Focus on your desires, not your goals
"There is no desire that anyone holds for any other reason than that they believe they will feel better in the achievement of it. Whether it is a material object, a physical state of being, a relationship, a condition, or a circumstance—at the heart of every desire is the desire to feel good. And so, the standard of success in life is not the things or the money—the standard of success is absolutely the amount of joy you feel."
— Ask and It Is Given, page 103
Material object, physical state of being, relationship, condition, circumstance—let's call these goals.
Buy a nice car, get in shape, get married, be wealthy, move to the city—these are examples of goals.
But why are you pursuing these goals?
Because you want to feel something.
Wanting to feel something—let's call this a desire.
You pursue goals because you have a deeper desire to feel something and you think achieving the goal will make you feel the way you want to feel.
Your goal is to buy a nice car because you desire to feel esteemed.
Your goal is to get in shape because you desire to feel loved.
Your goal is to get married because you desire to feel secure.
It's easy to get distracted by your goal
First, you have a desire. You set a goal in order to realize your desire. Then, you make a plan and start taking action in order to achieve your goal.
It's easy to get caught up with the planning and the action-taking to the point that you forget your original desire. Your focus shifts to achieving your goal.
But the goal itself isn't what you want. What you really want is to realize your desire.
Sometimes pursuing your goal becomes the opposite of your desire
Pursuing your goal can end up being counterproductive to realizing your desire to feel a certain way. This is ironic because the reason you came up with the goal in the first place was that you hoped it would help you to realize your desire.
For example, if you want to feel good and you think making a lot of money will make you feel good but then you work so hard to make a lot of money to the point that working hard makes you feel bad, then you've sacrificed your desire for the goal.
Or, if you focus on getting married and you think that getting married will make you feel loved but then you end up marrying someone who doesn't really make you feel loved, then you've sacrificed your desire for the goal.
Even if you achieve your goal, you might still not feel the way you wanted to feel
Even if you work really hard, make a foolproof plan, take all the right actions, and achieve your goal, you might still not feel the way you wanted to feel.
Maybe achieving the goal just doesn't make you feel the way you wanted to feel. After all, you couldn't have known whether achieving the goal would make you feel the way you wanted to feel because you hadn't achieved the goal yet. It was just a hypothesis that achieving the goal would make you feel the way you wanted to feel.
Or, your desire might have changed
During the time that you were so focused on the goal, you might not have noticed that your desire changed.
You still pursued the goal because that's what you were focused on. But the reason you were pursuing the goal in the first place became obsolete when you stopped having the desire. You might have noticed that you no longer had the desire, but you were distracted by the goal.
Instead of focusing on the goal, focus on your desire
Remember, the goal itself isn't what you want. What you really want is to feel a certain way.
Ask yourself, "What do I want?"
At first, you might think of goals. If so, ask yourself, "How do I want to feel?"
Do you feel the way you want to feel right now?
Or is there a difference between how you want to feel and how you feel right now?
Can you pinpoint what is causing you to feel differently than how you want to feel?
What is causing you to feel differently than how you want to feel?
What can you do to feel the way you want to feel?