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Resilient goals are fed by values, not outcomes.
Since the beginning of the new year I've been doing my best to take time in the morning to journal and meditate. That doesn't always pan out but I have journaled/meditated more this month than I did in entire years prior. I believe the difference between this year and other years is that I've connected my morning mindfulness practice to a core value that I try to practice every day.
I used to try to journal and meditate for material reasons. For example, one time I took up journaling as a tool to get better at writing. I figured that by writing every day, I could become better at writing. Maybe I could become an author! Maybe writing would rewire my brain and I would have clearer thinking. As you might imagine, when I practiced journaling to achieve an expected result, I became listless and bored when I wasn't seeing improvement. It became clear to me that my dreams and goals weren't enough to push through.
This year, I reflected on my values. A key one for me is compassion. In the case of adding a morning mindfulness practice, I was able to easily connect that goal to my value. By journaling and meditating in the morning I was able to practice compassion on myself. By practicing self-compassion, I'm living within my values and doing more to connect with myself and others.
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Bellala
This was actually a huge theme for my high school finals! For my senior English class I created a presentation on mindfulness, and for my Creative Writing II class I wrote up an essay about what causes, and is a result of, our core values as human beings. Here's my two cents:
You're absolutely right, and I think it's because detaching from your perceived desire allows you to really be yourself. You can and should have goals, but YOU should be the first and main focus of your life. When you're really yourself, or finding yourself, you're able to create a foundation of your core values.
With that foundation you have a solid "homebase" within yourself to tackle life with; you understand the benefits and drawbacks of your possible behaviors, and are able to be confident with your reasoning. Rather than ONLY chasing the perceived benefits of things you want to associate yourself with, you're able to be grounded, knowledgeable, and motivated by a realistic approach. You can't just expect good things to happen with basic intention and a beginning habit. I mean you can - it'll just burn you out when expectations don't align with reality. A better approach is to commit to doing good things regularly, and trusting that it will return something good to you. Which, on a small level at least, it will; brushing your teeth might not win you the lottery, but you'll feel better than you did before, and that's worth something.
Compassion is a huge value for me, and stability too. Also, I think journaling works for you, because your writing is very good.
Thank you for your kind words about my writing. I'm in the process of building my endurance in that regard. I used to have heaps of trouble padding out essays and the like. I thought, if brevity is the soul of wit then why bother adding too much detail. As I've gotten older I've worked hard to make my writing more accessible.
Anyway, I'm happy to see that you're taking your core values and making them work for you. I used to spend so much time "optimizing" my workflows and routines. I thought if I could just tweak a few little bits of my various chores, I could be the person I wanted to be. But that wasn't in my values. You can take the heart out of everything in the name of efficiency.
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