What enjoying the process requires
It's not about achieving a goal so you can be happy, but being happy right now.
Let me tell you a story that might make you mad.
Two stories, actually. But don’t worry, the second will make up for the first.
The truth is, I have zero body image issues. I don’t have a perfect body: I carry weight around my middle, have surgical scars, and my feet are messed up.
But I truly love my body and feel reverence for it’s ability to repair itself after all it's been through.
That said, one of my biggest goals is to carve my physique into the hottest shape of my life.
I want muscles, a flat stomach, strong arms and to rock a tiny bikini while people whisper, “she’s how old?,” in J-Lo-like admiration. (Though J-Lo is still my senior. God bless!)
Most days, I do Pilates or incline walk on the treadmill, and check my progress in the mirror.
There’s zero angst to this.
Progress is sometimes slow, but I don’t worry: Why isn’t the weight coming off? What else can I do? Is there something wrong with me?
No. I have a plan, and I follow it. I love moving my body, I enjoy watching little muscles emerging. I go easy on myself if I need a rest day, and have occasional treats knowing I’m not on a crash diet, this is a long-term play.
My fitness journey makes me feel empowered, strong, and capable because I’m enjoying the process.
Contrast that with pursuing my career goals.
My biggest goal with starting my blog in 2014 was to connect with others through writing about my life lessons and make money to travel.
Yet after making a little money, the funniest thing happened:
Instead of booking trips, I purchased courses and coaching in the effort to pursue more.
Because nothing I achieved felt like enough. It felt like a fluke, something that I needed to repeat in order to convince myself it was real.
Looking back, this was wild. Feelings of inadequacy so blinded me that I didn’t allow myself to experience the very thing I wanted in the first place.
Disconnected from my true, soul definition of success, I pushed for more.
This kept me feeling perpetually inadequate, zapping my self-confidence and nearly severing my connection to my purpose.
The problems with focusing on outcomes include:
No result ever feels like enough. Goal posts move, leaving you drained, overwhelmed, unfulfilled and demoralized.
Obsession over outcomes sours any joy you’d otherwise feel from the day’s work.
The thing you once loved more than anything in the world becomes a source of suffering and pain.
Comparison to others makes you feel constantly behind, not good enough.
Self-doubt causes you to seek answers outside of yourself, dimming your inner voice, the very guidance you need to find your unique path to success.
Flattened by pressure, your moves become inspired by fear rather than faith, increasing feelings of confusion, doubt and uncertainty.
Focusing on outcomes ironically lowers the likelihood of achieving your goals.
Why we obsess over outcomes
We all have fears, unhealed wounds, past pains and traumas living in the shadows of our consciousness. The bigger our shadows, the more they feed into our fears.
This creates an unhealthy attachment to outcomes.
We end up trying to use achievement to feel worthy, seen, appreciated, valuable and worthy of love, only it never works.
Some attachments are good. You want to have a positive relationship with your goals so you stay motivated. Problems emerge when attachments turn into neediness or desperation, fueled by manic energy (and cortisol) that make peace impossible to find until you realize some goal.
Or so you think.
Because the benchmarks always move. It’s never enough.
Enjoying the process requires healing unhealthy attachments so you can hold on loosely.
This allows you to move toward your goal from a sense of love, joy, fun, curiosity and expansion rather than pressure, fear, criticism and insecurity.
The key is to allow your goal to inspire you without being so attached that the absence of it makes you feel unhappy or unworthy.
Over the past week of exploring these themes in my journal, I’ve experienced transformational change. In a minute, I’ll explain how you can unlock the same.
Pursuing our most heartfelt dreams and goals will always bring challenge, press upon our ability to feel innately worthy and capable, but that’s the point —
Our dreams and goals aren’t merely about the outcome, but carving us into who we’re meant to be.
Make no mistake, the stakes are high, but not in the way you think.
The real questions are: Will you get to experience who you were made to be, the happiest, healthiest, most fulfilled version of yourself?
Or will you develop as a sliver of that person, your fullness eclipsed by the shadow of insecure longing?
How to heal attachments so you can joyfully pursue your goals:
As a quick note, my work explores the heart of the shadow. It can be very confronting and best serves people interested in going deep to create happiness, health and success in the unique way they’re meant to.
This process, like all the ones I teach, is about first clearing away pain to create space to hear the deeper wisdom guiding you forward.
1. Identify the fears fueling attachments.
We explore this deeper in the Journaling Club, but some fears I identified include:
The fear of being inadequate to realize my vision.
I felt like I had a big responsibility to fulfill the vision in my heart, to realize my purpose, and if I didn’t do it, it meant that I somehow failed at learning this life’s lessons or realizing my potential. While my dream inspires me, sometimes I feel frustrated, wondering if I have what it takes.The fear of being helpless or powerless.
Sometimes I feel my actions don’t make waves, that there’s something inherently wrong with me, that other people know secrets I don’t about creating positive change, but I’m not privy to them because I’m an outsider.
The fear that my past pain was for nothing.
I had this idea that if only I could achieve my dreams, everything that came before me would have a purpose, which would made it okay. But if it didn’t have a purpose, and the pain was just pain, that…hurt.The fear I don’t belong or that I’m unwanted.
One of the reasons I was so attached to success was because I thought it would make me feel more connected to the world, help me find my place in it.
2. Sit with your feelings to release the attachments.
Practice the Feeling Awareness meditation I teach to process the emotions stirred up by journaling. (New readers get a link upon subscribing, and Journaling Club members always have access.)
Sit with any sensations of pushing, insecurity or discomfort when they arise instead of reacting to them by planning, worrying or analyzing. These feelings will speak to you and reveal their messages. Over time you will unravel the layers and create a deeper sense of self-confidence.
3. Develop a relationship with the part of you who pushes.
This is life changing! It’s tempting to ignore or repress this energy hoping it will go away, but this is the energy of a higher calling that will never stop pushing, just like the seed of a flower must push to rise up through layers of soil to reach the sunlight.
This force can be destructive, but once you stop feeding it with subconscious fears through healing the shadow, it becomes integrated.
Integration allows you to tap into this force as a source of motivation from a place of being grounded. Instead of erupting through the soil, flying through the air and landing on the street, you emerge incrementally from the soil, staying connected to what nourishes you.
Learn how in the Journaling Club.
4. Redefine success — and arrange your life — based on your core values.
My core values are curiosity, creativity, freedom and courage. That’s why I wanted to earn a living online and travel.
However in pursuit of that dream, I compromised those values because of my attachments. That was the source of my unhappiness, not that I was falling short of goal.
With this in mind, my current focus is developing the ability to do the day’s work and let it go, to stop obsessing and worrying whether it’s good enough, or whether I’m good enough. To feel relaxed and peaceful, confident and assured that what’s meant for me will come to me.
Simply put, my goal right now is to enjoy the process.
5. Create a plan to achieve your goals that feels fun.
The key to enjoying the process is to create a process that you enjoy. That’s why people who move their bodies in ways they enjoy find it easier to stick to a workout. Or why people who take the time to cook healthy foods that also taste good more easily stay trim. Or how you can stay consistent, working toward a goal, over decades rather than burnout. (Oops!)
Sure, sometimes you need to do things you don’t enjoy, but that shouldn’t be the bulk of your day. Life is hard enough. You don’t need to make it harder.
6. Make your entire life meaningful.
Finding meaning in life is about connecting everything you do to a deeper value or purpose, and threading your day with rituals that bring you joy.
Success doesn’t create fulfillment if you’re disconnected from what truly matters.
We get attached to outcomes because we don’t feel worthy, and think achievement will fill the hole inside. In my experience, the more we try the worse it feels because we realize no success will ever be enough, yet it has to be because if this isn’t the key to worthiness, what is?
The answer is: You held the key all along. It’s inside your heart. A connection to God, to nature, to the forward thread of your destiny, trusting in your innate worthiness.
It’s easy to feel invisible or powerless or like life is meaningless, but the antidote to those things isn’t outside of us, it’s inside.
My daily routine has been a transformational way of releasing attachments.
It offers a peaceful rhythm to relax into, a consistent reassurance that everything has its own process and way of working out.
I want feel peace and have fun, to explore my potential out of curiosity instead of pressure.
I want to write from a place of joy, self-expression and service, not from a place of lack, trying to get something.
I want to follow a feeling of wholeness in my soul rather than fleeting dopamine hits that dull my senses.
I want to create happiness, health and success in the unique way I’m meant to, and help others do the same.
Strategic inner work to release attachments and enjoy the process.
This week in the Journaling Club, you’ll explore 9 sets of journaling prompts to heal attachments and pursue your goals with joyful purpose. I also share a favorite somatic yoga practice to move released energy through the body.
(If you’re not already upgraded, you can join on the page.)
Thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments if you can relate.
Love you all so much,
Suzanne
This spoke to me so deeply. And inspired me to start committing to a short routine before I start work/my to do list, so that I don’t start the day stressed and anxious because that affects my whole day and I never feel like I’ve achieved enough. I need a way to remind myself to come out of what Tara Brach calls ‘the trance of unworthiness’ x
Developing a relationship with the part of you who pushes and finding way to make the things that you do fun are 🧑🍳 💋 This idea of working with yourself rather than against yourself 👏
So often goals are driven from a place of ego which ultimately arises because of insecurity. By, like you said, clearing the pain, fear, etc out of the way so that you can connect with your “true self” or “compass” or whatever you want to call it, it’s clear how much of a difference it makes.
Excellent stuff 🙌🏻