What Matters Most

Nobody intentionally lets their coffee cool down to a lukewarm temperature. Nobody intentionally lives without pursuing what matters most. What are you pursuing?

We are close to the closing of 2022. As it always does, the end of the year seems like it is on fast-forward from Halloween to Christmas. I am the oldest of five kids, and years ago, we decided to draw names for Christmas so we don't all get cheap stuff none of us needs. So around this time, we each need to answer the question: What do you want the most??

I think this is the perfect time of year to ponder that question. What do you want the most? As we draw to the end of the year, it is often easy to chuck what we wanted for 2022 in the trash if we didn’t achieve it. I know I didn’t achieve everything I set out to accomplish in 2022. So should I trash my goals and focus on some new juicy goals I have on the horizon??

It is much easier to ignore past failures, dust off your hands, and move on. Here is the problem. The emotions surrounding failure can sit back there in your mind and slowly infect you. A counsellor I once worked with told me that not acknowledging those feelings was like burying my emotions alive. They will come out somewhere, usually when I am tired or stressed, popping up like a beach ball held underwater. Failure year after year can lead us to aim for easy goals or push us to ignore what we want the most because our desires end up as burdens.??

Here’s the thing. Having better physical health, mental health, sleep, relationships, and productivity at the end of 2023 will require you to understand what matters most to you and be intentional with going after goals to develop them. A life of abundance follows decisions that are made on what matters most. To make decisions well, we need to acknowledge emotions from the parts of last year, two years ago, or ten years ago that didn’t go the way we wanted. But how do you empty your coffin of negative emotions? Well,?you need to feel them. As corny as that might sound, that is research-based advice.?

The truth is that feeling pain gives us access to what matters. Feelings signal something is important to us. We will feel fear if our emotional or physical safety is threatened and sadness by losing something significant to us. We feel anger in the face of poor treatment and guilt when we harm others. We cannot just choose not to feel as much. Brene Brown wrote in?The Gifts of Imperfection,?“We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”?So here are some practical steps on how to feel your feelings.

4 Steps to Skilfully Acknowledging and Felling Your Feelings?

Step 1 Take Time to Slow Down and Identify your Emotions.

This sounds easy, but for me, it was really hard. I grew up in a very loving family but not one where we all expressed our feelings. When I married, I initially squashed those little ‘silly emotions’ where I wished something was done differently. Eventually, all those little buried emotions would burst out of their grave, and there were so many of them I couldn’t explain to my husband why I was so extraordinarily upset. I have improved in the past 18 years, but I still have to take a quiet moment to identify my emotions often. Writing is the easiest way for me to do that, most of the time on a sticky note.?

Step 2 Mindfully Investigate What’s at the Heart of Your Feelings

This is where you DO NOT blame someone else OR yourself for those feelings. Emotions come from the inner part of the brain, but that part exists for a reason. Fear saves us from danger, and joy moves us to vast acts of kindness and love. See if you can feel your emotion without blame. Blame makes moving on from the emotion hard until someone (maybe even ourselves) does something different. If you can’t get past blame, a counsellor is a resource you need.?

Step 3 Identify Where you Feel these Emotions in your Body.?

Often we hold muscles in a chronic contraction like clinching our jaw or raising our shoulders. Breathing short and stiff breaths is the most common thing I see in my patients. Close your eyes and consciously let it go as Elsa did. Don’t hold the muscle in stiffness anymore! Let it go! Let it go!...

Step 4 Decide How You're Going to Express your Emotions.?

Some options could include crying, praying, journaling, or talking to someone you love or a counsellor. If you are writing, write about it in a kind and compassionate way—not judgy. If this is hard, talk to yourself like a friend would talk to you. You might say to yourself: “I’m so sorry you are feeling this way,” “this is so difficult,” or “I’m with you.”

*My personal experience with counselling, coaching, and?this article?influenced these steps

Finding What You Want Most is a Work of Art

I wish that most things I have strived for in my life came with an instruction manual. The first page would tell me how to get there, the middle would be details I needed, and the back half would give me a calendar of when to expect success. This way, I could see the big picture ALL THE TIME. However, my failures have been colossal life-altering moments that changed me for the good. When things are going great, we don’t think about how to push ourselves to be better or do better. We are comfortable, so why rock the boat??

I am the parent of young kids, so here is another Disney moment I will use to exemplify finding what you want the most. There is a scene in Hercules where Phil sings the song “One Last Hope.” In the song, Phil is lamenting the past failures of heroes he has trained and hoping Hercules will be different. In the third verse of the song he sings:?

To be a true hero, kid, is a dying art

Like painting a masterpiece, it's a work of heart

It takes more than sinew

Comes down to what's in you

You have to continue to grow

Pursuing what matters most requires growth, which is a work of heart. We rock the boat out of joy for the journey we?could?be on instead of the comfortable one we are on right now. Earlier in the post, I said I didn’t hit all the goals I set for 2022. In reality, I haven’t hit all my goals in the past five years.

Five years ago, I decided to move towards working outside of just traditional Physical Therapy. I don’t know ‘the how’ for most of my goals. I start them without understanding how to get to the finish. Just like Hercules didn’t know how to defeat the Hydra but knew that he needed to save the people, I don’t know how I will do half of the stuff I set out to do. I know everything I do is fuelled by my determination to make a difference which is what matters most to me and is one of my values.

The Difficulty with Going After What You Want the Most—The Messy Middle

When you reach for what you want the most, you will end up on a journey that gets messy in the middle. The messy middle is where you know you don't know how to get to point B, and it is tempting to sit back and grab something easy that makes the suck go away. The beauty of the messy middle is that you are in the thick of it. You have started and made progress. The fuel for continuing through the messy middle is acknowledging your negative feelings about not being at your destination yet and using joy for the future to power through that mess.

I have been in the messy middle and am in the messy middle. I have told people in my Christmas cards for the past five years that I am transitioning from traditional Physical Therapy practice. In the past five years, I have attempted many different ways to be employed doing wellness coaching and corporate wellness. Some have been successes, and others are a waste of my time. The Benjamin's in my pocket has been sucked out by business costs each year. I have yet to quit my day job altogether.

But I do not see the past five years as a waste. It has been an incredible time of learning in my life. Someday soon, I hope to make a financial change with how much my business brings into the household, BUT I would not change the lack of financial progress in my business. If I had made more money, I would be on a different track. The track I am on has made a difference in people’s lives. I have found my values and am pursuing them day in and day out.

Often we think, “I'll be fulfilled and happy when: I have the relationship I want; when I get that new job; when I'm making $100,000 a year; when I get that new house or when I wear a specific size of pants. There is nothing wrong with pursuing more income, owning a home, or lifestyle change. But those goals need to grow out of pursuing a personal value, or they will not bring happiness. Happiness comes from hope. Long-term hope only happens when you are consistently reaching to live out your values.?

Don’t know what your values are? Want help defining your values? Check out this?free, short course?I put together to help you find your values and protect them so you can pursue what matters most in 2023. The best is yet to come.

DIG (Get Deliberate, Get Inspired, Get Going) Deep Action Steps:?

Get Deliberate: Take a look at your calendar after Christmas or before if you, for some reason, have extra time on your hands. Schedule three hours of quiet reflection for yourself to work through defining your values. There are several resources out there for you. Brene Brown has a podcast on doing that if you want to?listen to that as a prep. There is also the link to the free course I created above.

Get Inspired:?Bill Gates once said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” Don’t think of what you want the most as something that can be accomplished in a specific amount of time. What you want the most should be BIG. That BIG dream goal is what fuels your small accomplishable goals.?Check out this post?for some insight on writing goals.

Get Going: I needed someone to hold me accountable when I first went down this path of finding what I wanted the most. It is challenging work. Find a friend who you think would be interested in finding their values. Please send them this post (because it is well written and thought-provoking OBVIOUSLY) and schedule a zoom date or in-person date to review your values together.