Most People Think Success Is About Goal Management, but It's Really About Want Management.

In my early twenties, I was exposed to the work of Napoleon Hill, who wrote the classic book, Think and Grow Rich.

In the book, Hill studied the most successful people and described 13 principles for personal and business achievement, including decision, faith, planning, persistence and imagination.

His formula entailed six steps to clarify what you want to achieve, the amount of money you would like to acquire for this work and a deadline for this to happen.

Part of the process was spending ten minutes daily visualising this goal as if it was already in the present moment with as much detail as possible. He called this principle, autosuggestion which was a means to program the unconscious mind.

This knowledge was very impactful for a young twenty-something. It taught me the importance of clarity, and it gave me permission to start dreaming big.

The clash of my thirties.

Fast forward to my thirties, where I discovered yoga, meditation, and Eastern philosophy which offers an entirely different way of seeing the world. This practice focuses on the inner world first and introduced me to the guiding principles of non-attachment, letting go, and contentment, to name a few.

Eastern philosophy speaks to the principle of allowing life to happen without trying to control it. Michael Singer, the author of The Surrender Experiment, tells the story of how he decided to stop trying to force his destiny and just let life be in charge.

“My formula for success was very simple: Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself — because it was.” — Michael Singer

This approach leads him from being a Yogi living in the woods to the founding CEO of a billion-dollar public company while still maintaining his spiritual practice.

Non-attachment is a powerful concept because it brings perspective on what life is about. If you make your happiness dependent on something external like a job title, a bank balance, or even praise, it is like chasing the rainbow and hoping to ‘someday’ get the little pot of gold.

Even when you get the car, the house, the title or the acknowledgement, it doesn’t last very long. There is an expectation that these things will solve your internal problem, which is usually a lack of self-acceptance and a belief you are not enough. A friend of mine refers to this feeling as ‘The Big Empty’.

In essence, non-attachment comes in when you try to hold onto the things in your life or become attached to the perceived promise of what these external things will give you.

The practice of contentment is about feeling comfortable in your skin, with or without the desired goal. It is a state where you can feel complete and not feel like anything is missing.

What happens when you still want to dream big?

Now, this is all wonderful, but I found myself at a crossroads because I was battling to balance these two streams of thinking. Being in the personal development industry, I surround myself with successful people who inspire me to dream bigger and bolder than I am comfortable with.

I listen to podcasts and read articles where I am encouraged to map out my five-year plans and say numbers out loud that makes me uncomfortable.

On the one hand, I am encouraged to forecast my future in clear HD and surround sound, but on the other hand, I am told that you cannot control anything and life will happen on its own terms.

I would find myself visualising what I wanted but with an undertone of force. I was on the other side of non-attachment. I didn’t place my happiness on hold, but I was living in the future rather than with contentment of what I already had. I was too focused on the desired outcome rather than enjoying the day to day process of becoming the person equal to the goals.

I then reached out to author Tim Grimes about how to solve this balancing act. I wanted to understand how one still visualises goals and has future ambitions but not feel like you prescribe precisely how things should go to be happy. I was looking for the middle path.

Tim emailed me back a very thoughtful response:

The universe already knows what you want. You’ve asked enough. you can stop asking so much and relax. (only ask if it feels good to ask.)

Guidance is just trusting your intuition — what FEELS GOOD — and you do that all the time, naturally. Just gently attempt to allow yourself to do more of it. There’s nothing mystical or special about it. Just do your best TO FEEL GOOD MORE OFTEN. Relax more internally. that’s it. (and it’s not as easy as it sounds, obviously.)

The emphasis should almost always be on FEELING GOOD more often — not the external stuff.

Force is never very good with this manifesting stuff. Almost everyone I work with forces too much — including myself. Very few have the problem of not doing enough manifestation exercises. Almost everybody tries to do too much.

But the irony is when you truly let go, you don’t even care if you get what you “wanted” anymore. Worth keeping that lightly in mind.

In short, don’t try. don’t think.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. and that’s the best news possible.’

Now at first, I was disappointed with this answer because it felt too simple. But then I got it.

The peace of my forties.

I finally had internalised that the concepts of contentment, non-attachment and gratitude were the foundation for anything I wanted in my life. You have to start at the place of being comfortable in your skin now, today. I had to let go of constantly trying to control my external world to feel good and focus on feeling good inside.

At the same time, you must have a powerful vision of your future self and know where you are headed. Life is about evolving and growing as a person.

You need a goal that makes you uncomfortable because it is so big, so it pushes you out of your current comfort zone. This is where growth happens, just on the edges of discomfort and challenge.

In short, have your big goals and vision board but do not be attached to the outcome you have in mind. The point of goal setting and vision boarding is to get clear on what you want.

If you were going to take a drive, you would need an end destination to set a route on Google Maps or Waze. The beauty of an endpoint is it reveals several possible options on how you get can there.

You may want to go after a big job title in a particular company, but you may find it isn’t what you want after you have gone through a couple of interviews. Perhaps, another opportunity shows up in a different department?

Go down the path that will lead you to your version of success but don’t be scared to turn right if something interests you along the way. There isn’t one version of what success looks like.

Perhaps you hit a speed bump and have to change course and take a detour. That’s ok. Do not be attached to the outcome you had in your mind because you believe it is the only way to bring you happiness.

Take colossal action but be prepared to change your mind and trust no matter what, that life is happening for you and not to you. Maybe you never got the job you wanted, but eventually, you discover it was a blessing in disguise when you can join the dots with hindsight.

What does feeling good even mean?

To do what feels good, you need to start your day by asking yourself what you want to do rather than what you think you should do. When you operate from a place of want, you are tapping into your creative and authentic self.

When you operate from a place of should, there is a lot of fear and anxiety because the fear of judgement, failure and perfection creep in. You can never do your best work from this state nor see the possibilities available to you.

Contentment is your ticket to play.

You need to feel content with your world today, despite whether you feel it matches your version of how life is supposed to be. If you feel unhappy, it may be because your narrative is about what you should have achieved by now or how much money you should have in the bank, etc.

Practice gratitude to move your lens from a place of lack to an appreciation of what is already in your life. From this place, feel free to set goals, visualise or make a vision board because your view is that these things will add to what you already have rather than completing an unfinished version of yourself.

Bringing it all together.

I recently discovered a solution to having future goals and being content today.

The best things in life are often borrowed, and this solution comes from author Greg McKeown. The exercise below is taken from Greg’s newsletter describing an interview on his podcast with Arthur Brooks, a Harvard behavioural scientist, author, and happiness expert.

“Brooks believes that true happiness begins with want management.

The first step, he says, is to appreciate what we already have and let go of what we want.

He suggests starting by creating a reverse bucket list.

Here’s how to do it:

Make a list of your wants, wishes, and desires
Go through the list and begin to detach yourself from these items.

“The goal is to get to a point where you wouldn’t mind receiving or experiencing the things on your list, but you no longer want them. It is taking the view that these ambitions will never fill an existing hole inside you. You need to take action on filling the hole first with self-compassion and self-belief”.

In the words of the Dalai Lama, “We need to learn to want what we have, not to have what we want, to get stable and steady happiness.”

Moving forward: Time to take action.

Write out your bucket list and permit yourself to see each goal in HD. Hear the sounds, see the setting clearly with as much detail as possible. Feel what it’s like to be in the moment of what you want to achieve. Experience the number in your bank account — bring as much feeling into the process as possible.

Remember, start from a place of contentment in your life now and do not attach yourself to the outcome.

Now, ask yourself — what is one step I can take today to move me closer to my goal and make it a reality?

Can you read a book, make a phone call, watch a talk, reach out to someone who has found success in this area to ask for guidance?

The point is to begin, even if you have no idea what every step looks like. It is not enough to write things down; the world rewards action, not perfection. Make something and put it out into the world. Then do it again and again.

Beware of believing that life only begins when one of your items on the list becomes a reality. It is like waiting at the starting blocks of a race, but the gun went off ages ago. If you’re not sure what to do, just start walking. Put one foot in front of the other until you can build up to a steady pace.

Do not sprint ahead to the finish line either; you may miss the people on the sidelines handing out snacks, drinks and cheering you on.

Don’t make your happiness conditional. Instead, choose to do every day in happiness irrespective of what you have or have not achieved.

When you write your list, have fun and enjoy it. Don’t be critical or tell yourself that it’s an impossible goal or you will never get there. When you have a bad day or feel down, think back to your list with a happy feeling and choose contentment for the lessons you are learning to prepare you for what lies ahead.

Focus on the things in your life you can control, and I can tell you that there are always two things within your control in any situation, no matter how challenging.