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When you are aligned with your goals, it feels fabulous, doesn’t it? You know why you are working towards something, and your heart is on fire with the path you lay out to get there.
But what happens when you are getting close to the timeline that you created to complete or reach your goal? Do you find your self taking drastic measures? Getting desperate or needy? Do you start to hustle in an unhealthy way? If you miss the date at which you intended to hit your goal, do you beat yourself up? Give up and decide not to try again? Lower your goals for next time to something easily attainable?
Are you getting uncomfortable with my brutal honesty on what most of us do when we don’t reach a goal? I hope so! My hope is that I can share a few simple mistakes you may be making (as am I), so that you can fix them and start feeling great as you move towards your goals in the future. I learned about these mistakes from Kristen Boss last week in a 3-day training she did titled “Sustainable Success”, it was fabulous. And while she focused it on business, the more I read over my notes again I realized that this can be applied to any goal. Weight loss, finances, exercise, new skill acquisition, time management, and on and on.
When Kristen said, “The fastest way to suck the joy out of the journey, is to be in a hurry for your results..” I felt the gut punch and knew I needed to listen closely! Of course, I took a ton of notes, so here is my version of the mistakes you, and I, may be making while reaching for our goals, followed by getting aligned with your goals.
4 Mistakes
1. Behavior Modification – We create a list of all the things we need to do in order to reach our goal. ie. Time blocking, meal prepping, content calendars, specific systems to follow. You know WHAT & HOW to do the things, but have you given any thought to the WHY? If you taken a deep dive into the WHY you want to achieve certain things, you won’t have the belief it takes to keep going. You’ll only meal prep for so long or show up at the gym for a few weeks if you don’t fully understand the WHY behind your goal of getting healthier or losing weight. You won’t stick to the content calendar you created unless you really understand WHY you are showing up for your audience, what are you offering them? How are you serving them? I can tell you to go Live everyday to grow your online audience, but if there is not purpose behind your Lives, the audience won’t tune in and you’ll stop going live each day before the month ends, am I right?? So spend some time discovering your WHY around each of your goals because the Belief will come from your WHY and your belief determines your outcome. Your brain craves certainty, so it needs to be certain something will work or else it tries to stop you from trying. You will have to embrace the uncertainty and commit to taking consistent action, which will be much easier if you have a strong belief in why you are moving into action, even while uncomfortable.
2. Motivation Fueled – Stopped you in your tracks, right? How often do you say, “I just don’t feel motivated today?” or “I am so motivated to get this done?” Do you notice you take action or non-action based on where your motivation lies? Here is the thing, Life is 50/50! 50% of the time, you will feel great and motivated to do anything! The other 50% of the time, things are not going your way at all, and you feel no motivation at all to get up and move towards your goals. Lightbulb moment, right? You have to stop depending on whether you feel motivated or not, because half of the time, you will not! You have trained yourself to only work when you feel excited and when you aren’t you spend time doing things to motivate you. ie. Podcasts, pump up music, read new healthy recipes, watch a workout model on IG, watch another business training or read another book. What if you stopped all of that and just consistently worked towards your goal? I do not mean to work non-stop, workout non-stop or walk around eating celery all day. But decide what you need to do to reach your goal, why you want to reach your goal and then commit to the amount of product time needed each and every day. Whether you feel like it or not!
3. Linear Optimism – This is a lie you keep telling yourself. The lie that you will lose 2lbs a week for as long as you keep up the eating and exercise habits, you will grow your business by $300 a month as long as you follow the system, you will always have $500 to put towards savings each month. Do you get the picture? It’s the idea that time and money is on an even trajectory, and nothing will cause it to get off track. That is just not reality! There is a time when you are eating healthy, taking your supplements, working out and the inches are not coming off, if you quit, they will never come off, but if you stay consistent, they will eventually start coming off. Is it fair that Sally next door started the same plan as you and lost inches in the first week? No! But life isn’t fair, just remember WHY you want to get healthier and don’t give up! In your business, have you reached out to 5 people a day for 30 days and no one has ordered from you? It would be tempting to give up, but remember WHY you started, if you keep up that good habit, you will start to get results. You will eventually lose weight, grow your business, get good at the new skill if you consistently work towards it, but the graph of your growth will likely be filled with many highs and lows and not be linear at all.
4. Reactive Strategy – Do you feel like you are constantly reacting to the world around you? Then you are likely in reactive mode rather than in responsible mode. Do you ever have this discussion in your home? “I wouldn’t have eaten that if you didn’t bring it into the house.” This is a regular one in our house. My husband blames his waistline on my shopping, he is in reactive mode. Take a minute to think if you are in reactive mode in any area? Maybe you aren’t hitting your work goals because other people aren’t doing what you want them to do. Maybe you stopped going to the gym because your bestie sprained her ankle and can’t go with you. Are you so busy telling everyone else what they should do, that you aren’t getting your own things done? Choose to take responsibility for what goes in your mouth, for how you move your body and for the action you take in your business.
So, what next? Now I’ve told you all about the mistakes you are making, but what should you actually be doing? I did give some tips inside of each mistake, but in detail you want to have
Aligned Goal Setting
1. Infinite Commitment to an Infinite Goal – This will bring balance to your business and life; it is a marathon mindset. You will want to keep your foot on the gas, but not at a breakneck speed that is unsustainable. Go all in on yourself, stay committed and before you know it, the actions needed to reach your goal will be effortless habits. Disciple won’t feel fun but show up for yourself anyway!
2. Strategic Permission – Problem solve before the problems happen. I am not talking about pandemic type problems, I am talking about going out to eat with your family while trying to stick to you healthy eating plan – look at the menu in advance and decide what you should order, and then order it, even if the unhealthier options are being ordered all around you. When you acknowledge that life will happen, you can absolutely plan for it and anticipate roadblocks.
3. Permissive Growth – Allow yourself to miss goals without beating yourself up, allow all the emotions, you are not a robot! Remember that you are a human, and you will make mistakes, it is totally okay!
4. Radical Ownership – This is a good one, so don’t skip over it! Remember that you are the common denominator in every aspect of your life! Own what is happening in your mind. You get to control how you think and feel about circumstances. Be very careful about those thoughts that pop into your head.
5. Reflection & Evaluation – It is important to do this every month in order to move forward. You need to acknowledge the gains and losses, make any changes needed and keep going!
Who is ready to get moving and not stop regardless of what timeline the world has in store for you? My word of the year is "CONSISTENT" and hopefully now you know why.
If any of this hit home for you, I hope you will share it with one of your friends striving towards new goals this year!