Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re probably right.
HENRY FORD
At the age of thirteen, right before the era of binge drinking and boys, I was one of the sporty girls. As I was on the school teams for athletics, hockey and netball, I spent many a cold evening after school training on the floodlit AstroTurf.
I wore a stopwatch on a nylon string around my neck, and I’d jog on the spot alongside my friends who were hanging out in the park near our estate. I didn’t have much money to spend on clothes, but I spent my babysitting wages on the latest Adidas gear, which I’d wear on a near-daily basis: a navy-blue shell suit with three bright orange stripes along the sides.
I remember one particular athletics event at school that felt like a very big deal. I was running the 800 metres, and my family and several friends were in attendance, carrying large banners emblazoned with the cringeworthy slogan: ‘Go, Clo, Go!’
My main competition was a girl named Sam Black. Sam was known as the best runner in the school. She had a professional coach. And she was one of the popular girls. The word on the playground was, Sam couldn’t be beaten.
The day is a hazy memory, but I do vividly recall the final moments of the race. I’d assumed Sam would be way ahead of me so it was a shock when I looked to the right and saw we were neck and neck. As we pulled into the last 100 metres, I saw Sam sprint past me. She won the race.
I’d been so close to winning, and yet it had never occurred to me that I could actually beat Sam. I realized I’d decided I was coming second before the race even started. I’d told myself, ‘Winning’s not for me.’ I’ve often wondered, if I’d had a touch more self-belief, could I have won that day? If I’d believed I could have beaten her, would I have been the first to start sprinting at the end? I’ll never know. Hindsight has made me acutely aware of one thing: unless we believe we can succeed, we’re unlikely to.
Maybe you’re making yourself small in some way, too? Work is a classic place to do so. In my first job after university, I worked in advertising. Unlike my colleagues, I had no intention of going for a promotion. I was the first person to volunteer to make the tea or run an errand, not believing I could do much more. It felt much safer to sit back and watch other people go for it. That’s not for me, I told myself. I kept myself small.
I don’t believe in telling people they can do anything they want regardless of the facts – I mean, no one’s suggesting it’s helpful to tell a tone-deaf teenager they have a shot at The X Factor, or someone who clearly isn’t a natural sprinter that they could be the next Jessica Ennis-Hill. But most of us are capable of much more than we think. And when you believe in yourself, you’re more likely to take action to make it a reality.
Every day, people grow their confidence; they launch businesses, they travel the world or they tell their mothers-in-law they’re not coming for Christmas this year. Many of the things you want to do have been done before by other people. People thought running a mile in under four minutes was impossible before Roger Bannister did it in 1954. Soon afterwards, many others managed it too. If someone else has done what you want to do, chances are it’s at least possible for you, too. There is nothing so special about you – and I mean that in the best way. Your brain is plastic; at a physical level, it changes and adapts all the time, allowing you to learn and change.
Who else do you know who’s done what you want to do? Can you learn from or gain inspiration from them? Read books, listen to podcasts, attend talks and meet people for coffee to immerse yourself in the mindsets of people who have done what you want to do.
It sounds odd that we should need ‘permission’ to go after what we want, but I hear women say this is true for them, time and again. I know that if you’ve been raised to be a ‘good girl’ you’ll relate to this. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be a leader?’, ‘Who am I to put my work out there?’ or ‘What will people think?’ We question if we’re allowed to even ask for what we want.
It’s as if we’re waiting for someone to validate us and tell us it’s OK before we trust ourselves. Having someone truly believe in you – your partner, a mentor or your boss – is incredible, but the person who needs to give you permission, is you. So give yourself permission to dream. Give yourself permission to think about what you really want and to pursue it bravely. Give yourself permission to be confident, to fake it until you make it. And most importantly, give yourself permission to risk failing because it will absolutely be worth it.
In 2017, I made a lot of my goals a reality. My first book The Anxiety Solution was a bestseller on Amazon, it was featured in the Daily Mail several times and I was invited to speak at events I’d always wanted to speak at. As well as all that, I was able to take a month off to travel. Yes, there was an element of luck and hard work involved but these were the exact things I’d written down in my journal, almost every day of 2016. I’m convinced writing down my goals helped make them a reality.
Some people would call this ‘manifesting’, a mystical force of attraction that says focusing on what you want will magnetically draw it towards you. But I’d be more likely to explain it this way: what looks like magic happens because when you put your attention on what you want, it helps you spot opportunities to make it happen.
The key to this is writing and accountability. The act of writing down goals and intentions helps us to encode them more deeply into our minds. The science backs this up; a study at Dominican University in California found that we’re 32 per cent more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down and tell a friend about them.1 Writing puts your subconscious on alert for ways to take action towards what you’re aiming for. Telling a friend helps to make it more ‘real’ – plus they can hold you to account. These strategies are the opposite of out of sight, out of mind – you are keeping your goals front and centre at all times.
A fun way to do this is to get yourself into the mindset of having already achieved the goal. Then you write about it as a done deal, with you already proud, excited, celebrating or grateful to have achieved it. The idea is, associating the goal with a positive feeling helps you to cement it in your mind even more powerfully.
Examples might be:
Make a daily – or weekly, if daily seems unmanageable – list of your goals. Write them as if they’ve already happened, including the positive feeling they will bring.
Your brain is a creative, problem-solving machine. Have you ever noticed how you go to sleep on an issue and wake up with renewed clarity, a perfect solution, or a new creative idea? Studies have found the REM stage of sleep, when you dream, is involved in creative problem-solving.2 As you sleep, the subconscious ticks away, accessing your memories, wisdom and experience to find an answer.
So tonight, don’t go to sleep without asking your subconscious mind to work on a problem for you. Setting an intention before you go to sleep is a powerful tool in the realization of your goals. Here’s how I harness my brain’s ability: as if I’m talking to Siri, I literally say out loud, ‘Subconscious, I’d like to work on you helping me to wake up more calm and confident tomorrow / give me creative ideas for this chapter I’m writing / find solutions for what I can do to help this client.’ It sounds a bit far out, but it works.
Plan this evening’s problem solving by finishing the following sentence. ‘Tonight I’m going to ask my subconscious for help with …’
Whenever you’re doing something new, reaching outside your comfort zone or going after something which means a lot to you, it will undoubtedly trigger negative self-talk. Rest assured you’re not alone. This is just a protective part of you, trying to keep you safe from the possibility, you know, of making a fool of yourself and dying because you got kicked out of the tribe.
You know this extreme fear is an evolutionary leftover so isn’t rational or helpful now. But I promise you, even super-confident people will still have an aspect of negative inner chatter; the difference is whether you listen to it or not. Remember the steps from Chapter 5 ‘Reboot your beliefs’ – be aware of this negative voice. Thank it for trying to help you. Think of what a friend would say instead. And choose to take action anyway.
Questioning your thoughts is also key; don’t let thoughts run riot. Ask yourself: ‘Is that really true?’ ‘Can I absolutely know that it’s true?’
Here are some examples:
Notice what you’re saying to yourself. Set a calendar alert to check in with yourself during the day and notice how you’re speaking to yourself. Is it kind? Is it constructive? Would you speak to your best friend that way? If not, it needs to change.
‘I’m hard on myself when I don’t meet my goals, or if things don’t go 100 per cent to plan,’ Jenna, twenty-eight, who works in marketing, told me. ‘I have found that even the goals I reach, I don’t celebrate reaching. It’s like I’m always looking for the next thing.’
So many people are like Jenna. They achieve a goal and simply move on to the next milestone. But it’s time for you to begin celebrating and acknowledging your every success. Otherwise, you’ll feel as if you’re on an endless treadmill with no opportunity to bask in your awesomeness. Even if you only get part of the way to your goal, celebrate that too. It’s progress – and that is a wonderful thing.
We’ve all heard the saying, ‘Reach for the stars, and at least if you fail, you’ll reach the moon.’ Unless we stretch ourselves, we won’t get anywhere near close to where we want to be. But nobody is perfect, and you might not reach every goal you set yourself. Be a kind, loving friend to yourself no matter what; giving it a try is brave, and doing your best is all that is required.
It’s easy to discount the progress you’ve already made, the challenges you’ve overcome and the things you’ve learned. You’re always up close and personal with yourself, so it can be hard to appreciate the bigger picture of who you are and what you’ve achieved. Take some time to step back from yourself and admire the view. Exercises like the career timeline in Chapter 7 ‘Meet your inner imposter’ will help you to remember the unique qualities and skills that helped get you where you already are.
When I was training as a professional business and life coach, one of the key things we learned was always to consider the whole iceberg. When it comes to setting goals, we’re often only aware of the top section of the iceberg; the things we can see and are consciously aware of. But underneath the waterline, there is a huge mass of beliefs, conditioning and past experiences that can hold us back.
‘My dream is to be a yoga teacher,’ Natalie, thirty, who’s currently a retail assistant, told me. ‘I wanted to sign up for training for ages, but I kept putting it off.’
When Natalie was brave enough to peek beneath the surface, she discovered what was holding her back. She told me, ‘I keep telling myself I’m not good enough. I think my family, friends and workmates will laugh or say I can’t do it.’
We have already looked at beliefs quite a bit in the course of this book, in Parts One and Two. Once Natalie challenged her unhelpful beliefs, she was able to sign up for her dream. These questions can help reveal your unhelpful beliefs and help you to challenge them, too. Ask yourself:
Identify your limiting beliefs. Then answer back to each belief as though it’s coming from a wise, rational and loving friend. For example:
‘I’ll never be good enough to succeed.’ ➞ You cannot predict the future. You have been good enough for many things in life, such as holding down a great job and having a great relationship. This might be challenging, but you’re more than capable.
‘I am broken and can’t be fixed.’ ➞ There is nothing so special about you that you can’t feel better. No one is inherently broken. Progress can always happen and change is inevitable. Look at how far you’ve already come!
‘I’m not smart enough.’ ➞ Smart enough for what? To take a tiny step forward? You have been smart enough for a lot of things, like managing projects at work and getting a good degree.
★ Believing you can do something is an important part of helping you to reach your goals.
★ Writing down your goals and intentions helps you to make them a reality.
★ Be mindful of your self-talk when you’re going out of your comfort zone, and always be kind to yourself.