3 Red Flags Your Goals Are Causing Emotional Clutter

Ronald L Banks 0:00

When we think of decluttering, most of us think of physical stuff—clothes, gadgets, etc. But what about the emotional clutter from outdated goals? It's easy to overlook, yet it weighs us down, and I've been there, holding on to goals that no longer fit my life and struggling to let go without feeling guilty or like I've somehow failed, and so today I'm going to walk you through the three red flags that told me it's time to declutter my goals and how you can do it too. Let's dive in.

Ronald L Banks 0:42

Hey, my friend, welcome back to another episode of the clarity club. You know, let's just jump right into this conversation and start discussing the three red flags. One of the first red flags that told me it's time to declutter my goals was a lack of passion. What once drove me forward now felt like a weight on my shoulders, and instead of excitement and eagerness, you know, all the things we love about pursuing our goals, it became a chore, and all I felt was frustration. I felt stuck. Now, the reason this happens is simple. We're often taught from a young age that persistence is key, and growing up, my dad had this really catchy phrase that he would constantly recite: "Stick with it, don't quit it, and you'll get it." The opposite is also true, "you'll get it, if you don't quit it, and stick with it." Now I love and adore my dad for sharing this expression with my brother and I for the last 30 plus years, that and several other life lessons that have been extremely valuable, but this one in particular has been helpful, and it's gotten me through some frustrating moments in my life.

Ronald L Banks 1:48

So I can't say that persistence is not key, or that it's wrong or a lie and you should never stick with it because it works. However, I'd also only be giving you a half truth if I didn't push back and share the other side. When pursuing goals, persistence tells us to push forward, to keep going no matter what, and assume the spark will come back. This is the biggest mistake you can make, because grinding harder won't reignite passion. If a goal doesn't excite you anymore, that excitement won't magically come back, right? And so the number one thing that this has taught me on my journey is the importance of being aware and honest about where you are. Am I excited about this goal? Am I passionate about this goal or not? And being honest about that, being honest with how you answer that question, are you passionate about this? Are you excited about this? Or are you not excited about it?

Ronald L Banks 2:47

Now, ignoring this red flag like so many people do, and I'm not gonna lie, I'll try to ignore this red flag several times in my life. But ignoring this red flag only leads to more frustration, and that's because when the passion fades, it shows up in different ways. It shows up as unfinished projects, unread books and piles of unused things. And so when we don't take the time to listen and open our eyes, we're just going to continue to blindly push forward in the name of persistence, and that's likely going to lead some burnout. I don't want that for you, right? And so when you acknowledge that your passions have faded, it's a sign that that goal might no longer align with who you are, and that's okay, right? It also means that letting go gives you the freedom to pursue something that you're more passionate about, something that truly matters to you.

Ronald L Banks 3:42

The second red flag I noticed was that my goals no longer aligned with my values, and so over time, as I grew and my priorities shifted, I found myself clinging to old goals that no longer reflected the person I was becoming, and this misalignment created emotional clutter in the form of guilt and confusion. And here's some examples to help illustrate exactly what I mean. First, I felt attached to the idea of who I thought I would be rather than who I was. And maybe you can relate to this. You know, sometimes we have these really big goals, these things that we're so excited to pursue and achieve, but life decides to take us in a different direction, and as we continue to grow and mature and our interests change for the better, there's still that small piece of us that is clinging to what could have been right.

Ronald L Banks 4:37

Another example that comes to mind is this internal fear of being seen as indecisive for changing directions "late in life," right? And then there's a sunken cost fallacy, right? This belief that just because I've invested so much time and energy and money into these goals, I had to continue pursuing them. And this made it harder to let go. You know, I felt guilty about the time, I felt guilty about the money, I felt guilty about the energy I had spent, and I was confused about whether it was okay to shift my focus. And like I said, maybe this is something you can relate to. Maybe this is something that you're going through right now, and this is a current red flag for you, where you feel like you're clinging to something that could have been or what you thought you would be right.

Ronald L Banks 5:28

Now, going beyond this emotional clutter, I also found myself holding on to physical objects that were connected to these goals as well, right? So as you can imagine, I had the emotional clutter, the chaos going on in my head, but my physical environment was also filling up with a whole bunch of stuff that I wasn't using, that I didn't need, but it was sitting there because I was unsure about how to let go of that goal, and because these items were connected to that goal, it just created a bigger mess and more chaos for me to deal with later.

Ronald L Banks 5:59

And so if you're dealing with this right now, if you're going through something similar, here's the payoff that I want you to make note of. When you realize that your goals are no longer in alignment with your values, right when you draw that connection, it becomes clear to you then that your goals are holding you back, and so letting them go creates room for goals that resonate with you today and align with the values you have today, and that puts you in a much better position to live an intentional life and a more fulfilled life long into the future.

Ronald L Banks 6:33

Third, and perhaps the most significant red flag I encountered was the emotional drain caused by certain goals I was holding on to. And so instead of feeling motivated and energized, these goals constantly left me feeling stressed and emotionally drained, I mentioned earlier in this conversation how some of my goals felt like a weight on my shoulders, or how they became a chore, rather than being something that I was eager and excited to pursue, right? And again, maybe this is something you can relate to, but the reason I'm sharing this with you is because emotional drain is often overlooked. Because many people think that stress is part of hustling towards success, but when a goal constantly leaves you feeling drained, it doesn't mean you're working hard, right? It's not a sign that you're working hard. It's a sign that something's wrong.

Ronald L Banks 7:27

And holding on to too many old and outdated goals creates emotional clutter, and as a direct result of that clutter, it's hard to move forward and make progress. You know, sometimes you might feel like we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel right? Now you might be telling yourself that pushing through the discomfort, pushing through the stress, the hustle, the tiredness, that pushing through that is a sign of hard work, like I mentioned, and I used to believe this, right? I used to tell myself this all the time. I'm a night owl, right? And so I used to tell myself that, you know, if I push through this moment, if I push through this stress, this tiredness, if I continue to hustle, then I'm going to make progress. I'm going to work hard, I'm going to get things done. And I used to believe that I really did, but in reality, it's just burnout waiting to happen. And I've burned out several times in my life, right? And I don't wish that on anyone, okay?

Ronald L Banks 8:21

And so if you're continuing to pursue or continuing to invest in goals that no longer interest you or excite you, all you're doing is draining your mental resource, and more interestingly, over time, this stress will start to spill over into other areas of your life, making the simple task feel overwhelming, right? Making the simple things like washing the dishes or doing the laundry or spending quality time with your family is going to make those simple things feel extremely overwhelming, which is why it's so important that we recognize when this emotional drain is taking place, and then let go of what's no longer serving us.

Ronald L Banks 9:00

Now letting go in the context of this conversation isn't just about decluttering your space. It's not just about deleting old goals from your calendar or crossing them out in your journal. It's about creating mental and emotional space for what really matters, and I did this by following three simple steps to help me declutter my goals without the guilt. All right, so let's walk through them together.

Ronald L Banks 9:32

Step one is to revisit your values. This is all about taking time to reflect on what matters to you, what truly matters to you, what's important? What do you value? And if you can't answer that question, I want to encourage you to download my core values worksheet and follow the guide that I created to help you identify your values. Just go to ronaldlbanks.com/values, you can download the worksheet there. See the purpose of this. First step of revisiting your values is to gain clarity on what's important to you, like I said. And then, once you have that clarity, there are two action steps, write down your core values, and then write down your goals, okay.

Step two is to then assess your goals, right? All this means is to evaluate each of your goals based on how they make you feel and whether or not they're aligned with your core values, and so if your goals are constantly stressing you out, if they're constantly draining your energy, your emotional energy, your mental energy, then reassess why you're holding on to that goal. If your goals don't align with your core values, then that's a clear sign that it might be time to let go. Now the biggest mistake that you want to avoid, and I want to make sure that I speak clearly on this. The biggest mistake you want to avoid is clinging to a goal because of guilt or because of past effort. Remember, a few minutes ago, we discussed that idea of the sunken cost fallacy, and I shared with you how I felt that I had to continue to pursue certain goals because of how much I previously invested into that goal, whether it was buying things or my energy or my time doing research, whatever it is, I invested so much into it and I feel like I have to continue with it.

Please don't fall into that trap. Please, please, please, don't fall into that trap. Evaluate your goals based on how they make you feel and your core values. So do your goals as they currently are today stress you out? Do your goals as they currently are today—do they drain you of your energy? Yes or no. Do your goals align with your core values and your current interests? Yes or no. Alright.

And then step three is to give yourself permission to let go. Alright? This is all about accepting the truth, or the fact that letting go is not about failure, right? It's a part of growth, okay? And so in terms of an action plan, this means decluttering physical possessions from your life, especially those physical items that are directly connected to some of those goals that you're trying to declutter. You don't want to try to declutter goals from your life, or let go of those goals that you're holding on to, but you still have the physical items in your home, and that could be clothes, it could be tools, it could be material, it could be anything. But you want to declutter those physical items from your home as you're decluttering the goals themselves as well.

And then the second step within this letting go process is to spend some time journaling and working through the emotional ties you have to your goals. Right? I talked a lot about the emotional clutter that I had because of my goals, because of the outdated goals that I was holding on to. And so if you can relate to anything that I've shared today, I'm sure you have some emotional clutter as well. And so spending some time writing, putting pen to paper, and working on those emotional ties that you've developed over the last, however many years, is important as well.

Now this three step process, this three step framework that just walked you through, works because it focuses on alignment, self-awareness and emotional release. And these three pieces are really important, right? So the alignment piece, let's talk about that first. We just discussed this idea of revisiting your core values, right? And getting complete clarity on what's important to you, what your core values are, and then writing those things down. When you have clarity on what your values are, the alignment piece is automatically going to fall into place.

And then there's the self awareness. Right? Earlier on in this conversation, we talked about gaining complete honesty about where you stand in terms of your goals. So do your goals excite you? Are you eager to pursue your goals, or do they drain your energy? Are they stressing you out constantly? It's being honest about that. And when you intentionally think about questions like this, when you intentionally work at trying to connect the dots and figure out how many balls you're juggling and where things are falling short, and if your goals reflect who you are today, when you intentionally think about that, you're forcing yourself to become more self-aware, which is important.

And then the last piece is the emotional release, again in this three step process, step three is to give yourself permission to let go. And a part of that I just shared with you how important it is to spend some time in your journal and work on those emotional ties you've created with your goals, the goals that you're trying to declutter, or the physical items in your home that are also connected to those goals and how much chaos you have in your head, right? We don't always think about this. We tend to only think about the physical stuff when we talk about decluttering, but spending time in your journal and working through some of those emotional ties is important as well. Alright? So it's the alignment, it's the self-awareness and it's the emotional release. All three of these are important, and that three step process that I just shared with you focuses on all three of those.

Here's the final takeaway, or my Clarity Tip of the Day, maybe I'll coin that phrase and start using it going forward. Let me know your thoughts on that, but here's the takeaway. Write this down. Letting go of old, outdated goals is not a failure, it's an essential step toward clarity and personal growth. By focusing on what matters to you, you free yourself to pursue goals that you're passionate about that reflect who you are today. Not ho you used to be, but who you are today. Keep growing your journey, my friend, keep learning and always remember to stay true to you. I'll see you next time. Peace.