Without direction you are likely to sidetrack, both individually and as an organization. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that most of us have short attention spans, an innate desire for pleasure and taking the route of ease. However, if you are really committed to the vision of what you want your business life to be, you need to be your own boss. The kind of boss that keeps you committed to taking action daily on your goals.
A clearly identified goal and vision is a North Star. When used as a daily tool, it allows us to actively and intentionally choose the behaviors, projects and collaboration partners that will help close the gap between a mere idealistic dream, and instead, lead us on a path to realistically reach our goal.
Below are mindsets and processes I use in conscious leadership training and strategic business development tools with my clients. I hope it conveys how crucial it is for your future success to be a Goal Digger. Don’t leave your business trajectory up to chance!
1. Envisioning it is the first step to creating it.
The first step to reaching any goal is to have a clear vision of what you want to create. If you can think it, you are that much closer to taking the right actions to create it. What would you like your business to look and feel like? This vision needs to be anchored in your body and feelings. If your goal is merely an intellectual process, you might end up creating your desired business life successfully, but still end up not feeling fully content. This is one of the major dilemmas of life. We learn from outside sources how we should feel, think and live to be successful—yet none of these prescribed measures of success are authentic to everyone. So, delve inside yourself and find what makes your insides go, yippee yah!
2. What you focus on expands.
One may think that the old saying, “step out of your comfort zone,” is a cliché, but in reality, it has enormous value. Challenging ourselves and learning what we are capable of will expand our abilities, as well as our potential to be the very best version of ourselves. If we don’t make a commitment to our own goals and dreams, challenging the different areas of our knowledge and abilities, there’s a good chance we won’t feel successful or content.
Focusing on yourself, your dreams and your abilities will have an enormous impact on your inner passion and will help strengthen your commitment to your purposeful goals.
3. Transform your dream into a plan, and your plan into action!
Creating a clear vision and setting the milestones and goals towards it are just the first steps in your new path for transformation. Taking actions that are aligned with your dream, vision and goals requires having a very clear understanding and feeling of what you’re going after. Only then can you identify the paths that lead you away from your goals, and avoid them. Awareness makes you more able to say no to the things that will hold you back, and yes to the direction that drives you towards your goal. Finely tuning each action and decision you make is a process, but once you do it, you’ll understand how these decisions can change and color your life—both in the short term and long term.
4. Bust yourself.
Throughout our lives, we’ve developed psychological shadows and unconscious patterns and mindsets. These shadows often cause us to not live up to our full potential, and have us believe we are not entitled to the life we want. Undoing these shadows and mindsets is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding, steps you can take during your life. And if we avoid doing so, we’ll continue creating the same darn thing again and again, and never get closer to our dream. Be vigilant in observing your own behaviors, mindsets, judgement patterns and, specifically, how you speak to yourself. It makes a huge difference when it comes to living out your ideal life and reaching the goals you set for yourself.
5. Make your inner critic your inner coach.
When you’re constantly bumping your head against a mean inner dialogue, it becomes extremely tough to create success. You need to silence your mean inner critic—the one that loves to make you wrong—and start a positive, supportive dialogue with yourself. When something negative happens, we automatically blame others or we attribute this negatively towards ourselves. This means that we are afraid and angry, which only takes us in a downward spiral, and is a behavior every person needs to “unlearn.” But how do you do that? It is all about taking control and responsibility for your own thoughts and guiding yourself toward your dream.
6. “Friend” your fear.
Fear is a natural human emotion, and we all experience it. What separates the people who are successfully able to close the gab between their dream and their reality is the ability to learn mindsets and behavioral techniques that allow them to “friend” their fear—and thus not let fear hold them back. This requires self-awareness, will power, perseverance, resiliency and a large dose of courage.
7. Say no like nobody’s business.
As a person in charge of your own life and dreams, there is one major skill that you need to master, and that is to set clear boundaries without a feeling of guilt, shame or fear. Pleasing others comes from a fear of being rejected, and therefore, makes it hard to say no. While we all want to be loved and feel safe, it’s important to remember that standing up for your energy and your time is one of the best ways to love yourself. You need to be open to your own self-worth and belonging, and be okay with saying no to things that won’t positively impact you. When you master this, you’ll become a force, the real you, and you can make a positive difference in the word—both for you and for others.
8. Drop perfection.
Oh yes, I know the perfectionism personality trait intimately well! When we thrive to be perfect, we sabotage our own ability to take action and steps towards our goals.
Rather than hoping to be perfect, go for learning, growth and being better than you were yesterday. Only measure yourself against yourself. Notice when you grow and learn, and then take new, considered actions. Sometimes it works out right away, and sometimes it’s a growth and learning process just like learning to walk, or ski, or read. Go for imperfection, and allow others the same benefit of learning to succeed.
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Author: Sandja Brügmann
Image: Soham Banerjee/Flickr
Editor: Jean Weiss
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