The Gentle (yet more effective) Approach to Reaching Your Goals

When it comes to the inner journey, my mind is constantly oriented on making progress. I believe we are here to learn certain, necessary lessons for our soul’s progress and resting on our laurels seems counter-productive to this goal.

This attitude can be both helpful and detrimental to my progress. “Helpful” because it keeps me aligned with forward momentum, but “detrimental” because I risk judging myself when I miss the mark on the progress I’d prefer to be making.

When I’m not mindful of this “self-judgment” trap, I unconsciously lock horns with ego, which sets up a scenario where I fight against what is happening, instead of accepting it as a way to move forward.

One of the main contributing factors to this problem was my inclination to confuse gentleness and acceptance with becoming complacent in my goal to progress on the inner path.

I’d hear a speaker urge and encourage us to accept our ego nature and mentally I would balk at this advice thinking it was unnecessarily slowing down our progress on the inner journey…

I’d think to myself, “If the goal of the inner journey is to undo our ego-mind, how does accepting when we think or act from ego help us move forward?”

To me, this felt like bringing our progress to a grinding halt. It felt like throwing in the towel and completely removing ourselves from the game, since, in my mind, it removed what was possible (undoing the ego-mind) from the end game.

It was as if the speaker was advocating being okay with where you are without saying another state of consciousness was possible. As someone who is fully invested in the idea that undoing the ego-mind is possible, this did not sit right with me.

So I, of course, chose the most evolved response to this advice: I ignored it believing it was limiting my ability to move towards what I believed was possible.

But the advice kept showing up in my awareness…

Be gentle. Be accepting.

Ugh, enough of that already! I’m here to make REAL progress, not to coddle my ego.

This advice kept showing up, because I was failing to see and acknowledge a major spiritual truth…

“You cannot transform what you do not accept.” — The Way of Mastery (and many other spiritual texts)

Instead of being able to see and accept this spiritual truth, my ego interpreted this advice to its liking by claiming acceptance meant complacency. Ego knew that I was committed to my inner journey, so it snuck in a back door by creating a self-imposed standard that fit my commitment to my journey…

In not being mindful of my ego’s sneakiness, I (unconsciously) agreed to a standard that said not to accept missteps caused by thinking and acting from ego.

This is an especially sneaky play on ego’s part, since the intention behind the standard is about undoing ego.

BEWARE—all self-imposed standards are traps of ego. Once we’ve agreed to adhere to a particular standard, ego has the perfect weapon to keep us in its grip…self-judgment.

If I agree to not accept thoughts and actions of ego, my only option is to judge myself every time I notice that I am acting or thinking from ego.

Ego loves standards (shoulds and should nots) so be wary of where these may be sources of ego’s weapons in your own journey. (I should workout. I shouldn’t eat that. I shouldn’t have bought that, but I couldn’t help myself…these are all standards that result in self-judgment if they’re not met).

Acceptance immediately disempowers ego from using these standards against ourselves. It breaks the cycle of self-judgment and frees us to actually move forward in our journey; whereas a lack of acceptance keeps us in a headlock with ego.

The advice to be gentle with ourselves and to accept our ego-nature is meant to help us transform that aspect of ourselves in the most peaceful way possible; not to uphold it as my ego would have me believe.

My fear of complacency was born of ego (all fear is), and despite my belief that it would ensure progress on the inner journey, it was actually designed to impede my progress by keeping me from looking at the very things that were hindering my progress. It kept me groping in the dark, instead of moving towards my goal.

Our willingness to reach a goal is all that is necessary, whether it’s progress on the inner path, losing weight or any other goal. The trick is learning to live from a state of willingness without creating self-imposed standards.

Willingness implies a desire to move towards our goal(s) in a manner that allows us to assess where we veered off course without judging why a course correction is necessary.

It’s the freest, gentlest, most self-accepting way in which we can continuously move forward and maintain peace as the journey progresses.

Take stock of where you might be unnecessarily making yourself adhere to self-imposed “shoulds” and “should nots” and see if you can release your attachment to these standards. Fear may initially crop up to keep you from releasing these standards.

Remember, as was the case with my distorted belief in the fear of complacency, ego is using an underlying fear to keep you from releasing a particular standard. Be willing to identify and go into the fear in order to expose it for what it is…a nasty trick of ego’s to keep self-judgment in play.

Then, be willing to release it in favor of approaching your goals from a state of willingness, gentleness and acceptance.

Much progress (and inner peace) can be gained from this gentle tweak in our approach to reaching our desired goals. I encourage you to consider approaching all goals from this perspective. It’ll save on unnecessary stress all while bringing you the results you desire. It’s a win-win! =)

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To being gentler (but not complacent),

Shanna

P.S. Panama friends, I’m doing a group coaching session this Saturday, June 28^th from 11:00am – 1:00pm. If you’re interested in coming, please email me at shanna@shannacovey.com and I’ll send you the details. Would love to see you there!

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