You’ve probably seen, or at least heard of, the show Hoarders. It’s about people who have become so attached to their things that they can’t bear to let them go or throw them away. It’s so bad that it requires an intervention like the kind you do with addicts. Mental health professionals are called in. Yet as bad as it looks to those of us who aren’t hoarders, they don’t think there’s anything wrong. They can’t see that having piles of clothes, books, furniture and God knows what else stacked to the ceiling in every room is at best unhealthy.

What does this have to do with Goal Setting?

We can hoard more than just physical stuff. We can hoard mental baggage as well. When it comes to mental baggage, we don’t even realize it. Mental baggage is the crap we carry around in our heads that either isn’t true anymore, or never was, or is stuff we can’t control and shouldn’t even try. Mental baggage is the stuff that occupies our minds and keeps us from achieving our Goals, or even working on them.

For instance, we might be worried about our job. What if I get fired? Why does the boss hate me? What am I going to do wrong today? This sort of baggage is the worst kind, because it’s not even about things we can control or things that will happen.

All of this keeps us from working on our Goals. We can’t devote mental energy to achieving Goals if we use it all up on the mental clutter. These thoughts can dominate our minds and keep us paralyzed. They keep us looking inward and backward without learning anything or fixing anything.

Mental hoarding will KILL your Goal achievement deader than you can imagine.

How do you get past it then?

Just like on the show Hoarders, you have to get rid of what’s not important, essential, useful or working in your mind. This means getting rid of limiting beliefs.

In decluttering our minds, we discard what holds us back. We change our focus. We learn to let go what we don’t need and replace it with things we should be working on. We still have to keep certain things though. We should be concerned enough to work hard and well. We should be concerned about what we say and do as far as it affects others. We should be concerned with how we treat others. We should learn from our mistakes, not relive them over and over.

Once we declutter our minds, we’ve got the mental energy to move forward. We’ve got the mental energy to give our best to our Goals. We’ve got the mental energy to attack what needs to be done instead of surrendering before we even begin.
Article By: W Timothy Johnson