When on the journey to achieving your goals, it’s really important to make sure that you don’t get off track for too long. I know it sounds like something pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised how easily your Mind can trick you by swaying you off your path.

For example, for the last few weeks, I noticed my mind was trying to get me to stop writing articles often. It was filling up my schedule with things to do so that it would seem like I would not have enough time.

It was roughly a month ago when I started pulling back from my work to focus on my coming exams. That was understandable, given that it was part of my goal to do well in my grades. But after that, I was so busy getting ready for my band performances, that I didn’t really take the time to sit down and write. After my first gig for the holiday season, I was preparing for our next one at the 3rd Annual ET Ideas Award Night. It was a grand event that was very beautifully organized and executed by our fellow ET Ideas Associates.

Still, there was something not quite right. I noticed that in all the excitement that was going on, my goal repetition was slowing down. This is one of the tricks of the Subconscious Mind. It doesn’t always used unhappiness or negative emotions to slow you down, sometimes it uses excitement and thrill to busy your Mind so that you don’t stay focused on your goals.

The thing is, people often do not see or suspect the damage that these positive emotions can cause. You’d normally think that the tools we use to calm down our emotions, like S.I.E.P or deep breaths, are only needed when emotions such as anger or sadness rise high. Little do we actually realize that an extreme of either emotion has both its good and bad points (The Law of Opposites- www.ascendancepro.com).

My mentor, Elango Thiyagu (www.elangothiyagu.com) mentions this often in his talks and blogs. Yet even though I knew it in theory, I only actually understood what he meant when I went through it myself for a couple of times. I was actually in denial the first time my Mind used this card against me. I thought that since I was already aware of the dangers of the high- rising extremes of both emotions, it would not affect me. That’s actually a good example of how your Mind uses knowledge against you. It took me a while to realize that my excitement was bringing me further away from my goals.

You’d wonder how it’s possible that positive emotions can get you off track as well. I mean, don’t positive emotions hype you up and motivate you to get your work done? That’s true! In fact, involving emotions in your goals help you get more involved in them and achieve them faster, if you use your emotions properly. That’s why it’s easier to work and achieve something that you already have a burning passion for!

So how do these emotions get you off track again? You see, the problem only occurs when you get too entangled in those emotions. When you get too hyped up and carried away in your excitement you’d find that you aren’t really repeating your goals, your thoughts would be focused on being excited not on achieving the results or working on the goal itself.

It’s like going on a holiday to celebrate a festival or event, it’s fun at that moment but you can’t keep going back to that moment once you’re back to working on your goals. You’d then need to switch your festive mood back to the burning passion that drives you to be productive. The sooner you switch, the faster you get on track. It’s fine to take a break to have fun and let loose every once in a while, but it doesn’t benefit anyone to keep going back to it once you’re supposed to be back to being productive.

So enjoy the fun moments, but don’t get carried away in all the excitement. Come back to the feeling of doing what you love and stay on track.

 

• Harsha