Lethargy comes when we don’t know where we’re heading. Whether it’s individually, as a team, in a partnership or as an organisation. We end up plodding along when there’s no clear direction or aim. Life can seem a bit grey, and we can feel a little lost. Not having an aim, or a direction, can feel purposeless and can gnaw away at our sense of significance or contribution.
Realising this, and then finding a way to create some aims can spark feelings of buoyancy. Aims can be like flickers of light in the distance that feel hopeful to head towards.
Having an aim doesn’t have to be grand, it can be as simple as paying off some credit card debt, or clearing out a cupboard. An aim can be manageable and easy.
Creating a sense of forward motion in an area of our lives can trigger feelings of energy and momentum that spread to other areas too. For example, I have loved training for long runs in the past because the aim and achievement around it has helped me feel motivated in more complex areas – such as setting up and running a new organisation.
Simple aims can be powerful energisers.
Bigger aims can be energising too. They can help us feel expansive, and hopeful, and excited about all that is to come. A bigger aim could be setting up a new life in a different country, or starting a new innovative project or strand to the organisation you lead. It could be walking the Pacific Crest Trail, it could be buying a dream home.
Setting powerful aims that might require a little more from us, that might mean we need to stretch into uncertainty can be powerful energisers too.
I’d argue we need both. We need the smaller, more manageable and achievable aims, and we need the big visions, the dreams, that we’re heading towards. The smaller aims remind us we are capable of achieving stuff, and the bigger aims allow us to imagine how amazing life, and we, can really be.
Both incredibly energising right?
So what are your aims? What are your organisation’s aims? What are your aims in your relationships? I’d love to hear.
With love, Hannah
If you would like some support creating a vision, getting energised, and being held accountable to staying on track, contact hannah@birdmovement.comtoday to arrange an exploratory call with one of our CTI trained coaches.
Photo by Goran Vučićević on Unsplash