Creative Goal Setting II

Here is an exercise to help you create a future goal. It consists of five steps.

Step 1. Think of where you will be in the future. Notice what it looks like in as full detail as you can.

Step 2. See yourself in this future world you are creating in your imagination. See yourself achieving your goals. Notice all the details. Get a sense of what that looks and feels like.

Step 3. Define your goal as best as you are now able to. See your goal positively; it is what you do and have, not what you avoid. It is something you want to do and have, not feel compelled to do or have. You are doing it, not someone else; what is it that YOU are doing? Make your goal as specific as possible, not general. Consider how your goal affects all areas of your life as well as the lives of those you know. How is your goal going to change the total picture of your life?

Step 4. Take your time to envision all details of your life through achieving your goal. What does it look like, feel like; how do you feel in it physically and emotionally; how is it changing the way you see and understand your life; how does it affect your relationships; what kinds of situations does it bring you into; see it in full dimentionality. You may want to write all this down in your journal. You may even want to draw pictures of it.

Step 5. Consider the pathway toward the goal. It helps sometimes to see the path going backwards from your goal to your present situation and note the steps from the future to the present. Then view your pathway from your present situation to your future goal. Write down all that you can about the pathway that you see.


Active Imagination Exercise

Active imagination is when you write down your feelings, thoughts, hopes and wishes, and so on, and then let another part of you write its views and feelings in response to what you are writing. You enter a dialogue between different parts of your personality in Active Imagination. When you do this, you are able more and more to see a larger picture of your personality and your talents, and, as this happens, you are more and more able to see what it is that you want in your life. This exercise will open many windows. You can do this exercise very easily especially when you write down an interesting dream and then begin to communicate with the dream figures, that is to say, communicate with the different people in your dreams. Write to them and let them write back to you. It is like role playing. You may be surprised at how much you will discover.
Your goal in active imagination is to get the answer to your question about what you want to do in the future in your career. You can do active imagination for other areas of your life as well. Active imagination is a great exercise used in healing work, by the way.
You may want to get into a dialogue with the part of yourself that is interested in making more money. You may want get into a dialogue to the part of yourself that is interested in developing creative work, or that part of you that wants to play a more meaningful role in society, and so on. Active imagination is essentially an inner dialogue that you are writing down and developing in your journal. It is wonderful when you can go back and read the messages you are writing back and forth. You are writing letters to parts of yourself and are recieving letters in response from those inner parts of yourself. Give yourself time to do this. It can be a very enriching experience and will help solve many questions.

Another Approach to Finding Out What You Want To Do

You can look at yourself as a being with different levels or dimentions, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

1. In your journal write down your physical goals, your goals for your physical health, your sexuality, your living environment, your home, and your finances. Be specific.

2. Write down your emotional goals, your personal life, your relationships, your social relationships, your family relationships; what do you want to attain in these? What do you want to feel? How do you want to be with the people in your life? Are there any relationships that need healing, reconciling, more attention, less attention? What conditions do you want to have for yourself in your emotional life? Be as specific as possible.

3. Write down your mental, intellectual, spiritual, creative goals. It is necessary in this not to be concerned with what limits you. Write down what you want free of concerns of any or all limitations. Let your imagination go free in this step.

4. Ask yourself about your physical, emotional, and mental/spiritual/creative goals in different time frames. First, if you have several decades to live, what are your goals? Second, if you have ten years to live, what are your goals? Third, if you have five years to live, what are your goals? Fourth, if you have two years to live, what are your goals? Fifth if you have one year to live, what are your goals? Sixth, if you have six months to live, what are your goals?

5. Consider yourself as if you were your grandchild talking about her grandparent who passed away. What would you have to say about yourself that way? How will you be remembered. What did you do in your life that you are remembered for? How was your life summed up? Write all this down in your journal.


www.creativehypnotherapy.org