The Healing Power of Agency: Setting Goals Can Make You Feel Better

So there’s a story about Steve Jobs, one of the stories from his life. And in this story, he is sick with the illness from which he passed. And he was in the hospital. He was hospitalized. And you could imagine him being in this place. And he had a… He was instructed to put an oxygen mask on his face. And that’s just a vulnerable place to be. It’s a hard place to be. And what happened is that he kept taking the oxygen mask off. The nurse would come and he kept taking the oxygen mask off. And he demanded that at least three designs of alternative oxygen masks be brought to him for him to choose in order for him to put the mask on his face. And there’s this bit of dark humor to the story that even Steve Jobs himself wouldn’t just put on any oxygen mask. It had to be one that was designed in a certain way, and he had to have creative input on the oxygen mask that he would wear. But having dealing with health issues myself, I’ve come to understand that there is a power in having this keyword agency and having agency over your life and having power to make decisions.

And I believe that if Steve Jobs had that creative input that he wanted over the oxygen mask, it would have improved his health to a degree. So let me ask you a question. Is your culture broken? My name is Adam Lee Rosenfeld, and I have seen people suffer from a problematic culture, be it at work, be it at school, be it at home, be it in the church or wherever else. And I’m here to help you use your creative power to fix your culture. So I want to encourage you to go to adamleerosenfeld.com and subscribe there so you never miss a post or a podcast or any of my offerings with Creative Coaching, and we can keep the relationship going. So as I alluded to moments ago, I have a health problem. What is my health problem? Well, this is not exactly the place for medical disclosure, but it has to do with fatigue. And the ultimate result that I saw is me being in bed for an average of 18 hours a day, 17, 18 hours a day. Now, we can agree that that is not optimal health. That’s not how people are intended to live.

So in dealing with this, something happened that made me feel about 50 % better. What is that thing that made me feel about 50 % better? And that thing is the same thing that we talked about Steve Jobs is the power of agency. And I call it the healing power of agency. Now, if you don’t know me or if you do know me, I’m somebody who has goals. I’m really big on goal setting. It’s very important for me to make meaningful progress on meaningful goals in life. And with goals comes something called rhythms of reflection. You don’t just set goals and forget about them, but you set goals and you spend time reviewing your goals, reflecting on your goals and seeing how you’re doing, measuring your progress towards achieving those goals. My problem was that I had a handful of lofty goals, goals that inspire me, goals that encourage me, goals that maybe might be quite reasonable for the average person. But the person who sleeps 18 hours a day, and when the person does wake up, has very limited energy, could not make meaningful progress on these meaningful goals. This was a problem. And I had to get to a place where my but was.

Where was my but? But I’m sick. Which you could do. You could reflect on your own life and say, I like this at goals, but I have two full-time jobs, but I have 20 kids, but this, but that, so. But I was sick. That’s where my but was. I want to make meaningful progresses, but I’m sick, but I’m sleeping 18 hours a day, but I’m dealing with fatigue. So you might understand that the rhythms of reflection weren’t happening. If you’re super busy, If you have a super busy life and you’re super stressed, you probably aren’t finding time to reflect meaningfully on your goals. And also, if you’re debilitated, if you’re feeling sick, if you’re not feeling yourself, you probably might not be reflecting accurately on your life as well. One of my rhythms of reflection is a weekly meeting with my wife. It’s a very powerful rhythm of reflection. And I encourage anybody who’s married to have that rhythm. And it was a rhythm that was not happening during the time that I was sick. When I’m sleeping 18 hours a day, I was unable to strategize properly with my wife to get our regular meeting, regular weekly meeting.

But something happened. It took a long time, and it came out of the blue. But there was a moment. There was a moment when I was there, and there was a moment when she was there, and we said, We’re just going to reflect. We just seized the moment to reflect on our lives. And in that moment, I said, I have goals, but I have goals, but I’m sick. So I’m going to strategize from the place of being sick, not strategize from the place of being healthy. I’m going to take all my healthy goals, put them aside for a minute and make a new goal. My goal is to be healthy enough to pursue my other goals. Let me say that again. My goal is to be healthy enough to pursue my other goals. And so I had to strategize just to be healthy enough to pursue my other goals. And in our case, it was quite simple. It was strategizing just to meet with a specific doctor. Might sound simple, but it wasn’t as simple in reality. But simply making that decision says, wait a minute, stop. I’m going to meet with this specific doctor.

Once that decision was made, I started to feel a little bit better. Once I met with the doctor, I actually met with doctor, we created a strategy for me to feel better. Nothing else happened. I simply met with the doctor. He is yet to give me X, Y, and Z for my treatment and this and that. And the treatment takes X, Y, and Z time to even start working. Now, we’re a little bit further down the road of the treatment. But at the time of the meeting, right after the meeting, I felt 50 % better. And I was functioning 50 % of the time, going from 50 % of the days not sleeping 18 hours a day. So what was the difference? What was the difference between that time and the time before I met with my doctor. The difference was agency. I had a little bit of decision over what was happening in my life. I had agency and power over my life. I could say, I’m going to do this. I’m going to meet with my doctor. I’m going to move forward. And that made me feel 50 % better. So maybe you’re stuck.

Maybe you’re not feeling well. Maybe you have something limiting you. Your butt is stuck somewhere. But I’m feeling sick. But I don’t have any time. Or maybe you simply just don’t have goals, something that you just didn’t take time or have the inclination to pursue. So I want to talk to you about this, and I want to tell you this. Number one, number one, have meaningful goals and rhythms of reflection. This might sound an oversimplification, but it’s a place to start. Have meaningful goals and rhythms of reflection. Okay, for me, I have a daily rhythm of reflection, a weekly one, a monthly one, a quarterly one, an annually one. And we can talk about that maybe at some other time. But my encouragement to you is to have meaningful goals and rhythms of reflection. Number two is to make sure your goals are realistic. Now, hold on for a second. If our goals are realistic, what makes that meaningful? If something is super realistic, why would I want to even pursue it? It has to have some meaning. It has to have some change in your life. And so the key is to make your goals realistic, but still outside of your comfort zone.

Still something that will change your life. That if you achieve this goal, you will have change in your life. Realistic, but outside your comfort zone. Realistic, but outside your comfort zone. Number three, go to where your but is and strategize from there. But I’m sick. So go back to there. Go back to that place and say, I’m sick. I can’t pursue all these cool and exciting goals, but I can pursue my weekly treatment. I can pursue my monthly doctor visit, for example. And just having that agency can help you. You might say, but I have two full-time jobs. But I have five kids, but this and that. So maybe we’re all probably trying to pursue either time, energy or money. It’s not just money that we need. Time, energy or money. And we can strategize to achieve possibly one of those things. If you don’t have any time, so how can I get 10 % more time? How can I get 5 % more time? And so on and so forth. In my case, it was energy. And I ended up getting 50 % more energy. Have meaningful goals and rhythms of reflection. Make sure your goals are realistic and outside of your comfort zone and go to where your butt is and strategize from there.

Is your culture broken? My name is Adam Lee Rosenfeld, and I want to help you fix your culture using your creative power. Visit adamleerosenfeld.com and subscribe so you never miss a post or a podcast. Thanks for hanging out.