I think I’ve discovered why this is so and because of this, my only goal is to look at the New Year in a new way.  Now, I know for a fact that for most of you reading this, it comes as a breath of fresh air to hear someone admit that goal-setting hasn’t been successful– especially coming from a life and business coach.  Frankly, what I’ve realized is that goal-setting is often a superficial and mechanical way of trying to superimpose my expectations onto the universe, and that is why it doesn’t work.

To be more precise, it has dawned on me that it is an almost automatic process that I set goals in a way that denies and resists certain aspects of my current reality.  For instance, if I set a goal to achieve greater success in my business, this is likely born out of a lack of acceptance for what is currently showing up in my business.  What I’m calling a goal is really just an ego-based agenda that is steeped in denial of present moment reality.  If you give this some serious thought, can you see where you do this in your own life?

If your New Year’s resolution is to lose 20 pounds, how does this reflect upon your present relationship with your body?  Are you wanting to lose that weight out of pure aversion?  Or is the motivation coming from a place of self-love and respect?  Essentially it is the motivation that underlies our goals that determines how empowering, life-affirming and healthy they are.  By definition, our goals are often based on something that we perceive as lacking right now that we want more of in the future. And, as the old saying goes, what we resist will persist.  The irony is that the conventional way of setting goals can easily become a form of self-sabotage, in that it is keeping our focus on what we don’t want.  According to the law of attraction, we will only get more of whatever we are resisting in this moment.

Now, you may have known all of this already.  Maybe I am a bit slow to catch on, probably because I have read way too many books on success and self-growth.  The epiphany for me is really rather simple:  maintain a spiritually and energetically open and accepting relationship with this present moment and create a vision for my life out of that place.  Yes, it is a simple realization but it is probably the most challenging thing that any one of us can do on a consistent basis.

Really, there is only one goal for any human being in this lifetime and that is the experience of freedom.  Why not set goals that are directly related to this ultimate ideal?  Like being unconditionally present and open to our lives on a moment to moment basis?  Or clearing away the lifestyle choices that we willingly partake in that keep us stuck in a state of confusion or stress?

My goal for 2009 is to find that dynamic balance between action and receptivity, between movement and stillness.  Get myself out of the way enough for the vastness of life to move through me and see if that will make my actions more potent and clear.   The Chinese call this Wu Wei, or effortless effort.

In 2008, I accomplished many wonderful things.  I finished my book the Purpose Principle.  I helped a lot of people find better health and well-being.  I mentored a lot of acupuncturists so they could build successful practices.  But I can’t say I really found Wu Wei this year.  I tried really, really hard and I put a ton of energy into my work.  There was definitely a quality of trying to force my goals into fruition.  Frankly, I just don’t have the energy to do that again in 2009!

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because most people I know are doing this, and I have a feeling you can relate.  It is not built into our educational model to cultivate receptivity and non-doing as much as we impose our will through action onto the world.  My goal is to be receptive this year– and the good news is that I have control over this; I can actually choose to do this.

What about you?  What do you choose to partake in every day that is keeping you at a distance from the life that you really want?  What do you willingly engage in that is undermining your life force?  The hard thing here is that it’s likely the case that you often receive accolades from friends and family for the very behaviors that are making you feel unwell.  For me, writing books and running several business ventures looks really good on an external level– and many people do ask me how in the world I do it all, but to the extent there is force or will power fueling these ventures, they are compromising my well-being.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I have to stop doing these things.  It just means that I choose to create a new relationship with my actions.  Strangely enough, I have a feeling that I can actually accomplish way, way more than I did in 2008 simply by focusing on the virtue of Wu Wei in my life.  The people I admire the most embody this virtue.  Their accomplishments are staggering, but they have no pretense about them.  In fact, they are so unified with what they do that there is no need for any kind of pride or self-aggrandizement.  That is my goal for 2009.  It is about letting go into a deeper level of the evolutionary pulse of this universe.

Have you ever been overtaken by the feeling of being lost in an activity, as if your sense of self disappeared completely?  More and more, I sense that this is the healthiest way to live.  A big part of life purpose is in consistently choosing behaviors and perceptions that shed the clunky ego-based self that we all tend to drag around with us.

Much of what I’m writing about here is actually in my book the Purpose Principle.  Writing that book was a process of transcendence for me, but many of the realizations are still cooking within me and have to this point remained more intellectual than experiential.  The clarity that resonates through the book, however, has shown me that the ‘I’ that typically shows up as Kevin wasn’t involved in the writing process.  Something deeper and bigger emerged, which has been a tremendously healing process for me and, I hope, for my readers.

My goal is to merge more fully with the space that lies beyond the small self that I discuss in the Purpose Principle.  I encourage you to read the book, and then form your own life’s goals around the themes that really matter and that are most essential to your core fulfillment as a human being.  Ask yourself, what would 2009 look like if my sole motivation was to wake up in my life, to be a vessel of generosity and wisdom to help this planet?  What is really standing in my way of this?

See for yourself how you can get out of your own way to embody this magical quality of Wu Wei, effortless effort.  My sense is that, as the external world becomes increasingly chaotic and disjointed (the recession, terrorism, the war in Iraq, and on and on and on), this is the virtue that each of us as individuals needs to hold dear and focus on with all of our might.  We need more examples of people living with grace, humility, trust, and openness.  Political and economic change must begin on these deeper spiritual levels.

Well, I’ll certainly keep you updated on how this new way of framing the coming year works out.  Please do the same and post comments here.

Kevin

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Now, the problem is not the fact that this voice arises on a regular basis.  When we have thoughts of resistance –when we feel the impulse to bury our heads and check out — we have a choice to make.  Will we attach to these thoughts or will we expand into the moment and move forward regardless of what we think and feel?  The only pitfall, the only obstacle, the only source of feeling stuck, depressed, mediocre, or frustrated, is attachment. 

We do have to consistently show up to our life in order to achieve some semblance of greatness, purpose, and freedom.  But even more fundamentally, we have to show up to the hidden obstacles that take place in our minds.  Every day, we experience limiting thoughts and beliefs that perpetuate stress and contraction.  What causes these thoughts?  Previously attaching to similar thoughts.   When we identify with our thoughts as who we really are, we feed them and they become louder and more prominent. 

In order to live with purpose, we need the daily consistency of being willing to look at our minds and assess whether or not we are lost in our thoughts.  Are we actually here?  After all, there is showing up by being physically present and SHOWING UP by being spiritually and mentally present.  The message here is simple but not easy– Every day, train yourself to pay close attention to what is taking place in your mind.  See if you can observe your mind without attachment.  For instance, if you feel anger arising, just watch the anger without being personally invested in it. 

Do this consistently, even when you have a thought arise that says, ‘I don’t feel like doing this right now.’  Don’t buy into that thought.  Keep paying attention and choose not to check out.  You will likely conjure up endless excuses as to why you can’t or won’t maintain awareness.  This kind of consistent relationship with yourself will slowly but surely transform your entire life.  It is up to you how quickly you want to change yourself.  If you are ready, you can commit to mindfulness all of the time.  You can base your life on the decision to dwell in a state of non-distraction, openness, and clarity. 

Consistency is key, but there is more to it than just showing up!  I invite you to SHOW UP and help as many people as you know do the same.  Your personal example is really the most powerful catalyst for change in all spheres of life-political, environmental, social, economic, and spiritual.

Kevin Doherty

P.S.  I have learned a thing or two about consistency over the past year in writing my new book The Purpose Principle.  My normal tendency is to pour a tremendous amount of energy into things up front only to become bored or disenchanted by them shortly thereafter.  Writing this book was probably the first project I’ve committed to (aside from parenting and my acupuncture practice perhaps) where I put consistent effort into it over the course of an entire year.  And that has not stopped!  From writing on my blog to finishing up the design of the book to devising a marketing plan, consistency is absolutely essential for the book to get in as many people’s hands as I’d like it to.  What about you?  Where can you apply consistent, mundane effort to achieve spectacular results? 

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This is why I enjoy coaching so much.  I can help people experience a deeper/higher level of success and realization in their business and life.  When I am part of this process, nothing could be more rewarding.  But I, too, need the support of those who are above me in their achievements and understanding.  There is a natural hierarchy implicit in human evolution.  Every one of us is at a different level on the evolutionary spectrum.  For me, just listening to Lonny speak for 60 minutes creates an almost instant transformation in the way I look at things. 

One of the things that Lonny talks a lot about is the fact that about 95% of humanity is simply not that interested in genuine and radical transformation.  The average modern person is deeply attached to a kind of complacent, cynical, or ambivalent stance with life that keeps them frozen in a kind of pseudo comfort.  When it comes to health and healing, Lonny asserts that it is the part of us that thinks it takes time to heal that is the sickness itself. 

In order to change your life for the better- to deepen your experience of purpose, fulfillment, and freedom- there has to be a genuine interest in this.  Now, it would seem obvious that we would be interested in actualizing these qualities.  But when it comes down to the day to day choices we make and actions we initiate, it is often simply not the case. 

One of the main reasons I wrote my new book The Purpose Principle is because I have had many patients over the years who ask me ‘how do I change?’  My book goes into some depth on this concept of having a sincere interest in transformation.  My intention is that the book is basically used as a key that helps you unlock the door to your deepest nature, that helps you see the immediacy of this moment, and the opportunity you have right now to transform your life into one of purpose, generosity, and freedom. 

Until the book comes out (ebook is coming soon), I encourage you to surround yourself with people who are serious about living from a deeper perspective.  Start to form a community of people who are interested in waking up.  Once the book comes out, I hope to use it as a tool for creating community in this way.  I’ll be doing group coaching with people around North America based on the strategies in the book.  Check in with www.purposeprinciple.com to stay updated on the book and my coaching programs and feel free to email me at Kevin@purposeprinciple.com if you’d like to be a part of my first group after the book launches.

Kevin Doherty

author of The Purpose Principle

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1.  You are just getting by, trying to make it through the day and are inundated by stressful circumstances, boredom, routine, or habits

2.  You are truly enjoying your life, spending most of your time in a state of  appreciation for who you are and what you have, living your life free from limitation

If you were to be brutally honest with yourself and assess which one of these scenarios best describes you, which one would it be?  Of course, the follow up question we all need to ask is, what will it take for you to shift into #2 on a consistent basis?

My experience is that the first step is always becoming acutely aware of the actual reality of our situation as human beings in the modern world.  We actually have to see with total clarity all of the obstacles, forces, and layers of conditioning that are imposed upon us that keep us locked in a state of mere survival.  While this may sound easy enough, it is a truly radical stance to take to become a fully empowered person who can simply observe the dynamics of our modern world without becoming identified with or attached to them. 

A big part of life purpose is the process of overcoming various obstacles, external ones being conventional influences such as the media, religious dogma, and educational ideologies that conflict with the manifestation of our deepest nature, and internal ones being attachment to difficult emotions, negative beliefs, and the tendency to lapse into a habitual or rote stance with our daily life. 

In the Buddhist tradition, it is often said that awareness itself heals.  This means that we actually don’t have to necessarily ‘do’ anything with our problems and issues; simply paying attention to them in a state of compassionate awareness is itself a transformative process.  Lack of awareness feeds our habitual tendency to ‘just get by’, assuming that our identities and the world we live in are set in stone and that we just have to deal with what we have in the best way we can. 

Thriving, on the other hand, is a state of total self-empowerment where we renounce any tendency toward being a victim in life by subscribing to resigned beliefs such as, ‘this is just how life is’.  Thriving takes a daily commitment to shake things up and never, ever take for granted the preciousness and poignancy of our human existence.  It is a revolutionary act of acknowleding and then acting upon the sacred role we have to fulfill in this universe.  In this sense, we stay ‘on our toes’, knowing that we are not here to just protect our own territory or to make ourselves more comfortable.  We are here to help others. 

If you feel that you are stuck in survival mode, you have to see that this is a choice.  Now, when I tell this to a lot of my clients, they often don’t like hearing it.  It may sound offensive.  But to someone who is really ready to change, the realization that we can choose a more empowering life is incredibly liberating.   Most of us, however, just simply aren’t willing to change.  Even though we aren’t deeply fulfilled and free in our current way of being, we are comfortable.  And there is a fear of stepping out of that security and into the unknown.  Until there is a strong motivation to jump into uncertainty, we will stay entrenched in our current patterns.  We have to get sick of mediocrity before we can evolve. 

Kevin Doherty

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When you decide to let go of rote behaviors, you are basically asserting your free will as a human being to think, act, and feel in a radicaly creative and unique manner.  You do things on your terms.  You act according to your own spiritual impulses.  Really, how could you discover your life’s purpose if it were otherwise?  Life purpose can only be found in this moment.  And we have to be fully here to be awake to this moment to find our purpose.  Really, our purpose finds us.  How?  When we become free of bondage, conformity, and expectations.  When we relinquish our need for external validation.  When we stop caring what others think about us. 

Purpose finds us.  Really, it is just there waiting for us.  It is always there.  In fact, it is literally right in front of us all the time.  All we have to do is see it.  Why don’t we?   Because we are bound up in expectation, the need to be accepted or not judged by others, the vicious clinging to security at all costs.  If we let go, then it is there.  But it is not outside of us.  It can’t be found by trying harder or by using will power to feel better.  That will only create more distraction and confusion.  Purpose can only be found through surrender. 

It is a completely natural process.  What happens when you live with purpose is that you find your own voice.  Now, this may sound kind of obvious or pleasant, but really it’s a totally radical way to live.  Finding your own voice comes about when you renounce your reliance on external validation, when you choose to put freedom before security. 

‘How do I do this?’, you may ask.  Well, it will only come about when you are ready for it.  Really, there is no how.  It is all about being ready to renounce any and all distractions to purpose.  That is the only way.  Yes, you can do this right now, in this very moment.  But are you ready?  Or is there more of an interest in staying comfortable, secure, and safe?  Purpose transcends all of these pursuits.  Only when you are literally ready to jump into the abyss of the unknown will you find purpose.  That is where radical independence is found.  Until then, it’s merely a matter of staying comfortable, feeling like you’re right, and postponing your deepest, heartfelt longings. 

When you find your own voice, you become fully alive.  You become an inspiration to others.  Your motivation to live becomes much larger than the narrow parameters of ‘I’. 

If you want to learn more about becoming awake to your life’s purpose, I recommend that you check out my new book The Purpose Principle, due out in e-book form in early September, and in hard copy a few months after that.  The book is all about waking up to who you really are, transcending mediocrity and conformity, and renouncing the small reality of ‘I’ once and for all.  

Kevin Doherty

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Kevin Doherty

author of the Purpose Principle

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If you really think about this and take action based on this principle, the implications are quite radical.  If you are having your morning cup of coffee, you are doing it because you have a spontaneous relationship with this moment– you are fully present to the process of making that coffee and you actually taste its essence with every sip.  Most of us find that it’s quite easy it is to slip into unconscious behavior where we have our morning coffee because that is what we do in the morning.  It is a routine, a habit.  If you live spontaneously, there is never a sense of, ‘well I do this just because that’s who I am and that’s what I do.’  You are always awake and aware; every choice you make is coming from a source that is connected to present moment reality. 

Can you imagine if all of your lifestyle choices were coming from this place?  No more addictions, habits, or routines?  No more habitual perceptions of who you are and how life is?  In Chinese medicine, that is the essence of health.  In my book The Purpose Principle, that is also one definition I give to life purpose– awareness of present moment reality. 

To be healthy is to be aware.  To be aware is to be fully connected to this moment.  Choose to let go of old addictions and habits and see what happens.  It may be hard at first, but it is like opening a door to a much more energizing and gratifying way of life.

Kevin Doherty

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