How To Set A Goal And Make It Stick
January 30, 2010
When I speak, I often engage the audience, working interactively. Why? Because I know that the more we engage all our senses (not just our ears) when we hear new material, the more it helps us to anchor that new material within us. I also know that anchored information will more likely be used when we return to our offices. Instructional designers call this “transfer of training.” Proving that what we teach is actually taken and used in someone’s work is the holy grail of professional training.
When you decide to set a new goal for yourself, how do you do it? Do you sit down and make a list? Do you write out an affirmation? Do you simply think to yourself one day while you’re in the car “I need to do thus-and-such” and set out to do it? Whatever your method, you can have a higher degree of sticking to your new goal if you include as many of your senses as you can to help you along.
There are several ways of doing this, and most of the methods I know work pretty well. One that is popular right now is called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is often used to change our emotional reaction to a certain situation. For instance, if you get nervous speaking in front of people, you can learn to use EFT to say affirmations and tap yourself on specific points of the body. EFT is nicknamed “tapping” because you actually do tap yourself repeatedly at specific spots as you are saying the sentences you construct about your goal — the change you desire. I’ve used EFT more than once and if it is used consistently, it has worked for me. To learn more about EFT, you can contact my friend Annie Wills, at Full Circle Coaching.
I’m going to give you another way to involve your senses and make your new goal stick, though. It is often called VAK, which stands for Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic. I like VAK because it is another way to become an embodied entrepreneur. Simply put, that means that you are engaged in your work with your heart, soul, mind AND body – and you are sure to be quite successful if you can achieve that!
So, to set a goal and put the power of VAK behind it, here’s what you do:
- Write your goal down.
- Close your eyes, and ask yourself “what will you see that will let you know you’ve attained your goal?” Even better, you can give this question and the following ones to a friend and ask them to walk you through this and answer to her, out loud. Take a breath or two, and see what pictures you get, what you’ll see when your goal is met. You will probably get more than one vision. Open your eyes, and write each of them down.
- Again, close your eyes and ask yourself “what will people say to you once you’ve reached the goal?” After you’ve recorded your answer (or had your friend record it for you), try asking yourself “what will people say about you once you’ve reached your goal?” And finally, ask what you would say to yourself when your goal is reached. Record your answers, or have your friend do it for you.
- (This is my favorite part!) Now, close your eyes again. Ask yourself how you will feel when you’ve reached this new goal. Really take some time to let this sink in, and see what feelings arise in you. Once you have a good strong feeling going, ask yourself about the color, shape, texture, and even the temperature of that feeling. Finally, ask yourself where the feeling is located in your body. Record all your answers. Don’t rush yourself, give yourself time to really get into the feeling of reaching this goal.
- Finally, ask yourself what belief you could state about yourself that will help you get this goal. For instance, if you want to lose weight but always snack at night, could you create a belief about yourself that you are able to easily turn your attention from eating after 8:00 PM? Work on this replacing your current belief that it is “impossible not to eat” or “I must eat because I get too fatigued, too bored, or too scared not to eat at night.” In other words, replace your negative self-talk with a positive belief in yourself as someone who is capable of doing what you want to do.
- Be sure to ask yourself if you foresee any reason NOT to reach this goal. If you secretly think that being thinner will be bad in some way you will not reach your goal until you have put that belief to bed. We almost always have a secret reason that we don’t want to do what we say we want to do. I say I want to improve my auditory Spanish skills, but secretly I don’t want to put in the extra half hour a day to do that. So, of course, I don’t! Bring your secret reasons up into your consciousness, and you’ll go a long way to helping yourself get that goal.
The point here is to create a framework around you that helps support you in all your senses. If you have a goal to grow a rose garden, you can close your eyes and envision the layout, the sunshine, the colors, and the smells for sure. The more you can embody your goals, the more you’ll be able to make it stick. Let me know how it works for you.
Do You Think Like An Entrepreneur?
August 26, 2009
There have been many studies that try to answer the question “what makes an entrepreneur?” Sometimes, a client will ask me “do you think I will be a successful entrepreneur?” Here are some of the ways we are “different.” Take a peek and see what you think!
- We have a different view about risk, luck, convention, and decision-making. We take risks quickly and easily, because we “get it” that one doesn’t move forward by always playing it safe. We tend not to believe in luck as much as we make our luck by following up consistently. We don’t think conventionally, we think “out of the box” and see new opportunities with those fresh eyes. And more than anything else, we are quick decision-makers. We realize that money likes speed and decisiveness!
- At least one researcher finds that entrepreneurs keep themselves psychologically healthy, being willing to push against limiting beliefs. Additionally, we pay attention to the physical and spiritual side of our lives. (I need to remember that next time I don’t want to go swim, ha!)
- We are the heroes of our own life. We meet challenges and overcome fear and inability, not being afraid to use our instincts and spontaneity.
- We are optimistic, willing to take risks, have great ideas (and usually need others to help us implement them), are willing to work long hours to achieve our goals, and are very resilient. When things go wrong we learn from the failure and set right back with another tack.
Wow! I like the upbeat, savvy, positive feel of all these traits. If they describe you, you’re either already an entrepreneur or have dreams of going out on your own.
(c) Sue Painter
When Dreams Come True
January 14, 2009
There’s a lot in the workshop world these days about abundance and visioning. It isn’t something really new, as teenagers many of us made collages of things we loved. But there’s a lot more talk these days about the importance of visioning – the importance of looking deeply into ourselves, having the courage to write about and picture what we secretly most want. I’ve decided to share my story about dreams coming true, on the theory that it just might help someone else who is doubting that they can have what they want.
About 13 years ago now I became a member of a Quest group. One of the first things the group’s leader had us do was to answer, in writing, a series of questions about our clearest vision of our life – how we would be living it in the coming years, what would feel the most satisfying and truest life for each of us, how our relationships would be, what our work would look like. When I got this set of questions and was told to write an essay about them I was working in a very high-powered, high-stress position. I was not happy doing it, but the money was very good and I had made the decision to do this work for a while so that my husband and I could buy lake property and build a house. I worked 60 to 80 hours a week, travelled all the time, and managed a large group of people. While I was very successful, I was also very exhausted. So, to get this long writing assignment thrown into the mix didn’t make me very happy. I was stressed out, pissed off at working so hard, and already lugging around a bulging briefcase as I flew back and forth to D.C. I really DIDN’T want to spend time answering these questions.
So, in my best “I really don’t agree with doing this” manner, I answered – truthfully but also in a peeved tone. I started the essay by saying that “I had no idea how I would ever get there, but what I really wanted was” — and I held forth for three solid, single spaced typed pages. I folded it up, took it to the next group meeting, and read it aloud, unsmiling, when my turn came. Then, I efficiently folded it into thirds, popped it into the back of my daily planner, and promptly forgot it was there.
Fast forward 10 years later. The exhausting job was long gone. I was home one day, bored, and decided to clean out my now-defunct daily planner (I was on computer now!). I thought the planner was empty, and before throwing it into the trash I held it by the spine and shook it hard. And, out from the last, back, hard to reach pocket fell that 3 typed pages that I had long ago forgotten. I wondered what it was, and opened it up – and to my absolute and total amazement I read three pages of “what I really wanted” – and, point by point, every single one of my wants had come true! It was and is crazy, unbelievable, ridiculous. I sat there next to the trash can, holding what was my most precious possession – my vision for myself, my life on a page, my deepest heart’s desires. And I realized in that moment how wise and special the leader of our little Quest group was. How indebted to him I was. How grateful, fortunate, and lucky I was to have secretly carried my dreams with me for all those years, and how writing them and speaking them aloud to that group had taught me that energy follows thought.
Yes, dreams do come true. And as they do, we add more dreams. There is always forward movement until the moment we give up, and begin to die. One of the reasons I so believe in and support people in visioning is the lesson I learned myself – the one that took me a decade to learn. My small group Visioning fron the Heart workshops are my own way of helping others to Quest now. And my sincere belief is that the same dream coming true will happen to you.
(Credits: With many thanks to my friend BJ Ryan for the use of her painting “Sunset in the Desert.”)
Why You Don’t Have What You Want
January 3, 2009
I just ran across a quote that talks about self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is another term for approach/avoidance, a great term I learned in grad school. Approach/avoidance happens when we want two opposite things equally. It’s like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object – what happens is a big fat nothing. We think the conscious thought, but the unconscious believe cancels out any action. Or, two conscious thoughts are equally strong. “I want to make six figures this year.” “I don’t want to have money, I’ll have no excuse not to support my sorry son.” What happens is, you stew. And stewing isn’t forward movement.
So, here’s the quote: “If you don’t have what you want — here’s the reason – your subconscious holds some contradictory intentions for you. To put it simply, you want something and it doesn’t.” A man named Robert Anthony wrote that.
The quote is both succinct and helpful. We can get at what our subconscious holds in various ways – through visualization, journaling, and dreaming to name just a few.
Thinking about what we say we want and yet do not have means digging underneath the “top excuses” we offer when things are not as we say we’d like. What we have at this moment in time is truly what we want – or at least what some very strong part of us wants. A great exercise in between watching all the bowl games and taking down Christmas decorations is to sit and imagine your best, most perfect life. What you don’t have? Well, there’s a part of you that doesn’t want it. Chew on that for a bit, and see what happens. There will be realizations, and maybe changes – and more than likely those will help you and your business thrive.
Resolution: Increase Your Income in the New Year
December 28, 2008
Do yourself, your community, your family, and your business a big, fat favor. Resolve that in the New Year you will not once use the excuse of a bad economy for why your business is not making more money. Resolve that you will not waste time discussing with others what effect today’s economy might have on your business throughout the New Year. Resolve to turn the conversation away from “the economy sucks” when you are talking with other business owners. Resolve to analyze your business’s products and services, just as you should always be doing, and resolve to change what you need to change to meet the market. Resolve to ask your existing clients and customers what they most need from you now, and make it your business to provide exactly that, at the very highest quality and with a keen eye toward customer service. Resolve to discover at least three businesses with whom you can work collaboratively, in such a way that it builds both of you. Resolve to make 2009 a very, very good year.
Resolve to keep uppermost in your mind that energy follows thought. When you really get this concept you will understand that working in each moment to create your life as you want it is the highest and best use of your time. Resolve to keep on this track, and watch your business thrive!
Do You Retreat?
October 28, 2008
This past we
ekend my business partner and I took a small group on a creative retreat. From Friday afternoon through Sunday noon we talked, created a small photo album, napped in front of the fireplace, ate, walked, and listened to music. We tucked our participants away in two B&Bs in Granville, Tennessee – away from the Internet, cell phones, family, business, and TV. It brought home to me the constant information overload we have become addicted to, think we absolutely must have – an information overload that can serve at times to increase our anxieties, fears, and sense that we are in control. (We aren’t!)
I watched as each participant relaxed and realized that it was really just fine not to know what was going on back at home every single hour of the day. Giving up constant control is an exercise in delegation and trusting others – two thing most small business owners have a hard time doing. Giving up instant access to information flow is an exercise in focusing on the true thing rather than the minutia.
Faced with uncharacteristic freedom to breathe and be, our group dove into the fresh air of a slower pace, a small community of listeners, and a supportive group. As we occupied our hands with paper, glue, and ink our hearts opened to share our current stories. We strategized on topics from growing new employees to facing health problems to tax reduction strategies to delegating. We practiced collaboration (the best business model there is for today’s business owner) as we shared supplies and creative ideas. We deepened our knowledge of each other’s characteristics and skills – things we can draw on now that we are back into our normal world. We learned that quiet and space is necessary for our sharpest thinking on key issues. We fed our body, minds, and souls in ways that benefit us both personally and in business.
No matter how busy and involved you are, the world actually will function without your oversight and input. It is a good growth experience for you and for those you leave behind. Quarterly retreats are a part of my business plan, and I strongly suggest them to you. Give yourself (and everyone else) a break. Plan a few days away, and watch your focus sharpen as you relax. Just another tool to help your business thrive!
Sue P.
Recreate to Create New Business
May 18, 2008
Are you at a dug-in, down-in-the-dirt stuck place with your business? Summer is all but here, and your mind is turning to the beach, t
he mountains, or your mama’s front porch. Would you like an excuse to take an extra vacation this summer? Here’s the truth of the matter:
- You need to go on a personal retreat!
Yep, that’s right. One way to radically change your thoughts (which we know affect feelings, which in turn drive your actions, which then become results) is to give yourself a change of environment. Why?
- Chances are you are hanging around people who are not positively supporting you right now.
- It’s a good bet that you are tired of “thinking about it,” whatever the issue is.
- Your routine of daily life currently is not supporting your moving ahead. In other words, you are stuck in a rut.
Here’s the five-step action plan for you:
- Go alone, you don’t want to have to serve anyone but yourself right now.
- Pack your briefcase with the materials you need to work on the stuck place.
- Take along at least one new book you’ve bought but have not read (it can be a business book or fiction, doesn’t matter.)
- Give yourself a minimum of three days (that means four nights away, no cheating and taking a half day at either end for travel).
- Set an intention to rest, recreate, and let your mind wander.
Now, go make a reservation someplace and get gone. If you are harboring negative and guilty thoughts, remind yourself that you are the shepherd of your business and your soul, and right now for whatever reason they both need attention. A friend of mine, Annie Wills, calls this “radical self care.” I call it a good reason for some extra time at my own favorite place, which is anywhere with an ocean view.
Say “recreate” with a slightly different emphasis and you’ll realize it is re-create. You need to re-create something in your work, and in yourself. That takes a little time out. No reason to feel guilty about that, is there?
Let me know where you go and what you got accomplished. Send a picture, even. I won’t be surprised at the positive changes, but you might be!
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