‘Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals,
and then work toward them every day, will do more
to guarantee your success than any other factor.’1
BRIAN TRACY
After leaving my 9–5 job in October 2014, and going full-time in my business, I started to really see what was possible for me financially, and my goal was simple: hit six figures by my 30th birthday (a year later).
The funny thing about goals is that often times, people pull them out of thin air. I was no different. Six figures had always been the goal for me. (I wanted seven figures but I assumed that would come at some point in my 40s.) To me, six figures meant that I’d really made it. I was doing something legit.
The only problem was that I had no idea how to get there. But luckily I saw other people out there doing it in my industry, so I knew it was possible. (See how important possibility mindset is!) For example, I distinctly remember my coach telling me that I could turn my yearly salary as a matchmaker into my monthly revenue. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, but I loved the sound of it, so I chose to believe her. (Those mirror neurons were firing!)
My coach helped me decide on the goal of signing up 10 clients for my one-on-one coaching program in November 2014. She let me know that it was all I was to talk, think, or write about until all 10 spots were gone. I followed her orders, and it worked!
I celebrated my first five-figure month that November – over $19,000. Before the end of 2014, I’d registered 25 clients in a group program as well. And by January 2015, I’d hit six figures in my business – six months after registering my first client and 10 months before my 30th birthday.
As someone clearly very wise once said, ‘If you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail.’ Often times, the hardest thing for entrepreneurs and driven people is knowing what they really want. Plus, so many of us are multi-passionate. We want to do all the things.
Trust, me, I’m no different, but another key factor in maintaining momentum in my first year of business was learning to focus on and set achievable goals – as well as take massive action until I saw the results I wanted. Just like an athlete looking to get a medal or break a record, I had to be focused on what I wanted and not lose sight of it until it was mine. And I had to take the right action.
Think about it like this – if you’re looking to gain 10 pounds, the action you’ll take is very different to that you’ll take if you’re looking to lose 10 pounds. And although most people claim they know which goal they’re working toward, in my experience they don’t actually know how to goal-set in a way that primes them for success and facilitates consistent effort. We’ll cover both issues in this chapter.
I’m going to break this process down for you even more now, so you can really understand how it works, see the importance of it, and learn how to apply it to your own life to see the success you want. However, as always, I need you to first recognize what’s possible, not just for me, but for you too.
And by the way, in this chapter, I’m focusing heavily on financial goals and milestones – because as a business owner, that’s what I tend to goal-set around. But if your goals aren’t specifically money-related, that’s okay. Use the information and examples I give you and apply them to your goal.
Before we go any further, I need you to understand that your goals are two-dimensional – you have your big-picture goals, but you also have your short-term goals: the ones that lead you to the big-picture vision. As a driven woman, you have to learn how to focus on both types of goal simultaneously. This means thinking about the big-picture goal – let’s say a trip to California – as well as the current reality, which in this case is navigating the traffic as you leave New York City. It’s a dance to keep both places in mind.
The first step is to actually get clear on your big-picture goals. What is it that you want to achieve? Is it starting a business? Buying your dream house? Moving up the ladder in your career? Getting into the best shape of your life? Being a guest on Super Soul Sunday? Landing in Forbes? You get to decide. (I hope you know this by now!)
If your goals are still a bit foggy, revisit the list of desires you wrote earlier (in Chapter 3). Maybe your desires have changed or morphed since then – remember, you’re allowed to adjust them: they’re yours!
Once you have the big picture in mind, you have to ask yourself what this journey is about for you. Which steps toward the big-picture goal do you feel called to take right now? Maybe you want to hire someone to help you map that out, like I did, and take the guesswork out of it. Or maybe you have a strong intuition about where you need to start. Regardless, starting requires you to also be clear on your short-term goals. Otherwise, you’ll end up going nowhere.
In my work as a success coach, I’ve found that for some women, their short-term goals are scarier than their big-picture vision.
This is especially true when it comes to money. Let me give you an example of this.
In one of the group coaching calls I host, my client Melissa got on the line and said she’d been really resistant to starting the work in the program; however, today she wanted to share one of her desires from Module 1. I invited Melissa to share and was excited to hear about what she’d uncovered.
Through a bit of obvious fear, she said, ‘For a while, I’ve kind of thought – it feels even crazy saying it – that I want to be a billionaire. I want to have a billion dollars. If Oprah can do it, why can’t I do it?’
I love hearing my clients proclaim their big-picture vision. Nothing makes me happier to hear a woman finally admitting what it is she desires – especially around money – and in such a public way. But at the same time, a red flag pops up for me when I hear statements like Melissa’s. It wasn’t that I doubted her dreams or whether she could really do it; it was about whether she was actually in reality about what she wanted, and what it was going to take to get there. After all, she’d admitted she was resistant even to getting started on Module 1 in the program!
Most people are hoping to achieve some sort of financial milestone – maybe it’s six figures or the million-dollar goal. In Melissa’s case, I could tell by her voice that there was a lot of shame and judgment coming up around her goal – and a lot of ambiguity. But when we looked deeper, it wasn’t the big goal that was the problem: it was her current reality. Not only was she judging her big-picture goal, she was judging her current reality.
A young college professor getting her Ph.D in New York City, Melissa was living in a luxury apartment for which she paid $1,600 a month. She loved where she lived, but when people asked her how much rent she paid, she felt ashamed to admit it, and although she often shared the amount with them, she quickly mentioned that her job helped pay for a portion of the cost.
She felt like people would judge her for spending that amount of money, and didn’t know if they would understand her dreams of living in the city. But the real truth was that she was judging herself above all else. That’s the thing about judgment – if you’re worried about what other people think or if others’ opinions trigger or bother you, then you have to look inside and notice where you’re also judging yourself or not living your truth.
If you’re still wrestling with judgment around money, go back to the previous chapter and journal on what’s coming up for you so you can release it.
Once we’d uncovered Melissa’s judgment of herself, her current choices and her dreams, we were able to get to the root of what was going on. (Note: This is also a great example of how judgment blocks our desires!) I asked her to consider what it would take to get to that million- or billion-dollar level. She had no idea and was riddled with fear just thinking about it.
I shifted and asked her what her first goal was on the path to that destination. After some probing and number crunching, she figured out that her real-time goal was to make $2,000 a month in her new business. Then she’d be able to consider leaving her role as a professor – well, ‘later on in the future,’ she added.
As we spoke, it was obvious to me, and everyone else listening, that the $2,000 goal was far scarier to Melissa than her billion-dollar goal. Crazy, right? From the perspective of an outsider, that may make absolutely no sense. Of course, $2,000 is easier to earn than $2 billion or even $200,000. But think about it like this: big dreams are so far off in the future that they are the perfect excuse to not actually do anything to take action in the present moment.
For example, picture yourself driving to California for an interview. In NYC, you’re safe. Around Ohio, you’re still feeling pretty good. But by the time you get to Nevada, you’re starting to freak out, realizing you’re only a day away from your goal, and something is actually going to happen. Then what?
Your big-picture goals are out there waiting, perfectly taped to your vision board. They’re far enough away that there’s never any reason for you to make yourself feel bad for not having reached them.
In fact, big-picture dreams make you feel good about yourself because they automatically put you in the category of the driven, the dreamers, and those who are ‘reaching for the stars.’
With big-picture goals, you feel like you don’t actually have to do anything to get there – at least not yet.
But like so many others, you are lost in that fantasy and never actually do anything in the present moment. Because the goals are so far off in the future, you get to stay in your little bubble, believing everything you desire is on its way to you.
You’re stuck in that belief to the degree that you’re not taking action now, and never actually move forward toward that dream. And eventually, the dream doesn’t feel so good anymore because nothing is actually happening. And when the brain starts to see that nothing’s happening, eventually it lets go of the dream all together.
As motivational speaker Mel Robbins says, ‘It’s the small, ordinary, mundane kind of stuff that will set you on a path to success.’ Once the brain sees you accomplishing these smaller tasks, it wants to keep repeating the process and get more pleasure.
You’re not meant to have
reached your big dreams yet.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t
have to start moving now.
In fact, it’s essential that you do move now, and you can only do that by having short-term goals in place.
My client Stacy lives in Houston and works as a high-school teacher. At the same time, she also makes costumes for the theater program at the school. As you can imagine, when it comes to her schedule, it’s basically as if she has two jobs. Yet neither are what she actually wants to do.
On one of our coaching calls, Stacy shared that, like Melissa, she got really clear on her desires in the IHML program, and realized her real goal is to work for one of the professional theater companies in Houston and do their costume design as a freelancer. She also started a sewing blog and has big hopes for that as well.
She went on to say that she’d love season tickets to the theater – to be able to go to plays, ballets, and operas would be her version of massive success – and if she worked for one of the companies, she’d be gifted that opportunity. I could tell by her voice how much that vision excited her; yet at the same time, alarm bells were going off in my head. Stuck in the vision, I thought.
I told Stacy how much I loved hearing about her goals, and asked her whether she’d applied for a position at one of the theater companies yet. The other end of the line went silent, and I could feel her energy shift, even though we were 4,846 miles apart.
‘No, I haven’t. I don’t think I could,’ she replied, and then paused. ‘Ugh, I just don’t have the time.’
She caught herself: ‘I know, I know – we make the time for the things we really want. But my time gets eaten up.’
‘And why can’t you go and freelance with them right now?’ I asked. ‘Have you applied or even gone to the theater to see if there are any opportunities available?’
‘Not yet,’ Stacy admitted.
‘So how would it feel to do that?’ I continued.
‘Um, a little scary, but exciting,’ she replied.
‘In what way?’
‘I’d have to deal with the rejection, if it came. Or if I actually got a position, I feel it would add a lot more to my plate. So it just...but…that’s the kind of theater I actually want to design for – not for high school – so it would feel really exciting too.’
‘Your job is to get excited about your desires,’ I told her. ‘It’s not going to happen if you’re scared of it happening and scared of it not happening. The Universe doesn’t know what to do with that.’
I explained to Stacy that in order to move forward with her big-picture goals, she had to start taking action today on smaller goals. Otherwise, they could stay out in the ether, along with all the other un-actioned big dreams. I told her that I’m all about dreams being really big, and creating vision boards, but if you’re not going to take action on them, they’re a waste of time and energy. At the end of the call, Stacy finally got it and made a plan to take immediate action.
It’s possible for you to take immediate action too; however, in order to do so, you need to get really granular about what your actual goal is. In Stacy’s case, she’d already taken one step forward in that she’d started her sewing blog. The next step was to make contact with the theaters. She could start by making a list of the companies she wanted to contact; then she could carve out an hour of her day to actually do that. She could also think about whether she already has contacts in the industry who could help her get a foot in the door.
Remember, this isn’t about having the exact roadmap toward everything you want – none of us know exactly how we’re going to get there. Think about someone you admire – I imagine they didn’t have everything that’s happened in their life completely mapped out (at least I don’t think so!). That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I am talking about is figuring out how to hit the $2,000 a month so you can hit six figures next year. And then take it from there.
By the way, I don’t know what your specific goal is, so you’ll have to be the one to map out the steps you want to start taking today. What I do know is that there isn’t a ‘right’ way to do this, but there’s probably a common way. So I highly recommend you speak to people who have done what it is you want to do and find a community of like-minded individuals and/or a mentor to guide you.
The other key element in successful goal-setting is connecting with how it would feel to reach that goal, and checking in with whether you think it’s possible to achieve it. One of my coaches called this ‘playing the whole tape through.’ (We’ll need to come up with a new phrase for future generations, who won’t know what a cassette or VHS actually is, but it works for now!)
Playing the whole tape through means that when you make a goal – let’s say to hit six figures – you ask yourself if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to hit six figures. It sounds obvious, but this isn’t a question most people ask. If you’re not prepared to put in the effort and take action toward your goal, you’re wasting your time and energy. I’m not saying you should throw the goal out the window completely, but I am saying you should revise it. You want to set yourself up for success, not failure. And remember, we aren’t in the business of setting goals that end up just floating around.
If the goal is too big, or you
don’t feel you can reach
it, then you won’t.
This will leave you feeling frustrated, and potentially lower your confidence, which in turn will mean less action and goal-setting and fewer results going forward. This is why playing the whole tape through is so essential.
Let me give you another client example. Sharon took part in one of our masterminds for online entrepreneurs, and during a group session, she called in and asked for support in getting clear on her action steps and goals. She really wanted to start selling her new program designed for women who’d gone through a divorce, but thus far, she’d had people fill out consultation forms and either not show up for the call, or decide not to move forward with the coaching.
I could tell that Sharon, normally so levelheaded and calm, was frustrated and confused about how to change her current situation.
‘How many clients do you want to come and register?’ I asked her.
‘Three in September,’ she answered, without missing a beat.
‘Okay, great. How many this month?’ I went on. We were only one week into August.
‘None this month,’ Sharon said. She explained that she was in a new relationship and had her children home for the summer, so she didn’t have time to take on any new clients. A red flag surfaced for me. In the moments before I’d started my line of questioning, Sharon had expressed frustration that she wasn’t making any money that month.
‘Well, that’s why it’s not happening!’ I exclaimed, laughing. It clicked for her in that moment too. The reason she wasn’t hitting her goal was because she didn’t actually want to hit the goal. She hadn’t played the whole tape through.
‘You think?!’ Sharon yelled into the phone.
‘Yes, why would the Universe give you something you don’t actually want?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up,’ Sharon replied.
The truth hit her right in the stomach. She said she even started to sweat when she realized what was going on beneath the surface. Sharon had subconscious programming running the show. Although she thought she wanted to sell her package, make money and move things forward in her business, her heart had a different agenda and wasn’t actually on board with that goal. And she hadn’t been aware of any of this until that moment. She was literally keeping herself stuck and stopping the sales from coming in, without knowing it. That’s why it’s so crucial that you get clear on what you want – in this moment and long term.
One of the questions I’m often asked by clients is how far out they should set their goals. Ninety days? Six months? A year? When it comes to specific goals, I highly recommend people take it month by month (this is what I did in the first 18 months of my business).
For example, ask yourself how much money you want to make this month. What personal goals do you want to reach? How do you want to transform your health? And then make sure that the goal contributes to the big-picture goals you also have in mind. There are a couple of reasons for doing this…
By focusing on my own journey month by month, I was able to remain in the moment, and that meant all my energy and attention was going on the one single goal at hand. As you’ve probably noticed, my goals were connected to monetary amounts, but you should decide what works best for you.
Let’s take a second to celebrate everything you’ve learned about goal-setting so far. You now know how to set big-picture goals and simultaneously focus on the smaller, more immediate, goals that really matter when it comes to getting closer to your dreams. Woo hoo!
For a second, forget everything I’ve just told you about goal-setting. Well, not really: but open your mind to the possibility that sometimes, you don’t actually have to do anything but keep the faith and expect that things will turn out better than you could have imagined.
I see this all the time with my clients: once they get into momentum, doors open for them that they didn’t expect. I share this to remind you that anything is possible. When you keep moving forward with your goals, you can achieve more than even you envisioned, and you can (and will) be surprised.
Most of us assume that success is achieved one step at a time. This is another belief that’s been instilled in us – and it’s one that we can actually start to change to bring our dreams more rapidly into our reality. Simply put: it doesn’t have to take as long as you think. You just have to keep moving forward, toward your desires, and trust that you’re being supported. And it’s not all down to you.
In his book You2: A High Velocity Formula for Multiplying Your Personal Effectiveness in Quantum Leaps, Price Pritchett says that ‘right now… you are capable of exponential improvement in your performance. You can multiply your personal effectiveness, hit new highs and shatter your old achievement records…and become you squared.’2
What if you considered the idea that you don’t just have to put one foot in front of the other – instead, you can take a quantum leap toward your dreams.
So, what if…
Remember, anything is possible. I truly believe that, as Robin Sharma says, ‘The future belongs to the misfits, oddballs and visionaries.’3 So aim high. Expect more from yourself. This is your one life, so give it your all.
Now that we’ve covered many of the key components in setting goals, it’s time for you to map out your steps. What’s your big-picture goal? Start with one. Then I highly recommend that you ‘back into it’ and lay out your 90-day and 30-day goals.
Next, ask yourself, what’s the first step I can take in the direction of that goal? What can I do every day in order to reach it? At first, just listen to your intuition – what’s it telling you? How have other people done what you want to do? And what is it going to take for you to reach that goal? Map out your steps and commit to taking them, starting today.