You Manifested Your Dreams, So Why Are You So Sad?

Sometimes achieving goals comes with a healthy portion of sadness and anxiety.

Goal setting, self improvement, higher selves, personal development, manifesting are all terms that are so commonly used these days. You see it all throughout social media, in posts, in ads, and in everyday conversations. Our culture has become obsessed with elevating ourselves to our highest potential. Improving ourselves so that we can do the most good for those around us. I am in full support of this. I live and breathe it, but I also deal with the anxiety, sadness and empty feelings that surrounds it.

When we start achieving these goals we feel this great sense of alignment with our purpose. We are fulfilled. We have this instant gratification that tells us that we did a good job. Everything you worked hard for has arrived. You are full of anticipation and excitement and then the big climax happens. YOU DID IT! This is everything you wanted… and then the wall hits you. Now you have to deal with the come down of it. You reached this milestone so now you lose the instant gratification. You start thinking ‘now what am I suppose to do?’

A few months ago my big goal was to move to British Columbia. In my mind this would solve all my problems, my feeling of being stuck, uninspired and trapped. So when I finally began my journey out here I was elated. I found joy and gratitude in doing the drive across Canada alone, everything I had imagined (except one minor car breakdown). I moved into my new (also first) apartment that I love. I started a new job with great people. And then the sad hit me. Like a storm you see brewing from a distance, suddenly makes it to you. I cried for a solid week straight. I felt empty and lonely. I felt every pull to get on a plane and go back home and get back to my “regular and comfortable” life. I questioned all the decisions leading up to this achievement, and pondered about what the worst case future looked like.

I’ve always been on the more cynical side. With everything I accomplished I would bring it down with ‘but this didn’t work’ or ‘i can’t take credit, it was so and so.’ I would give credit to luck or other people who were hardly involved in the work I put in to accomplish something. I’ve been working on owning my credit of the work I put in. Here are some things that I had to change to improve my view on accomplishments.

Our Expectations

We set really high expectations on what this goal will give us. We like to lay out and define exactly what we will receive once achieved. We expect the most, and most of the time we are disappointed. These expectations put a lot of pressure on us to do everything perfectly. We wouldn’t dare stray away from what we know because we NEED it to be perfect.

With hard work and determination you will always achieve your goals, but they may come from a completely different angle. You need to drop the expectation that it will be accomplished perfectly. When you do, you can see the many different avenues that your goals can be achieved. You drop the pressure of getting everything absolutely right. When you are relieved from this pressure, you get to actually manifest. You get to sit in your accomplishments and be proud. You stop analyzing what went wrong and what didn’t.

Societal Expectations

Society has set a standard list of expectations we are suppose to meet. Go to college, get married, have kids, become CEO, etc.. Society tells us that all our goals should revolved around these milestones. We start to feel anxiety at certain ages, because we haven’t met these milestones. This leads us to feel empty when we accomplish our self-curated goals. We believe that they are not worth celebrating or being proud of, because they don’t line up with society’s expectation of goals.

Just do you. Forget the goals that society embedded into you growing up. They were fabricated out of nowhere. You are worthy of self curating your own goals and celebrating them as much as you want. So you do you, and enjoy every single accomplishment.

Scarcity Mindset

Sometimes our goals don’t feel like enough. We reach it and get faced with a feeling of ‘oh this is it?…’ This is scarcity mind set. Always noticing the unfulfilled parts, looking for what is lacking instead of what is actually there. Wondering ‘ok but where is this and that?’ We often associate our self-worth with how big or amazing our accomplishments are. We want it to be worthy of ‘the gram’, as the kids say. You get so caught up thinking that your goal isn’t enough, that it’s not worthy to celebrate, because it doesn’t have the big wow factor.

I can’t just tell you to become a positive vibes only person, that would be asking you to participate in toxic positivity. Transitioning out of scarcity mind is hard and will take time. With every goal reflect back and see the growth that happened from point A to point B. Even if to you it’s the smallest difference, give that growth gratitude and celebrate it. Over time you’ll start to approach your goals with so much more appreciation. From there you get to actually get excited about the future goals.

Comparison

I think we are all guilty of really feeding into this one. Ok scenario. You’ve worked super hard for years to finally publish your own book. You believe strongly in what you wrote and are proud of the work you have put out. That should be enough for us to feel accomplished, right? Usually what we end up doing is looking at others who have done the same and comparing ourselves to it. ‘Why did they’re book sell more copies than mine when they aren’t more qualified than me?’

Well, news flash, you are not them. What you produce and what they produce will never be the same or have the same results. How can it? You have your own twist on your goals that only you can meet on your own terms. Drop the comparison aspect and look at all that hard work you did. Cause you did it! YOU did it. So celebrate it, no matter what it looks like because only you can accomplish your dreams.

Responsibility

You worked hard to learn and grow as a human. You’ve accomplished these amazing goals. But now you have to be responsible for maintaining your growth or your goal. The goals we want to manifest often involve big changes such as, moving, promotions, and relationships. All of a sudden we manifest this incredible things, so now we think the work is done. Unfortunately, the work has only begun. You are now responsible to do the work required to maintain this change. If you’re like me, then change causes you some major anxiety with spouts of imposter syndrome thrown in there.

The good news is that what is overwhelming and scary right now will feel natural and comfortable soon. Keep reminding yourself that you have only been given things you can handle. Find gratitude in small things on the progress to comfortable. You can do hard things.

It’s completely natural to feel this lost confusion after achieving milestones. But you have to remind yourself that the feeling is real, but the reality from that feeling is not true. Just because you achieved this one milestone does not mean that you will never accomplish anything again. It just means you get to set new ones.

Just remember that every day you wake up, you are able to accomplish anything you dream of.