Your biggest goals might be the wrong ones entirely. I know that sounds harsh, but after years of chasing achievements that left me feeling empty, I’ve learned something crucial about desire and fulfillment.
We’re bombarded with should-do’s and must-haves. Society tells us what success looks like. Our families have expectations. Our friends are pursuing certain paths. With all that noise, it’s surprisingly easy to adopt goals that were never truly ours to begin with.
Let’s be real – there’s a massive difference between what we think we want and what our souls are actually crying out for. And when we prioritize goals that aren’t aligned with our deepest desires? That’s when life starts feeling like we’re swimming upstream against a current that never stops.
When Your Soul Whispers Something Different
Remember when you were a kid and knew exactly what you loved? You didn’t need to make pros and cons lists. You didn’t overthink it. You just knew.
Somewhere along the way, most of us lost that clarity. We started choosing paths based on what made logical sense or what would impress others. We buried our true desires under practical considerations.
Aron had this client once – a successful attorney making serious money who would literally get sick to her stomach every Sunday night thinking about Monday morning. Six years of law school, a corner office, and the respect of her colleagues. She had prioritized all the “right” goals according to everyone else’s standards.
But her soul was screaming for something else. It took a breakdown in the bathroom of a courthouse for her to finally admit the truth: she’d never wanted to be a lawyer. Her deepest desire was actually to teach children with special needs.
The goals she had prioritized weren’t wrong objectively – they just weren’t hers. They weren’t aligned with what she truly desired.
The Emotional Test For Your Goals
How do you know if your goals are actually aligned with your deepest desires? It’s not through logic – it’s through emotion.
This is where Napoleon Hill was brilliant. He understood that desire isn’t just wanting something – it’s a burning, almost painful longing. It’s emotional. It’s visceral. It’s what makes you come alive.
Try this: Think about each major goal you’re pursuing right now. As you think about it, notice what happens in your body:
– Does energy rise up in you? – Do you feel lighter or heavier? – Can you feel enthusiasm in your chest? – Or do you feel a subtle dread? – Does your breathing change?
Your body doesn’t lie. When a goal is truly aligned with your deepest desires, there’s an unmistakable physical response – sometimes it’s excitement, sometimes it’s calm certainty, sometimes it’s just a feeling of rightness.
If you feel nothing – or worse, if you feel resistance – that’s a flashing warning sign. You might be prioritizing someone else’s definition of success.
Stop Trying to Want What You Don’t Want
Look, one of the strangest things we do as humans is try to convince ourselves to want things we don’t actually want.
We think: “I should want this promotion.” “I should want to live in this neighborhood.” “I should want to pursue this relationship.”
But desire doesn’t work that way. Real desire – the kind that fuels manifestation – can’t be manufactured or forced. It’s either there or it’s not.
Real talk: you can’t prioritize goals effectively if you’re working with a list of things you’ve talked yourself into wanting.
Instead, start with honest questions:
– What would I pursue if no one was watching? – What activities make me lose track of time? – When have I felt most alive and engaged? – What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail? – What dreams have I had since childhood that never went away?
Your answers might surprise you. They might seem impractical or random. They might not fit neatly into your current life. That’s okay – that’s actually a good sign that you’re getting closer to your authentic desires.
The Desire Intensity Method to Prioritize Goals
Once you’ve identified goals that genuinely resonate with your deepest desires, you still need to prioritize them. Not all aligned goals are created equal.
Here’s a simple but powerful method we’ve developed:
1. Write down each goal that passed your emotional test
2. For each goal, rate these three factors on a scale of 1-10: – PULL: How strongly does this goal draw you toward it? – PAIN: How painful would it be to not achieve this? – PERSISTENCE: How long has this desire been with you?
3. Multiply these three scores together
The goals with the highest total scores represent your most intense desires – the ones with the greatest manifestation potential. These are the goals to prioritize.
This isn’t just about being efficient with your time and energy – though it is that too. It’s about recognizing that in manifestation work, the intensity of desire creates the power behind the manifestation.
As Napoleon Hill put it: “The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”
What If Nothing Feels Right?
Sometimes we go through periods where nothing feels like it aligns with our deepest desires. Nothing passes the emotional test. Nothing ignites that fire within us.
This isn’t failure – it’s feedback. It’s a sign that we may need to clear away the accumulated debris of shoulds and expectations before our authentic desires can emerge.
Sharon went through this a few years back. Every goal she thought she should be pursuing felt flat. So she stopped pursuing goals altogether for a while. She focused instead on experiences – trying new things without any goal or purpose other than curiosity.
She took a pottery class. She hiked on Tuesdays. She read books outside her usual interests. She had conversations with strangers. She gave herself permission to wander.
And it was in that wandering that she rediscovered what truly mattered to her. Her authentic desires had been there all along – they were just buried under years of other people’s expectations.
Sometimes you need to stop prioritizing goals altogether before you can prioritize the right ones.
The Daily Reminder That Keeps You Aligned
Even once you’ve identified and prioritized goals aligned with your deepest desires, the world has a way of pulling you off course. The noise returns. The shoulds creep back in.
This is why we need daily practices to stay connected to our authentic desires:
– Keep a visible reminder of your prioritized goals where you’ll see it every morning – Spend 5 minutes visualizing the feeling of achieving these aligned goals – Ask yourself regularly: “Does this still light me up?” – Be willing to adjust as your desires evolve and change
The secret to prioritizing goals that align with your deepest desires isn’t a one-time exercise – it’s an ongoing relationship with yourself. It’s a constant conversation between your conscious mind and your deeper knowing.
And remember, meaningful goals feel different from superficial ones. They have gravity. They have substance. When you’re pursuing goals aligned with your deepest desires, you don’t need willpower to stay motivated – the desire itself pulls you forward.
So take some time today to honestly assess your goals. Which ones are truly yours? Which ones light that fire within you? Those are the ones to prioritize.
Because ultimately, the most powerful thing you can do for your manifestation practice is to be brutally honest about what you truly desire. Everything else is just noise.