goal-setting and nonattachment
A really great question came through our YouTube comments this week about aparigraha, the tenet of nonattachment (or non-gripping), and how it squares with working toward resolutions, intentions, and goals. And since such things are big in the conversation this time of year, I wanted to share some thoughts here as well.
We often invoke the idea of aparigraha when we talk about practice or work without attachment to an outcome — practice for the sake of practice. But does that mean that pursuing a particular oucome or goal is in conflict with nonattachment?
nonattachment is not detachment
First let’s clarify that nonattachment is not detachment. Nonattachment asks us to work whole-heartedly, with dedication and intention. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the outcome or the work. It means working toward, not for, a goal. It means the work has inherent value regardless of the result, and more importantly, it means that you have inherent value, and your sense of self remains steady, regardless of your apparent achievements or failures. This steadiness can be the difference between feeling motivation to achieve a goal and feeling the need to achieve a goal, a difference that can profoundly impact your stress-level and the way that you experience work/practice.
Nonattachment can also allow us to focus on the intentions behind our goals. I came across one example from a woman who wanted to feel stronger and more resilient in her body, so she entered a fitness competition with the goal of winning it. She changed her diet and daily routines and trained hard for the next six months, but she didn’t win the competition. If she was hyper-focused on the goal of winning, she might have thought all the work had been for nothing; if she had attached her self-worth to the outcome, she would have been devastated by not achieving this goal. Instead (at least, as she wrote about it later), she recognized that the goal had been a tool, motivating her to move through the world differently, and while she hadn’t achieved the goal, she had succeeded in living in alignment with her intention of feeling strong and resilient in her body.
I should note that, although we’re talking here about outcomes (for the purpose of responding to this specific question), nonattachment also applies to the work itself, and life experiences generally. Practicing aparigraha means engaging deeply with life without clinging to it, and practicing a deep, peaceful acceptance of change. Can we move through the flow of life with intention, can we work/practice with dedication and presence in each moment, accept each outcome as it arrives, and let it go as it passes? Happiness (yours or someone else’s) is an outcome. Keeping the status quo is an outcome. Neither can be constant, and both are harder to enjoy while gripping or clinging to them.
decolonize your mind
In a sense, the task of understanding nonattachment is the task of detaching your (capital-t True capital-s) Self from capitalist values — that is, uncoupling spiritual/universal importance from material importance. Because sometimes an outcome is materially very important - your livelihood may depend on it, or the security of your family, or people in your community. You might care very deeply about realizing this outcome, and work tirelessly toward it. None of that is in conflict with nonattachment. And all of that is different from the importance of something that defines who you are, your worthiness, or your value as a person/being.
It feels important here to call out the two sides of this coin: failing to achieve a material goal doesn’t make you a worse or less worthy person; and achieving a material goal doesn’t make you a better or more worthy person.
Practice note: Uncoupling who you are from what you do is an ongoing practice. It can be helpful to notice when you make “I am” statements, and consider whether they could be “I do” statements, e.g. “I am a runner” becomes “I run.” This can make a big difference in your subconscious view of yourself, especially in times of change.
On the conscious path (moving/working/ living with intention), no effort is ever wasted and there is no failure, says one of the most quoted lines of the Bhagvad Gita. Which is to say, the work is the point — the dedication, the intentionality of how we move through the world (towards a goal or not) — regardless of whatever achievements or failures we seem to accumulate through this life.
If your goal is to walk a mile every day of 2025, and you break the streak sometime in Feburary, the miles you walked until then were not wasted. Rather than focus on the “failure,” you can walk a mile the next day, with joy instead of guilt.
nonattachment and goal-setting
Nonattachment, then, isn’t in conflict with goal-setting. It just separates your sense of self from your sense of accomplishment (or lack thereof) — the gift of aparigraha, and the reason it’s sometimes interpreted as “awareness of abundance” is that when you are free from attachment to the outcome of your work, when you feel steady in your sense of self regardless of this outcome, you can bring your whole self to the work, fully present in bodymind and spirit, without losing yourself in it. To borrow a few clichés (since January is full of them anyway), if the journey matters more than the destination, nonattachment frees us to be fully present to every step on the path, instead of keeping our eyes solely on the prize.
To recap, here are some practical tips for working toward your goals while practicing nonattachment:
think of your goal as a tool, rather than a measure. working toward the goal may focus your energy or inspire you to rise to new levels of practice/work, but achieving the goal is not a measure of your worth.
focus on personal progress instead of societal benchmarks. set goals that hold you accountable to the way you want to work and live, without attachment to external norms or approval.
set goals that are aligned with your values, with the kind of work/practice you aspire to do, with the way you want to move through the world. this can give a qualitative sense to a quantitative outcome, and keep you focused on the process and/or the work at hand.
in balance with the previous point, remember that your work does not define you nor your inherent value. this can be difficult when we are creating and working from the heart. maintain spiritual or reflective practice that is separate from your work to help you stay connected to your sense of self, separate from your roles and responsibilities.
focus on the present. whenever you can, put the goal from your mind and give your attention entirely to your practice/work. be present to each step along the way, and the moments in between.
what do you think? are new year’s resolutions aligned with yogic living? what are your practices around goal-setting or resolutions for the new year? let us know in the comments. let’s learn from each other. 💓