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“Knowing how you want to feel is the most potent clarity you can have. Generating those feelings is the most powerful thing you can do with your life.” ~ Danielle LaPorte

Anyone setting out on an Odyssey must first have an idea of his or her desired destination. But what if this destination could be focused on a feeling rather than an outcome? Whether through Martha Beck’s theory (see below), which has been so instrumental in my life, or the journaling prompts from Danielle Laporte’s book, “The Desire Map,” we hope this theme of “Choosing How You Want To Feel” will help you explore your future from a fresh perspective.

The excerpt below was originally posted on A Fresh Chapter in June 2013:

If you find yourself faced with a major transition (e.g., losing your job, being served with divorce papers, or picking up the pieces after cancer), you might be tempted (after a short period of wallowing) to lock yourself to your laptop until you come up with an elaborate 3-5 year Plan B for your life. In our action-oriented society, we often attempt to bulldoze through uncertainty by setting goals and game plans to get us directly from the uncomfortable present into a more perfect future.

However, in this 2010 article, Goal-Setting-Strategies-from-Life-Coach-Martha-Beck, Beck turns conventional wisdom on its head when she encourages us to think about our goals based on how we want to feel instead of what we want to achieve.

For example, she says, you might be determined to have a baby because your biological clock is ticking and you can’t wait to experience that elusive brand of unconditional love OR you might want to start your own business because you crave freedom from the 9-to-5 slog. These are both fantastic life goals, but Beck reminds us to consider the by-product emotions that come packaged up with these “achievements.” For example,, a baby might bring plenty of happiness, but your bundle of joy will also bring sleepless nights and increased expenses; being your own boss might mean you can keep whatever hours you’d like, but you’ll also be saddled with the stresses of figuring out how to cover mortgage payments without a secure month-to-month income.

Beck suggests that we envision achieving one of our goals, and while we have that picture of success in our minds, immediately choose three adjectives to describe how we feel at that moment. Then, she suggests dropping the goal and instead turning our attention to those three descriptive words.

These words describing how we want to feel can become the driving force that moves us forward in our lives. Beck’s logic is that by focusing on how we want to feel, we’ll be attracted to people and situations that help us feel that way. Although our future may look different than we predict, we might end up happier than we could have ever imagined.

If you’re thinking, this all makes sense in theory, but where do I start? then, stay with me… First, I’ll tell you how this worked for me, and then I’ll share an excerpt from the article if you want to try it yourself.

How Martha Beck’s Advice Impacted Me

On December 31, 2010, after reading the above-mentioned article, I wrote a post called What Are Your Three Words where I proclaimed that in 2011, I wanted to feel healthy, loved, and inspired.

The next day I woke up more depressed than I had ever been in my life and if you’ve read My Story, you already know why. After a solid pity party about the shambles my post-cancer life had turned into, I pulled myself out of bed and slipped into my running shoes. As I followed a path by the ocean, I couldn’t get the word “inspired” out of my head. It was only day 1 of 2011 and I was already a failure.

I knew that if I truly wanted to feel inspired that year, I would have to do something BIG, because I couldn’t imagine ever getting out of my current funk. Out of nowhere, the idea of volunteering in Africa popped into my head. It was immediately followed by a string of thoughts like, “Don’t be ridiculous!” and “Have you lost your mind?” Nothing about the idea seemed feasible. I hadn’t even finished my surgeries and I needed a plan for getting on with my life. I couldn’t just go gallivanting off to Africa, in search of inspiration.

Or could I?

The more I thought about it, the more inspired I felt. Volunteering in Africa would definitely be a bold step out of my cancer story. As I moved closer to making this dream a reality, everything in my life began to shift. Donations came in to help me cover my costs, and I made plans to travel and connect with other survivors. I found myself feeling healthier and more loved than I had thought possible.

Since then, I have become a big believer in the power words have to change everything. Whenever I reach another crossroads or feel lost about where to go from here, I come back to focusing on how I want to feel rather than what I want to achieve.

Activity

If you have the time, you can complete the full activity included in the blog post above: Goal setting strategies from Martha Beck – Click here to see all four steps. Or, you can spend some time free-writing or drawing in your journal about the word you would choose to describe how you want to feel during your upcoming A Fresh Chapter experience. Think about why you picked that word, what it means to you, and how you hope to bring that feeling back into your life at home.