We all desire relationships, jobs, goals, and changes in our lives, but sometimes we have to ask if these desires are what we actually need. Our imagination has a beautiful ability to make a future plan seem like the most incredible option, but maybe it isn’t the only option? Maybe if we stop focusing on the one thing we want, we’ll see that there are 10 different (just as amazing) paths we can more easily walk down.

I find that when I put a certain goal on a pedestal, I put up blinders to all other wonderful opportunities. And the goal on the pedestal is often so hard to reach, so challenging to climb to, and so resistant to offering me a hand, that I start to wonder, is this what I really want? Do we need to doubt ourselves, feel immense disappointment and frustration, and work unhappily for years for something that may in the end not even bring us the happiness we thought it would? For me there have been many noticeable moments in the last few years where the second I take a step back to survey my life, I see the intense resistance I’m facing for a goal and then I realize I’ve been blind to the just as wonderful offers within easy reach already around me.

Maybe what seems so challenging to achieve is only challenging because it’s not meant for us, or just not meant to be at this time. Maybe what flows towards us easily, opens its arms with a warm welcome, and offers us a different, less resistant path is the path we are meant to take today.

It is important to have goals and to pursue them, don’t get me wrong. I love goal setting, and I have found great success through sport, education and relationships due to goal setting. But we need to understand when these goals are too forced and causing us a great deal of unhappiness and frustration. Know the difference between putting in time+effort for your life to bloom, and something just not growing no matter how hard you work. Our labours should result in fruits, that is the beauty of life. So if no fruits are being rewarded, then maybe your labours are meant to be focused elsewhere.