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Last year, when I went to Dave Moreno’s Retreat, he was coaching me and we were talking about some goal I had. I had some limiting beliefs and I was trying to navigate around them. To do that, I started negotiating. I was like, “yeah, but if I don’t reach that, I don’t really lose anything. I can always blah, blah, blah —

He said whoa! Wait a minute.

He showed me that my brain was trying to negotiate with me. I was negotiating with my brain in order to get around the lies it was selling me. And he helped me what a slippery slope I was navigating by allowing this negotiation. If you go down that path, where you could end up is in a mud slide. Don’t negotiate your goals.

That doesn’t mean you’ll always reach them, but don’t negotiate.

Don’t start negotiating with your brain, because before you know it, it will have tricked you into settling for less than you wanted. Don’t settle. Don’t negotiate for your dreams. Keep asking for all of it. Keep believing for all of it. Keep expecting to get every last thing you want.

The way you do that is by setting goals. Goals Are the Currency of Dreams

A lot of my clients have a love/hate relationship with goals.

They want to set them because they should, but they don’t want to set big goals because they don’t want the responsibility of setting big goals.

And they feel like they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.

I coached someone on this very thing at ELEVATE Retreat a few months ago.

Don’t avoid disappointment by avoiding big goals.

When you avoid big goals, not only are you relieving yourself of pressure and disappointment, but you’re also avoiding big success, big money and big impact.

Instead, let go of the pressure and step into the space where you can reach your goal and be elated and you can also not reach your goal and be disappointed. Where we get stuck is in thinking that our only option is to feel elated. We don’t give ourselves permission to be disappointed if we don’t reach the goal. Therefore we try to avoid the disappointment. And in trying to avoid the disappointment, we avoid our goal and we avoid success in reaching our goal. Stay open to either option, plan to be okay no matter what, then you can just keep moving forward. What’s next? What else can I try and not get stuck in the pressure.

I’m preaching to myself as well when I talk about goals creating pressure. And what it took me a long time to realize was that it wasn’t the goal creating the pressure. It was me creating the pressure.

I’ve had times where I didn’t set goals and I think there was actually more pressure than when I did set goals.

At least when you have a goal, you have a destination and there might be pressure to reach that destination. But when you have no goal, there’s still pressure, but you don’t have a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no end point, so you just keep thinking you need to do more, be more, create more. You haven’t created a goal, so you haven’t decided what’s enough. Therefore, it’s never enough.

I remember a time where I was feeling very burdened in my business. During my quiet time one morning, I stumbled onto an exercise (meaning it just came to me without any prompting or research — isn’t that fascinating how many things that are exactly what we need just arrive exactly when we need them?

Anyway, I was reminded of this exercise this morning. Since it was so powerful for me, I thought I’d share it with you.

It was during a time that all I really wanted was just a break. It was in January, so obviously I had not achieved that year’s goals because the year had just started. I was feeling overwhelmed by what felt like some big things I thought I needed to do that year in order to reach my goals. It was on the heels of what felt at the time like a big fail.

I stepped into (don’t ask me how – I think it was a happy accident) a place where I had already reached my goal for the year and I still had nearly the entire year in front of me. And asked now what do I want to do? I brainstormed a huge list of things and came away feeling on fire (my favorite emotion to work from) and powerful (my second favorite).

I used that list to inform my next steps. It was so much fun to feel like I could do anything I wanted. What I realized after I was well into my list that the one thing I thought I wanted most (to take a break) was nowhere to be found on the list of things I wanted to do.

What I realized I really wanted to take a break from was the pressure. And taking an actual break, if you’re still in a scarcity mindset, doesn’t necessarily mean that you take a break from the pressure (especially when should’s come with you in the break).

Goals should come from what you want not what you need. What are you willing to fight for?

Put your goals in terms of what’s truly important to you. Sure, have money goals. I’m the money coach. What else would you expect me to say, but think of what you ultimately want- your deepest desire and how your money goal relates to that thing you’re fighting for.

For example, when I was exploring the mission I felt called to — To equip and empower one million women to create $1 million in net worth — I had a lot of questions. Why me? Well, the answer was why not you? Why money? The answer was: it’s not about the money. It’s about who you become when you fight through all the things you have to go through in order to create that. As a woman, as a coach, as an entrepreneur, you don’t create $1 million in net worth without becoming a COMPLETELY different person.

The same is true with goals. You don’t achieve big delusional goals without becoming a completely different person. When I say a completely different person, I don’t mean that you change who you are at your core — I believe that really doesn’t change . What I mean is that you change your identity. You’ve always been amazing, completed, capable, strong, powerful, and secure. But you haven’t always know who you are and you haven’t always identified as that person.

When you step onto the path of that delusional goal, you’re telling God, the universe, that you are ready to step into that identity.

So often, we get stumped by the time frame of a big goal. If you don’t reach the goal by that deadline, don’t give up. Keep going.

The goal is an estimated time frame. Something we can use as a compass or gps. Long term goals and short term goals are helpful to check in and make sure you’re still moving in the right direction.

It’s like when you’re traveling on a long trip. You estimate the amount of time it will take you, but that’s based on ideal conditions. If you run into traffic or weather or other obstacles along the way, it could take longer. You don’t get to your time estimate, see that you haven’t arrived at your destination and give up. You don’t turn around and head back home. No — you keep going.

The other thing people struggle with is what goals to set. I think goals are pretty arbitrary, not that they don’t matter, but they’re basically just a guess, just like the timeframe to achieve a goal.

I like to set R.E.D. goals. R.E.D. stands for Realistic, Expansive and delusional.

I don’t like to set goals based on what I need. I like to set goals based on what I want. Goals based on what I want are far more compelling and exciting and fun than goals based on what I need.

Think about Christmas when you were a kid. What was more fun and exciting — getting what you wanted or getting what you needed?

Did you look forward to Christmas morning so that you could tear open that present with socks inside? Or did you look forward to Christmas morning because you couldn’t wait to tear open that Easy Bake Oven or that Nintendo?

Getting what you want is far more fun than getting what you need.

That’s why Goals should come from what you want.

What do you want? Not from what’s possible but from your heart. If you could make a wish what would it be? That’s your delusional goal. It doesn’t have to be possible, but if it actually happened, you would be thrilled and moved. You might even call it a miracle.

That’s your delusional goal. It doesn’t matter if it’s possible. It’s what you want. This is your chance to dream.

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, which is the realistic. It’s realistic because you’ve done it before or it’s easy to see how it could happen. Your belief is already high, like a 9 or 10 out of 10. For example, I’ve at least doubled my revenue every year so far, so it feels realistic to continue this trend. Even though I haven’t done my realistic goal, I have a solid trend of doubling my revenue, so it makes it easy for me to believe.

Then in between the delusional and the realistic goals is the Expansive goal. This is a stretch goal. It’s more than the realistic, but it doesn’t feel impossible or delusional.

That’s a lot about goals. I love talking about goals, because there are so many different ways to approach goals. If you’ve never really found something that worked well for you, let’s get on a call and talk more. No pressure, just brainstorming and seeing what might work well for you. Everyone is different, has different preferences and none of those preferences is right or wrong.

It’s okay to negotiate, as long as you’re negotiating a better deal for you and a better way to get what you want, what you ultimately want.

You get to decide.

Just discover what you want.

Decide when.

Then commit to your first how.

Be open to any how presenting itself along the way.

And just keep going.

Next week, I’m talking about planning for your success, so you’ll want to tune in to this next step to creating your most powerful and prosperous 2022!

I’ll see you then!