Following Your Goals in a Challenging World

Written By Lisa Hoashi

A question that is becoming increasingly relevant is: How do you keep going after your most important goals for life and work, even through the most difficult times?  What can help you weather the setbacks and tumult out of your control as you go after your most important dreams?

I am no stranger to this question. And neither are my clients.

I really started grappling with it when I moved, 8 years ago to Spain, to marry my Catalan farmer, to move to the farm, to start a remote business, to become a coach … and when I discovered it was a lot harder than I thought it was.

This is when I started learning some of the tools and mindset that can really help you stay the course.

Because no matter how imperfect our world is, no matter how tough, I still think it’s an incredibly worthy goal to arrive at the end of life and look back and say, “For all that, I still had a good life.” 

If you can keep growing in the following three areas, you’ll increase your resilience and your ability to keep moving toward your bigger goals, even while living in a challenging world.


1 - Remember What You Can Control. 

You’ve probably heard of the Circle of Control before – it’s a concept from Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. 

In this book, Covey wrote that all issues fall into one of two rings of control. There’s an outer ring and an inner circle.

He called the outer ring the Circle of Concern. It represents everything that troubles or concerns us. We don’t have much influence over these issues. This can include: Economists warnings about a recession, rising inflation, Prime Ministers stepping down after six weeks 😱

The inner circle, the Circle of Influence, represents what you can control or impact somehow. Don’t forget, you have control over yourself and your own reactions and your choices.

 
 

Remember the quote by Viktor Frankl, psychologist and Holocaust survivor, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. 

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

This idea of control is really important, because when the worries of the outside world get really loud, it can really impact you and the amount of freedom you feel like you have in your life to continue moving toward your dreams. 

You may conclude…

  • What’s the point of trying to change jobs when companies are starting to downsize? 

  • What’s the point of continuing to work toward my goal of owning a home when there’s a recession?

  • Why have kids if the planet is on fire? 


So what to do? 

1 – The Circle of Concern is important and you should allow it to influence your choices. For example, right now I’m concerned about the governor race in my home state of Oregon. I don’t have a lot of control over it, but I can make sure that I get my ballot in on time, and I can also sign up to do some phone banking or other types of volunteering from afar. 

2 - Notice where you are spending most of your time … are you in the more productive and calmer place of being in your body and self making choices that are good for you? Or are you bouncing between freaking out and hopelessness on the periphery of the Circle of Concern? You do have a choice of where you put your focus, and your energy. 


2 – Refresh And Hang On To Your Vision. 

During the pandemic and the series of crises that we’ve experienced, you may have found it hard to keep faith in your longer-term dreams. 

My husband and I have long had the dream of taking a sabbatical to take a campervan around New Zealand, for example. 

Sometimes, in the middle of family logistics, that dream can feel very far off and we can wonder, will there ever not be a recession or a global pandemic or another big issue that doesn’t stand in our way? How will we make it happen?


Here are two ways that keeping a vision (like our family sabbatical dream) front and center can really help you in hard times. 

1 – Your dreams are an expression of you at your best. They represent your values, and what you feel makes a life worthwhile on this earth. They are full of beautiful energy and inspiration that can sustain you with its beauty. 

2 – Also, since they are these pure expressions of what’s important to you, they can also serve as your north star 🌟 in moments of difficulty. 

An example:

Maybe you have a dream to own your own home but in the current context, there are some barriers to how you are going to make it happen. Well, it’s still important, so don’t give up. How else could you make it happen? Are there ways to experience what you want with that dream now, before you’re able to completely accomplish that goal?

For example, if you want to own your own home so that you can decorate it JUST the way you like it, and make it a really colorful and cozy space… How can you do that in the current place you live? (One of my favorite blogs is Apartment Therapy … I love seeing the amazing things people do to their apartments, even when they are just renting them!) 

What is an internation of this dream that still expresses your values and has the desired impact on your life, even if it’s on a smaller scale? 

Remember:  As you navigate a rapidly changing world, your vision of your ideal future is your North Star, ensuring you stay on track for where you want to go.

Vision is not static

Visions can definitely change over time. That's why you need to check in with your dreams frequently (if you’ve never considered your vision before, check out my blog post on ‘Visualising your dream life’)

Give your dreams space to develop or change.

Talk about them with others to bring them into the world and make them more real. And don’t worry about being selfish in sharing your dreams (especially when times are tough) - If you're not happy with your current situation, and you don't attend to your inner work, you stay stuck and miserable. Your situation erodes your effectiveness and energy.

What does that really do for anybody?

3 - Focus – Priorities And Values

During uncertain or overwhelming times, we need to focus. We don’t want to stay on the outer rims of the Circle of Concern, where we don’t sleep, where we are not productive, and where we are constantly stressed and anxious.

There are two things that can really help with staying focused. 

1 - First, is to check in with your vision - Which parts of that vision are most important to you to work on right now? Which will make the most difference to you? Are there any that are more time-sensitive than others? 

Keeping 1-3 priorities in front of you can help you stay focused and make better decisions, including saying NO to things that are going distract you or overwhelm you. 

2 - Values are another way of helping you to make solid decisions during times that feel fraught or uncertain. 

Have you ever done a values exercise? A very simple way to do this is to take a values sheet – a document that lists a whole bunch of values – you can find many of these on the internet through a quick search. Go through the list and start circling all the values that sound like you. 

Then, whittle them down until you have about 5 different values that really represent you and what you stand for.
(My business mentor, Trudi Lebron, has a whole chapter dedicated to this exercise in her book “The Antiracist Business Book.”)


3 – Take Practical Steps Towards Your Dreams

Take practical steps toward building your inner resources and resilience so you can keep taking practical steps toward your dreams.  

I want to encourage you to become more knowledgeable about and start building practices around:

  • Managing your energy! - Check out my recent blog post on Managing Your Energy. This will give you ideas about how to both renew your energy, and stop energy drains. 

  • Mindfulness and mindset - Hardwiring Happiness by Dr. Rick Hanson. Dr. Hanson works at the intersection of brain science and Buddhism, showing how you can use meditation and "taking in the good" to rewire your brain to think more positively than negatively.

  • Self-Compassion - If you struggle with a tough inner critic, you'll likely benefit from the daily self-compassion practices suggested by Kirsten Neff in her book, or through the many resources on her website. Neff is a leading expert on self-compassion, offering tools you can use to "motivate yourself with kindness rather than criticism."

  • Habits for Productivity - I think I’ve become a habits and productivity nerd because I started my career as a writer -- and then I realized that writing every day was really hard and required finetuning your habits. I wanted both productivity and creativity and that was a really interesting area of study for me. Two of my favorite books in the productivity realm are Atomic Habits by James Clear, and When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink.

  • An Online Community like Caveday - If you work from home, or have creative projects that you could use some extra accountability for showing up for, check out this online community that helps you focus and do deep work. They have boosted my productivity and happiness in my remote work life since 2020! 

  • Relationships - Some of the people who I really appreciate in the relationship arena are: 

Strong social relationships have been shown to have a positive impact on our overall mental health, and to living longer!  We really need our friends, and to cultivate our community through all these times. 

There are a LOT of things out of our control in this world. There is a lot to get you down. 

But there is also a lot to support you, and your dreams. 

There are always practical, small steps that will make your life better no matter what happens. 

Lisa Hoashi http://www.lisahoashi.com
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