The things that lead to the things you want don’t look like the things you want
I’ve been vibing on this podcast with the computer scientist Kenneth Stanley. His main argument (which is based on his academic research and which he wrote a book about) is that goal setting doesn’t work if you want to produce something new.
No major invention, he argues, ever came from goal setting. They came from people working on unrelated projects that eventually were combined together into something radically new.
Goal setting is fine if your aim is to improve your lap time or lose weight. But if you’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, then you need a different strategy.
He found that WHEN people follow their intrinsic interests (what feels “alive” for them), AND they use what they find along the way as stepping stones to the next thing that feels alive, THEN they end up discovering radically new things.
What does this have to do with emotional health?
Lasting emotional health is a process of self-discovery. Ultimately, we’re trying to get somewhere we’ve never been before AND no one else has either. No one else has lived your life, suffered your pain, or has the same protective inner system as you do.
What we all want is an inner sense of freedom, clarity, calmness, love, presence, flow, etc. But we can’t get there by aiming for these things. Or, rather what we’ll get is a weak and fragile version of them.
“You can only find what you want by not looking for it.” - Kenneth Stanley
If we drop the goals, objectives, and plans, and instead do what Stanley suggests––follow what feels alive––then we’ll end up discovering a type of freedom, clarity, calmness, love, etc. that we could never have imagined.
What does this look like in practice? Doing things that are calling out to you BUT are also scary. That is what aliveness is.
On Sunday, August 13th, I’m joining Somatic Active Breathwork facilitator Tamy Erle to present a 90-minute breathwork live online session that is designed to open people up to what’s most alive for them.
It’s an intense breathwork practice that will bring you to your edges, but you’ll also be held along the way. This practice is absolutely the type of thing that will help you follow what’s most alive in your life.
The best part about Sunday is that the price of admission is a donation to the childhood cancer nonprofit, MaxLove Project (which I co-founded with my wife almost 12 years ago). There are few better ways to spend 90 minutes on a Sunday.