Looking For A Life Goals List? Try This Instead

The way I see it, our existence as human beings is determined by the extend to which we can build these five power pillars of wellbeing:

Financial. Mental. Physical. Social. Spiritual.

How far we get in our individual missions varies significantly.

An individual may, at best, enjoy fleeting phases of life where all five pillars support their existence and the existence of the people they love.

For a moment — a preciously brief moment — you may feel unstoppable.

And then something happens.

The Natural Process Of Expansion And Contraction Within The Human Experience

While all of the secrets of the Universe aren’t clear to us mere humans, the intention to build those five support pillars seems to be as noble a pursuit as any.

Do you have all five pillars to stand upon, giving you the energetic bliss of peace and joy?

I doubt it. I do not, currently.

I’m 33. In hindsight, I can appreciate two periods in my adult life where I had it (mostly) together with my life goals list.

The first was from age 22-25. The second was from age 29-32.

These were largely enjoyable phases of exploration and expansion. I felt more confident. I had direction.

I experienced growth in a more obvious sense and felt some kind of existential relief.

And then…

Suddenly, one key pillar crumbles or shatters altogether.

You stumble. You try to keep it together. But that period of relative balance has finished.

Then it can get really messy. You feel overwhelmed, as one pillar breaking down is often followed by another, then another.

For some people, this disorienting part of the journey will begin with a loss of financial safety. Examples:

• a job layoff

• a failed business

• a bank scam

• burning through your savings

Or, it could be a loss of social safety. Examples:

• a family dispute

• a divorce

• general loneliness

It’s not uncommon that when the disintegration process takes place, the individual is only left with one power pillar only to stand upon — the spiritual pillar.

A strong faith or belief in a life force or creator bigger than you, that is looking after you despite all of the challenges, can offer safety.

When that goes too, or never existed for the individual, what keeps the human being alive?

Who knows.

They’re drifting in the void, desperate to stand on something solid again. Anything.

In my own experience, it has been the physical and mental health pillars that have been the most difficult to navigate.

Chronic health conditions affect millions of people worldwide. When your body is in near-constant pain or fatigue and you feel highly stressed, life ain’t pretty.

On each occasion that my physical and mental health has weakened, I’ve had to rely more heavily on the other three pillars — financial, social, and spiritual.

The financial support pillar was key in that thanks to my own (and my family’s) sensibility with money, funds were available to afford treatments and time to recover while unable to work.

We’re not talking millions here. But it was enough for there to be no real threat of being unable to get food and shelter.

That’s a blessing in itself.

The social support pillar was key in that I’ve always maintained a good relationship with my parents, a core group of friends, and a partner that stuck by me despite not being able to function anywhere close to “normal” for years.

Having a small group of people to reassure and love me throughout the setbacks is another blessing, even if I felt immense guilt at having to rely on them.

Finally, the spiritual support pillar was a vital addition over time. It offered me a certain connection that I could “surrender into” to help me bear more suffering than I thought I could handle.

A belief that “this suffering won’t last forever, there’s something peaceful beyond it” can keep you in the game, whether it is indeed true or not.

If it feels true, that’s enough.

Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day — Just Like Amphitheatres, Your Pillars Take Time To Come To Fruition

Perhaps a lifetime.

You may yet to have experienced all five power pillars supporting you in union.

In truth, you may never.

But, hey, you may as well roll the dice and see what happens, right?

I can think of nothing more satisfying than to see — and feel — yourself became stronger physically, mentally, financially, socially, and spiritually.

The flip side of the coin is there’s nothing more heart-breaking than to see your pillars shatter after so much time and effort.

So many years of emotional investment into a marriage that’s failing and doomed to fall apart.

So many years of late nights and stress getting that business off the ground, only to see the market shift and render your product useless.

So many years of athletic training, only to suffer a long-term injury and lose all of your progress.

Identity loss — fear and despair hijack your body and mind.

“I can’t come back from this,” you think. “Not again… I’ve got nothing left in the tank.”

And sometimes you don’t.

But often there is an unlikely route back to another enjoyable phase of expansion.

A return to growth. To experience more tolerable strength and security.

You’ll need to examine your limiting beliefs. Keep a tab on them.

It takes a willingness to explore any viable opportunity to get your life “moving forward” again, no matter how slow progress is.

This Can Take You To The Limits Of Sanity, TBH

When you find yourself in an “everything is falling apart” spiral, it can feel as if you’re losing your mind trying to rebuild after such significant loss.

Your life goals list goes out the window.

You won’t know how to get back on track. That’s OK.

Your confidence will be shaken. This is also OK.

There will be phases of life where your chief mission is simply to stay in the game.

To go through multiple phases of losing the game and suffering setback after setback is normal.

Just keep playing.

Keep rolling the dice until you get a few sixes, stop sliding down snakes, and start ascending ladders.

Your life’s work is to explore opportunities for growth in all five areas — financial, mental, physical, social, and spiritual.

You cannot guarantee outcomes. I was a fool to ever think my 10-year goals would go according to plan.

But at least I set my intention. I oriented my focus towards that intention.

This choice is your only locus of control. The Universe decides the rest, in my opinion.

Beyond that choice, a natural disaster could take you out. A plane crash. A grand piano falling from the 12th floor of a Manhattan apartment.

Lord knows!

Set your intentions and return to them daily. Try to accept the uncertainty. That you will never know what will happen.

When taking this approach, enough glimmers of hope and motivation can be presented to you to keep you going on your darkest days.

Fate will take care of outcomes, for better or worse. That’s not your responsibility.

One Power Pillar To Rule Them All?

If you told me about this concept of the five support pillars at the age of 18, I imagine I’d have glossed over the spiritual piece.

What’s your relationship with the word “spiritual”?

I thought religion was nonsense for a long time. I didn’t believe in God, though I didn’t identify as being an atheist either.

I’d have presumed spiritual faith meant following a specific religion. Or reading old books and believing there is an old, bearded man in the sky looking over us.

I wasn’t raised in a family that had a religion or discussed spirituality. And I had not yet encountered a level of personal suffering great enough to question my experience.

To question why I was here or what was the point of all this.

I don’t believe you can force yourself to feel a spiritual connection or support. People can work themselves into a real funk because they want to feel there is something greater than themselves, something more magical, but they don’t.

Breakthroughs and new insights will happen whenever they happen.

In my case, it took layers of personal identity to be stripped away and broken down to discover a form of spiritual strength. I did not will this into existence.

Fateful circumstance brought it to me. I was most surprised when it did happen.

Less logic, more intuition. Less thinking, more feeling.

Reflecting back on a memorable moment of insight and what followed over the following months still gives me the chills — in a nice way. A warm chill, if that even makes sense!

The point is, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t feel spiritually supported. If you’re drifting through life trying to make things happen but feeling alone.

Just keep the “door” ever so slightly open to new perspectives and possibilities.

You may find yourself amazed by what can step in to support you when your financial, mental, social, and physical strength is depleted.

Deep stuff.

Declan Davey