Your Heart's Desires: How You Want to Feel

Let me ask you a question, darling: do you want to just bounce around in life or do you want to achieve or create something? I’ll be honest and tell you that nothing is wrong with simply being, but I am guessing that if you were to push aside the fears and the sometimes-mean voice of your inner critic, what you really want is to create or achieve something.

You see, I believe that each of us was put on this earth for a purpose. We are born into the world with our souls set on fire to explore and create and be bold. Life happens, though, and we sometimes give in to the need to remain safe and small and unchanged.

While I dislike resolutions, you might be surprised to discover that I’m a big fan of goals. Why is that, darling?

Because when it comes to creating change and reaching for your dreams, goals can be incredibly effective tools.

I’m the first to admit that goals can seem typical of a “Type A” personality. I’ll even agree that the process of defining your goals probably won’t seem terribly sexy, at least at first, but baby, I promise you that you can find a way to make goals work for you.

My method may seem overly simple as I explain it, but – cross my heart – this approach works. Here are the basics:

- Get clear about how you want to feel.
- Brainstorm a BIG ASS List of Dreams and Goals
- Choose a couple of goals from your list based on the congruency of how you want to feel.
- Break each goal into bite sized pieces.
- Take action.

Sounding any sexier, yet? Are you getting that tingling sensation down in the depths of your heart? The slight rush of blood to your head? If so, you’re on the right track. But maybe, just maybe, creating that first sentence and accepting the inkling of exactly how you want to feel still sounds super scary. Feeling fear is perfectly okay.

In fact, either of the two reactions I described is perfectly okay. And that’s because both excitement and fear are carrying the same message.

The message from your soul, telling you that you’re onto something.

First of all, darling, let me be frank: you have to learn to identify your feelings and actually allow yourself to experience them. All of them. The not-so-nice feelings like anger, shame and embarrassment, and yes, the good feelings, too. Because all too often we feel we don’t deserve to be happy, experience ecstasy, or embrace pleasure.

Now, I touched on that subject a couple of weeks ago, but it bears repeating, and I want you to know that allowing yourself to feel is as much of a truth as the fact that mixing blue and yellow together will create green.

So here it is, the real secret to achieving things in your life (aka accomplishing goals): Create goals that help you define the way you want to feel.

So ask yourself, darling: How do I want to feel?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Don’t allow guilt to play into wanting to feel the way you want to feel. Don’t get all tied up with how you should feel, or how you’re supposed to feel. Allow the real truth of how you want to feel to bubble to the surface.

In order to fall in love with your life – in order to achieve a life of your dreams – you need to follow your desired emotion. Let it roll. It’s deep inside your heart for a divine reason: it’s a guide for you to fulfill your purpose.

Now, to be honest, kitten, I really love tying a little bow atop each blog post I share each week – to be able to deliver you powerful and actionable stuff in one spot. This week, it just isn’t possible or you’d be scrolling and scrolling to get to the bottom and where’s the fun in that?

So let’s chat next week, okay? I’ll help you dive into your heart’s desires and cherry pick a goal your heart’s really longing to achieve. This week? Just focus in on how you want to feel.

Deciding how you want to feel is a big deal and is an exercise that will turn your way of thinking totally around.

So this week, just play with the concept that you get to choose how you want to feel. Mull it over in the bath, scribble thoughts on napkins during your lunch break. Then dig into your goals as a path to allowing yourself to actually experience your desired emotions.