I used to really enjoy goal setting. Back when I was a project manager several years ago, planning stuff out was pretty much my daily gig. I was good at it, and I really enjoyed it.

But when I veered away from that path and onto this one of inner voice led evolving, there was a choice to move away from a mind-controlled life.

And one of the primary ways the mind had controlled things was through structured planning, via things like SMART goals, to-do lists, vision statements for each area of the life, and scheduling everything out.

It’s so common when you’re choosing to step towards ways of being guided from within to feel the need to release all that structure. I can’t count the times I’ve heard to-do lists and goal setting getting pooh-poohed by spiritual people I respect.

And there were times on my journey when I let go of those structured ways of flowing life through as well.

But ultimately there was a sadness and feeling of misalignment with this idea that to be spiritual, I “shouldn’t” use structured methods of planning. It felt like denying key areas of competency and personality attributes of the human character, attempting to make the human smaller to just do things the Being way.

And while it was needed at times to let go of any and all planning methods when they were used as means of mind control, along the way it’s become abundantly clear that structure is needed to get pretty much anywhere, make an impact, and create anything of meaningful and lasting value in the human realm.

That’s because the human place is a place of form. And form needs structure. And it’s the gig of humans to create form — not the purview of the inner being.

It’s totally valid to take a break from all that planning though. For really life-giving methods of developing structure that spirit can flow through, there needs to be a lot of maturity and understanding to be able to handle having goals and a to-do list without reverting to using it as a means to control the life by egoic mind.

Coming into new ways of working as being-through-human with even using planning methods and lots of structure was a major theme for me in 2023. Around the beginning of the year, I had received a lot of teaching from inner voice around goals, such as this:

'A goal is its own energetic entity. When this is entered into, purpose is experienced. The mind may mistake this as a means to come to the sense of purpose and fulfillment in itself, but when it is us expressing, none of these old mental means are needed or come into play.

And this:

'A goal is an energy container that enables a stepping into beyond where it has been. It is bringing an aspect that we are with here from no form into a dimension where this may be played with, explored, and ultimately created from.

And also this:

'A goal is filling the human with light, energy, and intensity towards creating a specific substance into some version of form in its own unique way. It isn’t a means to achieve and come to an endpoint as the mind would imagine.

The inner voice had also been abundantly clear that goals do not need to be time-bounded, as the being-through-human way of working isn’t based on pushing to meet a deadline, though there can be scheduled dates for things that are based on what is actually available to bring, and those dates can be met.

Using due dates in time to motivate the human to work harder, faster felt all to familiar to the old task-mastering, slave-driving methods the mind uses to gets humans to do stuff. So the play of 2023 was learning to be with goals and projects while holding the concept of completing it by a certain date a lot looser.

But in approaching this new year of 2024, it felt like there were still some questions left. What about the rest of the whole “SMART goals” idea?

Now if you’re not a goal-planning geek like I used to be, you might be unfamiliar with what SMART goals are, but if you were to Google, you’d see approximately 717 million results. It seems like a pretty popular topic for humanity.

SMART in this case is an acronym that’s used to help people create goal statements that are more likely to happen and do something than less intentional or structured methods of goal setting. They’re used extensively in business contexts, and were totally prevalent in the global corporation where I worked from 2012 to 2018.

Here’s how the acronym goes:

• S — Specific
• M — Measurable
• A — Achievable (or Attainable)
• R — Relevant (or Realistic)
• T — Time-Bound (or Timely)

There’s about a gazillion graphics online teaching all about SMART goals and how to write them.

And I’m going to say right here that the reason I see that there’s so much about SMART goals online, is because they work. They offer some of the best methods for getting somewhere in the human plane that has yet been developed.

And yet.

The title of this post is “How SMART goals squeeze the life out of purpose-full creation.” So it’s pretty obvious if you’ve been reading along that I’m no longer promoting SMART goals, even though on the human side I can see the apparently valuable functionality they provide for millions of people, and used to bring me too.

As I was hanging out with my bro for a last gasp at Christmas celebrating last week, I was reading in my journal some of the teaching bits from last year about the inner voice perspective on goals (especially the ones I shared above). And the question that brought up for me was this:

Can you do a bunch of projects and achieve a goal, according to the inner voice definition of what a goal is?

That led into a clarity-inducing dialogue about all the other aspects of SMART goals (aside from the time-bound one I’d had answered last year), that I had just assumed were great ways to go about setting up goals.

Specific: the need for clarity and understanding of what the goal is inviting

This is actually the one that seemed the least off-base in the SMART goals version, as the answer I received was that ‘there may be an understanding of what is inviting and developing through this one. This does not need to be vague, but may come with this great clarity that has even been brought.’

This is typical of what I hear from inner voice around the importance of human understanding. When you don’t understand, you can’t fully choose, and developing the sovereign choosing on the human level is vital for a fully healthy relationship with the divine.

So specificity on what you’re choosing to develop in human-land is needed in that you get to understand it. You get to be clear. It doesn’t need to be muddled, and having that clear understanding is critical.

But where the SMART goal “Specific” aspect fails to invite more life through is where it’s really more about just using concrete language to describe what you’re going about doing. There can be a big difference between clear understanding and just using specific-sounding words.

Measurable: squeezing away the infinite to accept only what can be measured

This one is pretty stark in squeezing the life out.

When you’re defining a goal ‘in such a narrow way that it can even be measured, then what is infinite, unmeasurable, and full of meaning is inherently excluded.’

And it’s that infinite aspect that brings the sense of real meaning and purpose to goals. It’s love. And since you can’t put love in a ketchup bottle and squeeze out a tablespoon and say you did the thing, to make a SMART goal, it has to be about what you can measure, which means it has to be merely human, conceptual, something that you can place a ruler next to or count up the instances of (or more frequently the dollars accumulated).

So the real goal, the expression of loving meeting human world in an entirely unique way here, is necessarily excluded from measurement, and is therefore defined away from SMART goals the mind can measure and thereby manage.

Achievable: putting together the projects the human can do to get something meaningless done

The inner voice explained that though a “SMART” goal is designed to be something that can be achieved by multiple projects leading up to it, the center is hollow. A goal that’s filled with meaning and purpose from being is not achievable by humans working within the frame of separation, by mind-led ways. So even when a lot is getting done through the use of SMART goals, it isn’t significant, because it’s divorced from reality.

And though in the being-acting-through-human way of working there is a sense of creating what is available to develop, the inner voice doesn’t prefer the word “achievable”, because it connotes much more of the mind-led version of living than the ‘infinite potentialities of what can occur as we come through it acting.’

Relevant: a way to tie what you’re doing to a specific object that is thought to bring fulfillment but never can

The inner voice version of goals can be thought of as highly relevant, in that the ‘understanding of where [the human] is going is not at all divorced from this dream that lies inside that is born of love.’

But the SMART goals version of relevance squeezes away the life in that it is tied to a specific objective, aka an object. The object is conceptual, like a file folder that doesn’t contain the contents. As the inner voice explained, ‘it is made to be . . . something that leads towards attaining this object that is thought to be the thing that leads to this elusive concept of success or happiness. And even though certain measures of this may even be attained, it is as if it is a shallow puddle compared to the vast ocean that we would invite.’

[Note: I didn’t ask about the other version of “R” that’s sometimes used in the SMART goals acronym, “realistic”, because to me realistic is basically a synonym for achievable, which was already covered.]

Time-bound: a means to push and rush and force to do things faster, to achieve the objects sooner

As mentioned above, the inner voice is really not a fan of pushing to meet deadlines. Some more wisdom, summarized from a February 2023 session:

When there is a line that makes dead, there is a continual rush to meet it and an inevitable sense of behind when meeting it isn’t done. We would not add lines to the time, but bring what’s needed and available in the times that we are with.

SMART goals squeezing the life out of purposeful creation

So if the choice is to ‘come towards this vastly meaningless plan to receive some object’, then SMART goals can definitely help you achieve that. But when the choice becomes to come to ‘the love, to the meaning, that [the human] deeply knows that it is meant for’, then doing a bunch of mind-led projects to achieve a “SMART” goal won’t bring you there.

‘And this is why achieving a number of projects to get towards a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goal may not at all lead to the dream of God, the dream of love.

Epilogue: how I write about goals today

Despite all that doesn’t work about creating goals by mind and then accomplishing them by mind-led projects, that doesn’t mean that there is no goal, or there is nothing to be done here in human world. Quite to the contrary.

I’m still coming into my own emerging understanding of how goals work in a being-through-human kind of life. But these are the goals I wrote during my recent review and visioning retreat, as they stand today:

• Developing Inner Voice Life as a transformational vehicle that’s designed to fully serve those coming into it, to invite them into fluently being guided by Source.
• Continuing on developing the means of bringing the wisdom that has come through Eva into digestible and accessible formats that may inspire and guide those who are coming on this path, make the way available to them, and serve as an example of how this may be done.
• Open towards exuberant expression of love without limits of how this has to be done or in what contexts.
• Continue the development of the human into the teacher and leader for humanity that can foster the transformation needed and fully embody the calling that is presented to it.
• Maintain the core choosing and trusting for the emerging of the being fully through the human in all ways and at all times.

As I re-read these, I notice, there’s intention behind these. There’s a dream of love imbued — and that’s the purpose behind why these exist. There may be recognizable “progress”, where it is seen that it’s happening, and this is to be celebrated. There can be projects related to these — for example related to the first one, I have been working on a project for creating structures needed for the business, and I’m planning another project for developing messaging.

But these aren’t heading towards a specific completion date that can be concretely understood and worked towards by simply human effort. Instead they’re invitings from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, to bring more magic here.

Inner voice session

What follows is the actual inner voice session this post was based on, as well as the transcript of it.

December 30, 2023

Transcript

Question around can you do a bunch of projects and achieve a goal

Okay, I've been reading this morning in these goals and routines, resource, the gems and like trying to understand what goals are. And there was like a bunch of gems around the end of December and January, December 2022 and January 2023, like around what goals are. But I can't say like it feels entirely clear about that, what those really mean.

But I have this question as a starting point is, can you do a bunch of projects and achieve a goal in the definition, the inner voice definition of goal, not the mind definition. Okay, so let's --

'We are here.

Releasing what does not continue to convey the light of truth

'We're here. We are in love and not in fear, and we are ready to speak and continue leading along this journey of understanding, combining what is already seen and apparent out here with what is known from in here and releasing that which does not continue to convey this light of truth.

And I'm getting a picture of like almost like if you're going through a funnel, and like, but on the sides is like this clear material, but it's like the truth is this light inside of it, sort of like ideas of wormholes too, but not really exactly that, but it's like, there's a light inside, and the light is truth, but outside is all the concepts. And it's like you're traveling towards truth and you leave behind old concepts. And it's like those are like wider circles of the funnel. It's like there's sections of it, and each section is like smaller. So it's like there's a section it's like whatever. It's a yeah it's got some width to it. But then you pass that and then the next width, and it's like, more narrow and it's going towards the truth. But the truth is the light in it, and it's like okay, so I followed that analogy, picture.

Where was I before the picture? Okay, releasing that which does not continue to convey the light of truth. So it was like, like letting go of that. Because the light was seen there, but then it continued, then you leave behind that layer, or that section, those concepts. Is that what you're showing?

'This is so.

What concepts are ready to leave?

'Where we are inviting, where we are showing around these even greater increased functionalities with how to work, act, how we may act through this human with this full sovereignty in place within the human realm.

The hollowness of SMART goals

So Eva was just reading some definitions from a year ago around what goals are. Is that still what you're showing that goals are?

'Yes.

So then, can we, can a human complete a bunch of projects and achieve a goal?

'Yes and no.

How yes?

'If there is a specific measurable, achievable, relevant, realistic outcome based on this time, this is inherently designed to be something that can be achieved by multiple projects building up to this, as was even seen in this project manager role.

Which was a job Eva had, the last job she had at a corporation.

So then —

'We would even point that these goals simply lead to other more encompassing goals from this mind-based definition. But as the center is hollow —

I mean but does it have to be hollow?

A goal that is full of meaning and purpose is not achievable

Okay how no? How can projects, a bunch of projects not achieve a goal?

'This truer meaning, purpose-full goal is not at all something to simply smartly achieve, is not achievable.

Wait, isn't that "A" achievable? So earlier I Googled SMART goals. And I was looking at images of like different, just yeah. Like what do they call them word picture things about smart goals, and it says what the acronym means, but there's like different versions. And the big question was, is the "R" relevant or realistic, and it was like I think more of them that I saw were relevant, but quite a few were realistic. So there was both but then the A stands for either achievable or attainable which like one of them said attainable and said is it like possible to achieve. So basically they're the same synonyms which yeah, and then one of them was like challenging but not impossible. But that means a human can do it. So for something to be a SMART goal, whichever version you use, attainable or achievable, it needs to be something that a human can do by completing a bunch of projects, each with multiple actions. Is that so?

'Yes. This is the way of working that humans are supposedly able to achieve without any reference to the us being through it acting, but within this frame of separation, imagining itself as its own entity. And this is what it can do.

I mean, but could it still be achievable if it was like being through the human?

'There is a sense of this, but we would not even use this word, because it is far more related to this mind-led life than to the infinite potentialities of what can occur as we come through it acting.

Measurable squeezes out the infinite

'We would look at this other aspect, measurable.

I'm like sensing too, that measurable is like squeezing the life out of it.

'Yes.

'When it is defined in such a narrow way that it can even be measured, then what is infinite, unmeasurable, and full of meaning is inherently excluded.

SMART goals as a way to imagine the separate human is achieving something

Like when we had this conversation before, there was like something around the time-bound like it can't be bound by time, but I just assumed the other aspects were fine. So it's like SMAR goals.

'No. This has been honed and refined to create these means for separated humans to imagine that there's achieving anything of significance. And much can certainly be done by using these means and more enhances the illusion that anything at all is happening. But deep down there is a knowing that this entire scenario is now divorced from reality.

Relevance squeezing the life

'And we go to this "relevance", whichever word for this "R" is used. This may again make squeeze even more life.

How? How does relevance squeeze the life? Shouldn't it be relevant?

'Yes and no.

How yes?

'In that what we are with, meeting with this availability to act may indeed be highly relevant, that this understanding of where it is going is not at all divorced from this dream that lies inside that is born of love.

How no? How does relevance squeeze the life?

'In that it is tied to a specific objective, it is made to be —

Oh my gosh I'm seeing that that word objective it's an, it's about an object. It's an object.

'Yes. And every object is as if it were this file folder and not the life itself.

Oh my gosh.

It is tied okay, how does relevant squeeze the life? It is tied to a specific objective. It is made to be what?

'Something that leads towards attaining this object that is thought to be the thing that leads to this elusive concept of success or happiness. And even though certain measures of this may even be attained, it is as if it is a shallow puddle compared to the vast ocean that we would invite.

Specifics of goals

Can it be specific then?

'Yes, in that there may be an understanding of what is inviting and developing through this one. This does not need to be vague, but may come with this great clarity that has even been brought.

And like during the recent December retreat, there was like really clear coming to like vision and mission, and all of these aspects, potential.

'Yes.

But I was sensing there might be a no there too, to specific. How no? How is specific not what you're inviting?

'There may even be this vast difference between clear understanding and this specific as if concrete language that is even vastly dulled.

Cause they're really just talking about like, I mean really it is about having some understanding of what you're choosing to create or deciding to do, I don't know if it's full choosing necessarily.

'It may even be so.

Can you do a bunch of projects and achieve a goal?

Can you do a bunch of projects and then achieve a goal?

'If this is the choice to come towards this vastly meaningless plan to receive some object, as if it were attempting to own a diamond, or we can even get this picture from this Tangled movie of getting to ultimate wealth, and one step, one project, is to steal this crown.

So there was a, she just recently watched this movie again with the daughter from Disney, Tangled movie, and it has a scene in it of them talking about dreams and then the crook, he says I have dreams, and his dream is to be on an island that he owns, alone surrounded with money, which is like so funny. Like what do you do with money when you're alone? Like it's meaningless. It doesn't do anything when you're alone. Okay, so that's like the object, the island with piles of money. Is that what you're showing?

'Yes. Because it is entirely imagined that coming to this solitary island state with measurable but vast —

I want to say immeasurable, but we're talking about measurable here.

'— piles of money will bring this one to the love, to the meaning, that it deeply knows that it is meant for. But this is not at all so. And this is why achieving a number of projects to get towards a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goal may not at all lead to the dream of God, the dream of love.

'More may come on this as it is ready. We are in love and may complete.

Feels clearer.