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I’m writing this from New Mexico just before I leave my bi-annual meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC).
Jack Canfield, the co-author of the Chicken Soup books, created this organization for transformational leaders (workshop leaders, authors, owners of organizations dedicated to transformation, etc.) such as John Gray, New York Times best-selling authors Marci Shimoff and Lisa Nichols, Rev. Michael Beckwith, and about 100 more. It is a place where people who have committed their lives to empowering others get supported and nourished. I am honored to have been a founding member about five years ago.
The two five-day meetings each year are my most eagerly-awaited times of the year. I always leave nourished and filled with new ideas. I am devoting my post today to some of the more-important ideas I am taking away from this meeting.
Is it really important to have goals?
I have always had a problem with goals despite the fact that for years everyone has talked about why they were important (“How can you possibly get what you want if you don’t know what you want?”). I always thought it was more important to live out of my vision, what I am here on earth to do—than out of goals.
Here’s a metaphor that I’ve used to explain my problem with goals. Imagine that my vision was to go east. Then I decided that my first goal was to go from my home in San Francisco to New York. So I go to the airport to get my ticket to New York and I am so focused on getting that ticket that I never notice a non-stop flight directly to Europe.
In other words, there are so many ways to manifest one’s vision. Goals can limit your possibilities and keep you from seeing ones you never would have dreamed of. Remember my post last week about living out of questions instead of answers. Both answers and goals limit possibilities.
Paul Scheele, creator of the Paraliminal courses and co-founder of Learning Strategies, said something that validated my position about goals. He made the point that organizations (and individuals) need to stop living in the past and in the future, and start living in the present.
Your goals are a function of your already-existing beliefs that were formed in the past. Your strategies ultimately are a function of the meaning you’ve given your past experiences and the meaning you are giving your appraisal of the future. So both our goals and our strategies force us into living in the past and the future, and inhibit us from living in the present.
Living in the present enables you to focus on what is emerging. I liked Paul’s use of that word: emerging. It is what arises moment by moment when you are living in the present.
Have your actions directed by “divinity”
Joe Vitale made one the meeting’s best presentations about living from divinity, from source, from inspiration. He made the point that every thought you have is the result either of inspiration (a message from your “higher Self”) or from your programming (your beliefs and conditioning).
It can be difficult to tell the difference between thoughts that arise from inspiration and thoughts that are the result of programming. Yet the more you are able to erase the beliefs and conditionings, the more your inspirations will reach consciousness without being distorted by your beliefs and the more you will be able to recognize the difference between the two types of thoughts.
Joe said that he generally knows the difference by the passion and excitement that accompanies his inspiration.
Joe said one other thing that I really liked: What is especially important is to act immediately on those inspirations. If you get a message from the divine and ignore it, it is worthless. Listen for those messages and allow them to move you to action … without delay. Stopping too long to judge your inspirations will kill them.
During a discussion of Joe’s presentation at breakfast one morning Paul pointed out that all judgment is the result of prior programming. To translate that observation into terms I’ve been using: Our judgments show up as the meaning we give to aspects of our lives, which in turn determines how events occur for us. And the major determinant for the judgments and meanings we give events are the beliefs and conditionings we have at the time. This explains how two people can have such different judgments of the same events.
During this conversation, I realized that the Lefkoe Occurring Process enables us to dissolve the meaning and the judgments and be left in the present, where we can more easily observe our inspirations and notice what is emerging.
Carry your safety with you
I saw Jack at breakfast the final day and told him that one of the things I love most about TLC meetings is that I am able to fully experience and express the profound love I have for people. I can hug, kiss, and verbally tell people how much I love them. I don’t feel nearly as safe elsewhere, except with a few very close friends.
Jack asked me why I could experience and express that love at TLC but not elsewhere. I said that I don’t feel as safe most of the time. Then Jack shared something about himself that was my most valuable piece of information of the meeting: As much as he also loves being at TLC, he feels safe to experience and express his love wherever he is because he carries his safety inside of him; he doesn’t wait for the circumstances to create safety for him.
I knew immediately that that was true and from now on it is incumbent on me to create my experience of safety and not wait for something or somebody outside of me to create it. I made a commitment to him and myself to fully express my love whenever I feel it. And to create the experience of safety so that I am able to feel it.
Please share any comments you have on these thoughts from my TLC meeting this past week.
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copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe
I dont add to posts too often, but I feel the urge from what I have read, goals are not good in the fact they are made to be the “how” on what to “do” to get what we REALLY want.
Its great to desire what we want, and make it as specific as possible in what we want, sounds like a goal but its a desire, it is of who we are and overall a goal is a mechanical way to create our desires, and in the doing the how, it prevents us from the best possible options to coming into what we truly TRULY desire :)
Ty Morty for sharing, I think often people get stuck with words that are labeled with meaning and we all see things in different ways but it seemed to me desire and goal were being too enmeshed in this discussion, but as we desire and allow our INSPIRED actions, as long as we hold focus the “do”, just becomes known, if there is any do to do!
Much love to everyone
oH,! i LIKE THIS, YOU GOT THE POINT, I agree with you I HAVE A GRWAT PROBLEM WITH GOALS(NO MORE).Please help me to distinguish between DIVINE INSPIRATION AND EGO INSPITARION.ThANK YOU, NOW WE ARE CONNECTED
In NLP, we’d remind peploe to focus on an outcome/intention/goal that describes the FEELINGS, i.e. physical sensations, we want to have, rather than the specific path (process) to get to those feelings, or specific material things we might find while taking that path. These feelings/sensations outcomes are the most important things to keep in mind, since they allow us to more easily be open to all the good, true, beautiful, and inspiring opportunities that happen to present themselves in life which we may not be expecting. Because, if we are focusing too much on specific paths or material things, such as “writing a book”, we might miss out on some other opportunities we have that would lead us to even more of these feelings we want to have, because “writing” is just one paths we might take and “a book” is just one of the material things we might find on our way to our intended sensational goal. The purpose of doing things this way, – of setting the goal/outcome/intention to be feelings – is to let each part of our self do what it does best. The conscious mind is great at looking at the past and future and deciding what might be best for the future, in this case sorting though all the different sensations that it’s had in the past and would love to have again, and the unconscious body~mind is best at navigating and noticing details about possible hidden gems in our environment. For me, my goal/intention/outcome is something like: The feelings of having enough whole food, pure water, fresh air, warmth, light, and the freedom to express myself physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. The short version of this goal is to continue to love the world and myself even more every day. For you, Brain, what feelings do you get when you give your greatest gifts, and greatest services to the world, inspiring as many peploe as you can, as you have fun studying, embodying, and sharing your favorite wisdom? What does it feel like when you do this? What sensations do you experience as these things happen?
Hi Lejla,
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.
Love, Morty
I can not understand what you mean to live according to your vision, what does that mean?, I need a clearer example
I believe much of the confusion that surrounds the issues being discussed here has to do with time. It’s fine to have a goal if you take action immediately and achieve the goal right there. It’s not the same thing if you hold on to a goal for so long that it becomes part of your identity.
Living in the past and the future is suspense, which is the opposite of action. Success is always the result of action, so to live a well-managed life, find ways to have less suspense and more action.
Thank you Morty, awesome!
It helped me to fokouse more at the present…and I love you said : “feeling safe inside and expressing love without fear “.
It’s so true…
thanx
Better and better
Hi morty
I am curious how you recomend working towards a vision, i have started using the simplology 101 system you recommend in your e-mail which advices to have a clear vision, and then work backward from that vision step by step until i get to the first step, then take these steps 1 by 1 to work towards it.
I am a quite an unproductice person at the moment and this seems to be a good way of working towards my visions, so your input on this system will be appreciated.
Thanks
Morty – awesome, awesome post! Thank you for sharing your experiences at the TLC. Your insights are very enlightening.
I understand what you said about goal setting. I have also had that feeling that maybe if I set this goal, I may miss a bigger opportunity.
I have learned (from Bill Harris’ LPIP) that we can ask ourselves, “How can I” questions. I would ask “How can I turn our annual income into a monthly income?” This presupposes that there is an answer, and our mind will start to look for the answers. I start with what I know to do, and still be open to inspiration.
I love what you said about what Joe Vitale said. I will listen to how my inspiration comes and know the difference by the passion and excitement that accompanies the inspiration.
Thank you again for sharing Morty. This was really valuable!
This is quite fascinating because this morning and earlier today I had some few things put in my mind but did not do because of doubt. Now having read this article I remembered that there has been a couple of incidents where I acted promptly on what my ‘heart’ not ‘head’ was telling me . This morning also, I wanted to share a book with my colleagues but ended not doing it because of the ‘mind’.
Funny enough, the book talks about ‘how to manifest your destiny’, through 9 spiritual principles, one the 7th being ‘LOVE’. It states that ‘all things are possible when you radiate love because love frees one from the bondage of the mind. It explains that the mind seeks to find faults everywhere thus forcing one to judge themselves and constantly seek approval/ seeks to prove their worth to the world(which we do not have to). In short the author says that WE ARE CREATED BY LOVE, LOVE BEING THE DIVINE POWER WHICH CREATED EVERYTHING BY WORD(meaning that since we are love, we are thus creators, meaning that we have the power to create and destroy. Except for one limiting aspect of ‘living in the present’ . The principle is true.
I have found that accepting where you are or taking things/life as is frees ones’ mind and gives ‘natural high’. I have learnt that there is turbulance in one’s being when you do not live in the present. I ahve alos learnt that circumstances do not change until you accept and learn that they exist for a purpose. I have also learnt that some plans/goals happen after a while or do not happen at all for our own good reason. …..
Regards,
Olive
Morty, thanks so very much for sharing the thoughts and inspiration you gained from your beloved friends! Since I’m “with” you 100% on the issue of goal-setting, it was validating to hear others’ ideas about that; however, it was the idea of carrying my safety “with” me that felt especially inspiring to me today. Thanks, thanks a million times over! :)
Dear Morty,
How come you support Simpleology.com and their methodologies if you don’t believe in goals? Their main platform is based on coming up with very specific goals that you have to visual, target, and shoot for. I am very confused.
Hi Jeff,
I personally don’t believe in goals, although I have had them on many occasions in the past when I thought I should have them and that I was not achieving what I wanted in life because I didn’t have them.
And I know a lot of other people live out of goals.
In any case, I think there is a lot of useful information in the Simpleology program so I passed it along to my list. It might not to useful to everyone.
Regards, Morty
Morty,
First of all, thank you. Thank you for the inspiration and for the report on what must be a great gatthering.
I am interested in all these veiwpoits. I get a lot out of discussions about Be Here Now (living in the present moment), intentions, manifestations, visions and goals. I am intrigued how my life has been changed and how I am able to think more freely and create a Way That Works for me with all the help that is out there.
I would disagree that having goals, which you honestly state is a problem for you, keeps me from living in the moment. Years ago I jokingly stated that I am planning my future one day at a time. I live fully in today, but that doesn’t stop me from having goals and a vision that is part of my life’s path as much as being present for my life. I don’t live in the past or future, I live today and today I allow myself to do all kinds of things that are of benefit to myself and others. It may be benefitting from my experiences or it may be a vision of a better future. All of which can only exist in the present moment. I am writing this in now, but I may go back and read it and say to myself I have learned something or someone else may read this and “in the future” they might benefit.
I love your blog posts Morty and you’ve changed my life, you’re loved!
Hi Yang Li,
I’m thrilled to hear we’ve helped you change your life.
Thanks for letting us know.
Regards, Morty
Dear Morty,
If you are the creator of the Natural Confidence program and I’m assuming you removed all the beliefs and conditionings on that program, then how could you not feel as safe expressing your love with anyone you run into? Please explain. Thank you.
Hi Jeff,
I’ve not only eliminated all the beliefs on that program, I’ve eliminated a couple of hundred more.
But each issue or problem in our lives is caused by a different set of beliefs and conditionings.
And so while I’ve gotten rid of my depression and my neediness and my concern with the opinion of others, etc., I have still not handled every issue in my life. And not feeling safe to express love all the time is one of the issues I still have to work on.
And I plan to see what beliefs are causing that in the next week or so and getting this issue handled.
Thanks for asking.
Regards, Morty
I used to believe that feeling like a child was not very responsible or realistic. Now I know and learn every day, that although reality may be alright for a holiday, I certainly don’t want to live there …. Thank you xxx
Morty, thanks for sharing your experiences! It’s a good reminder that living authentically – from the inside out – is a process. In that sense, it is like finding the pieces of a puzzle, the comment about safety being internal, not external was for me both an aha! and a duh! When self-limiting beliefs surface with my clients I always ask: “Does it serve?” and “Is it yours?”, which opens the door to further exploration. I’m not certain I will ever be completely free of beliefs, and in fact they may very well be an essential component of humanity. However, if I do have them, then why not choose positive ones? Those higher-self messages are always coming in, by recognizing and challenging negative beliefs and making choices from a place of knowingness I create a clear channel to receive.
So what’s wrong with going to New York instead of Europe? They are both great paths and just because you take one path, doesn’t mean you won’t experience Europe one day as well. Either way, you can set a goal (plan for the future but do it while being present) to go east and be in the moment while you are experiencing it. I believe it is important to have goals. I think people have generally been frustrated with goal setting because they have created their goals on a conscious level but haven’t known that they need to let their subconscious mind in on what their goals are. After all, most of our decisions are made on a subconscious level. The problem is that the conscious mind thinks in abstract terms but the subconscious mind thinks in sensory based language. They don’t speak the same language! So how do we go about doing this? A process called Psych-K teaches you how to accomplish this as well as change the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves. Check it out!!
As far as feeling safe everywhere you go and feeling safe to express your love anywhere, I don’t believe this is something you can just say, “OK, I am going to do this” and it will be so. Maybe you can sometimes but it will take too much willpower or it will not feel natural or comfortable for you. You will need to replace the old belief that it is not safe to express love anywhere, or that things need to be a particular way for you to feel safe with a new belief that you ARE safe everywhere. Again, using Psych-K you can reprogram your subconscious so it knows what new belief you would like to have.
Thanks for the opportunity to express my view. I wish you luck with your new goal! :)
Cheers.
Thank you Morty, for sharing the wisdom passed at this exclusive meeting. I share your sentiment about goals–that they may limit my experience of fullness by the simple fact that my mind is limited. I now think it is important for me to have a harmony between structure and inspiration. If I live strictly by inspiration alone, I can see many projects being started and fizzling out as I get new inspiration. If I live strictly by structure (goal setting) alone, I can see that leaves no room for new interpretations. Harmony is “where it’s at”.
I grew up this way and it worked much better than when I began setting goals later in life. When I started writing down goals with the things I love most, you’re right. I missed the mark by a thousand miles. This whole subject has been crossing my mind again lately so it’s interesting to hear some thoughts on the matter.
Thank you.
I love your post and the point about feeling safe inside and expressing love without fear (love and fear, uh). It’s so true!
Concerning goals: I love goals and I love setting them though I am not good at achieving them :-) I think that we could set goals but we are free to un-set them if it feels right, what do you think?
Love!
I, too, have always felt “limited” by setting a goal, as if I don’t want to feel as if I “have” to do something to achieve it. The first time I heard anything to do with the Law of Attraction was an audio tape by Mike Hernacki called “Absolutely Everything You Want”. His main concern though was the “getting” and his advice was to make a list of everything you think you need to do to achive a goal. In all probability you would not “have” to do everything; it’s the “willingness” to do the things you’ve listed that counts. Until I went through the Natural Confidence program, I didn’t even want to be pinned to making a list! Now I am “willing” to explore whatever I am attracted to and having a lot of choices takes away the “you have to do this in order to succeed” syndrome I see with some of the self-development “gurus”.
I also had safety issues to do with expressing my love and affection for people; I hug the people I love, though I’m cautious with the ones who feel “uncomfortable”. When I was four and five years old, I loved sitting on people’s laps and I was told I was very affectionate. My parents then kept saying, “You can’t do that,” over and over until I felt like I was doing something wrong. And there was very little hugging and kissing in my family. Now, I am hugging and kissing more though like I mentioned before, I don’t hug people who put up walls. Is this my perception of them or how the situation truly is?
Love and Light on this continuing Journey
I love your posts. What you discussed was something that has been nagging at me for years, but I could never put it into words in the way that you did here (and that is really saying something, since I am a writer). I am trying to , at the moment, stay in the present while not succumbing to procrastination and often it is hard–or feels hard–to create a healthy balance between it all. I feel like I am on the brink of something really big and setting a goal based on only things (thoughts) available to me now will limit it. I’ve compromised by setting very loose goals–general idea goals–and daily goals that contain the caveat that i will remain open to change of plans if inspired to do so. But many counselors and new-thought movers and shakers (am only on my second cup of coffee, so bear with the word choice) say that is wrong and that we should be very specific about goals. I feel resistance every time I set very specific goals and I think this is why–I don’t want to limit myself. Months ago I told someone that I ‘d decided to just “fly by the seat of my pants” regarding my business and career. She asked me why. I didn’t know the answer. Now I think I do. Every time I set a detailed, specific goal I’d end up with that bad gut feeling and felt trapped in my own skin. And I think it is due to what you discussed here. I think I know that doing so is too limiting. The world is limitless.
Your comment about missing the deal on the flight to Europe resonated with me very much. In fact, I have personal experience with a similar situation, where I was so focused on a narrow view of how things could or should be that I missed a larger opportunity. I so appreciated this blog post today. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Thank you for sharing your insight. Would like to share with you, regarding carrying safety around inside. I believe it was Dr. Rubenstein (although this may be from someone else I read!!!) who said, in the book Compassion and Self-hate (excellent book btw) that when a person carries a loving sense of self, a sense of being at home within him/her self, then no matter where she or he is, he/she feels at home. I’ve tried to remember that through the years–it isn’t always easy.
I think really being present, and following the guidance of the soul (or whatever else a person would wish to call it) without succumbing to the panic the distractions and fear) of other parts is a real skill. As a skill…it can be learned.
You are loved, Morty! :)
Thank you, Morty for sharing your experiences at TLC. Your message about goals was particularly insightful. However, goals can be a useful tool and are not always bad. It’s attachment to goals and results that are the real problem. According to Buddhist thought, attachment to results is one of the causes of suffering. Without attachment to the results, our goals can be more flexible, bending like the bamboo in the wind, while still rooted to the ground of our true purpose.
In your example of the airplane flight to New York, perhaps part of the problem was that the true goal, the true purpose, (to go east) was too vague, not properly defined. So a more defined destination (New York) took its place.
To really set a goal, you have to define it in detail, (the more, the better), and not be too attached to the details of how to achieve it.
Steve, I hear what you are saying! As a follower of the Buddhist View I can see the sense in what you say about the atachment to goals being the problem. Dang!! Does that mean I have lost my new-found, water-tight excuse to avoid goal setting ( as per my comment above) ?!
First, I must excuse for my English, I am German.
I also always had this aversion against goals. But I have realized that this could also have been out of laziness, missing energy, willpower (whatever that is), ambition or self discipline. Maybe also because I did not use tools to keep goals up (worse as a bad visualizer).
I see your point, but there is also a big danger for people who do not get on with their living: doing nothing (of importance), living without *even* going for goals like living in a fantastic place, making money or else. Just waiting for inspiration, for “feeling a sense in their lives”, for hopefully getting “enlightened” one day (which will hardly happen) and so on.
So maybe there are people who *should* go for goals and others that are beyond that point. What do you think?
About expressing love: Many people have a problem being hugged publicly, being told that they are loved etc. Of course this could be just from being inhibited. But if people are, you are kind of hurting their feelings or giving them unpleasant feelings if you insist on expressing your love. So what is more important: not holding yourself back or not giving other people unpleasant feelings?
Thank you so much for sharing so honestly with us.
I am sorry for whatever is holding me back to fully express love.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
I was especially moved by the section on feeling safe to love everywhere. I have been operating under a limiting belief that it’s not always safe to show love, but I now see that the safety is mine to create… and I’ll do so!
I also really like the concept of using my excitement & passion levels as a guide to higher self vs conditioning. I will be using that from this moment on.
Wow, two epiphanies in two minutes, not bad going :-) Thank you so very much. I’ll be sharing your great insights with my readers at WhatIsInterestingMeToday.blogspot.com
Hi Mohair,
Thanks for sharing your experience of having two epiphanies in two minutes. Glad I was able to help.
And thanks also for sharing my work with others.
Regards, M
Awesome information, I never thought about “goals” in that perspective. Thanks for the insight on all that information you learned from the seminar. Thanks
Gina
Hi Gina,
Glad you found my post useful.
Thanks for taking the time to write. I look forward to hearing form you again.
Love, Morty
Well that was a great post and I loved it. The bit about goals was music to my ears! I started reading it thinking ok here we go I am about to be told yet again about how I have to finally set some goals. I have such an aversion to it and could never quite work out why. Now your post has made me realize that the thought of missing ” the direct flight to Europe” is what puts me off goals!
Thank you thank you! I can now enjoy my natural way “guilt free”. :)
cheers, Amanda
Hi Amanda,
Just made sure your aversion to goals isn’t an aversion to action. Action is crucial to getting anything you want.
Love, Morty