Focus on your goals, but don’t miss out on today
Stress for Success
February 9, 2010

Balance: a state of equilibrium, equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

Seeking balance in your life is a cornerstone of stress management; such as don’t under- or over-exercise, if you’re too passive you’d be wise to become more assertive, etc.

Another area in which it’s wise to seek balance is in where you focus your energy: on tomorrow’s goals or today’s life.

Author of “Finding Flow” Csikszentmihalyi encourages us to create lives of greater meaning and happiness with less ruminating on the negative by continually working toward goals. “ ... goals shape and determine the kind of person you become. Without them it’s difficult to develop a coherent self.”

But some people take this to the extreme, putting too much energy into pursuing goals creating an imbalance. They continually focus on the future while missing much of today, like the hard-driving career person who approaches a beautiful sunset without even noticing it. Being goal-oriented is great, but not to the exclusion of the here and now.

Others would say focusing on future goals is largely a waste of time because, as Buddhists believe, one’s reality is in the present moment; the here and now. To practitioners, focusing on the future means missing reality. Living in the moment facilitates mental and emotional balance because it means giving up your worries about the future and your regrets about the past. Besides, working so tirelessly on goal attainment often doesn’t bring you the satisfaction you’d hoped for anyway.

But focusing exclusively on the here and now may not prepare you for the future. The reality of our economic society, for example, requires knowing where your next paycheck is coming from to pay bills and that requires at least some level of planning for the future.

This is where balance is important. Over-focusing on tomorrow means missing today; ask parents who concentrated on work and missed their kids growing up. Over-focusing on today may find you in love with the spontaneous but forgetting important work deadlines or other commitments.

The trick is to seek balance. The more an imbalance pushes down one side of the scale the more you need to rectify it by doing something quite different to create a better equilibrium. For example, you high-speeders racing into the future might want to balance your goal-focused tendencies by increasing your mindfulness of things you do daily, like playing with your kids and focusing your attention on their touch, adorability, and the good feelings inside you when you interact in a loving way with them. Regular meditation would be great for you allowing you to be more aware of the present.

If you tend to mostly live in the moment, scraping together your rent money, prepare a budget and figure out where your necessary income will come from. Set goals of how to adjust your income and expenses.

Seeking a balance in how much you focus on the present and the future allows you to enjoy the journey as well as plan for and secure your future.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is a speaker and a Stress Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html. Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.