I always find something magical about the New Year. It brings us together, and more so than any other moment, it highlights our potential to wipe the slate clean and start again.
To look forward, plan and take that step toward becoming a little bit more what we'd like to be. It's like a blank canvas of opportunity.
I love setting goals and the sense of satisfaction I get from pursuing them, to challenge myself and succeed. Certain actions need to be taken on a daily, monthly and yearly basis for us to even exist, let alone thrive.
This is all well and good - setting effective goals and putting practical steps in place to achieve them is a great skill - it is what I refer to as the technical side of goal setting.
But that's not the whole story.
In my own life, when I peel back the layers and look at the root cause of these goals and resolutions, with a little awareness, it's not long before I arrive at a sense of 'I'm not quite good enough as I am' or something similar.
If we look closely we may see that what we're striving for is not the goal itself but a feeling of 'good enough' that we associate with the end result.
If we're using this 'feeling of not good enough' as a start point then is it any wonder why our goals and resolutions often fall by the wayside within a few weeks?
When the energy or motivation that feeds our goals is 'lacking', then our progress will be the same.
I am enough, with all that I am, if I was meant to be any different then I would be.
When we connect with self-compassion we understand deeply that we are enough as we are. We are the only version of us there is and we may not be perfect but we are definitely 'good enough'. We're the most qualified person to be 'us' that there is.
When we can hold ourselves with love, care, patience, and a tender heart then we may find a lot of our 'goals' fall away. The peace we are looking for is already here when we stop striving.
Self-compassion is a practice at the heart of mindfulness. It's something we can nurture over time and we can learn to access it when we need it.
With the right motivation goal setting is an amazingly powerful tool. When we operate from a sense of 'good enough' we're bringing success into every moment.