I have to confess I fell for the oldest trick in the book. I had all these lofty goals about creating an online business, offering affordable self-development programs, improving the lives of loads of people, and working from anywhere in the world.
I was living the dream – in my head.
Despite how good this vision of my future seemed, I never actually got there. Something would happen that would ‘get in the way’. I’d advertise the program through my emails, have a great bunch of people come along (while I ran it in person, not online), and then I’d move on to creating the next program.
I still felt great about my ideal future and I somehow still felt that I was moving towards it. Except I wasn’t.
What was stopping me?
I wondered if I was self-sabotaging. I explored my beliefs around money – did I have my own financial glass ceiling? I wondered if I what I wanted was actually what I wanted.
Then when I was researching for my Stop Procrastinating program (yes – another program) I came across some research about goal setting. I’d read it before but it hadn’t sunk in as something that might apply to me. It said – simply visualising your goals for the future can be rewarding enough, actually reducing your motivation to achieve them.
I had fallen for oldest trick in the book. Thank you brain – not!
My goals had felt so good to me that just thinking about them was plenty for my little brain and it felt no need to do the hard work (which wouldn’t feel good) to reach them.
Luckily there is a solution which I am going to share with you. It’s 4 simple steps.
Step 1: Visualise your goals. I know I said this is not good but wait…… there’s more.
Step 2: Have a good hard look at where you are now. It’s probably not as good as where you want to be. You need this contrast to motivate you.
Step 3: Anticipate all the obstacles you are likely to encounter. This helps with the next step and stops you getting disheartened when you bump against any difficulties (which you will).
Step 4: Set Implementation Intentions. These are an “if….then” solution to the obstacles which I’ll tell you about next time.
So keep posted and I’ll have you achieving even your wildest dreams before you know it.
