All this week, I'm blogging about ways that goals can be feeders of illusion and keep us from actually doing what we CAN do.  I've seen the Illusion of Certainty show up in my goals and in many of my clients goals frequently. 

Certainty is a funny thing.  It's an illusion most of the time, because there are very few things in life we can actually be certain of.  (Yup, I know, death and taxes.)  If we strip away our conditioned patterns, we can also be certain of one other unchanging reality: who we are -- our greatness. 

Certainty impacts our goals when our need to know the outcome of something keeps us from doing what we CAN do.  Take Josie, for example.  Her goal was to start her own floral shop, but she kept procrastinating and adding to her to do list--never actually taking any of the steps to make her floral business a reality.  She couldn't sleep at night, her mind reeling with fears about the risks involved. The Illusion of Certainty is at play here.  Josie loved the familiarity of her boring, unfulfilling job.  She loved the "security" of a weekly paycheck. 

And yet, slowly, surely, that satin lined coffin of Certainty was suffocating her.

Josie couldn't get past the need to know absolutely, to have proof, that her floral business would succeed.  And nobody could give that to her.  As a result, her goal slowly died on the vine.

Take a look at your own goals.  Are you comfortable?  Have you furnished a satin lined coffin?