“Ants
move mountains one grain of sand at a time. Micro-movements toward a goal is progress in the right direction. Give yourself credit!” ~Jamie Allen Bishop
7 STEPS TO GOAL GREATNESS
by Jamie Allen Bishop
Soul Heart Entertainment
So, you want to reach a big goal quickly? Feeling like you have imposter
syndrome? Telling yourself you can’t or won’t make it happen?
This article focuses on the energy behind accomplishing big goals.
I will map out necessary steps and offer examples from my own experience on how
to take action.
“Anything the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
~Napoleon Hill
Harvard Business Review (May 2008) defined Imposter
Syndrome as “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite
evident success. 'Imposters' suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of
intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external
proof of their competence.”
With more than 30 years of career, personal, and education
experience behind me, I see Imposter Syndrome as a fancy way of saying
you’re not fully committed to the timeline you’ve set for yourself. Having a
syndrome title to call it is a psychological copout, allowing you an excuse to
not finish what you’ve started in a timely manner.
Be the hero in your own story. Stop settling for status quo, mediocrity,
and excuses! Push yourself past your comfort zone and (in the infamous words of
Larry the Cable Guy), “Git ‘er done!”
Step 1: Celebrate YOU! It may seem silly to you,
but the first thing to do when setting big goals for yourself is to celebrate
YOU and your decision to set and achieve a big goal. Setting big goals and
following steps to achieve those goals is a wonderful undertaking. When we set
goals, our intention is often to step outside our comfort zone and accomplish
something many others never motivate themselves to accomplish. It means you are
wanting something greater for yourself, and you are setting the example for
those around you. In brain chemistry, pursuing big goals is akin to taking big risks,
and while our brain wants to keep us safe, the best thing we could possibly do
for our longevity and vitality is to ignore the lackadaisical compliance of
daily routines that no longer serve our soul’s journey. Getting out of our
comfort zone to achieve challenges is so important, in fact, that our bodies
create dis-ease wherever we are not pursuing excellence. (If you don’t own
Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life,” it’s time to purchase a copy for
yourself… today!) So, celebrate your decision and commitment to stepping up,
stepping on, and stepping out into the greatness that you know you are destined
to achieve.
Step 2: Get Yourself An Accountability Partner. For me,
this is a critical component for accomplishing any goal. Honestly, this is an
absolute must for those of you who want more than you already have. Get yourself
an accountability partner. You'll need someone who will be brutally honest with
you, and yet sensitively caring about holding your feet to the fire and calling
you on your stops (a.k.a. excuses).
(a) Pay A Life Coach: A coach can be a great person to hire to
hold you accountable, and while all coaches are not of the same caliber, there
are many who have very affordable accountability programs. The benefit of
hiring someone is they are typically emotionally removed enough from your goal
and from the blocks you have to achieving it. They are likely people who have
"been there, done that" when it comes to every trick in the
procrastination book, so they'll recognize those stops in you, call you on them,
and help you get unstuck and on your way to the greatness you desire.
(b) Find A Friend: If hiring a coach isn’t in your vision, look
for someone in your circle of influence (or maybe just outside that circle) who
might desire an accountability partner, too. This person will have a goal they
wish to achieve in a similar time frame. They'll have a solid desire to achieve
their goal, and they'll be your cheerleader as you make progress, too. The time
frame of goal achievement is more important than having similar goals. In fact,
sometimes the goal being extremely different serves you both better, as you are
less likely to get caught up in comparing your progress with each other.
Step 3: Know Your WHY & Write It Down! In fact,
place it somewhere you will look multiple times a day. For example, my personal
and professional why is on my keyboard because that's where I tend to spend
a large portion of my day, allowing me to glance at it several times a day. It
keeps me focused on the task at hand because it strums my heartstrings to think
about it.
Make your why really meaningful. A financial or
fiscal reason is never going to keep you (nor anyone you know) happily on task.
Your why needs to be about what accomplishing the goal means to
you. For example, my personal and professional why is to change the
vibrational frequency of the world I experience, one soul at a time. For me,
that means that my personal experience on this earth is filled with blessings,
happiness, freedom, and love. I accomplish this goal in every moment of my day
by remaining in a state of intentional gratitude about everything life throws
my way. Because my goal brings to me amazingly wonderful encounters, most
people who interact with me have similar experiences, thus raising the
vibration of everyone's day.
A solid why is the most important thing in a
person's emotional toolbox to help them avoid and overcome pitfalls on the road
to success in achieving any goal. I don’t think there’s a coach out there who would
guide you away from creating a super big why.
Here is an example of the
difference between an unsuccessful why and a successful why.
Unsuccessful why: I want to be healthier.
Successful why: I want to live a long,
happy, and independent life while I grow into the healthy, clear-minded older
version of myself so my daughter can have a good example of how to accomplish
the same for herself.
Make sure your why is big enough to help you choose the
fruit or veggies over the bread or potatoes every time you need to make
that decision.
Step 4: Write Down Steps. Write down what you need
to do to achieve your goal. Writing is a necessary way to get thoughts out of
your head and into your reality. Without writing it down, goals and the steps to
achieve them will take longer to achieve. If the time it may take to accomplish
a goal is important to you, it can be truly miraculous how much writing things down
will help. Step 3 step has two parts:
(a) Macro Steps: Write the big steps/actions you need to take to achieve your
goal. This is so important!!! Your brain releases a hormone of
accomplishment each time you cross something off your list or check it as
complete. Those hormones are the same ones released when you feel extremely
good about something. Those hormones are what a great many people are looking
for more of in their lives because they only do good to your body and they
often come with fabulous memories. Plus, if you do not have a plan of action
including steps to take to create movement toward your goal, accomplishing your
goal will take sssoooo much longer to complete. Without a checklist of things
that need to be done, you are likely to keep putting your goal on the back
burner of your life, as chaos and mayhem will always take priority. You’ll
continue to survive instead of thrive. Want to start thriving? Write your
action steps down.
(b) Micro-Movements: Now that you have big picture steps on paper, break those plans
down into micro-movements. For example, say I want to lose weight. Macro actions
I can take are to eat right and move every single day. Micro movements to
achieve that goal are to create a realistic daily menu for myself (and my family)
and to map out a viable movement routine. Once I know my micro-movements, I can
delegate some of the responsibility of accomplishing my goal to my
friends/family – like grocery shopping or cooking.
Step 5: Set Deadlines. Now that you have your big
steps and micro-movements to achieve your goal, backtrack from when you want to
have your goal finalized in order to enter due dates for the Macro and Micro tasks.
For example, as a solopreneur, if I want to map out my social media schedule
for next year by the end of the third quarter (end of September), I follow
these steps:
(a) Determine
monthly themes – due September 1;
(b) Create
subcategories for specific weekly focus topics – due September 3;
(c) Dawn
a daily post agenda – due September 8;
(d) Design
business memes – due September 25; and
(e) Schedule
posts – due September 30.
Naturally, some steps are easy and quick while others may require time
and effort. When I have a deadline to meet, I am more likely to stick to and
achieve something new. Plus, now I have a list of tasks and due dates to offer
my accountability partner, who can then hold me to those timelines. Lastly, seeing
the list, I can better delegate some tasks with due dates to a helper. Maybe I
reach out to the local college for an entrepreneur business student interested
in an unpaid internship? Maybe I pay my teen to gather quotes for me? Maybe I
ask my hubby to take inspiring photos I can use? Without a written process to
achieve my goal and dates those goals are due, I may never reach out to the
college, hire my daughter, or get my hubby to follow through with a photo
safari. Without a written process, my brain chemistry is on autopilot (a.k.a. survival
mode), keeping me stuck putting out the “fires” that suddenly appear in my life
in lieu of living the thriving life I know I am meant to live.
If I get through Step 5, I am ten times more likely to reach my goal
within the expected timeline.
Step 6: Reward yourself! There’s a reason most
employers and home-based businesses have goal rewards in place. Rewards can be
strong motivators for getting stuff done.
As you accomplish your tasks to reach your goals, it’s important
to (a) reward yourself; and (b) know ahead of time what your reward will be. When
our minds or bodies want to avoid the task at hand, a worthy reward can make a
huge difference.
For example, if I set a daily calorie count of negative 1,200
calories and I’ve achieved that goal, perhaps I get to spend an hour or two doing something I love to do - cross-stitching, watching
my favorite movie, putting a puzzle together, etc. If I accomplish every task on my list for a few days in a row, perhaps I
gift myself an hour or two of uninterrupted “ME” time (bath time, hanging with a friend, book reading time, etc.). If I accomplish a week of remaining on task and on track, perhaps I get
to buy myself something I’ve been wanting (a new blouse, a facial, a massage). Chose rewards that speak to your
heart, motivate you, and (most importantly) that you deny yourself unless you
achieve your goal. Maybe the super big reward for once you've accomplished the whole project is to go on a trip with your family. Maybe it's a day trip. Maybe it's an overnight trip. Regardless of what your rewards are, get some set in place for milestones on your way to achieving the goal you've devoted your time to accomplish. You deserve it!
Step 7: Have A Grateful Heart. Every
moment of task completion toward achieving a goal, even in those moments where you may not measure up to your written timeline expectations, remember
to be in a grateful state of mind. Gratitude is one of the highest vibrational
frequencies we can express, and when we are in vibrational alignment with the
highest frequencies (love, joy, gratitude, peace), we are well on our way to
attracting magical experiences into our lives.
For example, if your brain (or another familial voice in your head) nags you about falling behind on your daily
tasks, you might write a note to yourself or say aloud, “Thank you, my sweet brain, for the kind
reminder of how important achieving this goal is to me.”
To help me from getting into that snarky sense of humor I sometimes manifest or from beating myself up for not getting something done, I imagine my brain (or the voice in my head) as a cartoon character with a beautifully happy face giving me a high-five for remembering to turn something that could be a negative experience into a learning/more positive one.
My go-to trick for staying focused on a task at hand is to listen
to audio recordings that help with concentration. There are a plethora of these
frequency sound baths to choose from on many apps and stations out there. If you wish to access the
audio I play, my channel – Jamie Allen Bishop Sole Reader - has a public playlist
called, “Soul Symphony,” with a variety of music specifically designed to help
with vibrational alignment.
If you feel overwhelmed with this list of steps, there are two quotes
that come to mind. One, remember, “Overwhelm is a misperception of abundance,” and two, “Ants move
mountains one grain of sand at a time.”
Praise yourself for progress. Pat
yourself on the back for new awareness. Listen for and act on divine guidance (different people you know telling you something three times or more, books jumping off shelves at you, overhearing conversations with meaningful information, etc.). Your
expectation of yourself is the only real critic you have. Outside opinions are simply the people we love trying to keep us safe. Unrealistic expectations of ourselves are what can rock our world and shake us off our path to achieving a worthy
goal.
Make the plan, stay the course, praise yourself, reward yourself, and you, too, can move mountains!
Warmly,
Jamie Allen Bishop, MA
Soul Heart Entertainment
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