You’ve been trying really hard. Scratch that. You think you’ve been bending over backwards to make yourself your best version, and all your efforts are falling short. At this point, you’ve done the mantras, the manifestation exercises all over TikTok, started a gym membership and started shopping for a new wardrobe to look the part, along with the salad jars and keto plans. But you’re still falling short of all your goals. You can’t take failure anymore and your credit card just can’t incur more debt.
Alanis Morrisette sang something so poignant in a song I think about occasionally. She sang
“The only way out is through, the only way we’ll get better…”.
That sticks out so much to me whenever I think about starting something new, doing something outside of my comfort zone and wanting better for myself.
You’re missing the steps in between getting to the end goal!! Let’s take it down a notch and I’ll explain. We’ll go for the gym membership example. You got the membership. You’re convinced you’re going to look like Serena Williams by the end of the year. You just can’t get up in the mornings to go to gym. Or the thought of leaving work to enter a gym makes you stop dead in your tracks. Or you go the first week and find the motivation dwindles, along with the rest of your 2022 goals, like barely soapy water down the kitchen drain. You tell yourself you’re a failure, you can’t even commit, and that you should be doing better by yourself.
So you’ve now listened to the inner voice that has told you aren’t good enough and convinced yourself against your better judgment that you can’t accomplish your goals. Flip the script for a bit. What if your brain is just trying to protect you against failure? As the brain tries to do when it gets into certain habits that it feels are protective but can be destructive. You walked into the gym for a week straight and went for absolute gold trying to get fit. Just because you haven’t seen immediate results within the week, doesn’t mean you failed. It’s only the start. We want the results, we want the physique, mindset, partner and life of our dreams within a week or so of a little work. It doesn’t work that way though, babes. We can’t always have immediate gratification (although I wish we really could).
Goals can take a while. Some shorter, some longer than others. With all goals though, we need to look at the WHY of the goal. If the goal is to benefit yourself, you are more likely to succeed (given that you have the strategy and take small steps everyday). If the WHY is to stick it to everyone else, or to be better than everyone, basically for the external rather than just for you- then it’s more likely to fail or not feel as fulfilling. You end up living your life for someone else… And you should be living it yourself.
The WHY of any goal also helps give us that motivation. It lets us know why we are getting up in the morning, putting in some of the extra work, or stepping outside of our comfort zone. Without the why, then why even do it?
The Ultimate Success Formula (USF) breaks down the goal , so you can really achieve it. You have steps to follow that give you focus, an help you prioritize your goal.
What is your goal/ outcome?
Why is achieving this goal important? Get really specific on the WHY. Make sure this is something that would truly fulfill you.
How confident are you from 1-100% that you can achieve this goal? Some goals can feel like they are only 60% achievable, right?
What would need to happen for you to be 100% confident? Let's say you said 60% for the above answer. Now identify the possible reasons for the 40% gap. What needs to change?
What do you need to do to achieve this goal? Brainstorm! It can be the most practical answer to the wildest. Look at all your possibilities. Don't limit yourself or try to follow someone else's formula.
Prioritize them with Number 1 being the highest level of importance. You're simply creating a list of all the items in number 5, starting with the most to the least important.
Take the Top 3 and break them down further. What are the steps that need to be completed for each item on the list?
Take Action! Now it's time to just get out there. Make it happen, make it work!
Review. If this is not successful, then review what went wrong, go back to number 5 and tweak. Just because the goal MIGHT not work, does not mean it can't be tweaked a little to get it really going.
Do you have a strategy to crush your goals? Or do you find success with your goals? Let me know in the comments!