Part Six of Barriers to your Ideal Life: Strict Expectations of Outcome
This is part six of a series. You can read Part One here , Part Two here
In the last few posts I’ve written about the ways we subconsciously build or uphold barriers to living our Ideal Lives.
My list (so far) of perspectives and mindsets that keep us away from our ideal includes:
All or nothing thinking
Misperception of cost (time/money)
Fatigue and burnout
It's not for me (worthiness)
Mess/space constraints
Outcome oriented
Perceived payoff doesn't outweigh the perceived effort to begin
Delayed until...
Other people's dreams
Woundings/trauma
Unclear values
When I was a child I taped sheets of printer paper together in huge sprawling configurations so that I could then design my ideal houses. My mom subscribed to Southern Living and I especially loved looking at their house plans in the back of each issue. They had all sorts of nooks and crannies and dormers and gables and butlers pantries.
We lived in a classic four over four brick home with incredible proportions- I still have yet to experience a staircase as perfect as ours. It was wide enough to race two or even three kids across, it wasn't too steep across the slope and the treads were deep enough for real feet. It had a shiny wooden banister and sometimes we used a slick exercise mat as a sled to slide all the way down. And for a while I thought I wanted to be an architect because I loved homes so much.
In every city I've ever visited, I've clocked the real estate (commercial and residential) and thought about how people live. Urban planner became my dream job. Except urban planners frequently work for local governments. That would not suit ha. In Richmond VA at one point I considered the possibility of opening a mixed use development for co-working, yoga and retail/food and beverage. In 2008 I entertained (but ultimately nixed) working with the North Hills development in Raleigh NC, one of the most successful defunct-mall-to-mixed-use in the entire nation. Clearly all signs were pointing to property development. So that dream role made it onto my vision board. At some point in the nebulous future I saw myself doing mixed-use, environmentally friendly and affordable development but really had no idea how.
Fast forward 16 years and we find ourselves the accidental developers of land my husband bought in the Dominican Republic many many years ago. Now, I'm not 100% sure I even want to be a developer in that country so we're looking for partners, but the point is that I did exactly zero heavy lifting to find myself in a position that I long ago envisioned- except in a beautiful paradise full of actual and figurative obstacles. Oops.
Regardless, it illustrates the point of today. Sometimes our expectations for our ideal lives are so specific that we leave no room for surprise and also work way harder than we have to in the run up.
I know some people who have had a goal (become a doctor, go to the Olympics) and work tirelessly to achieve it. And then they do.
I'm not built that way (either through conditioning or trauma or nature who knows) and I know a lot of you reading are not built that way either. The linear approach has never been your thing and can sometimes be confounding.
So how does one HAVE an ideal life if the working towards it granularly and with a singular focus does NOT work for you?
Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Start with Clarity. What do you actually want?
If you've been setting your goals/envisioning your Ideal Life from a place of what you should want or what you could get, then it's time to start afresh. I see this often with dollar amounts and lifestyle upgrades- like we're living in an all encompassing cultural soup where suddenly you realize that you don't actually care about having the latest iphone or a Tesla or your own homestead. You just want an older model phone, a Subaru and a cottage garden and don't actually need $10k months.
If you are having trouble with clarity wrt specific goals and what you actually want, I would recommend my Inhabit master class. It helps you embody your desires as free from conditioning as possible so that the goals you create actually resonate with you at your core.
Another thing to consider here is that some of you may be evolving past individualistic goals and that's why goal setting has become a non-starter. Some of us are moving into a more networked ecosystem (think mycelium) and the old way of setting achievement-oriented goals is falling flat. If you think that you're moving towards a point where your Ideal Life is in partnership as opposed to a lone silo, your dreams still need fertilizer- it's just that the dreaming might take place on a more communal level and in conversation with your partners and ecosystem as opposed to all by yourself.
If that's you, I will be announcing something later on this year (Q4?) that will bring the communal nature of future dreaming into play. But it's not just you! It's a thing! We're evolving!
2. The Desired Outcome is forever changing.
Now some of us are guilty of this. We set a goal/create a vision for the future. We start off on the journey. Then we decide not to pursue it. So we do the vision/goal setting again. And set off. And then it feels maybe not right. And on and on in a cycle.
Some people are naturally geared towards the initiatory steps of this process while others feel guilt/pain/stress that they can't seem to "stick with something." If you are the former, I recommend the books by Barbara Sher (specifically Refuse to Choose) because she is excellent at sharing templates for what life/career can look like for you.
If you are the latter! Hi! Come sit by me!
You might need a little dose of completion, aka sign up for Ritual + Rewardto get it done!
OR you might need to be reminded that (to quote Matt Kahn), "You've done nothing wrong." That's right. Everything you've done up to now has brought you right to this perfect point in time! Whew what a relief. All of that meandering journey was for something! This! Right now! Regardless of your desired outcome.
3. Your Desired Outcome is too fixed.
When we have a rigid idea of what Must Be in order for us to be fulfilled or complete or happy, we crowd out the magic and the possibility. We might get our desired thing or experience in the end but at what cost? Do we stay so fixated on what it must look/feel like that we miss the very nearly there that might have actually been better?
I'm running out of steam today but I would love for you to let me know if you've let outcome hinder you in living your dreams.