Category: personal purpose

To complement our post on ‘How to Deal with Inevitable Disruption in a Transformation Process‘, let’s talk a bit further about our mood. In another post ‘How to Get Back on Track with Motivation & Habits‘ Leo Babauta extends his reflections on the issue of one’s mood when facing an unexpected disruption in the midst of a change effort.

In addition to the derailment of our current efforts we are too often impacted in terms of mood and that is very often a killer for the change effort.

His main point is thus that “getting off track and getting back on track is all about mood.” He further proposes the following steps to regain confidence:

• Admit there’s a problem, and ask a key question to remind us about the objective of the chain.
• Take one small, easy step. Don’t think about the entire project of getting back on track. That’s too much, and can be overwhelming, which means we’ll never start. 
• Focus on getting any kind of victories.
• Build long-term strength with small steps. If you build little victories, take small steps, and nurture your mood as in the previous steps … you’ll start to have a more solid habit or motivation for your project. 

When faced with disruption in a change project, take care of your mood. Go exercise, change your mind. Look at the big picture, and take it a small chunk at a time. Go slow, and go steady.

Leo Babauta at Zen Habits makes the case that we should focus on intentions rather than goals to achieve what we want.

“As you might know, I experimented with giving up goals after being very focused on goals for years. It was liberating, and it turns out, you don’t just do nothing if you don’t have a goal. You get up and focus on what you care about. Read more here. Instead, I’ve found it useful to focus less on the destination (goal) and instead focus on what your intention for each activity is. If you’re going to write something … instead of worrying about what the book will be like when you’re done, focus on why you want to write in the first place. If you are doing something out of love or to help others , for example, then you are freed from it needing to turn out a certain way (a goal) and instead can let it turn out however it turns out. I’ve found this way of working and living to be freeing and less prone to anxiety or procrastination.”

It is true that most of the literature is about setting goals and not necessarily about setting intentions. Personally I am still very much into goals. I am aware this approach requires a lot of personal discipline and is sometimes excessively straining. I certainly need to consider setting strong intentions instead!