Do we lack goals, ambition, motivation and drive?

[charlieHungerford]

I was in a book shop last week reading about confidence and one section was discussing that one key part to becoming confident and building self worth, self esteem, basically becoming self confident was that we need to have real goals, real ambitions that we desperately want and that we are aiming to work towards all the time.

I only read it briefly but I remember it saying that in order to develop self confidence we need to increase self worth, to be achieving things, succeeding in things, basically progressing in our lifes. When our life is on standstill and we are achieving nothing and we see others move on all the time and move up the career ladder, develop relationships, move on, etc, you do subconsciously lose self worth. When you are not progressing career wise, when you are not living any sort of social life, when you are single and remain single, etc - you just really beat yourself up believing you're not good enough to get these things.

But do any of us have real goals and ambitions that we are working hard at achieving and so motivated to make them come true? I am working hard on overcoming SA, but I really am not working on improving any situations in my life.

How important do you think having goals and ambitions which are not just pipe dreams but real targets that we want and are so determined to make happen to get our life where we want it - how important is that in starting to believe in yourself and progress in overcoming SA?

And I suppose the other question is - is it possible for us to have these goals and ambitions when we seem to lack so much confidence? When I see really progressive dynamic driven ambitious people, they are all really confident and self assured. Something I am far from being.

I feel 2007 is a really important year for me, if I am still exactly where I am in life this time next year I will be honest and say I don't see me ever getting where I want to in life. But maybe if I can see I have made real progress by achieving things in the next year it will give me real belief and hope that I will get to where I want to be.

 

[Screwdriver1020]

fdsafweafsdfasdfasd

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

I don't know about this question, because it seems like there are more than a few aspects regarding being a go-getter.

I think I am quite ambitious -in fact, I know I am.
some people have thought of me as lacking in goals -and I think this just proves their short-sidedness and lack of understanding.
...Sometimes I actually think that my problem is that I am too goal-oriented.

But I've read that if a person is really clear without doubts about what is best for them -then this is the same as concious awareness. ....but I think that this is rare and involves a near-perfect clarity about what to do and what is best.

 

[applesewer]

I definitely agree that having goals is important...I have goals in art...I want to create the best art in the world...I wanna blow people's minds...I think music and art is where I'm gifted, and I can work on all these things despite my social anxiety, cause I can do them in my room and use the internet to display them. Infact in some ways I think my social anxiety has made my art better.

But for the last one and a half years I've been going through a real shit patch, I seem to have lost all my desires and goals...I just don't know what I want out of life anymore...and this lack of purpose and direction is definitely the thing that's hurting me the most.....because when I used to have purpose I could focus my mind and prune my life and so long as I was progressing well, nothing else mattered....I could go into very socially anxious situations and totally embarrass myself, and it wouldn't bother me...well, at least, not deep down inside where it counts.

So I guess you gotta find the thing you love and then go after it....and I guess you do that by just trying stuff out....experiment, try new things etc.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Really interesting replies.

I can relate to all of what you write.
Worrywort - what you wrote could have been written by me word for word. I don't know when, why or how but all my ambitions, desires and what I wanted in life have just gone. I don't have them anymore. I don't know what I want any more and I don't know what is next for me. Is it any wonder therefore my life is on standstill and I am in this rut? I think you are right worrywort that we have to find out what we want. Because I mean we do want things in life, we clearly want to be happy and live a life where we feel excited.

Screwdriver - yeah I too am in same sort of situation in life. I too would like to meet someone BUT if this is what we really really wanted right now, wouldn't we be doing things to make this happen? We could try meeting new women, could try things like dating agencies, or doing new activities so that we meet women. Maybe there is someone at work you like and could really aim to somehow get to know her. There is a girl at work I absolutely fancy loads, but I am scared stiff of her - I have kind of made out she is so nice, she has a far better job than me, she is confident, she is nice natured, she is pretty, etc, then I look at myself and have all these negative images of myself that I am simply not good enough, that she wouldn't even notice I exist. The only thing I am good enough for is personality, but I have it in my mind that no woman is interested in a guy unless he looks good, and I am certain she won't think that I do.
So, yeah I would like a girlfriend definitely - I would be so happy to have someone I like so much in my life, but there is something clearly wrong, because if I really really wanted it I would be so motivated to make it happen. Is this an example that SA/suffering a real lack in confidence in certain aspects of life really does block ambitions? I mean I am scared stiff of women as I feel so inadequate, so inferior, so not good enough, I get so self conscious and have no belief in myself - all things I am trying to change. Can you be motivated to get something when you are scared of it?

Littlemissmuffet - how real are your ambitions? I mean I have ambitions like I would love to travel to so many places, i.e. around Europe - especially Switzerland. I would love to see Japan and Hong Kong. But, I wouldn't want to do this by myself as I want to share the experience with someone I like, someone to chat to, have nice meals with, have fun with, etc. I don't want to do it alone. Ideally I would love to do all that with a girlfriend, but as you can see from above I am scared of women as I feel so inferior and not good enough, I just focus on all my perceived negatives and have it so fixed in my mind of all the negative feedback I ahave had from women in the past. Until I sort that out none of this ambition can happen. Are your ambitions restricted like this or are you actually working on making your ambitions come true?

Do we need to believe we have it in us to succeed and can handle these situations in order for us to really motivate ourself to go for it?

As I write this I seem to have come to the conclusion that I need to beat SA in order to make these ambitions/dreams come true. But isn't that wrong because I am just thinking about my safety bubble and not wanting to leave it?

 

[Jack-B]

I personally feel goals are very important.

We need direction and its easy to waste our time on things that are of little importance to us:

For example, our anxiety seems quite important, we focus on it, think about it, worry about it, when its not really that important. We can have a goal to not think of our anxiety as so important and consider something else, like the welfare and happiness of others as more important so that in our mind, it becomes a bigger focus point, thereby reducing our anxiety and increasing our love for others.

So i feel that a goal we can all share is making our anxiety less important by seeing how others are more important to us.

Confidence is built on having small manageable goals, simple, happy progress. There is nothing that cannot be accomplished in a skillful patient way. We overwhelm ourself with expectations and unrealistic targets that we fall short and suffer greatly but small goals lead to big rewards. Of course we can still have big goals but smaller goals that lead the way.

From my own personal experience i can say that small goals are easy to meet, be happy with it, grow, up the goal, challenge, be happy with it, great courage and tremendous inner strength comes from small manageable goals. This is all within the context of inner goals, im not talking about external accomplishment - that of course is based on inner goals.

Jack

 

[Moonie]

I think I have goals. But for me, my goals always seem to take longer than others. I don't fret too much, because I know that I have to work a little harder around the SA. My main goal is to just graduate college. But I also want to go on to get a masters or some sort. I have always been driven in educational goals, but really what I need to do after I graduate is try to make achievements in social goals. I've always had this mind frame that things will get better after middle school, maybe HS, after college... So I have just been focused on my education. My goals after graduation is to do something unexpected or adventerous, something I wouldn't normally do.