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Think It, Get It #Goaldigger
Don’t downgrade your dreams, upgrade your belief baby.
I remember sheepishly telling my career advisor at school that I wanted to be an actress – or, to be honest, anything that could involve me being on stage performing. I was sheepish because of the countless times people had told me it wasn’t realistic and offered no stability. I had been convinced within an inch of my soul that what I wanted wasn’t achievable. It was all so blah, blah, blah. Every time anybody talked about my future, it felt as if my dreams were being pushed further and further away. Maybe you can relate to this?
So, guess what this taught me as a child? Don’t have goals. Don’t dream big. Stop sharing any goals that people are likely to say are not achievable. Stay realistic, stay comfortable, stay ordinary.
That was the message that was drummed into me and no doubt you know exactly what I am talking about. My goals in life became very focused on what everyone else was doing, what everyone wanted for me and what I thought was acceptable in society. I had stopped listening to my intuition, stopped fighting for my dreams, and I felt like Nemo desperately trying to find his way home.
A significant part of the Law of Attraction is understanding that where you place your focus and energy has a massive impact on what happens to you. In this chapter, I’ll share with you how to make goals that turn you on and how to go about getting them even if they feel far out of reach. I want you to feel comfortable with setting goals that make you feel hot under the collar and may even make you slightly cringe, because then you know you are being true to yourself and letting yourself dream really big.
Your goals need to mean something to you
Goals give you a sense of direction that removes that feeling of overwhelm, and when you have a plan of action in place to make those goals happen, well … the world is your motherfucking oyster. So many people I meet ask me the same question, and it’s a question I have also asked myself a dozen times: ‘What am I supposed to do with my life?’ As humans we have needs, and besides our basic needs for food, shelter and love, we all have a desire to grow. As outlined in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we have a desire ‘to become everything one is capable of becoming’.
Humans need to feel as if they have a purpose. We want success. Success comes in various shapes and forms and is by no means merely monetary – at the beginning of this book I wrote that, for me, success is feeling happy and free. All the things I do in my life allow me the choice to do what I want and give my life meaning, and that is my way of being successful.
But what does success mean to you? It is mind-blowing how small a number of people actually sit down to think about what they want. This is the first piece of the puzzle in changing your life, and I want you to take a moment now to sit in silence and to think about what your dream life looks like. Where do you live? What do you do? How much money do you earn? Are you married? Do you have kids? Perhaps you live alone in a beach-front hut in Thailand or have married a flamenco dancer in Ecuador. But whatever your dream life is, I want you to take a few moments to ask yourself: what does being successful mean to you? How does it feel?
If you got in a car and started driving aimlessly around with no destination in mind, you would waste fuel and get frustrated. One of our primary human needs for survival is growth, and, if we aren’t progressing, we are left with internal friction. When we lack purpose and direction, we plod through life, and this lack of fulfilment can manifest itself in anxiety, depression, anger, physical illness and a love of class A drugs (been there, done that, and got the comedown scars to prove it).
And even ‘successful’ people can go through these emotions and experiences if their goals are mostly driven by material gain. There are many celebrities out there who outwardly have the trappings of success – the money, the cars, the houses, the fame – yet the media is filled with stories of addiction and breakdown. Why? Because these people have focused on a kind of success that is fixated on material gain, following the lead of Ego and sacrificing other parts of their life. And, ultimately, this leads to the same ending for so many – crash and burn and then rehab. I don’t want that for you. I want you to have desires that will fill up your Soul and make you happy. I want you to become the best version of yourself, not just strive to make one part of your life better.
What is also important is that your goals are yours. Trust me, lots of people have goals that aren’t theirs. There are plenty of people who have goals based on what will make their parents proud, make society look up to them or what they perceive to be the right thing to do, despite the fact that these goals make them miserable. These are precisely the types of goals that I don’t want you to have.
Goal setting like a boss
I am going to show you not only how to set goals that you are obsessed with so that you achieve them, but I also want you to use your secret weapon – the Universe!
So where do you start with setting goals?
Firstly, you do need to know where you are going. Your internal GPS requires a destination to be inputted. You need total clarity on what success means for you and an understanding of what it will feel and look like once you have got there.
Don’t forget: vibrational mastery is what we want. So, the reason so many people stay stuck in a rut of perpetual ‘not knowing what to do-ness’ is because they are scared of letting their imaginations run wild and dreaming of all the possibilities. They are burdened with the questions of ‘How will it ever happen?’ instead of basking in the magic and excitement of what could be possible for them.
With that in mind, begin by grabbing a piece of paper, or using the notes section at the end of this book, and being really honest about what you want. Answer this: what would your deepest desire be for your life, even if you had no idea how to make it happen? I really need to you to take any thoughts of being realistic out of this. Take the ‘how?’ out of it. Just write. I just want you to revel in your desire.
Even if you don’t know the exact details, you just need an idea of what you want your life to look like and, most importantly, how you want to feel. Remember that this isn’t rigid and can change. The JFDI! exercise at the end of this chapter will help you get clarity on this, but just know that, once you are clear about your goals, events will start happening to make that a reality – that is, if you follow all the steps I’ll be showing you!
If you are grappling with the above question, think about the things you aren’t happy or satisfied with currently. This will be a great start. Perhaps you don’t like your job, or you are done with being single at Christmas or dislike the fact that you have to rummage through clearance sections at the supermarket. Sometimes it is easier to start with what we don’t like and then use that as a measure of what you want to change.
Not everyone has massive goals to change the world, and that is totally OK. Remember, success is whatever you define it to be and that changes from person to person. However, it is important to decide on what you want and then give it the attention and love it deserves to make it a reality. For the Law of Attraction to work, attention is critical, so setting really excellent goals gives your mind somewhere to focus. Whatever you set your focus on, things will start to happen.
Let me share how my life unfolded and what changed for me. In the winter of 2013, I was sitting in my car crying like a baby outside my daughter’s nursery. I had left my 14-month-old for the first time with a bunch of strangers. I distinctly remember having such a strong desire in my heart that my life needed to change so that I could leave my job and be with my little girl.
The thing is, I still had no clue what was going to happen. My goal at the time was merely that something had to change and that I wanted help to find out how to change it. I wanted to feel freedom.
I want you to absorb this sentence. Sometimes you don’t need to know the finer details; you just need to know how you want to feel as a result and let the Universe point you in the right direction. That is precisely what happened to me, and the following few years transpired to be my most spectacular. The low moment for me provided me with a benchmark of what I wanted to change.
You see, when we feel lost and confused, if we try to figure things out logically, we can hit resistance when we are not quite sure about the exact details. Resistance is not a pleasant feeling, so it saps our energy. When I asked for help, my strongest desire was for a solution to get out of my situation. From this starting point all I was sure of was I wanted to be my own boss, which in turn would make me feel happy and free and enable me to be with my baby girl. My desire was intense enough to set the Universe in full motion.
Once you have a desire, the cogs of the Universe start turning to make it happen for you. The results, however, can come quickly or slowly, and I will show you what makes the difference between these two outcomes.
I have outlined above how I didn’t know at the time that the result of my desire to change my life would unfold in a series of events that would lead me to this very moment, writing this book. However, since immersing myself in the Law of Attraction and the psychology of goal setting, I have found a way to get results more quickly.
Let me share the evolution of my desires:
1 I sat in the car, cried like a baby and wished I could make some money to stay at home. I had a desire to make £500. (Yep, I was not ambitious at all back then!)
2 A few weeks later, an email came into my inbox titled: ‘Want to make an extra £500 a month?’ This was one of my first ‘aha’ moments that this Law of Attraction thing might actually be on to something. I ended up in a programme that taught me how to make me 20 quid here and there, though I quickly saw that that was never going to lead to, let alone fund, my dream life.
3 I started up a wedding dress business at home. I convinced my husband to turn our spare bedroom into a wedding dress boutique and off I went to order a range of dresses from China. I soon realized that most of the people I spoke to had no clue what I was asking of them and I ended up with a somewhat questionable collection of wedding dresses that looked nothing like the pictures. (If you are in the market for a poorly cut, slightly scratchy, off-white wedding dress, I still have one stashed in my attic.) I learned quickly this would not be the business of my dreams and quit.
4 I had to take my sorry ass back to a job that I hated, and to a boss that quite frankly treated me like shit. C’est la vie. I needed the money.
5 By happenstance I came across a book on my mum’s bookshelf that I felt compelled to read; I discovered coaching and distinctly remember my Soul actively communicating with me via goose bumps. I got that sense of excitement inside me that is usually referred to as a ‘gut’ feeling. There’s more about this later.
6 Having applied to go back to university to become a coach, I fell pregnant with my second daughter. While studying for my postgraduate certificate in coaching, I started to worry again about my financial situation. I would be going on maternity leave and didn’t want another nine months of scrimping. So, I put the desire out there for a solution.
7 Another email came through, this one offering advice on how to create a physical product Amazon business.
8 I took a leap of faith as my gut said, ‘yes yes yes’. This is an integral part of the process that we will touch on in more detail later.
9 I made my first six figures through the Amazon product business while on my second maternity leave but still didn’t feel fulfilled. So, I followed my gut again, as well as the Universal signposts, to start my coaching business. And the rest is history …
As you can see, things happened – not overnight (actually over the course of two years), true, but they did happen. The Universe conspired to help me, and I followed the nudges and took the leaps of faith when I needed to. Those nudges came from my Soul, which I began to trust and listen to despite my Ego contesting the process the whole way. In the meantime, I was also focusing on becoming the best version of myself because I was beginning to understand that the best version of myself could achieve anything. And so I began my spiritual journey … and became a fully fledged publicist for the Universe.
The rules of goal setting
Don’t think it, ink it
You need to choose one big goal for each of the eight pathways of life (see the JFDI! task at the end of this chapter). Make a decision. Think about what you truly want and then write it down. Written goals are way more potent than those that just float around in the ether. They become concrete and physical. Many studies have shown that people who write down their goals are ten times more likely to achieve them. And the Universe doesn’t care if you write in a leather-bound journal with a silver pen or on a tissue with a crayon. All writing is ceremonial and helps you crystallize your desires and gives you a physical object through which to focus your attention.
Honesty is always the best policy
You also need to be brutally honest with yourself about what you want. If you aren’t in accurate alignment with the Universe, then your energy will be all over the place. Your desires were given to you for a reason – because they were meant for you. Read that again. If you have a desire, it was meant for you. If you are writing down that you want to make £1,000, but, in fact, you desire to attract £1,000,000, then be honest. The Universe knows your deepest desires, so you might as well be honest on paper and dream big, baby.
It needs to feel real
Write goals down that, even though they may be challenging, are possible for you to achieve. If you feel like it’s completely impossible, then your energy will scream that, and you won’t ever get there. If you don’t believe you can and will manifest what you desire, then just don’t bother. It’s as simple as that. You need to know you can and will do it. There is no room for doubt when it comes to seriously engaging the Universe. Would you doubt that your BFF would be there for you with a box of chocolates and tissues if you broke up with your latest beau/belle? No way. My BFF would always be there. So will the Universe.
If I had set myself a goal to hit £100,000 in the very first month of my business, I wouldn’t have been able to formulate a plan of how to get there, and we must always meet the Universe halfway. I wasn’t setting myself up for success and, in fact, I would have failed. At that point, I barely had a business at all. When we set goals that feel too far out of our reach and we don’t hit them, we lose confidence, and a lack of confidence makes us question our competence. I knew it was possible to make six figures in a month because I had seen others do it, but I didn’t believe it was possible for me … yet.
So, I started by setting goals that excited me yet felt achievable, and worked my way up. I then formulated a plan and had my first £100,000 month in Month 10. I had a plan and the Universe came in with bells and whistles and helped me blow my own socks off. I love how it does that, and I want you to know it will do the same for you.
Remember, though: you must formulate a plan to make this happen. A desire will only come to fruition if you put your energy and attention into it and then allow the Universe to do its dance to make it all happen for you. Unfortunately, sitting on your booty scoffing Oreos and watching Game of Thrones won’t get you to your goals, but a clear plan of action for scaling your business, losing weight or meeting Mr or Ms Right will.
Be specific and state it in the present
The Universe loves juicy details. Specificity allows your attention to be super-focused. If you want a car – what model and make? If you want a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is he/she like? One of the most significant ways in which we hold success away from ourselves is by refusing to nail exactly what we wish to have by when. Because then it’s not so scary. And if we fail, we can still dream. Or we can tell ourselves, ‘There’s always next year.’
So, go back and make sure that you have written dates by all these goals. Give yourself a deadline but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t hit it. These deadlines aren’t tattooed on you, nor will you spontaneously combust if you miss a deadline – it just gives you focus. I had set a goal to get a book deal by December 2017. It didn’t happen. Did I give up or berate myself? No way. I trusted the Universe had a more significant plan and made myself another date, another point of focus for my energy, in full faith that one day this book would be in your hand. And guess what? It is.
Goals that are stated in the future create a mental gap for the brain called structural tension. When you state things in the present, this bridges the gap and allows you to believe it’s possible. And believing it’s possible is precisely the energy you need for manifesting.
So, write your goals down as if they have already happened:
• ‘I earn £250k a year.’
• ‘I have the most incredible boyfriend/girlfriend who buys me roses every weekend.’
• ‘I weigh 9 stone.’
• ‘I am in Guinness World Records for eating the most doughnuts in one minute.’
I don’t care what your goal is, just state it as though it has happened.
Reverse-engineer
This is where you begin to plan out how to achieve your goals. OK, so here is where psychology and spirituality get into a slight conflict and where I am going to help you marry this shizzle up.
The straight-up psychology view would have you make goals that are specific, measurable and thoroughly planned out. Step by step. The spiritual guru would tell you to relax, to trust the Universe and to surrender. I sit in both camps, and this is what I have said to you from the beginning: there is a place for strategy in spirituality and woo-woo in psychology and this is the secret sauce to successful living.
So, I want you to plan, I want your attention to be focused on each step, and I want your attention to have an overall outcome in mind. The best way is to reverse-engineer your goal and work out what the five crucial steps to getting to your goals are. Don’t make it any more than five.
I then want you to be dedicated to a process that gets you there, so that you don’t slip into the mindset of focusing on the absence of your desire. But here is where the spiritual badass in me pops up and says: ‘Follow the plan but know that at any point the Universe may come and slightly divert you or deliver it to you earlier than you expected.’
I had a client who wanted to manifest $300,000 in her business. She planned and planned and executed and didn’t make $300,000 in her business but, out of the blue, she inherited $300,000. She got the same result, but via a different route than she initially thought. But because her energy was focused on her own plan, she was in the flow and enjoying herself, and there wasn’t time to worry about where that $300,000 was coming from. She just had faith that it was coming.
The F-word
Once you are clear about your goals, we need to add in a special ingredient that is integral to your success. Let me be clear here: if you look at the list of goals you have written and you don’t believe it’s possible, then you are missing a vital ingredient in ticking off your goal list one by one. In the words of the late great George Michael, ‘You gotta have faith, faith, faith’. In the JFDI! exercise, I will get you to split each goal into steps and then get you tick off each step. Goals seem big and scary because instead of looking at the next step, you end up focusing on the huge big picture, which your brain cannot compute. As you achieve each step, you build up your faith muscle, and you have the confidence to go to the next stage. Sometimes, faith needs to be your downpayment on your future.
Have faith in your power to manifest anything you want, and it will come to you. You must believe in yourself and the Universe. You must feel this is yours and you deserve it. Otherwise, you won’t get it. All you have to do is decide, set an intention, and have a plan, as well as keep faith and have belief. Take steps your end but allow the Universe to take care of the rest.
Check that all your goals are in alignment with your personal vision for your life and getting you to the overall desired outcome for your life. Strengthening your faith muscle is paramount and you will get little signs from the Universe that you are on course if you keep your eye out.
Make a note if you see things related to your goal showing up in your life. I call it my evidence list because it’s proof that the Universe is working on my behalf.
Have fun, babycakes!
Remember to set goals that you can enjoy attaining – we need to attach positive emotion to the process. Why? Because then you can be sure that you are tuning in to UniverseFM and this will get you there so much more quickly. When you are having fun and giving attention to your intention (desire), the Universe will orchestrate an infinite number of events to materialize your desires. It always has your back; it is your BFF, remember! Intention and attention are two partners-in-crime when it comes to you manifesting.
But there is a caveat that a lot of ‘manifesters’ get wrong. Your goal may be for the future, but your attention and energy must stay in the present. If you are continually thinking about the absence of the thing you are trying to manifest, your energy has now shifted, and in fact you are pushing what you want further away. That is why we need to learn to be super-duper conscious.
Expect the unexpected
Sometimes the Universe will deliver something slightly different from what you originally wanted. Sometimes you will wonder why the outcome was different, but you need to trust that, if you follow the steps in the book, clean up your energy and raise your vibe, the Universe will deliver only great things. It might be a slightly different outcome, but it will be one that is better than your conditioned mind initially conceived.
It also means you need to be open to the opportunity and detached from the outcome. You still have the intention of going in a particular direction (your goal). However, between point A and point B, there are infinite possibilities. When you factor in uncertainty, you embrace the reality that things might change direction at any given moment if you find something more exciting.
So being specific allows you to focus your attention but also to embrace the flexibility that the Universe may surprise you with something even more amazeballs.
EMMA’S STORY
Emma focuses all her energy into creating a successful business, and she is making more money than she ever has. The problem is, she can’t enjoy it because her husband is constantly arguing with her, complaining that he barely sees her. Because her husband is continually arguing with her, Emma seeks solace in eating chocolate every day and her weight creeps up, and now she looks in the mirror and feels rubbish. Whenever her friends ask her to go out with them, she makes excuses as she thinks she looks fat in everything. Because she is stuck in the house, she feels frustrated and takes this out on her kids.
There are eight areas you must focus on in order to create balanced success in your life. So many people put all their energy into bettering one part of their life and neglect other parts. This is why I wholeheartedly believe so many people feel unfulfilled.
When I focused and committed to improving my life across the board, the real magic started to happen. I was so busy and involved in creating the best version of me that I had no attention left to worry about, or compare myself to, anybody around me.
HARRY’S STORY
Harry has got a promotion in his job, but this means lots of travel and his eating habits and health have taken a back seat. He used to volunteer at his local church, which gave him a sense of fulfilment, but he is so tired now that all he wants to do at the weekend is sit on the sofa and watch Netflix. He has wanted to meet Ms Right for ages, but his energy is low because of the bad eating habits and his social life is suffering.
CLAIRE’S STORY
Claire is a total social butterfly. She loves to party and has lots of friends, but she feels lost career-wise. She spends most of her time hungover and goes to her job on autopilot but ends up spending her money on designer clothes, so she’s ready for her next night out. She has no savings and deep down she wants to leave her job and start her own business, but she doesn’t know how to and is worried that if she doesn’t have the money from her career, she will lose her social life which is the only thing that makes her happy (or so she thinks). After all her spending, she can’t afford to join a gym, so she doesn’t get much exercise.
As you can see from these stories, all parts of our lives are inextricably linked and have an impact on one another. That’s why to get real happiness all round, we must set badass goals in all areas of our life and commit to balanced growth.
Ready for the next steps, darling?
Once you have a clear idea of the goals you wish to set in each area of your life, you also have clarity on your direction and know what you desire, which is the fuel that you need to take action.
• Execute the plan you have.
• Take action and trust the Universe to handle the details.
Remember that the Universe gives you both the soil and the seed (energy and information), but it’s up to you to carry out the daily task of working in the fields (attention) as well as keeping the faith (intention) that one day the seed will grow into that juicy, ripe, red tomato (the manifestation of your desires). Trust that, when things don’t seem to go your way, there is a reason that is beyond your understanding. There is always a time and a place to channel your inner Elsa and just ‘Let It Go’.
Do exactly what you would do if you were getting it today, and take actions in your life to reflect that strong expectation and desire. You need to make room for your wishes to come in, and understand that expectation is a truly powerful force. We will delve into this in more detail later.
TOP TAKEAWAYS
• To get success in your life, you need to know where you are going.
• Even if you don’t see the exact route, just know how you want to feel. Get clarity on your ideal life and what that looks like.
• Write down goals in all eight areas of your life. When your focus is on becoming the best version of yourself, getting what you desire will be a million times easier. Remember that if it isn’t written down, it’s fantasy.
• Plan, plan, plan. Yet still accept that the plan may change.
• Implement a daily goal-setting routine. This is where the magic happens.
JFDI!
Balance those badass goals
There are eight areas of life for which you should make goals. When you focus on all these areas and build up goals over the year, this has a compound effect on your whole life. If you could improve in all areas of your life, even just little by little, month on month, by the end of the year your life would look drastically different.
The areas are:
• Spiritual (your connection to the Universe/God … whatever or whomever)
• Emotional (your relationship to your closest family members/partner/children)
• Physical (your physical health)
• Mental (your learning and mental growth)
• Social (your friendships and community)
• Charitable (how you give to others outside of yourself)
• Vocational (what you do for a living)
• Financial (your relationship to money and how you build your wealth).
Set yourself 12-month goals in each of the areas. Then reverse-engineer the goals and break them down into no more than five key steps. You may have multiple goals but try not to have more than three in each area, otherwise it becomes overwhelming. The reason we focus on all areas of your life is to maintain balance.
While life would feel really amazing even if you achieved success in one or two areas of your life, think about how incredible it would be if you improved in all the areas listed above. How would it feel to look back over a year to find that your health, wealth, relationships and vocation had all improved: it would be epic, right?!
