Can we talk about how we are just days away from 2018? How are you guys feeling about it? I am personally feeling SO EXCITED. The last two years have been a bit of a… journey for me… to put it nicely and I KNOW a lot of you can relate.

I saw this the other day and it PUMPED ME UP because this is exactly how I, and I think a lot of people are feeling, heading into the New Year:

#intoit

For me, 2016 was pretty close to horrifying. I had skin cancer, my mom had cancer, I was in a job I hated that had me waking up with anxiety every day… no thanks. This year felt like it was off to a rough start as well BUT the beautiful thing about our lives is that, ultimately, you are responsible for your own happiness and reality. Things will come along that are outside of your control, but you can always control your reaction to those things and choose to grow and learn from them instead of falling victim to them.

So I took a look at things that WERE within my control and made some changes. Cut out toxicity. Quit the job I hated. Started adding in more of the things I love, and I’m ending this year in a MUCH better place than 2016.

We are often more comfortable with the pain we know than we are with the unknown, even if that unknown may be everything we ever wanted. We stay in situations that make us miserable out of fear of the next situation being just as bad or worse. But what if it’s great?! If it’s not great, if it IS just as bad, or worse, then guess what: you can change again! It is a beautiful and, at times, terrifying concept because YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE.

Anyway, I’m totally feeling the 2017 cocoon vibe and I’m ready to BUTTERFLY IT UP in 2018. But you can’t become a butterfly without a little planning.

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. 

The 3 Keys to Creating Goals You Will Actually Reach

1. Pick the RIGHT Goals

The secret sauce actually starts with picking the right goals. The number 1 mistake people make when goal setting is that they unknowingly set EXTERNAL goals. Goals that make us appear outwardly “successful”  but don’t leave us feeling fulfilled. Meaning- you guessed it, they are very unlikely to be accomplished {and even if they were, we wouldn’t FEEL successful}.

With anything you want in life whether it’s to own your own business, make more money, tone up, travel, lose weight etc, it is NOT the actual THING you want, it is the FEELING that comes with it. How that thing makes you feel is the ultimate goal. 

The key to goal success is clarifying WHY you actually want to accomplish a particular thing. Why do you want to own your own business? Maybe you want to feel the freedom of determining how you spend each of your days. Travel? Perhaps you crave unique experiences, stepping outside of your comfort zone and seeing things from a new perspective.

Design Your Dream Life

You get to literally design your life, and it’s legit going to make it easier to accomplish your goals because you will be aligned.

Sit down and write out how you want to FEEL on a day to day basis and overall in your life. For instance: I want to wake up each day excited to take on the tasks on my plate. I want feel rested and consistently express my creativity. I want to feel the freedom of choosing how I and where spend my days. I want to regularly experience unique and fulfilling moments. I want to feel the joy from giving back to those around me.

Create your dream life in terms of how you want to feel instead of how you want to appear.

For instance, it is a very different thing to want to make a certain amount of money so that you can feel freedom in your decisions, freedom from financial stress and freedom to experience life in a certain way vs making enough money to appear outwardly “successful”. It is probably a very different amount too.

This will also dictate HOW you reach the goals and keep you on track from slipping out of alignment. For instance, if you want to own your own business so you have the freedom to determine how you spend each day, but you’re living your boss babe business life and one day realize your days are completely out of your control and you’re run ragged- it’s time to reevaluate how things are operating. You have achieved the outward appearance of your goal, but not the purpose you set the goal for in the first place. If you set goals without the understanding of WHAT FEELING should be the driving force, you may accomplish that goal outwardly but still be unsuccessful because you aren’t fulfilled.

Set Specific and Measurable Goals

Picking goals by how you want to feel doesn’t mean you’re getting rid of your tangible goals. In fact, it’s the opposite. You’re going to get even more SPECIFIC with your goals to be sure they’re measurable. Then you will weigh every tangible goal you have against the “how I want to feel” barometer and be sure the two are in alignment.

So, instead of “I want to make more money” you’re going to set something like “I want to make X amount of dollars per month for the first quarter of the year” {we will get more into quarters in the next section}. Then compare this to your dream life feeling scenario. Does this amount feel like freedom and flexibility to you? Or does it feel like something you’ve chose to appear outwardly “successful”? The distinction will be clear.

Same with traveling. If you simply say you want to travel more chances are you will hit the end of 2018 and look around wondering where the time went and why you never got around to traveling. Where do you want to travel? Get Specific! When will you go, and, again WHY do you want to go? How do you want to feel? That way, you can implement proper strategies to actually make it happen. Speaking of strategies:

2. Strategize How you will Reach Your Goals

It doesn’t matter how badly you want something, if you don’t prioritize and strategize it will constantly be pushed aside by “life”. Long story short:

You have to figure out where you want to be and work backwards through ALL the steps it will take to get there. Then SCHEDULE the steps.

Where Do You Want to Be / What Do You Want to Do?

This is what we figured out in section 1. We have set specific and measurable goals { so we will know whether we have accomplished them or not} and we know they are in alignment with our dream lifestyle. The strategy implementation here is that you pick only 3 – 5 you want to focus on for the first quarter of the year.

That’s right. Just the first 3 months. Mapping out your goals for the entire year is a problem for a few reasons:

• It is easy to push things off because you have a longer timeframe. You feel you have a whole year to accomplish things so you aren’t in a rush. Putting the 3 month timeframe on it keeps you in deadline mode and moving forward.
• You will most likely need to reevaluate partway through the year. It is somewhat of a waste of time to map out the whole year because odds are you will be in a different place partway through the year than when you started. Maybe you accomplish some things more quickly than expected or something caused you to change direction or prioritize differently. Working quarter to quarter allows you to be sure everything you’re putting effort towards the right things and not just doing something because you decided you were going to 8 months ago.

3. Visualize Reaching Your Goals

Now for the often overlooked but SO ESSENTIAL 3rd key. VISUALIZATION.

Visualizing is the key to success is so many arenas. This prob needs to be a whole separate blog post, but long story short: your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between something that actually happened and something that is repeatedly and vividly imagined. So when you visualize what you WANT to happen in depth, over and over, it essentially becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because your subconscious feels as though it is already achieved. Thus, every time you are faced with a situation that could contribute to the desired outcome you’ve visualized, you take the proper action to accomplish the feat. This is a technique SO MANY top athletes, CEO’s and more use in their training and preparation. Like, if it’s good enough for Oprah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Will Smith, Lindsay Vonn, Jay Z, Michael Phelps and more- it’s good enough for us, right?!

Here’s the Visualization Exercise to Dominate Your Goals

Get comfy I would wrap up in a blanket because #alwayscold. Wear something that makes you feel good, but is also super comfortable. Light your favorite candle.

Close your eyes and imagine it is December of next year. You have accomplished every. single. one. of your goals. YOU DOMINATED THEM. How does it feel to have accomplished everything? Where are you? What are you doing? What are you wearing? Feel it all in a visceral way and know that is who and where you are meant to be.

So Happy New Year, Loves!

I can’t WAIT for all the goodness that’s coming our way next year. Cheers to 2018!

Xx,

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