The Great Lock In Lessons

One of the latest viral topics online is apparently called The Great Lock In and is about resetting and reaching the goals we sometimes decide to set in January and haven't accomplished yet. It got me thinking about how we chose our goals and why. This is not my area of expertise, but for those who are really into this, I found a wonderful article with a lot of sound ideas on this topic by James Clear called Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals. (https://jamesclear.com/goal-setting) This post is about the Great Lock In lessons I learned from my attempts at setting goals and what the best reward of all was. You'll never guess, and if you do, let me know!

SET REALISTIC GOALS: How we choose our goals, based on my lifetime, is crucial. What do you consider a goal worth setting? Let me explain. If my goal is to find my life's passion, I'm not living my life's passion now, so how would I go about finding my life's passion? Setting a goal would probably not help. A goal has a beginning and an end, so unless you can foresee the future, you don't know when you'll find your life's passion, making it impossible to plan for it. My objective in finding my life's passion is a priority, not a goal.

TIMING and FOCUS: The Great Lock In timeline is September to the end of December over four months or 122 days. Is this enough time to make a satisfying start toward your goal or complete it? If you choose a goal that is more focussed, it is do-able in this timeframe. Let's go back to my life's passion. Focussing it a little further, I could narrow down my priority to researching viable careers.

WHAT and HOW: Careful. Your research is going to be biased and skewed if you don't really know who you are yet. I mean really know yourself inside and out. Like stabbing the tail on the donkey in the dark, how do you know if the careers you're researching would lead to an actual life purpose with the passion you want to feel? I began by writing lists: top strengths and weaknesses, bucket list items, what I'm doing when I feel happy, what makes me so happy I lose track of time? Include what you enjoyed doing as a child. Interview closest friends, allies, and family for their feedback on your list. You could achieve that goal, and you would be well-prepared for January's goal of starting your career research.

Here's an example of what I enjoyed doing as a child. Reading and digging in our garden's soil while imagining I was an archaeologist were things I enjoyed. One book I read was James Michener's epic book, The Source. I got right into it, spending hours making clay pottery to dig up and imagining I found bones. Six decades later, I'm a Theta Healer digging into my life to heal the false beliefs and patterns I accumulated, and helping others do the same. I'm on my life path and feel the passion I always wanted to feel. Making pottery was a creative endeavour back then. I realized that reserving space during the day to be creative was mandatory for my well-being, so my life path had to include doing creative work, like writing.

BALANCE and BEING REALISTIC: The rush of getting things done and going for a goal is addictive. Using a targeted approach and perseverance, I lost weight, accomplished home projects, and went to night school, all to accomplish my goals and get ahead. The trap I got caught in was a lack of balance and setting unreasonable goals, thinking I could do it in too little time. I did it, and those around me got squeezed into the leftover minutes of my jam-packed days. My health suffered as I raced to lock in my goal.

EAGLE'S VIEW: This is an exercise I use, which I found helpful if you're stuck on deciding which goal to pursue. My choices haven't always been the best ones. (Read my memoir when it comes out!) I learned to take an eagle's eye view: in the grand scheme of my life, what are my top three priorities? At different ages and stages in life, those priorities changed, but not substantially. Deciding what my goals were was easier when I thought about those life priorities. Here's a quote that captures what I learned—the hard way.

“There is real value in using seasonal shifts as opportunities for reset, but the pressure comes if we treat self-care as performance, fueling anxiety instead of easing it,” said Dr. Katelyn Lehman, a clinical psychologist and the founder of Quantum Clinic. “Socio-culturally, it reinforces the illusion that well-being is about ‘doing more,’ rather than cultivating inner balance and nervous system healing. The point isn’t fixing a broken self—it’s remembering the wholeness already within us.”

Katherine Chang, The Viral ‘Great Lock In’ Promises To Transform Your Life Before the Year Ends, September 10, 2025. https://theeverygirl.com/the-great-lock-in-trend/

REMEMBERING: Yes, it's vital to remember the wholeness already within us, as Dr. Lehman says. I'm not sure exactly what she meant by that, but my interpretation is to heal the parts of you that need healing and remember who you already are inside. It's more challenging in practice, but for me, it started with self-awareness and understanding that personal growth is a necessity, not just something to aim for. The best version of myself is the version of me that remembers who I am and what I was born to do. That's exactly the best place to start when you plan your goals.

REWARD: Are you also planning a reward for completing your goal? Losing weight was a great experience, and I felt significantly healthier and happier. I could work better when I tackled projects in my house that made doing the work I love more organized. Once my youngest son was no longer living at home, I turned his bedroom into my office, and moved my office to the dining room when he came back. The rewards we receive are excellent motivators for our efforts. Going deeper than the euphoria of achieving your goals, there is an elusive and powerful reward that simply erupts, straight from the heart. It's called joy. The joy of knowing who you are, doing what you were born to do, making a positive impact—that fires me up and keeps on giving.