How To Reach Your BIG Goals
You know that BIG goal that you would love to accomplish and yet, no matter how much you try, you always end up giving up before you reach it?
Maybe life gets in the way. Maybe you encounter obstacles you can’t overcome. Or maybe you just reach a plateau. We all have those nagging goals that we struggle to reach.
Well, I finally did it!
I finally achieved a MAJOR goal I have been working on.
It took me 7 years to finally reach my goal of creating an online course. It was 7 years of starting and stopping. I have bought courses to teach me how, hired coaches and paid for all kinds of shiny things that I thought would FINALLY give me the magical piece I was missing to get it done, but every time my motivation would peter out. I comforted myself with thoughts like,
“I don’t really need to achieve that goal any way.”
“There are more important things I need to do right now.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I just don’t have what it takes.”
Do those excuses sound familiar to you, too?
The worst part was, every time I made peace with accepting this goal just wasn’t for me, it would tap me on the shoulder and leave me feeling uneasy for giving up. It was a longing in the back of my mind that I just couldn't let go of. Every time I would try to just relax and enjoy my down time it would pop up in my mind like,
“Hiiii! Remember me?”
That pesky little voice would not leave me alone!
I decided that the only way to get rid of that nagging feeling was to conquer my goal and create the online course, for my peace of mind, if nothing else. Even if I never sold a single one, I could rest assured knowing I did it.
Since I know I am not the only one to struggle with this, I thought I would share the ways I cracked the code on how to stop giving up on your goals, especially the BIG goals.
Find A WHY That Makes It Worth It.
In order to achieve a big goal you need to know your reason why you want it. What will you get by achieving this goal? We call it your “WHY.” Your “WHY” is what motivates you to keep moving toward your goal, even when it gets tough and you want to give up. Pick a WHY that makes all of the hard work and sacrifice needed to reach your goal worth it.
One of the reasons I kept giving up on my goal of creating an online course was because I was not motivated when my reason WHY was “because I wanted to make more money, because all the other coaches were doing it or because it was what I thought I should do.” Those reasons WHY were not worth all of the time, energy and money I would have to sacrifice in order to reach that goal.
Once I changed my reason WHY I wanted to achieve this goal to “because it would be a way to help more people, a way to share all my learning of the past 10 years working as a therapist and life coach and because it was a way to challenge myself and prove to myself that I could tackle a big project like this and no matter how it turned out, finishing it would force me to grow,” BOOM, I got it done. Once my WHY was in alignment with my values of service, impact and growth I was determined and I persisted until it was complete. Get your WHY right.
Don’t Tell Me Why You Can’t, Tell Me How You Can.
“I don’t know how.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I don’t have what it takes.”
Those familiar excuses are lies you convince yourself are true in order to feel safe. It’s a feeble way to protect yourself from potential failure. Inevitably, it leads you to failure anyway because you don’t give yourself the chance to see you goals come to fruition.
I can’t tell you how many chats I had with anyone that would listen about how I really want to create this course, but I just didn’t have the time, energy or know how. One day I caught myself giving the advice to schedule what you want to do like you would any other important appointment and I realized the mistake I had been making. I had been telling myself I was too busy, so I didn’t have to risk trying and failing. I create my own schedule! I could make the time, the same way I make the time for important appointments or vacation.
If your excuse is that you are too busy, take something off your calendar, put what you need to do on your calendar and schedule around it. If you don’t know how to do something, do a google search, read a book, consult someone who knows how. If you don’t think you have enough money, create a budget, find a way to make extra income, save money. Ask yourself, “How can I do this?” If there is a will there is a way!
I realized that I had to take time off of work in order to get my course done. I took one week off every quarter, hunkered down, and worked tirelessly to get as much work done as possible in that week. I kept that up until it was finished. It took me a year, but I got it done. Turns out I could find the time and energy and I did know how. Telling myself I couldn’t do it was a lie. It was a limiting belief. Once I started looking at how I could do it, the solution was there. Figure out what excuses you are giving yourself and find a solution instead.
Let Go Of Perfection.
I know. The thought had my mind screaming with horror as well. The idea of others not seeing us as perfect leaves us feeling vulnerable to criticism and rejection. It’s the stuff nightmares are made out of. Sometimes, its not even other people’s judgements we are afraid of. Sometimes, we give up on our goals because we feel we aren’t doing it perfect enough.
“If I don’t work out 7 days this week why do it at all.”
I fell into the trap of perfection, too. I re-created the worksheets, re-recorded videos and re-worked my course many, many times and it is still not perfect. I realized that I was falling into analysis paralysis. I was wasting time trying to make something perfect and because of that I was not progressing forward. I had to accept that it was never going to be perfect enough for my standards. I had to decide that work that was excellent was good enough, even if it wasn’t as perfect as I would like for it to have been.
Perfection does not exist. As long as we are saying that we have to be perfect we are never going to get to our goals. Working out 1 day a week is better than 0. Failing one class does not mean you will be a failure in your career. And waiting until my course was perfect before I made it available others meant others would likely never see it. Strive for progress, not perfection and eliminate the notion that it has to be perfect or it is not worth doing at all. Good enough is good enough.
Break It Up Into One Tiny Bite At A Time.
Any big goal can seem overwhelming when you look at the big picture. It can feel daunting and discouraging which are both helpful in making you want to give up. Our brains love to feel as though we have accomplished something. If your goal is big, the distance between where you are now and where you want to get to can seem too far.
Shorten the distance between your goal posts. Think of reaching your goal in the same way you would think about eating an elephant, one bite at a time. Break your goal up into small, bite-size chunks that you can accomplish often. If you need to lose 100 pounds, think about it as losing 1 pound 100 times and focus on losing the one pound that is next.
The course I created is a 12 week course with many tools that I wanted to teach along the way. I literally had hundreds of tasks that would need to be completed in order for me to get to my goal. Something as simple as creating a video required deciding what I was going to teach, how I would explain it, how I would present it, which software I wanted to use, learn how to use it, type out the slides, pick out the images, then record my voice over until it was right and each week had several videos. Whew! I got tired even having to type all of that out. It’s enough to make you want to quit before you even start. I broke down everything I needed to do step by step. The steps were so small that doing that one step seemed fairly easy and accomplishing it led me effortlessly to the next one. Breaking down my goal into itty bitty action steps helped me feel like I was making progress and I felt rewarded every time I was able to cross something off my to do list, which helped me to feel more motivated. Just take it one tiny step at a time.
Be Scared And Do It Anyway.
If you are working toward a goal, it means that you are working to get something you don’t have already. In order to do that, you are going to have to do things you haven’t done. If you want something different, you will have to do things differently and that will likely take you out of your comfort zone.
Us humans are designed to steer clear of the unfamiliar. Familiarity feels safe, even If it is not always what is best for us. If we want to grow and reach our goals we will have to step out of our comfort zone. This is where those magical things happen. Being outside of our comfort zone feels scary, even if we aren’t really in danger. It is where uncertainty lies. In order to reach your goal, you will feel fear.
Fear you will fail.
Fear you won’t be good enough.
Fear you will succeed.
Fear you will be judged.
Fear you will be criticized.
So. Many. Fears.
Sometimes people think they have to not be scared before they can start moving toward their goals, but that’s not how it works or we would never try anything new. You can be scared and do it anyway. That is courage. Courage is what it takes to stop giving up on your goals.
Putting all of my blood sweat and tears into this online course and then putting it out there for others is SCARY! That’s right, I am a therapist and life coach that has had counseling and been coached and I am still scared to put my course out there. That’s because I am also human. What if it sucks? What if people think I am dumb? What if the technology doesn’t work? What if people see it isn’t perfect? What if it is a flop? I know all of those thoughts and feelings are normal. They will come up even if my course turns out to be an amazing success because right now I am facing the unknown. So I was able to put my course out there even though I was scared. You will feel scared to take the steps you need to reach your goals, do it any way.
In the end, what allowed me to reach my BIG goal of creating an online course was following the advice I give my clients. Change your mindset and change your behaviors and you can reach your goals!
What BIG goal do you want to stop giving up on?
Share it in the comments!
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