Guys where has the time gone! We are halfway through September about to begin the new fiscal year. This is the perfect time to look at what you’ve accomplished this year and get ready to set your goals for the coming year. Now if you didn’t plan on doing this, setting goals that is, I have to ask why. What is keeping you from going for it, from following your dreams, and from reaching your goals? Well, for many, fear and anxiety take the lead when it’s time to move forward toward the unknown greatness ahead and I don’t want that to keep you stuck. So, for today’s episode we are going to discuss how fear and anxiety can effect your dreams and I’ll give you practical tips to help you go from setting goals to achieving your goals and so I hope to inspire you to Don’t Settle.
So guys before we begin I just want to say thank you for all the love you showed last week on the anniversary episode! I appreciate all of your support and a special congrats to the winners of the giveaway. They have already been contacted and I can’t wait to work with them! Also, I want to send a big thank you to my mom! Last episode I gave a shout out to all the amazing women I’ve interviewed this year, and some how I forgot my absolute favorite interviewee and that was my mom! So thank you mom for sharing your wisdom on parenting with us on the show and I love ya!
So, about those goals you have set for yourself…how’s it coming? Are they still thoughts swirling around your head? Have you written them down? Have you spoken them out loud? Have you put in some work towards them. I sincerely hope your answer is yes, but if it’s no, that’s ok. Today we are going to work toward making some things happen. So, let’s start from the top. What is your goal? What’s that dream you’ve been thinking about for years now? Go on, don’t be afraid to say it. See I’ve learned that here is the first place that fear steps in. Some of us are afraid to simply admit that we have this dream in our hearts. We are afraid to write it down or even tell others about it because it seems too far fetched. It seems too unrealistic to think that YOU can do that thing! Well I’m here to ask, why not you? Far too often we don’t go for it because it seems to big for us. We feel inadequate. It feels out of our league. But with proper planning and work anything is possible. You just have to be willing not to settle for less. Settling is taking the easier route. It’s taking the comfortable route. Settling isn’t as scary. But settling also often times leads to not being satisfied, to feelings of resentment, regret, and discontentment. Don’t settle because you’re afraid to try, afraid to fail, afraid of what people will say and think, afraid of the challenges, afraid of the work load, afraid of the extra education, and so on. Choose to go for it. Choose to take one step and task at a time to work towards your dreams. I mean those big, crazy, who do you think you are dreams! Yall, some of the stuff I know I’ll accomplish one day have me thinking to myself I must be out of my mind! Seriously, sometimes it seems so out of this world to think that you can get from there when you’re looking at where you are now. But I’m telling you, you can do it. The first step is to choose not to settle and to commit to moving forward toward your destiny. Just yesterday I was watching the movie the Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith and this whole movie is about believing and working toward your dream. This man when through things that I couldn’t imagine just to reach his dreams. People thought he was crazy and I’m sure sometimes he thought he was crazy for even trying, but he kept going, and it paid off, big time! Listen, no risk, no reward. This isn’t suppose to be easy. People aren’t suppose to understand your vision (it’s yours, not theirs) so don’t get down when other’s discourage you. You aren’t suppose to know everything! Because if you knew everything, you wouldn’t need God, and He ain’t having that. Dreams don’t have to stay dreams. Too many people have gone to the grave and took their dreams with them. I don’t want that to be me and I don’t want that to be you! Don’t settle guys. If you ask Chris Gardner, whom the movie the Pursuit of Happiness is about, if he regrets going through all of that stuff and if he wish he’d settled I’m sure he’d laugh at you. Once you’re on the other side you’ll know it was worth it and today I’m here to help you get to that other side.
So I want you to repeat after me. I (your name) will not settle for less. I will put forth the effort to achieve my goals and live out my dreams. I will win!
So, now that we are all on one accord and have agreed to work our goals, lets talk about how to get from dreaming to doing. Let’s get practical. You guys know I’m very solution focused and I don’t want you to just talk about your dreams, I want to you to be about it so we are going to discuss what to do to get to dream land. And I have to give a big thank you to my husband who has helped me do most of the things I’m doing to share with you guys today. I’m trying to convince him to come on board and be the COO of my company. We’ll see if I can make that happen one day, lol.
So, If you haven’t already I want to you write down your goals or dreams. Put them in a place that you can constantly go back to and remember what you are working for. Now my first tip is to break it up. I’ve learned that taking things one quarter at a time is a very functional way to work toward your overall goals. It’s like eating the elephant one bite at a time. You work one quarter at a time so that basically you don’t feel overwhelmed with everything. It also is a great way to keep track of the progress you’ve make over the span of 90 days. So for the coming quarter I want you to set your goals. What do you need to achieve over the next 90 days that will contribute to your overall dream. Take those 90 day goals and write them down. Now another tip that goes right along with this is to make sure that your goals are things you can control. I spoke about this last week. Don’t make your goals things that are dependent on others in order for you to achieve. For example, let’s say your dream is to own your own business and this quarter you are focusing on your social media marketing. Don’t say “I want to gain 1,000 followers this month.” That goal is not something that you can control. You can’t make 1,000 people follow you. Instead, focus on what you can do. Say “I will produce 5 informative post per week.” Doing this will hopefully lead to an increase in your followers, but at the end of the quarter you’ll know if you reached your goal based on if you posted as often as you said you would or not. This is how you keep your success in your hands, and not the hands of others. So those are the first 2 tips, to take things quarter by quarter and to set goals that you can control.
My next tip is to prioritize. Doing this will help you know what to spend your time on. Unfortunately, everything can’t be of the same value when working toward a goal. You can’t have 5 things on your list and consider them all to be number 1. You have to prioritize and rank things from most important to least important…still realizing, that least important is STILL important. The number one thing on your list needs to receive the most of your time and attention, followed by the number two item, and so on. It is a big mistake not to prioritize and it can cause you to put too much on your plate because you’re trying to dedicate the same amount of energy to everything you want to do and that’s just not healthy or realistic. Outside of goal setting, we have to prioritize in our everyday lives and when we don’t we find ourselves stretched too thin and on the verge of burnout because we didn’t pace ourselves. This also helps us to not spend time doing stuff that doesn’t matter. It’s easy to get distracted when working toward your dreams and often times the stuff that should matter the least ends up eating up the most of our time. You have to be disciplined enough to set your priorities and stick with them. At the end of each quarter you and can reevaluate and see what needs to change or stay the same for the next quarter. But you must prioritize.
My next tip to help you reach your goals is to create of schedule. This is probably the one that my husband gets on me the most about, because honestly, I hate the calendar. It is a constant reminder of what needs to be done, and as much as I hate it, I need it. It is necessary for me to get things done. How else will you know what to do and when to do it. The calendar is where you take your priorities and you map out how much time you will give to each. What day will you work on this priority. What is the deadline to have accomplished this goal. When do you need to have this task completed so you can move on to the next. Creating a schedule or a calendar gives you a clear visual of how you are achieving these goals. You get to see day by day what you have done and what needs to be done. You can create your own calendar or buy a planner. Either way you must fill it with what matters. And while you are filling it up don’t forget to put in what my husband calls “white space.” These are spots on the calendar where you have nothing. You do this so if you get behind you can catch up on a white space day or if you need a break, use your white space day. So create your goals, determine the tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve those goals, prioritize them, then put them on the calendar.
For there you should be working. Day by day by day you are checking things off of your calendar. Making progress that you can see and achieving goals that you can control. At the end of each quarter you reevaluate. You check and see what worked, what didn’t work, and what needs to be changed. You implement those changes in the next quarter and you do it all over again. This is what progress looks like. This helps things not look so daunting so that you don’t end of quitting and settling for less.
Guys even when you are doing this there will be times when fear and anxiety come to play. You’ll get nervous that things aren’t going the way you’d hope and you may consider giving up. Don’t! Don’t quit prematurely. Give it the full 90 days before you decide to make changes. You notice I didn’t say wait 90 days before you quit because I don’t believe that you should give up that quickly. But at least give it 90 days before you make any drastic changes. Patience is important and fear and anxiety will play on the fact that many of us aren’t patient enough to wait things out. While you’re working, I want you to keep saying to yourself…don’t settle. Let that be one of the mantras that keeps you going until you achieve your goals. I know you can do it.
So I hope that you feel inspired to dream big and commit to working toward your goals, to prioritize and create a schedule that will help you reach your goals, and to not let fear and anxiety keep you from your destiny. Greatness is waiting, so please don’t settle.
So until next time stay encouraged and inspire someone else along the way.