I have come to the realisation through experience that SMART goals are not all they are cracked up to be. Most of us are pretty familiar with them meaning specific, measured, achievable, realistic and timed. Part of my job is to assist clients to get clarity on the results they want to achieve. This way of thinking is useful and it has its downfalls.

It takes courage to set a goals full stop. Remember the last time someone asked you to declare what your goals were? It takes a little fearlessness. If we are honest we know what gets in the way of not achieving our goals and yet it gives us some assurity and confidence in the future if we set some again.  Good on us trying again! This is where empathy is very useful because it helps us to do it better next time by reappraising what did and didn’t work last time. Being empathetic to ourselves is understanding and noticing what you could have done differently.

It also stands to reason, if we are to have much needed empathy for others then the first place to start is with ourselves.

The best definition of empathy I have noted is by Karla McKlaren who wrote the Art of Empathy and she says “Being empathic is the degree to which you can put yourself aside and understand, feel, sense, see, hear, smell, interpret the subtext, context, facial expressions, what is not being said and then asking, then providing assistance in the form of action to a greater degree than that of another”.

What would it be like to give this level of empathy to ourselves when we are choosing where we want to head in the future?

An empathy driven goal may go something like this:

• We would give no meaning to what we do when we sabotage our goals ( leave ourselves alone and go again)
• We would not belittle, berate or bagger our fragile self-esteem we would leave it alone
• We would focus on how it will feel when we get there
• It is one where you can see, hear, feel and smell just how good it would make you feel
• You would be able to understand how it will change your life and the life of others for the better
• You would feel the intangible benefits and yet find them difficult to articulate
• It is one where the numbers are of secondary importance and may even be absent
• You are completely aligned with its values and who you are being at any moment
• One where the intangible nature of it feels very right and you are ok with that
• You feel and know it is ok to be a little grey about them right now and continue on anyway

Can you be with yourself and feel your way into your goals?

In fact, neuroscience has shed some light on this whole brain approach to goal setting. Using our left-brain (structure and logic) plus our right brain (Feeling, imagination and emotion) to keep the goal alive.

I now see there is another way that is very satisfying and achieves exactly the same result which is the goal! The goal obsession I once had, I can now loosen my grip.

I have noticed, when people feel excited about a goal, when they “feel” their way into it, even if it is not articulated perfectly, it is perfectly enough!

Activating the outcomes in our imaginations and whole body is a huge turbo booster!

To do this we need to flex our empathy muscle to engage in concepts, sensations, creativity and emotion. And believe me that is equally as challenging conversation as any. Most of us, are not as familiar with flexing our “feeling capacity” in a professional context however it brings satisfaction all round.