How not to confuse the goal with the means?

Why is it important to separate the goal and means? What mistakes can such a confusion lead to? And how to avoid subsequent disappointment?

It is difficult to imagine how you can confuse the bow and arrows with the target itself. But when it comes to the sphere of human desires and ideas, such a mishmash is quite expected. Moreover, a person often falls into a trap. And as a result: disappointment, unjustified expectations and painful experience.

Imagine the most expensive and desired. At this moment, a picture is drawn, where you are one of the main characters. Everything can be depicted on it: the open spaces and sea landscapes, the corporation built by you, the big family in the country house, the book you published and much more. Everything that you portray is an object to which you strive and build your life path.

At first glance, such a picture is your goal. So we are used to thinking. But everything that you draw will not be a desired object, but only a means to gain a state and sensation. Successful business, big and friendly family and even the circulation of your book-behind these objects, each of you will look for something of your own.

Someone will strive for stability, someone for success, someone to satisfy, someone to be loved. And this is what will be the goal. After all, the published book itself does not cost anything, but what we want to get is the effect that its publication will produce on us.

What I want to get from the desired?

This simple question allows you to see a more significant goal. Of course, the problem of honesty arises here: it is difficult for us to admit the true motive. Therefore, we often hide behind the means, pretending it for our purpose. Moral attitudes and restrictions do not allow you to look behind the curtain and sometimes even admit to yourself what we really want.

Analyzing each of your desires, check: what is behind it? For example, the desire for material well -being can hide both a thirst for success, power, and security. Awareness of the true goal will also allow you not only to understand yourself, but also to evaluate the effectiveness and relevance of the chosen means.

What do I want more?

Our desires are contradictory, but because of the thirst for possession and charm, we are not always able to see and understand the contradiction. For example, you are building a large and beautiful country house. After living there for several years, you will not get satisfaction from a comfortable and once desired life in it. Why? Because there were no children and grandchildren in the house for whom you wanted to build a house.

It turns out, on the one hand, you wanted comfort and beauty, and on the other hand – family and relationships. Desert rooms at home now bring disappointment. How to prioritize? Answer the question: “What will I choose to live in a large beautiful house without children/grandchildren, or live with grandchildren/children, but without a home?”Such a mental experiment allows you to determine what is of great value for you.

The abandonment of one of the options can be painful, but it will be useful for self -awareness and work with its greed. Therefore, the answer “both that and that” in this case is not accepted.

What will happen if I do not get what I want?

Sometimes it seems to us that what is desired is what we want. Due to beliefs, social attitudes or past experience, we continue to want the usual. Answering this question, we shift the focus of attention to the process itself. This reflection also allows you to see the degree of attachment to the chosen goal. And realize the level of our lack of freedom. In this case, a space is created to reassess the value of the goal itself.

On vacation, you expect to get the necessary level of comfort. In study, you are waiting for a certain set and volume of knowledge. Disappointment will come if your expectations do not live up. But if you shift the focus from the purpose of entering the learning

process, then an internal reassessment of values will occur. In this case, the product becomes the goal.

When the path itself becomes a goal, we cease to be hostages of the result. Changes and unpredictability of life will not bring disappointment if we are open and flexible not only to external, but also to internal processes. After all, if your goal is to enjoy, love and interest, then the tool itself ceases to matter.