Staying focused on your goals can keep your attention on what matters instead of the many distractions that will emerge. In workshops, goals can propel a group forward even when facilitators detour to respond to an emergent need or learning opportunity. This happens when you create goals that inspire you even when things get hard, and translates to other goals in life.
While working at a university, I had a coworker who got on my last nerve. When she saw me succeeding, she would give me extra work at the last minute to me set-up for failure. Once at a major meeting she sat next to me, ignored me when I said hello, and then proceeded to talk to everyone else around me. I tried to avoid her, but I could feel tension every time she came to my mind.
When I talked to coworkers, it was clear why she didn’t like me: I was a brown person succeeding outside the normal rules of engagement, and she was a white woman who had learned to succeed by playing well in the white boys club. She didn’t show signs of wanting to change a way of being that worked for her, so I had to stop trying to psychologize her and figure out what I was going to do.
Plus I was distracted by her and getting off track on my goal of building intergenerational ties among the LGBTQ people of color on campus. So I did some innerwork, or personal growth work, to explore why I was getting hooked on this white coworker.
I reflected on my history of being undermined by white women, released some of the pain, and then anchored in new memories of people who supported my work among LGBTQ people of color. Parallel to my inner work, I set in motion an action plan to help me practice being unhooked from this coworker.
The first step was listening to her in meetings, noticing my judgments emerge, and choosing another point of focus. When I would go to meetings, I would ask: Why am I here? How can I engage in this conversation in a way that serves me, my goals, and my people?
That process gave me experiences engaging with my white coworker when needed and ignoring her when she tried to get me to react negatively. As time passed, I thought about her less and less, and surprisingly I was able to work with her more and more.
When you have goals, get prepared to do innnerwork alongside your actions in the world. Pairing the two together activate your goals and release some of the blocks that may inhibit you from reaching your goal. What goals do you have where you want to pay attention to some innerwork and action?