to mean about yourself?