Goal Setting

Question: Some things I've tried to accomplish in life have been such a struggle, and yet some other things have just "fallen into place," almost without much effort. Does this have any bearing on how we should choose to do things? Should I stop planning my life so much and just try to "go with the flow"? I'm almost afraid that if I stop planning so much, nothing will happen!

Answer: There is never a moment (although I know it seems not so) when the flow of which you speak is not all around us and available to us. We do not create this flow, but enter into it. This means that since this flow exists before my consideration of even needing it, there is something in me that is obscuring it, blocking it. This should be our task: to awaken increasingly to what in us is out of the flow. Find this and the flow presents itself. (P.S. Where possible, experiment with giving up the planning as best you can, and watch what happens. It'll be tough, but worth it.

Question: I am overwhelmed by thinking about what I "should" be doing in my life, yet all success training mentions the importance of goal setting. Is there a correct approach to getting the "impossible" done

Answer: The next time you "hear" this inner voice of imminent doom, listen instead to this higher instruction: Never again look for a way out of any anxious condition. Look instead for a way to see through it. Now learn the higher techniques that will show you how to be a self-starting individual instead of a self-stalling one. Each time you're faced with a logjam of tasks that seem far beyond your mortal abilities to resolve in the allotted time, here's what to do. First, whittle these logs down to manageable size by writing each one out on a pad of paper. This act will also help you untangle some of your own tangled feelings about the jam you're in. For now, forget their order of importance; that will become clear later. Just get each task down on paper. Once you have your list of tasks written down on paper, place a star next to number one on your list. Then do it! Take number one on your list and just get that one thing done. Consciously refuse to entertain any other thoughts that push themselves into your mind with images of impossibility. It is possible to do one thing at a time. And it is possible to successfully complete one thing at a time, and to do that one thing to the very best of your ability. Then follow the same winning procedure with number two, and so on down the list until all is done. Proceed in spite of any thoughts or feelings that would have you believe you can't. The main lesson is that success only becomes impossible when you try to deal with what isn't in your power. Renegade parts of you want you to waste your powers dealing with them. Your misguided attention to their punishing presence gives them a life they wouldn't have without tricking you into giving them one. This means you don't need power to deal with what's been defeating you, only the higher understanding it takes to consciously dismiss it from your inner life. You have that power now. Start using it. Just behind your certainty that your tasks are too much for you lies a new and conscious capability to proceed one step at a time, to accomplish one task at a time, to your satisfaction.