The Reason Your “SMART” Goals Are Failing You

You know those people that you come across every now again with the super flashy cars, multiple houses, and they have an air to everything they say and do? Those people may like fast cars but the real reason they spend their money in the way they do is because that possession makes them FEEL something that they desire, which is likely a sense of superiority.  They want to feel special or like they have something above others. 

Now this isn’t just about people that are wealthy. Let’s talk about athletes. Olympic athletes train their whole lives, and in many cases cause serious physical problems from how hard they push themselves. They do all this training and sacrificing with the hope that they will be able to achieve a Gold Medal. But what does that Gold medal mean? To them – everything! To someone passing on the street – nothing. That medal represents a feeling they were working for whether it’s accomplishment, self-worth, achievement, success, etc… you get where I’m going. It was the feeling of standing on the winner’s block that drove them through the hard days, not the small gold medal.

Okay, let’s break it down even more. One thing that I’m sure every person on this planet has in common is that at one point in their life they wanted to make someone feel proud of them, which in turn made them feel special or proud of themselves. To attain that feeling, a child could clean their room without prompting, a spouse could bring home a thoughtful gift, an employee could go the extra mile, and a student could volunteer to help others in the class. They were all aiming for a feeling for themselves or for someone else. 

You see where I’m going with all of this right? Attaining goals isn’t really about possessions or accomplishments at all, they’re really about trying to creating a feeling inside of yourself. Whether that be power, success, value, joy, peace, hope, or even vindication or revenge – we are emotional beings and we crave feeling something.