I’m going to come right out and say it: I’m not a big believer in traditional goals.
Working in the health & wellness industry, I developed a deep seated despise of new year’s resolutions and goals.
Here’s why:
So often we’re creating them in a way that truly sets us up for failure, and makes us feel really shitty about ourselves until we achieve the thing.
What I would see time and time again in the wellness industry, is people setting goals without intentions, and then never reaching those goals.
When we’re not really connecting to the underlying desire of why we want the thing, it’s really easy to make ourselves wrong in the process of achieving the thing. Which is exactly what makes us self sabotage and fall off the wagon, so that by January 23rd, any NY resolution has already either been forgotten, or we’ve given up on ourselves for “messing up” or not having achieved the thing already.
Obviously something is not working with goal setting.
I want to share with you something I have started to do (and I did this from the moment I started this business!), how I support my clients to really set an alternative to goals, and how we help them create that plan and lock in on the most important part of actually setting yourself up to achieve something.
This might be a little woo, but it’s how we roll. More than that, it’s blown my business up. The moment we start to set intentions, we put a stop to self sabotage and that vicious cycle of making ourselves wrong and feeling shitty or not enough until we’ve achieved what we wanted to achieve.
The reason most people don’t hit their goals is because they’re making themselves wrong until they hit the thing.
It’s incredibly unmotivating and it’s not something that helps you create momentum around anything if you’re deciding that until you achieve XYZ that you’re not good enough.
It just doesn’t work!
Here’s what’s helped me achieve far greater results in my business (we’re talking multiple 6 Figures) and what I see to support my clients to create consistent 10k, 20k all the way up to 40k months:
Intention Setting
When we think about setting intentions (or intentional goals), it’s important to get deeper than just your “why.”
Get clear on how you want to feel or what you *think* you’ll feel after you achieve the thing you want.
Here’s an example:
When I started this business, I had closed down my holistic nutrition business, I had a lot of debt from that business and previous investments, I hadn’t been employed in like 6 years because I had been self employed for so long, and I made the decision to get 2 part time jobs, start up a brand new business, invest a significant amount of money into that, and start from scratch basically.
The thing that enabled me to get really great results was not setting the goal that I actually achieved.
I set the intention to quit my job within 6 weeks (which I did to the date), I set the intention to have my first 5 figure month (and DIDN’T set a deadline for it), and the biggest intention that I set was that I wanted to support women and help them get their business off the ground, make money, and live more into their purpose.
I locked in on what that would look and FEEL like.
Because I was locked into my values and why this was important to me, I was really clear on specifics around that and the outcome that I wanted. THAT was my main intention.
Because I cared so deeply about that and it aligned so well with my values, I didn’t have pressure around it and I was able to not make myself wrong in the process of achieving that.
Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with having big goals. But where it becomes ineffective and where it doesn’t work for you is when you’re making yourself feel like shit, feel like not enough, feel unsuccessful, and feel like you’re not achieving anything in the process of getting there.
So often when I ask women how they feel about their goal (especially if they’ve been trying to hit it for a while) there’s often a ton of resistance there.
There’s usually resistance, fear, uncertainty, pressure, stress, worry, etc. and all of that comes down to us making not achieving it mean something (AKA that we’re not enough).
THE CATCH 22 IN LIFE
If you have the mentality of “I’ll be happy WHEN,” the thing you’re chasing lovely isn’t going to get you there.That’s just not how it works.
The way we create what we want and the way we actually get to feel fulfilled when we get there is by getting into the energy and in the vibe of the outcome BEFORE we achieve the thing.
This is WHY intention setting supports you SO much more than boring ol’ goal setting.
When you set intentions, it’s so much easier to feel good and genuinely excited and pulled toward your creation.
It’s also how you eliminate the resistance, the self sabotage and ALL the shiz your brain will throw at you if you’re placing your worth on creating or hitting your next big milestone.
So let’s change that shall we?
Ask yourself this:
What feels exciting? What do I feel lit up about? What’s in alignment with my values? What is my bigger intention around my business (or whatever it is you’re setting intentions for).
When I used these guidelines to create my intentions around my business, I was able to quit my job in 6 weeks to the day, and about 2 weeks later I was able to hit my first 5-figure month. Neither of these were my actual goals, but they were so aligned with my intention.
It worked because I had no resistance. My brain was not being occupied with “why isn’t this working, how do I make it happen faster, I don’t know how to do this”.
99% of the time, people don’t achieve their goals because they give up before they get there.
The whole point of setting any sort of intentions about what you want to achieve this year is to make you feel good, not to make you feel shitty in pursuit of that.
We are so driven towards achievement in our society and that “not enoughness” until we get there, that this is so engrained on deep levels.
Most of the work I do with my clients (and what helps them get BIG results fast) is in feeling enough NOW.
In figuring out how to feel good, how to trust themselves, and genuinely enjoy the business building process.
It is impossible to get to something that we think is going to make us feel good by beating ourselves up in the process of getting there. It is impossible to achieve a fulfilling, purposeful, and profitable business by making yourself wrong and not enough every step of the way.
I recently had a client work with me and in the very beginning of our work together, her goal was to hit 6-figures. But that was never our focus for the entire time we worked together.
She ended up overshooting that goal and bringing in $120k in just 6 months. One of the biggest reasons why is that in pursuit of her goal, she did not feel wrong, she always felt enough, she always felt connected to what she truly wanted to bring in, and she felt safe in the pursuit of achieving the thing.
The businesses that are sustainable, last, and grow in a way that feels good and creates impact AND allows you to enjoy the fuck out of your life, are the ones that lead from such a high place of intention. It’s the thing that prevents you from burning out and allows you to grow your business in a way that’s aligned with your values.
Tell me, because you know I love to hear from you:
What is your intention for this upcoming year?
What lights you up? What feels good? And how can you anchor into feeling ENOUGH just as you are right now on your pathway to getting there?
