Achieving last year’s goals hasn’t made me happy. Here’s what I’m doing in 2024 instead.

[00:00:00]

Intro

Nirish Shakya: If you're a high achiever who's still feeling unfulfilled despite last year's successes, then you're not alone. Are you overwhelmed with the pressure to do even more this year amidst the hustle of goal setting and resolutions that you see on social media?

What if there is a different path to joy and fulfillment in 2024? Join me as we explore three intentions that could transform your year into an enriching journey rather than just another race to the finish line. 

Setting and achieveing goals

Nirish Shakya: Hello and welcome to Season 5 of the Design Feeling Podcast. I'm your host Nirish Shakya. As we start a brand new year, it's a time when many of us [00:01:00] set resolutions and goals for the year. I had set many goals for myself last year, and In my recent yearly reflection, I noticed that I had ticked off quite a number of those goals.

And in fact, I had achieved so many goals for myself that I actually feeling so exhausted But I also noticed that my mind latched on more strongly to the goals that I had not achieved. And that made me feel like shit. That made me feel like how I wasn't good enough and I needed to work even harder this year.

See, it's so easy to get caught in the cycle of goal setting and exhaustion and self loathing. And if you're an average lucky human being, your life will probably last [00:02:00] around 80 years, which is around 4, 000 weeks as Oliver Burkeman puts us in his book with the same title.

Now how many of these weeks have you spent working hard and feeling exhausted and, Hating yourself for not working harder.

Nirish Shakya: Last year I had a really profound realization actually. It was in a, in a workshop that I attended. It was an intense week long artist workshop called the Creative Body Process. I'll actually put a link to the workshop in the show notes if you're interested, the realization that I had in this workshop was how I'd been treating my life as a mountain to climb.

My career was a mountain, even my hobby like photography was a mountain, even my mindfulness practice was a mountain to me. It was all about this continuous climbing higher and higher and higher. [00:03:00] And mountains can be a very useful metaphor for life. You know, it represents a challenge, a journey, and growth.

But it can also represent comparison. You know, when you compare yourself against other people who might be higher than you. And it can also make you treat life as this perpetual challenge to overcome. And that led me to ask myself, what if the mountain metaphor is an incomplete metaphor?

I mean, if we look around you, like on planet Earth, you know, planet Earth is not just made up of mountains. It also has valleys and rivers and forests and deserts. But if we treat our life just as a mountain, then we miss out on all these other different experiences. So, [00:04:00] that led me to a question. What would a metaphor for life that includes the full spectrum of all these natural terrains would look like? So this year, I'm allowing myself to explore that metaphor more intentionally.

And yes, I do have goals I want to achieve, but I've also set three intentions that allow me to enjoy the journey a bit more. And these three intentions are, one, to play without purpose. Two, to express myself more holistically and authentically. And three, to have faith in the process. The reason I picked these three intentions was that they are fully under my control No one can take away my ability to act on them.

Play without purpose

Nirish Shakya: So my first intention for 2024 is to play without purpose. You see, when we're kids, we play just for the sheer joy of it. But as we grow [00:05:00] into serious goal driven adults, we kind of lose that spontaneity. And everything that we do must have a purpose. And this constant need for purpose can really weigh you down and stop you from being here and now.

And yes, some games we play to win, but others, we can play to just play. And you know, and play can be anything that you enjoy. Your hobbies, games, art. Something that my wife and I have been doing recently is to just sing songs after dinner. Again, no purpose, no goals. Just play, just sing songs. I also recently dusted off my old PlayStation and started playing some of my old games on it. And what I noticed from these little sessions of play is that they actually got me into a state of flow.

And if you haven't heard of flow, it was a term coined [00:06:00] by the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. And it's this feeling of intense focus and engagement. When you lose track of time, you know, when you forget to eat and drink and maybe even go to the toilet.

And I'm sure you've had the states many times before. And I, what I noticed about these flow states was that they actually also elevated my mood. They made me feel better, which made it easier for me to focus on my actual work. And research actually shows that getting into these flow states can make you more productive and creative and less stressed.

And that's because flow states feel so good. And you can also bring more play into your work by turning your activities into experiments. 

Ask yourself more what if questions. What if you try a new icebreaker before a big meeting?[00:07:00] What if you send a message to that hiring manager at a company that you want to work for? What might happen? And, you know, this sort of play mindset is a crucial part of the divergent phase of the Double Diamond design framework. You know, play is about unconstrained possibilities, whether they are realistic or not, that doesn't matter. Just go and play. See what happens. What if? So, see if you can take 30 minutes, or 20 minutes, or even 10 minutes today to play without purpose. 

Holistic and authentic self-expression

Nirish Shakya: My Next intention for 2024 is authentic and holistic self expression. And that's another thing that no one can take away from you, regardless of all the external circumstances that you might be in. And it's what I'm doing right now with this episode. And self expression can take any form,[00:08:00] writing, drawing, dancing, whatever you fancy.

And it's also a great way to get things off your head as well. And it's a great way to connect with other people who might be thinking or feeling the same as you. And it is especially important if you want to craft a unique personal brand that can sustain all these changes that we're witnessing in the industry.

Because who you are in your core doesn't have to change, despite everything else around you changing. And self expression does not have to be for others either.

In the book, The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, he says, Your audience comes last. And, This might be, you know, conflicting for a lot of us designers and creatives who make things or design things for our target audience. But what Rick was saying was that you make things for yourself [00:09:00] first. And when you make something truly for yourself, it will resonate with others as well.

And this is especially true with just expressing yourself more authentically. See if you can write something or create something for your own self, whether that's your past self from a couple of years ago, or maybe your future self. 

And in a way, this episode is actually a reminder for myself to remember these intentions if I forget them over the course of the year. But self expression is A lot easier in theory than in practice. For years, I thought I could only blog about UX and that's because I had created this identity for myself, bound by my job title. And when we put ourselves in this invisible box and everything that we hear, say, or do is filtered through it.

And I thought everything that I. Wrote about, you know, posted on online, or spoke about, [00:10:00] had to fit within these boxes that I had fit myself into. And I realized there's such a myopic view of life, and it severely restricted my creativity and self expression. And like Bruce Lee famously put it, you're like water that takes the shape of the container that you're in. And without that container, you're shapeless. And spilling out of that safe container, it can feel really scary. But that's where the possibilities of new and different shapes actually lie. So my friend, you are more than just a designer, or an engineer, or a manager. You're more than just a father, or a mother, daughter, or a son, or a friend. You're more than just your own belief of who you are, or who you think you should be. You're a unique blend of your skills, all your past roles, all your [00:11:00] past lived experiences, and your future imaginations. But expressing yourself can be scary.

I'm feeling shit scared right now, speaking to the microphone and to my camera. You know, all these questions like, what if I mess up? What if I don't say the wrong thing? But what if I don't? What if it resonates with you? See, you don't need the perfect level of courage to express yourself. You just need minimum viable courage or MVC as I like to call it.

You know, think of it like investing money. You just start with whatever savings you got and slowly but surely You will earn interest or dividends on that, which you can reinvest back and your savings or your Investment will start to grow. So that's exactly how it works with courage as well You just use whatever courage you have and just add to it as [00:12:00]you practice more and more courage. And think of this like the convergent phase of the double diamond design framework where you're converging your values, your strengths, your interests, and your aspirations into this funnel of self expression.

And share your uniqueness with the world because the world needs it. 

Have faith in the universe

Nirish Shakya: And lastly, And by faith, I'm not referring to faith in a religious context here. Having faith is about trusting the process. Trust that things are unfolding 

as 

they 

need to..

Nirish Shakya: you know what? And when you first start playing with that purpose or expressing yourself more authentically and holistically, your mind will start to give you signals of apparent danger. You can't be wasting your time playing. You shouldn't take off your armor in that big meeting.

You should always be professional and in control. And you'll crave the certainty and the safety. [00:13:00] of the familiar, acknowledge that fear and see if you can turn it into another play or experiment. See if you can express your fear more authentically importantly, have faith in the universe what if? You let the universe take care of the outcome so that you could focus more on the here and the now. On being and feeling more than thinking and ruminating and catastrophizing. A mindset that's been super helpful to me is something I learned from the book The Courage to be Disliked. Recognize the boundaries between your tasks and those of others. When you overstep that boundary and try to take Over the tasks and responsibilities that belong to others. It causes suffering for both you and them

So for example, I might post something on social media. That is my [00:14:00] task But it's not my task to like or comment on that post. That is someone else's task. But if I worry over How many likes and comments I get that is me trying to take over Someone else's task and that causes me suffering.

Planting seeds and watering them is your task. Making the seeds grow is nature's task. So don't try to step on nature or the universe's toes. Trust that it's doing its job in response to yours. So this year, what if You try to let go a little and this is not going to be easy though because we're so Conditioned to crave control and certainty so you'll need something Like a reminder to yourself to let go every time you catch yourself.

Stepping on the universe's toes, and this could be a word or a phrase that you say to yourself [00:15:00] or maybe a deep breath to bring your attention to the present moment.

Or maybe you can write your worries in like a little worry journal. And I use any one of these different techniques depending on what's the most accessible to me in any given moment. For instance, when I catch myself, you know, wanting to take control, I might ask myself, what would Pooh do? And this question was actually inspired by the book, The Tao of Pooh, that talks about how Winnie the Pooh embodies the Taoist philosophy of effortless living.

And this probably deserves a whole new episode, but for now, I'd highly recommend checking out this book, The Tao of Pooh, which has been one of the most profound and impactful book that I read last year. 

Outro

Nirish Shakya: So, as you navigate through 2024, remember, life is more than just climbing mountains. It's about playing in the [00:16:00] valleys, it's about expressing yourself in the forest, and it's about having faith in the current of the river to take you wherever you need to be and if any of this resonated with you i'd love to hear from you so, please reach out to me at nirish@designfeeling.co or any of the social media channels that I'm on. Let's make this year year of play, self expression, and faith. See you in the next episode.