In your mind and heart, the goals to move forward must always be present, give us reasons to get out of bed, the energy to believe that today will be better than yesterday and meanings to understand that life is always worth it. Few dimensions are as essential in the area of mental health and personal growth as feeding our life goals.
When we talk to someone who has a mood disorder, this aspect catches our eye. Many claim to have no purpose. Its reality is suspended in an absolute void where there is no dream, where daily life is totally meaningless.
- Some may have hobbies and interests.
- But they forget about them; others have a partner.
- Friends and family.
- Yet they feel lonely and empty.
These conditions are devastating and require a long and delicate psychotherapeutic process for the person to strengthen, so that he can reformulate his thoughts and find the emotional balance with which he will gradually rebuild and find new goals on the horizon.
We must emphasize that it is quite normal to go through phases in which we are forced to reformulate our objectives, we all go through transitions, moments when we have to rewrite certain things.
Ending a romantic relationship, changing jobs, or even going through adversity means redefining certain aspects.
However, doing this is always good. People are made of stories, extraordinary stories that are constantly rewritten, as long as there is ink to write our words, everything will be fine.
In 2016, Harvard University launched a research project aimed at deepening the concept of personal growth, a dimension that can be understood as something that goes beyond well-being, is above all overcoming, resilience, to be able to use psychological strategies that allow us to face any circumstance and achieve happiness.
This research programme has been underway for several years and it is already clear that one of the fundamental pillars to achieve these objectives is to work towards our objectives.
Giving meaning to our lives, as Viktor Frankl would say, directly affects our mental health, as confirmed by other studies, such as the one published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2019.
According to this work, led by Drs. Ying Chen and Erik Kim, having goals affects physical health, psychological balance, self-esteem and emotional treatment, these goals and the meaning each gives to their existence act as an internal support where nothing weighs, where fears do not filter out and where one feels balanced.
At this point, knowing the meaning of this dimension for quality of life, a question may arise: what exactly is a goal?
What we have to understand is that it is not just a goal, it is not wanting a bigger house or getting a better job, much less reaching the ideal weight or being consistent when going to the gym.
It’s much more than that. Life’s goals transcend simple desires, these dimensions lift and position us, give us life goals, dreams for the heart, and strengthen motivation.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains in his book “Flow: The Psychology of Ideal Experience?” That an objective is to establish in our mind a stable intention towards something that makes sense to us, something that goes beyond ourselves.
An example would be to help others, to create something that inspires others (a book, a song, a type of art), it could also be learning something new, achieving greater wisdom, and giving happiness to our family, taking care of those we love.
Mark Twain said the most important days of our lives were just two: the first, our birth. The second, the moment when we finally discover our raison d’either, the meaning of our existence, is sometimes very difficult to find. It’s not easy to determine what really turns on our hearts and makes it beat faster.
However, there always comes a time when we feel that motivation, passion and meaning, it is essential that we never lack goals to get ahead because thanks to them we recover from adversity, with them opportunities appear, they give us optimism to face challenges and Dreams in times of storm.
On the other hand, as we said at the beginning, these goals to move forward can change at any time, they are not the same at 20 or 60. We are also not the same when we finish one stage of life and start another, either emotionally or at work. Suddenly, new needs, feelings and new goals appear on the horizon, bringing new hope.
We’ll always keep them in mind. We all have an inner flame that can fuel every dream, every way. Let’s turn it on!