If you've ever read my book The Secret Watch, then you probably also know that the story was inspired by my own encounter with a woman on a plane. She told me that I'd write a book about a magic watch that revealed special secrets and it would become a best seller.
I did... and it did!
As I wrote the book, I imagined how my life might be different if magic watches were real. If I could just pop open a pocket watch and be inspired by a new inscription every day, would I be able to make the most of it like my character, Tina, did? That's actually how our virtual coaching card deck came to be!
While I have yet to find a real secret watch (unfortunately), I'm lucky that I don't have to wait around to find inspiration. I create my own inspiration every year with my annual goals.
Yeah. I hear you. They're often overdone at the beginning of the year. But by February, according to a 2020 survey, about 30% of folks see their well-intended goals fall by the wayside. Since I gave you my Annual Review rundown earlier in the month, I thought it might also be valuable for you to see what I'm driving toward this year.
You know, besides more ease.
To be clear, this isn't about having you hold me accountable. My past experience has shown that sharing my goals with you will not help me stay accountable. That's not how I'm wired.
There have been too many times in my non-normative life where that kind of "accountability" put too much pressure on me to perform - and then, I'd either choke, end up stressing myself out, or resent the entire thing. Sometimes all three.
Like when all those internet marketing gurus were trying to convince you to sell something before you built it - and then you just "build the plane as you fly it." It might work for some folks, but not me.
There have been too many times in my non-normative life where that kind of "accountability" put too much pressure on me to perform - and then, I'd either choke, end up stressing myself out, or resent the entire thing. Sometimes all three. Plus, people often have their own thoughts and opinions about my goals.
Frankly, ain't nobody got time for that!
But I do believe in being transparent. Whether or not I hit my goals is up to me, not you. But transparency is a way to model for you - to see what I am doing and see how you can apply my approach to your own situation. As a business coach, I help my clients set and achieve goals for themselves. To be in integrity and "walk my talk", I think it's only fair to share my goals with you. I've used the Dreamblazing tool to define what success looks like for me for almost 15 years now. Some years, I hit them all, and most years I fall short in at least one, but that's how I expect things to go because I aim pretty high.
Your mileage may vary, but by seeing my thought process, it might spark something for you. THAT is the reason I'm sharing my goals with you.
So, based on the 5 key areas of success, here are my 2023 goals, in priority order:
My Freedom Goal is my number one priority. I am a hard worker. I was raised with a strong work ethic and a deep programming that the only way for me to break out of the poverty I was born into was to work. like. hell.
So I know what hard work looks like and I know how to do it. I don't need anymore practice.
That's not to say that there won't be times when I need to hustle a little. But that's what I call compassionate hustle. I can't live and work on the hamster wheel.
What's more, I don't want to.
So that means finding ease. Not working for it, figuring it out, or struggling/striving/stressing about it.
That is not the way of ease.
It looks like asking myself "What's the easier path?" and honoring that awareness.
But what's the easier path? To struggle and fight and strain and stress, or to enjoy where I'm at right now and see where the road takes me?
In Dreamblazing, you set two goals for the Key Area of Fitness: one for your physical container and one for what's contained within it. This is my inside the container goal.
My personal history has been more body shame than body confidence. I've had major surgeries 2 years in a row and that really knocked me on my heels and had me feeling like my body was betraying me - as if that could even be a thing! I knew that I needed to adjust my attitude and rekindle an appreciation for who I am inside and out.
I'm lucky as hell that my current husband makes a point of telling me he loves how I look. I didn't get that much in my first marriage. It's been a growth edge for me to really hear, receive, and believe that feedback. I'm still working on it.
But what's the easier path? To struggle and fight and strain and stress, or to enjoy where I'm at right now and see where the road takes me?
Right. So, I'm all about enjoying the journey this year... wherever it takes me.
If I had listened to them, I never would have written 2 best sellers or recorded 3 albums - or any of a number of other things I wanted to do with my life that I was told was "too much" for a kid who was born in the ghetto.
Chosen family is a big part of how I manage to keep my shit together. I love my birth family, but they are distant, and most of them rarely ever talk to me. That road runs both ways. I rarely ever talk to them. Growing up, I didn't feel like I had much support from them - they didn't understand my goals or dreams, and thought I was aiming too high.
If I had listened to them, I never would have written 2 best sellers or recorded 3 albums - or any of a number of other things I wanted to do with my life that I was told was "too much" for a kid who was born in the ghetto.
This year is about deepening connections and cultivating a community of folks who get me. Surrounding myself with encouragers who believe in who I am and what I'm up to in the world - who want to see me succeed and want to be part of making that happen in some way.
I've been part of an international women's networking group for several years, and have been lax about connecting with members. Although I have a few friends in that community, I've not been great about maintaining connections. That needs to change, if for no other reason than there are some pretty amazing people there and it would be cool to have more friendships with people like that.
Jane Fonda said in a recent interview that "you have to pursue people that you want to be friends with." I've never been a pursuer. More like "if you build it, they will come." Which is hysterical when you realize the irony. So, like Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, I'mma be in hot pursuit this year.
This is both an invitation for me to follow my own success path and to come out of hiding. That's another reason why I'm sharing these goals with you: coming out of hiding.
I've done a lot of hiding since I moved to Mississippi. It's easy to cocoon when you're in a rural town where nobody knows your name and there's nothing doing because a global pandemic has shut nearly everything down. Then there was a wedding, surgery, a move (we bought a house), another move (back to Nashville), more surgery, and yet another move last year to Bloomington, Indiana.
All that movement made it easy to lose myself in the details of those moments. To start to identify myself by those moments (or the results of those moments), instead of being intentional about the life and body of work I want to have/create for myself.
When you shine, it's either because you're emitting or reflecting light. I realized that I wasn't really doing either - and I want to do both.
To shine my own light through my body of work but, also, to share the light of others in my world. My clients are mystical, magical Unicorns. They are smart and brilliantly gifted. I want more people in the world to know about them!
When you shine, it's either because you're emitting or reflecting light. I realized that I wasn't really doing either - and I want to do both.
That means more video, another live event, and monthly live workshops for my clients. I'm also going back to doing more video and having more guests on the show. That was a hard step for me to take because I am so leery about who I share with my audience. A lot of people look good on paper, and then they open their mouth and it's trash. I care about my audience too much... and my reputation. So adding guests will be slow going, and mostly from people I've either already worked with (like my interview with Dr. Mazur), or folks I know and trust in other ways. All the more reason I need to connect to more people!
This is the goal related to my physical container. I've had major surgery two years in a row that stem from life-long health issues. My doctors and physical therapists have given me specific instructions that I intend on following. Some of them are easier than others. The hardest one is being up and moving 15 minutes for every hour that I'm awake - that's 2-4 hours of movement every day. That's not necessarily exercise, but it is getting up and moving around. Thankfully, walking around the house, putting away dishes, and doing laundry all count toward that activity goal.
But it's still a huge adjustment to my daily routine. It gives me about 5 hours of useful worktime, and I can't sit for more than a couple of hours at a time. Really, 45 minutes is best, but some of my appointments don't lend themselves to that possibility.
I have no illusions of getting my "20-year-old-me" body back. That's not optimal health for me... making sure I'm doing what I can, as I'm able, to rehab my body to the best is can be right now is.
But my body needs to heal. I just had my 1 year follow-up ultrasound from the first surgery. I'm waiting on the results, but I'm hopeful that what I've been doing is working. In the meantime, I've adjusted my coaching calendar and I have a standing desk. So if we're in a long workshop, you may see me stand up and pace around at my desk in order to get my movement in.
I have no illusions of getting my "20-year-old-me" body back. That's not optimal health for me at almost 50. Making sure I'm doing what I can, as I'm able, to rehab my body to the best it can be right now is.
I was intentional about the wording for this goal because those words carry a variety of meanings, depending on your audience.
Wealth, as I'm defining it, is about total well-being, not just my bank balance. Yes, income is important - a girl's gotta eat! But so is showing up happy, healthy, and in the right frame of mind for whatever comes my way.
If you were in our Customer Journey workshop last month, you saw how our offer stack is changing in the coming months. We're also right-sizing our pricing and rolling out some new, free workshops over the course of the year. Last month, it was the Customer Journey workshop. In March, it's a content creation sprint, and May we're hosting a brand new workshop about Enoughness, based on the TEDx talk I'm doing at the end of March.
Generosity takes many forms... including generosity to myself as well as others. Putting my oxygen mask on first is not being generous. That's a bare minimum that hasn't always happened. I want to move beyond that and really enjoy being exceptionally good to myself. Sharing the spotlight with my clients, as I mentioned earlier, is also rooted here. So is improving our client experience. We're moving our community off facebook this quarter. We're also migrating our Rising Tide learning library and all our courseware to a new platform as we prepare for a website redesign in the next year. I wanted a stable, easy to use place for everything to live, so that we can create a better customer experience. So that I can afford to be more generous to everyone in our circle.
Generosity takes many forms... including generosity to myself as well as others.
Being an entrepreneur signals my desire to keep getting paid (and paid well) doing work I love. Being an employee is challenging for non-normative people. Ageism and racism are real; so is fat phobia. The easier path for me has almost always been entrepreneurship - even when owning my own business has been hard.
I hope my transparency inspires you. Above all, define what success looks like for you this year, then go for it! Whether you need support to help you stay accountable or not, whether you hit all your goals or fall short, what matters most is that you are moving in the direction of your dreams.
Congratulations!
You've made it to that point in the year where most people have blown off their resolutions, quit going to the gym, and returned to life as they once knew it.
But not you, right?
You might be tired of goal setting blog posts at this point, and I get it, but the sad fact is that too many people are only just now getting around to thinking about what they really want this year. If you've already set your goals, great. If not, review my previous post about the importance of looking back before you make a new plan. Then, strap yourself in and let's look at how to get what you really want this year.
Because, let's face it, you need this to be your year. According to many people I've talked to, 2018 was not their best year (to put it mildly). If that's also you, then you need to see big improvements over last year. You want to see real, positive, sustainable growth this year.
So how do we actually DO that? These three ideas aren't always easy, but they're exactly what you need to grow your business like never before.
(more…)I can't tell you the number of times I've seen "make six figures" come up on someone's annual goals. When I was a young entrepreneur, it was one of my goals more often than I care to admit. It felt like something I should be doing. Shouldn't every creative entrepreneur have a six figure business? Isn't that the goal? To make more money, have more fun, and enjoy life in the process?
Well, yes and no. (more…)
If you're like a lot of creative entrepreneurs, you might still be scrambling to put your goals down on paper for the year. In fact, several guru-types are only just now getting around to leading those goal planning workshops. The folks in A-Club and the Incubator did their annual planning before December, so that they could hit the ground running this year. I'm not bragging (well, okay, maybe a little), I'm trying to illustrate a point that the longer you wait to set your goals, the longer it will be before you can achieve them.
But even if you're only just now getting around to it, there's still one thing you've got to remember to do before you shore up your plans for the new year. (more…)
So there's this show on Netflix that my youngest son has taken to this summer.
Canada's Worst Driver. Well, after several seasons, they decided to round up the worst of the worst for a final season:
Canada's Worst Driver Ever.
I won't spoil it for you, but these drivers are absolutely frightening, sad, and hilarious. What really struck me was how some of the simplest instructions were completely lost on these folks.
Then it hit me that creative entrepreneurs have similar issues in their business.
So I'm doing a a Creative Freedom live episode on my Facebook Page, to share the 3 biggest lessons from Canada's Worst Driver Ever that apply to creative entrepreneurs. Here's the replay:
Resources from the episode:
Now that the new year and my birthday are both behind me, it's time to get back into the swing of things. This weekend, I'm auditioning for The Voice (third time's a charm, right?), and we're still rolling full steam ahead on new episodes for Creative Freedom Season Three. If you've got a question you'd like to see me tackle on the show, reach out and let me know.
One of the questions I get asked all the time (at least once a week) is "how do you manage to do so much?"
While it's true I get things done, "a lot" is relative. It's been mostly just me behind the curtain, "hustling" for years (and I've paid the price for that), so I've had to learn how to create a maximum impact with minimal effort. Despite accomplishing much, there are still dozens of things each week that don't happen for me. It can be debilitating to think about what you don't accomplish, but you'll get more mileage out of every day (and do less in the process) if you keep these tips in mind:
This is just a "highlight reel" of what I cover in much more detail in Dreamblazing (which now includes The PEACE System!). It'll get you off to a strong start and help you keep the ball rolling through the year as you move a head on your deepest dreams and desires. Ultimately it comes down to focus and discipline, but that looks different for each of the creative types. When you implement these steps, you'll find more clarity and ease in each day.
I've managed to right-size my to-do list over the years (with tons of practice), and bluntly, saying "no" has been the critical piece to the puzzle.
"Nope. Not gonna do the dishes today."
"Well, I didn't want to take a shower anyway."
"No, I'm not going to sleep until it's done."
If you're on the "hustle and grind" track, you probably know the sound of that kind of "no" very clearly. But there's another side:
"While I'd love to have lunch (so you can pick my brain), I already have a full calendar (a play date with my kid)."
"Sorry. Investing in your five-figure training sounds awesome, but it's not in the budget right now, and no, I'm not going into debt for you."
"No way, Jose! I'm not taking on another job for 'exposure' until my cash flow improves."
"I can't today. This is my day off."
It's another case of ruthless honesty. When you get clear on what really matters to you - in life and work - you have a filter that helps you say yes to more of the right things and no to other opportunities that pop up on your radar that sound sexy, but will distract you from your real goals. But beware, each creative entrepreneur type needs to say no to different things.
Linears need more white space, time off, and personal focus. Very often, they neglect themselves in a drive to reach a result. Not cool. Chaotics, on the other hand, need more stability and (believe it or not) predictability in their schedule - in a way that works for them. Shiny object syndrome can derail their plans quickly (if they even made a plan in the first place), and it's easy for their "go with the flow" behavior to keep them putting out fires instead of looking to the long term. Fusions can get bored even if they're making solid progress. Repetition and routine are important, but can get tedious, so it's important to have space for celebration, time off, and exploring new ideas (while staying on budget).
Creating a list of priorities at the start of the year helps you know what you're driving toward. I teach my clients to set one annual goal in each of the 5 Key Areas of Success, plus a second fitness goal for mental health. Then, they rank each goal in order of importance.
Before you start scheduling plans for the year, you'll already know which goal is the most important. That way, when goals start competing for your time and attention (and they always do at some point), you'll already know which one gets priority. You can take emotions out of the equation and stay focused on the real priority in your life and work. It's easier to say no when stuff pops up that may be fun but isn't in alignment with your top priorities.
Once you've got your priorities worked out for the year, you can break them down into quarterly milestones. What action steps and sub-goals need to be achieved in order to keep you on track to achieve your yearly goal? Some may be ongoing or will require more time to complete than others.
Be clear on your expectations. If your goal is to make a million dollars, you can't assume you'll make $250,000 each quarter. Chances are good you'll make the bulk of that money in the last half or quarter of the year, because of all the other things that have to be in place first.
Same with weight loss. If you've struggled to lose weight for years, it's absurd to expect you'll miraculously start losing 10 pounds every month so that you can be down 100 pounds by the end of the year. The first quarter of the year will likely focus on building habits - and there'll be a lot of falling off the wagon you'll have to deal with. But as the new habits start to stick, you'll start to see faster progress and the avalanche of results - which again, will likely happen in the latter half of the year.
In my opinion, this is a big reason why so many people ditch their resolutions. Aside from not writing down their goals at all, that is. They plan their goal all neat and orderly, assuming they'll stay motivated and make steady progress toward their goal.
That's not how goal attainment works for most of us. Despite the best attempts of most Linears, success is rarely a steady, incremental thing. There's a lot of plot twists, leaps forward, steps back, re-tracing of steps, and then we get forward momentum once we figure shit out.
You'll want to review your goals and priorities quarterly because even the best laid plans can go off track when "life happens." Moving to Nashville was not my top priority at the beginning of 2016. By Summer, however, my priorities shifted when we filed the divorce papers. Nashville then became a top priority for me, so my other goals had to shift.
New episodes of Creative Freedom didn't get done because I had to pack up all my studio gear. The podcast was delayed, but the items that were most important still got checked off my list. Sometimes you have to rearrange your priorities to accommodate your top priority. It happens more often than you might think.
This was something I learned as a direct sales leader that I've used in my own organizations and with all my clients ever since. If you make time for it on the calendar, it has a greater chance of getting done than if you try to squeeze it in between meetings or when you have some "free time" - ha! What's that?
In short, every little thing that's got to be done to achieve your goal needs to be on the calendar. If you're delegating it, then you need to add a follow-up date in your calendar. Chaotics will reel against all this minutiae, but I'm here to tell you that until it becomes first nature, you'll want to create the habit of scheduling everything.
Whatever you use to track your to-do's is fine, just make sure the long-range stuff gets on the calendar. If you're writing a book and you leave it open-ended, that project will keep getting pushed down the to-do list in favor of other more pressing needs (putting out fires). If you want that book done, carve out specific time blocks in your calendar to work on it - and give yourself a small deadline (like completing the first chapter by the end of February). This will create the optimal amount of pressure to help you double your results in less time. Too much pressure, and you'll crack (especially if you're a Chaotic), but just enough of a deadline often primes the pump to get moving. You might even find that you want to finish it sooner because it's taking up so much time on your calendar. Without that visual, getting that chapter done might drag on for months.
Not sure how much time you need to complete the project? Work backwards. This takes longer, but it's worth the clarity it provides. For unwieldy projects, I use mind mapping to get clear on all the elements of the project, and then get as detailed as I can on each step toward the goal. Only then can I see which step needs to come first, second, third, etc. Once I know the first step, I put it on the calendar. If it's a task, I put it on the to-do list as well, but it's important to block out time for accomplishing your to-do's or they simply won't get done. It's one of the reasons I still put "shower," "lunch," and "laundry" on my calendar. If I don't, I'll fill that time with something else and those things won't get done.
I've been writing about this for a few years now, but the research shows that SMART goals are broken. But D.U.M.B. goals are a different story. When you are taking action on things that are doable, understandable, meaningful and believable, it's much easier to stay the course. I've seen it bear out time and again in my own life as well as with my clients.
It's easier to focus on what really matters when what really matters to you is your focus. It sounds like a paradox, but it's not. When you focus on what matters to you, you naturally stay more focused. It's what I call the "video game effect". My boys all love video games and when they start playing, the world around them falls away. World War Three could be going on outside, and they'd never know because they are engrossed in their game. They're focused like a laser on what matters to them. And God forbid you try to interrupt them - if you can interrupt them at all.
For most of us it's not a question of focus, it's a question of what we're focused on. When you can invest more of your time, energy, and resources into what really matters for you, it's naturally easier to stay focused. Plan your year around what really matters to you and you'll have a natural advantage when it comes to achieving those goals.
Join us in Dreamblazing. It's more than a planner. It helps you define your goals, get them in priority order, and lay out a path to achievement. If you want to be more confident, have more clarity, and be focused this year on what really matters, give yourself the gift of Dreamblazing.
"Dreams without goals are just dreams that ultimately fuel disappointment." - Denzel Washington
You know what SMART goals are, right? It's a helpful little acronym that breaks your goals into something that's:
So many people use SMART goals - and for a lot of people that works. But not me. Not for a lot of big dreamers I know. It's too hard to wrap a big dream into the SMART package.
Sometimes, it's a challenge to get clear on the specifics of a goal. Take, for example, my desire to win a Grammy. It's a real dream of mine. But right now, my music doesn't easily fall into a category. It's not really pop music. It's not blues or jazz per se - although if the category still exists in a few years, it could be construed as contemporary pop. And someone recently reminded me that I'm also a speaker, so it's possible that my Grammy might come in the spoken word category - or even the comedy category, since I can be a bit humorous from time to time.
So while I have the desire to win a Grammy, it's not easy to get more specific than that.
Sometimes, big dreams are difficult to measure. In the case of a Grammy, it's not so hard: when I have it, I have it. Until then, I don't. But in the case of wanting to leave a positive impact in the world (or a dent in the universe as Steve Jobs put it). Setting a goal to sell a hundred, a thousand, or even a million copies of my book is measurable and specific, but will that really change lives? I won't know until someone reaches out and tells me that my book made a difference to them.
Then there's that whole "is this really attainable?" thing. Who really knows what's attainable? Some of our greatest inventions came by accident and curiosity. Sir Richard Branson cracked an April Fool's joke about a product that would one day become reality. Now, millions of people own MP3 players of some sort. Nobody believed it was attainable. Now, it's commonplace.
I think of Columbus and the debate over whether the world was flat or round. Sometimes, you don't know if it's attainable until you try. Sometimes you fail, but the attainability of a goal, in my mind, shouldn't be a qualifier on whether or not you give it a try. There are lots of failed attempts that ultimately led to success. Light bulbs, anyone? The original inventor couldn't figure out how to get his filament to burn more than a few seconds. FAILURE!
But Edison and his crew stepped in and worked over and over and over until they found a way to make it work. Voila! Electric light - and ultimately electricity in every home gives me the ability to send this message to you anywhere in the world.
Which ties into the whole realistic thing. Who really thought it was realistic 100 years ago to have little video screens in every home? You can watch moving pictures from the comfort of your living room couch! Back in 1914, We were embroiled in survival struggles. Wars. That kind of thing. It wasn't until 1926 that the first broadcast of moving pictures even happened - and they were crappy compared to today's standards. Heck, we were still watching silent movies until 1927! It wasn't until 1939 that the first experimental broadcast network was set up in the US - and color TV didn't come on the scene until the 50's - but most homes didn't see it until the 60's.
So until about 50 years ago, it was pretty unrealistic to think that you'd be able to watch "talkies" in your living room... with a push of a button.. or downloaded off this thing called the Internet.
So much for "realistic" eh?
Who really knows how long it will take for a big dream to materialize? It took Christopher Plummer most of his life to win an Oscar. The Oscar is one of the highest honors an actor can receive. While I'm sure he wasn't acting for the sake of earning an Oscar (a sure-fire way to NOT win one, I'm told), the look on his face when he held that statuette and said "Where have you been all my life?" only illustrated further that a time-bound goal can be a little limiting. So what if it takes your whole life to achieve a goal? I guess, in that respect, it is time-bound. But would you turn it away, too little too late, if you didn't achieve it until after you died? Remember some of our greatest artists didn't know success in their lifetime, yet their legacy impacts the lives of countless people hundreds of years after their death.
Does "eternity" count as time-bound? š
So when it comes to big dreams, SMART goals leave me cold. There are those that would say that you could still use SMART goals on the smaller sub-set of steps you need to take in order to achieve those big goals, and I agree. It also makes it a lot easier to lose sight of the goal itself and get lost in the minutiae of the every day steps that may or may not ultimately lead you to your goal.
Take the Grammy for example. There are some things I need to do: join the Academy, for example. Those are more tasks then goals, though. I need to have a project -an album, a song, a something that could be submitted for consideration by the Academy. But what? An album of songs? A single song? Design a package for a project (they give Grammys for design, too). Or maybe a video? Hmmm... see how easy it is to get lost in the minutiae?
Lately, I've been working on "DUMB" goals - even a few of my clients and colleagues admit that the DUMB approach is actually very helpful.
Here's how it works. DUMB goals are:
D - Doable
U - Understandable
M - Meaningful
B - Believable
Is this something that, with the existing resources and technologies available or known to you, can be done? Television was an extension of ideas that had been developed back in the 1800's. So it was most likely do-able, they just needed access to the resources. Radio waves were already transmitting across the country, so broadcast technology existed, they just needed to figure out how to tweak those waves to send images as well as sound.
Everything they needed was available, just not all in one place. It required some testing, experimenting and putting those pieces together - like a jigsaw puzzle, trying to make the pieces fit together.
So while it seemed unrealistic, it was, in fact, very doable.
"1000 songs in your pocket." Nothing could have been easier to understand when Steve Jobs uttered those words about a device that no one had believed was even possible. Funny enough, MP3 players existed before the Ipod. They were clunky, unsexy, and relegated to the realm of nerds and technophiles. MP3s had been around for quite a while, so it really wasn't a stretch to create a disc drive that would hold them and play them. The technology existed, so it was doable, but how to you explain what these little boxes do in a way that gets you move a million units?
1000 songs in your pocket is a very understandable goal.
There are a lot of folks that think I'm nuts, wanting to go for a Grammy. But it is meaningful to me. There's an aura of prestige around those little gramophone statuettes (Prestige is one of my triggers), it's also a symbol of recognition and acceptance from a field of my peers. Those things are meaningful to me. Maybe not to you, but because they are to me, I'm willing to do the work to achieve the goal.
If you set goals that aren't meaningful to you, why are you setting them at all? (Click to tweet)
To those that say I'm deluding myself into thinking I can win a Grammy, I say you don't have to believe it's possible. Only I do.
Owning dreams that are believable is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make. "I want to make a million dollars" someone will say to me, but when I take them through the threshold of belief exercise, they don't even believe it's possible for them to do so.
So many people believed the world was flat. They fought about it. But someoneĀ believed - and a few were willing enough to believe that they loaned some boats and supplies so this Columbus kid could go cavorting to the "edge of the world". Worst case scenario, they wouldn't get the boats back and there'd be one less weirdo on the planet.
Turns out that willingness is a big piece to allowing space for believability. If you're not sure you can believe in the possibility of your dream, are you at least willing to try to believe it? Are you willing to hold space that someone else might believe in it (and you)? Because I believe in you. If you're reading this right now, I'm cheering for you. I know you've got something special, and if you want it to happen, I want it for you.
So that's how I handle goal setting now. Forget SMART goals, I'm all about DUMB goals. Goals that are do-able, understandable, meaningful and believable to me. Forget what the rest of the world thinks! DUMB goals are a great idea.
There are those that would say it's a negative approach, but I've found it actually plays into a sort of "reverse psychology" - when people criticize your goals, call them dumb or whatever, you can say "Yep. They're DUMB alright. And I'm going to GO for it!"
My clients get it, and since it doesn't force them to reprogram their thoughts, it becomes a more effortless way to own your dreams.
So what say you? This is the first time I've really been transparent about my goal setting process. You may already be familiar with how I prioritize things (using The PEACE System), but this is the first time I've ever shared publicly my DUMB goal setting technique. I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas about it.
2013 started with the best of intentions. My goal is to record 300 songs before the year ends, and I'm well over 10% of the way there.
And yet...
It feels like this hugely daunting task right now. Like I'll never make it.
I know I'm in the thick of it. I know the year's only just begun. I also thought I'd be farther along by this time.
I mean heck, it's almost the end of the first quarter. By my math, that's 75 songs that need to be in the can by the end of the month.
I'm about half way there.
I was reading Josh Pais' blog. He was recently in a car accident, and (more…)