Let your goals wilt away so you can follow the path that makes you come alive

Our weather has been the typical cool spring we’re used to in the mountain west. Our winter was challenging, as it usually is in Wyoming, but we accumulated more snow than usual this year. We went from one extreme to the other as it quickly turned warm and melted away. Last spring, we had a similar early warm pattern. I decided to take a chance planting my warm-weather crops early before we left to visit family. Then the cool and rainy weather swept in, leading even my cool weather seeds to slow and rot in the ground.

Now, today marks the Summer Solstice. The sun is fully out for the first time in a moon, but I know it won’t quite feel like summer until closer to my birthday next week. It’s an interesting time for a birthday – 6 months past the Winter Solstice and New Year. I get to both face the passing of another year of my life and the passing of half of this year.

The part of our society that’s focused on attainment and achievement will have you looking at this time of year too as a time to consider how you are doing on your goals at the midpoint of the year.

While here I stand, with one foot in the land of personal review as I cross into another year and another foot in the land of letting the idea of goals and that mid-year check-in wilt away.

I don’t care about goals at the start of the year when the world drives us to consider setting yet another goal that lacks enough depth for an intention to take root. And I don’t care about them now. We’ve been fed this false narrative that our goals matter. That our goals define us, and that we need to be working towards something if we’re to be something.

Of course, the problem is goals are driven by outcome instead of process. Perhaps even more troublesome is that even if we source our goals from within, they aren’t truly rooted in who we are. Even when driven by desire, our goals become shaped into something tangible, perhaps resembling the desire but losing the thread that connects it to our innermost calling. Instead of aligning with who we are, our goals require us to become someone else to achieve them.

This doesn’t work for the wild and creative woman – the free-flowing being who is ever-evolving. In fact, it may even stop us from getting started. Instead of showing up for a process we enjoy, suddenly we have to do mindset work and personal development to get where we want to go. If we do find ourselves moving forward, we may pick up pieces of fulfillment as we walk a path parallel to the path that is actually meant for us, always noticing our true path lying just over there. There’s a more potent way.

If we tune out what we believe to be true about ourselves and our desires and tap into the vision we hold within, we may receive something a little more misty and obscure, but rooted in a deeper truth of who we are and what is meant for us. In a world that wants concrete clarity, we may feel like we have no idea what we’re doing. To our nervous system that wants the comfort of knowing, it can feel wildly uncomfortable. And yet, this vision is the one that’s going to offer the greatest guidance. This vision is the one that’s most likely to get us where we’re going because it is sourced from the essence of our being. It’s the path that is meant for us, and it’s a path we are more likely to walk – without the need to self-improve, create an elaborate structure, or find yet another productivity tool.

So it goes to say that I don’t care about your goals. I care about what you are drawn to. I care about what brings meaning to your life. I care about who you are being. I care about what makes you come alive. That’s the path to walk. That’s the path that will lead you to the life you desire. It’s time to let your goals wilt a beautiful death, laying them to rest in the ground to rot and decompose, so they can become the fertile soil where what’s actually meant for you can take root.

I won’t help you achieve your goals. I will help you tap into who you really are, and the unique vision that lies within you. I will help you embody her. With embodiment comes feelings of fulfillment. With embodiment comes a process and practice that leads you where you’re meant to go. Email brooke@thehouseoflostarts.com to learn more about my mentorship where we’ll move through the seasons of tending your wild self or your wild work, depending on which path you choose.