I received a Daily Inspirational Quotes calendar from a dear friend this holiday.
Each morning, I reach for the new day to read the quote, but am met with the first page – that I cannot bring myself to tear out.
This page says, “What one bold change will you make this year? Write it down on the last page of the calendar.”
And I find myself at a severe and serious loss. It seems like such a daunting task, picking a BOLD change I will make and committing it to the last Inspirational Quote day of 2014. Will I get to that day and feel a swell of pride, that indeed I did make that change? Will I feel the agony of defeat and head for a second bottle of champagne? What forces will I invoke if I do this exercise?
Where do they come from? Who said they were the right goals? Why do I see meeting my quota as a goal and running a marathon as not a goal? How did that get wired?
Why “goals” anyway?
Seems like we’re supposed to have goals, right? But, have we even examined why we have the goals we do? Have you? How do they serve you? DO they serve you?
The ATTAINABLE goals…the goals with the glory!
Somehow, the goals that I have achieved in my life – yes, even EXCEEDED – with wild and flying colors – seem to have PICKED ME!
It’s like a secret, strong, and silent voice urged me to GO FOR that one thing. And it was EASY to commit, even felt natural. It does NOT MEAN they were easy to achieve, but I had the heart – the gusto – the “over-my-dead-body” about them.
OK. If you can distract yourself from the distracting picture, let’s have a serious talk. (hee hee, serious?)
Wanna have EVERYTHING you ever wanted?
STOP TAKING YOURSELF SO SERIOUSLY
If you have the talent of laughing at yourself…you can have whatever you want.
Stop it with the white-knuckled approach to life…”If this doesn’t turn out, IT’S ALL OVER!” Really? Really? (Not really!)
BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU
Period. What makes YOU special that bad things won’t happen?
The problem is that you make problems out of things that AREN’T a problem.
That person didn’t call you back. The sky rained on you. You didn’t get a sale today. Your washing machine caught on fire (OK, that one might be a bit of a problem).
Let me postulate something…
YOU ONLY TAKE YOURSELF SO SERIOUSLY BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL
I’ll give you a minute with that one.
…
…
If you KNEW you were going to succeed, you would get a KICK out of the mis-steps. The human foibles would give you a chance to let off some steam.
Yes! You did hit “close” on that program without saving the four hours of work you just put in. HI-larious!
Yes! You opened the wrong Power-Point at a meeting.
Yes! An instant message from your lover showed up on a web presentation.
Not professional, sure! But, still HI-larious. Laugh! Acknowledge the amazing imperfection of it all!
The secret?
WHEN YOU LAUGH, YOU ARE INFECTIOUS!
The Universe acknowledges that YOU get it! And then you get whatever you want.
SO, NEXT TIME YOU GET TOO SERIOUS
Put on a rockin’ good song and dance your booty off. Call a great friend and tell them how crazy you are for being freaked out by NOTHING. Write a vulnerable email – uncovering your humanity. Roll on the Floor Laughing.
And if you knew THAT you would laugh heartily at taking yourself so seriously! You don’t laugh when you make mistakes, because you don’t believe you are destined for greatness. Period.
What if this is the week that changes everything? A magical event happens that gets the ball rolling faster than you could have ever imagined? Why not?
What if all you had to do was take 10 minutes RIGHT NOW and write out the 3 Most Important things that you can do TODAY that move you towards your dreams? TIP: Baby steps are typically the most effective.
(Where is all this energy and enthusiasm and clarity coming from? I have been working the Leonie Dawson 2013 Create Your Incredible Year workbook and planner and I LOVE it! http://leoniedawson.com/shop/k)
Careful. The 10 minutes you are going to take to do this DOES require thinking. And listening… to your heart, and your intuition.
Have you got your 3 most important things? GREAT! Get the calendar. When are you going to do them?
NOW! Pump up the music and rock your day out! (I mean it. Having music playing alters the way your brain thinks and works! I use Pandora in my office and pick a “station” that gives me crazy good vibes.)
Lather, rinse, repeat – for all FIVE days! Just see what starts to unfold!
I noticed something today. We are headed to the end of the year and I started reviewing the goals I had set for myself at the beginning of the year.
I set Minimum, Target, and Optimal goals for each area of my life. Health, Home, Finances, Work, you know the drill.
Minimum, Target, Optimal
Minimum…the absolute minimum that I want to achieve.
Target … the “good” goal
Optimal…the very best I could imagine in that area
(This is something I learned from Jack Canfield in “Efffortless Success”)
Here’s what I noticed. There is one Optimal goal in particular…that I NAILED months ago. It happens to be the one that I have THE MOST EMOTION around.
When I got my puppy two years ago, we found out (at a very young age) that he has elbow dysplasia. A situation that can be crippling. Not years from now, crippling NOW. He was limping. I made my OPTIMAL goal that he would be healed (something the vets say is impossible). We haven’t done the x-rays yet – coming in December, but my puppy is HEALED, no limping, no pain, no signs.
When I found out about his situation, I was a WILD WOMAN. I was going to prove the authorities wrong. I have done EVERYTHING there is to do to make him better. And it has WORKED.
So, WHY not the other goals?
When I look at my other goals…I see that they looked like “nice to haves”. The ones that I had EMOTION around (even fear, sadness, worry), they got DONE. The ones that are less infused with emotion, not-so-much.
INTERESTING.
I’m actually a little disturbed. Some of the goals I set for myself…I really meant them. How do I conjure up FEELINGS … true FEELINGS for them? Am I so comfortable that I can only be driven by fear and worry for someone else? Am I only about the status quo until something bad is looming?
Tomorrow I bring out my favorite FOURTH QUARTER sales weapon. My way to Bring It On Home for the end of the year.
My good old tried and true magnetic whiteboard.
I will write the goal I intend to reach on the far right. I will list every deal I have closed underneath and subtract to get me to the number I desire.
Then, I will create a magnet for each and every prospective customer in conversations with me right now. I will divide my whiteboard into Monday _ Tuesday_ Wednesday_Thursday_Friday and I will move my magnets to the last day I interacted with my pipeline peeps!
If there is only ONE system to create your goals, this is it….
Write down two or three of your goals….I’ll wait…do it now.
Now, look…would THOSE be the goals that …..say..Oprah would write? Donald Trump would write? Super model Natasha Poly would write? Angelina Jolie would write?