“If you have a good idea, use it so that you will not only accomplish something, but so that you can make room for new ones to flow into you.”
~ Deng Ming-Dao from ‘Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony’
What a beautiful clear day it is here in the VI. A great way to begin the week anew. I spent yesterday, working with Spencer, clearing out paperwork for the first quarter of the year. It will leave him with a clean desk, and a clean slate, as he heads off island for a month on a yacht delivery then vacation.
I also spent a bit of time yesterday, catching up on reading some of my blog feeds, and really enjoyed a post by Leo Babauta over at ZenHabits.net.
He wrote a post entitled “Achieving without Goals”. I’ve written a bit on this in the past, about simply being in the flow …
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Leo writes:
Have you ever had a long amazing conversation with a friend, that took all kinds of turns neither of you could possibly have expected when you started the conversation? Wasn’t it awesome, to riff off each other, to explore unforeseen territory, to be free to wander and enjoy the time together?
What if, instead, you had a definite goal for how the conversation should go when you start out? A definite path and outcome of how you want the conversation to turn out? Let’s say you have an agenda, and every time one of you wandered off the agenda, you forced yourself to get back on it.
Would the conversation be better or worse, with a set outcome? Is it better to be free to wander, or to be set on one predetermined path?
I submit that the wandering is much better, much more amazing.
This is the goal-less path.
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It’s interesting, because I’ve been working with one of my coaching clients in this way. Honestly, it’s the only way I know how to work at this point. I firmly believe if we had started with a fixed goal in mind, we wouldn’t have been able to make some of the discoveries we are now sharing together.
When Leo was asked: Isn’t it easy for you to give up goals now that you’re successful? He answered by saying: Sure, that might make it easier, but really it’s not the success that has helped me give up my goals … it’s my contentment with who I am. I know that I’m a good person, and am happy with who I am, and know that I’ll be OK no matter what outcomes turn up. That’s true for pretty much everyone reading this, no matter how much “success” you have.
I hope you’ll check out Leo’s article in it’s entirety. It’s great philosophy: http://zenhabits.net/goal-less/
So as you head into a new month, ask yourself if there are some “goals” which you can let go of. Instead, simply choosing a path to follow, and allowing each day to open and see where the path leads. It’s a whole different approach to calendaring. It’s one I’ve been living by for many years now … Passion driven, yet goal-less.
And I’ll close with another quote by the same author as the first …
“We may be floating on Tao, but there is nothing wrong with steering. If Tao is like a river, it is certainly good to know where the rocks are.”
Happy Monday ♥
