Gayle HYou read that right – it takes just three easy steps to reach that BIG goal of yours.
I challenge you to put on your possibilities hat while you read this. What? You don’t know what your possibilities hat is?
Your possibilities hat is an invisible hat that you put on your head when you need to pull yourself out of your conditioned thinking and let your brain ponder possibilities that you would normally filter out of your brain.
I don’t have time. I could never do that. I’m not good enough to do that. I wasn’t made for those things. That stuff is for other people, not me. There are too many people who rely on me, I can’t change my approach. I don’t have the money.
Those are just a sampling of ‘conditioned thinking’ snippets.
What if I could make some time? What if I really was good enough for that job? Wow, look at me wearing clothes I love! Don’t I look amazing with this medal around my neck! What? You want little ole me to present my work to a crowd of 10,000 admiring fans? Hello Bali!
Those are just a sampling of ‘pondering possibilities’.
So for the next few minutes, I want your possibilities hat on your head. Please and Thank You.
OK – now think of a goal that you would LOVE to check off your ‘wish I could do’ list in your lifetime. YOUR goal – meaning that I get your kids/partner/parents/friends are all important people in your life, but this few minutes is just for you. We’ll pick them back up later.
For example, I want to someday be on The Today Show. (or Good Morning America – I’m not picky). I want my writing to land me in a chair across from Hoda where she asks me to tell the millions of people watching what I think about something.
Then I want to hug her and get a selfie.
Big goal, right?! Huge. Aggressive. Crazy. Awesome. Lofty. And totally in the range of possibilities for my lifetime.
Why? Because people do it all the time! So why can’t I? All those people on The Today Show started somewhere. Right?!
Now your turn. Get your goal ready because here we go on our way to accomplishment.
Step 1 – Write it Down!
Told you this would be easy!
We have a lot of dreams swimming around in our heads. They pop up for us when we are daydreaming, seeing others doing what we want to do, or driving long distances with nothing else to do but think.
We smile as these dreams float though our sub-concious. We imagine where we are, who we are with, what we are wearing, and we smile and smile and smile.
Then BAM. Our to do list enters back in our mind. Our boss calls. Our kids need new shoes. And our conscious conditioned mind takes over and kicks our dreams to the curb.
So I want you to write those day dreams down.
When we take a pencil/pen (remember those things?) and a piece of paper (I love using my journal or one of my many notebooks) to take what’s in our brain and cement that thought on a piece of paper we do two things.
First, we rescue that thought from the inevitable conditioned mind and let it live on it’s own for a while. We give that thought life. We allow ourselves to look at that thought from different perspectives. We give ourselves permission to think, even if just for one moment, that we could get there.
Second, now that you have written down your dream, you can’t take it back! It’s out there. In black and white (or colors – that’s cool too). You admitted to wanting something.
So write down that big goal of yours. Look at it. Feel it. Visualize it. Get excited about it. Think for one moment – what if??!!!
Step 2 – Make A Choice
Yeah – choice is a big thing for me. (See my website and all of my blogs to date!).
Life is just a series of choices we make. That’s it. Some are hard. Some easy. Some seem crazy. Others are expected. But everything is a choice.
I ask for your permission to pontificate here for a moment – because I really want you to think about this choice thing and what it means to you. Let’s take a very easy example that most likely has resonated with us at one point in our lives.
Goal = I want to lose 10 lbs.
We ALL can lose 10lbs. Maybe with easy choices, maybe with extreme choices. Let’s see – you could lose 10lbs. by changing your diet. By doing a cleanse. By not eating for a week. By exercising.
Or by not drinking wine anymore (I’ve just given you an insight to the extra 5 lbs. I will never lose).
We can debate what’s healthy for you, what you want to do, what you can do, what you are willing to do, whether you have time to do…on and on and on. But the bottom line? It IS possible to make a choice that will help you lose 10 lbs.
Right?
So apply this choice thing when it comes to that big goal/dream you just wrote down. What is one choice you can make to help move you in the direction of accomplishment? For me the choice is clearing my calendar for a few hours today to sit down and write this blog.
We can eat leftovers for dinner. I can do my finances tomorrow. I can tell Rj not to talk to me for two hours. I can make the choice to go after my goal.
One more blog. One step closer to Hoda.
Step 3 – Take One Small Action
“Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking cross the floor. Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door.”
That song is from the 1970 Christmas movie Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town. And it’s the best. Take a look at it and sing along.
If you take one small action every day, eventually you will get there. Back to our losing weight example. Every day, drink a glass of water. Every day, do 10 pushups. Every day, eat one green vegetable.
Over time, these actions add up. Like running a marathon. One mile becomes two miles becomes five miles becomes 10 miles – until the day you run 26.2 miles.
So if your dream is to quit your job – spend 5 minutes a day on Google typing in jobs that you would want so you see what’s possible.
Your dream is to buy a yacht and hang out on the deck while your crew makes your food, brings you drinks and cleans up afterward? Start putting aside $5/day into your yacht fund.
No eye rolling – remember, you have your possibility hat on. Think about it for a moment. The only way to make something happen is to take action. Start really small so you don’t get frustrated and give up.
And once you have that action nailed, add another.
Anything is possible. Really. Everyone you envy out there, whether because they are doing what you dream of doing, whether because they have more money than you, whether because they look better than you, whether because they seem to ‘have it all’ – well, they all started somewhere.
Write down your goal. Chose to go after that goal. Take one small step toward that goal.
And I’ll see you on The Today Show.
Gayle H
