Why Mindset Alone Doesn't Get us our Goals:

Do you ever wonder why you don’t reach those goals you set at the beginning of each year?

You have participated in vision board workshops and other planning activities and yet there seems to be something missing in your ability to follow through. Regardless of how committed and focused you are on reaching these aspirational goals your actions and traction just don’t line up. 

You are not alone. Have you ever wondered if you might be missing out on another component of the goal setting process? Perhaps some new insights around how our mind and body function coherently could help us understand why our intentions don’t come into form. 

I recently started a morning routine of Qigong.  Qigong is an ancient Chinese practice that involves movement, breathing and meditation.  By focusing on our breath and maintaining a calm state, the combined training of the body, breath and mind helps cultivate the body’s vital energy (Qi). Through focused movement Qigong invites awareness and flow to where certain blockages could reside that negatively influence our mental and physiological state. 

This new practice had me curious about how our energetic bodies interact with the activities of our mind, specifically around goal setting and outcomes. 

Let’s take a deeper dive into goal setting, explore how important it is to align our goals with both our mind and body and finally, identify some new approaches to enhance your current process. 

The Current Approach to Visualization and Creating Outcomes Tends towards More, Harder and Force- the more common approach seems to come from pure mental effort. Try visioning harder to see if the outcomes we wish to  realize can be forced. Many of our institutions and systems emphasize this as a method that aligns with our thinking/brain heavy paradigm.  Social media and marketing experts regularly press their solutions that promise more results, greater rewards and higher returns. We are inundated with messaging that suggests we don’t have what it takes to get our goals. But what if we actually did have what it takes right within our bodily system, and we just didn’t realize it.

Sequence of Creating Goals: Let’s look at a typical sequence of creating goals, new activities or improved relationships and how it flows through our body.

1. We have an impulse- a desire or intuition, or a sense of wanting something to happen. This starts in our “head” or “brain” as an idea. 

2. This impulse moves from our “brain”  to our “heart”. Our heart is the body’s most powerful rhythmic source of electricity, roughly 60 times stronger than the brain’s. The heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. If the idea is coherent with the heart’s intuitive intelligence or inner voice, we will receive a continuous stream of information that impacts decision making.

3. Expressing- in the form of action, relationship or a circumstance in the world. This final step requires coordination between thinking (the brain) and feeling (the heart), as the heart dictates the desired outcome, while the brain provides the logical steps to create it!

A coherent heart-brain connection improves cognitive functions, leading to better choices, enhanced creativity and better problem solving, which in turn leads to better life outcomes. 

Understanding Circuity of Heart and Brain (& Beyond)  In stark contrast to the Western approach of external access to power and intelligence, many Eastern practices such as Reiki, qigong and tai chi promote an inner access to a higher intelligence. Thousands of years have been dedicated to understanding energy fields or centers in the body.  These practices suggest that our bodies are circulatory systems and through focused movement and pressure, we have the ability to unblock the spiritual and physical functions of our bodies. The flow, life force is required to move through the energy fields to cultivate our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.  In this we will experience connection with our higher purpose and the infinite possibilities available through infinite wisdom.  During these times of self development we have access to all of the Eastern wisdom traditions, we can personalize and take what resonates most for us. What’s most important to understand is that we are more than our brain and discovering what opens you energetically is key. Imagine what life could feel like with openness and coherence.  

Conventional Approaches of Brain Dominant Practices - Blockage and Lack of Coherence:

• We focus on pure mental effort, visioning harder and trying to force outcomes

• Conventional ways emphasize a greater pressure to curate our outcomes versus listening to our intuition to discover what is truly aligned with our higher purpose

• We continue to have strong ideas but no follow through

• There is plenty of action without feeling the satisfaction or aligned emotions to its arrival.

• We have a clear vision and the ability to hold it in a framework as something we wish to create however there is just no traction. It could be that some of our goals are more parental based or even a societal goal.

• Over efforting, then collapsing, pushing harder, we hit a burn out cycle and the goal does not arrive.

• Waiting for certainty for the conditions to be just right, and never moving at all 

Awakening our system- Openness and Coherence: We have a strong drive in our system to create, whether it is unconsciously or consciously. 

If we are more aware of the stuck energies within ourselves, then we could manifest or create realities, experiences, intentions or relationships that are more in alignment with the unresolved things within us.

This is why effort alone doesn’t work, it’s not about pushing harder, it’s about becoming more coherent -aligned.

Redefining our relationship with blockage: When it comes to being blocked and not attaining our goals, we can have a tendency to judge or feel like a failure.  

By reframing the concept of blockage to lack of clarity, we can shift our mindset from judgment to curiosity.

Afterall, blockage can be interpreted as a protective adaptation. At some point our systems learned a strategy to stay safe, survive, and be accepted. It was very intelligent at the time, formed in a different context in our earlier life. However, it doesn't translate clearly into what we are trying to create NOW and unconsciously it gets in the way. 

If we are experiencing stuckness- realize the system isn’t broken.

Our role is to show compassion to ourselves and ease the grip on these outdated protective strategies. 

Four New Steps to Enhance our Current Goal Setting Process : 

1. Acknowledge that creating and expressing our higher potential is inherent. At some level it is always happening, what gets in the way of us manifesting these is blockage.  Without blockage there would be more flow and organic unfolding. 

2. Practice compassion when you discover resistance or blockage within your system.  Acknowledge that the protective strategies were useful at one time, however they are not needed now. 

3. Spend time getting in touch and tuned into your goals, intentions and aspirations. Do regular check-ins to see how they truly align by asking yourself some of the following questions:  

   a) Am I truly aligned at the heart level?

   b) Is this something relevant for me? 

   c) Will it bring greater joy and harmony? Or is this something I just think I should bring into being as a result of conditioning (family, social pressures, expectations of others) 

   d) Am I confusing who I truly am instead of who I think I am supposed to be? 

4. Finally, explore and be curious about what activates your energy flow and connection to Source, God or Infinite Wisdom. There are many different practices available for us to explore. (prayer, qigong, tai chi , Reiki, walking in nature, meditation, etc.) Look for a practice that ideally incorporates movement and breath awareness.  Where flow is activated and you feel your energy pulsing through your body. The inquiry is to become more present to how our energetic bodies function and to release any resistance or blockage within. To trust in your creative being as one that is a natural system requiring very little effort or force. 

What changes can we see when there is openness and coherence:

• There is less internal negotiation and decisions become clear.

• We stop chasing outcomes and things naturally show up;  like a creative download of ideas, energy and creative input.

• New levels of Synchronicity- matching internal signals line up with external outcomes. People, places and resources naturally show up.

• Spontaneous changes happen more frequently.

Have fun playing with some of these concepts, add them to your existing goal activities and see what interesting synergies come your way! 

References:

1. Christina Lopes Article

2. TEDx Talks Columbiana 10.21.2025 Heart-Brain Coherence: Unlocking Your True Potential with Davis Genuino

3. The Future of Wellness Manifestation & the Chakras: Why Mindset Alone Doesn't Create Change

4. Understanding Reiki, Chakra and Qigong here

5. Cardiac Coherence National Library of Medicine