Building Bravery, Daring to Set Goals
Goal-setting can be crunchy:
Our resistance to change can be so strong that we don't even dare to SET goals.
If we struggle to establish goals, it's hard to plan for them, let alone take action on them - so, we can end up feeling frustrated in our ability to turn longings into goals and goals into realities.
Do you relate to any of these flavours below?
🤔 I don't know what I want (blank-canvas vibes)
😭 My goal is too hard | I can’t do it | it’s impossible (despair)
😔 I don't feel deserving of reaching my goal (shame)
🤯 I'm too busy | tired to add another goal to my plate (overwhelm)
You're not alone. ✌️
Consider: when you feel confident about a goal, you'll likely move forward easily and cleanly.
You’ll take action.
But when a particular goal or direction of travel feels risky, there are many ways you may hold yourself back. I notice this for myself and my clients all the time.
My mentor, Sas Petherick, generated a framework of the ways we try to keep ourselves safe when we’re in these moments of discomfort. Read on to learn more about what she calls, the Six P’s.
It can be a helpful starting point to recognize and name when we’re in the grip of self-doubt.
Common Protective Patterns:
Perfectionism: "This goal is too [small, big, dumb, outlandish, hard, etc...]." Your "inner critic" judges, criticizes or dismisses your goal rather than dare to give it a try. There will likely be a 'too much' or 'not enough' vibe going on - and lots of loud internal whispers about the risk of failure.
Paralysis: (two common flavours, take your pick!)
You can't get the goal 'right' or you don't feel capable of achieving it - so you freeze up and don't attempt it OR
You wait to feel ready - and likely research, plan or send out polls as to what you should do. Stay in the harbour of passivity rather than risk committing to a wrong choice or imperfect action.
People-pleasing: You constantly overgive and elevate the needs of others above your own: there won't be enough time for your goals. One clue that this pattern is alive for you? You feel a dash of nobility, futility and/or resentment... understandably.
Passive Behaviors: Disappear into Netflix, surf the net, shop, comfort eat, scroll... "Ooops, where did my evening go?" When a goal evokes anxiety and stress, you turn to passive behaviors to try and soothe or ground yourself - and then often get hard on yourself for doing so, to boot.
Procrastination: You avoid your goal. "Instead of working on my memoir, now's the time to organize my q-tips." You may also braid this protective pattern with paralysis and, as one of my clients put it, "procrasti-plan:" strategize until the cows come home and never get to action.*
* Sneaky variation: choose too many goals, then stay scattered and safe in incompletion and ideation. You'll be very involved with your goals, just not bringing the risky and important ones to fruition. (I know this one - gah, it's frustrating! 🤦♀️)
Proving Yourself: you conflate your worth or identity with your goals, adding pressure to the process. So much feels at stake that you'll struggle to access the levity, creativity, and playful experimentation that would enable you to move forward.
Self-doubt is a slippery creature, so you'll likely mix and match the above in your own familiar cocktail. (🥂 Cheers!)
If you have a particularly sensitive and sophisticated self-doubt system, different strategies will constantly pop up to keep you from moving towards your goal: it can feel like an exhausting and discouraging game of friggin' whack-a-mole!
Avoiding Risk:
Our internal protectors will do anything to avoid risk. When it comes to goals, we might encounter failure, success, disappointment, complexity, judgment, conflict... and the list goes on!
We're not wrong to perceive risk when we dare to set goals.
But if self-doubt stays in the driver's seat and we don't move forward with our goals, we'll feel safe... but also stuck.
The solution is not to avoid goals or wait until risk is gone.
Rather, with a Self-Belief Coaching approach, we walk a two-fold path:
we develop consciousness and compassion regarding our protective patterns AND
learn new ways to relate to risk as we build resources and practice courage
Is this resonating?
Is there any place in your life where you feel like you've got your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time, like you just can't get traction on a particular goal?
I'd love to help you get 'under the hood' to compassionately explore why setting or taking action on goals can feel so risky and fraught.
I’ve developed a workshop is designed to help you move forward with more clarity and courage - even (especially!) with a goal that has flopped or stalled, but that still matters to you.
Whether you're usually aces with goals but one's plaguing you or goals-writ-large are often kryptonite for you, this will be an expansive, fun and practical gathering.
Building Bravery, Daring to Set Goals
When you set a goal, you'll open to the possibility of stretching yourself and expanding your life.
It's not even so much about whether you achieve the goal or not: the gem lies in who you become in the process of daring to set a meaningful goal and work towards it.
Where we long for confidence, we often need courage.
So, if setting a courage-based goal supported by a coach and community sounds like your cup of tea, please check out this free upcoming workshop.
Whether you tend to keep yourself safe by not daring to: set a goal, start a goal, or complete a goal, this courage-based tool can help you gently explore the root of your fears and to build your bravery.
I hope to see you soon!
P.S. If you’re curious about how 1:1 coaching could support you with the longings and goals whispering for your attention, please set up a free 60-minute consult with me to explore what’s possible. I’d love to hear from you.
Nicola Holmes is a Change Coach who helps people turn their potent questions, dreams and goals into inspired action. With warmth and wisdom, she’ll guide you to untangle constraints and cultivate courage to create a more aligned and joyful life. She has a BASc in Human Development, an MEd in Adult Learning and spent two decades working in the non-profit sector. Along with coaching for 15 years, she’s mama to two spirited kids and devoted to Buddhism. Having recently experienced long-Covid and a move, she brings empathy to others exploring how they’ve changed and who they’re becoming in turbulent times. Check out Nicola @nicolaholmescoach or join the email party for encouragement to fuel the changes you want (including free coaching opportunities!).