Hi friends, welcome back to the podcast and happy new year! This month we are diving into all things goals, not only on the podcast but also inside Elevate University, our coaching membership for new entrepreneurs where you can achieve breakthrough results in your business by cultivating the right mindset and creating the right systems in your business.
Today, I want to talk about your being list. Rather than looking at your goals and first deciding what you must do, instead first decide who are you being? Who do you need to be?
Example:
Let’s say one of your goals this year is to become a full-time business owner. Rather than writing down all the things you’re going to do (which is important and we’ll get there), I want you to first ask yourself, “Who am I being as a full-time business owner?” An option is to take yourself out of the experience and become the observer at this point. Let’s imagine that you’re watching someone else write down the goal of “becoming a full-time business owner.” Tell yourself about that person, who is she or he being? How are they behaving?
Who are they being?
You can do this with any goal.
Think about the different areas of your life in which you can set goals for; family, career, social, financial, intellectual, health.
Let’s say that you want to be more financially savvy so you decide to save 6 months of expenses and pay off credit card debt. The question I would ask you is for you to “tell me about this person? Who is she being, how does she operate as someone who saves 6 months of expenses and pays off credit card debt?” Maybe it is that she is being abundant, disciplined, more than enough, intentional.
Let’s say that you decided on a specific health goal. Take a moment and become the observer and ask, “Tell me about this person who has this specific health goal, who is she being?” Maybe you come up with the following list; she is being active, she is being intentional, she is being mindful, she is being energetic.
The purpose of your being list is to identify who you need to BE in order to operate and make decisions from that place. The business owner who is a 7 figure earner operates from a different place than that of a 6 figure earner.
When you identify who you need to be, your goal is to make decisions, to operate, and to show up as that person. This is key because even though the decisions you may make today may not show a direct physical result tomorrow as reinforcement of who you are becoming, it is important to a) trust the process, and b) be patient because overtime you’ll notice, see, and feel the change.
You are collapsing timelines where you are bringing the future into the present and that in itself is what catapults you to become the person you desire to be.
I’ve shared on the podcast before that most people operate from a have-do-be mindset, meaning that in order to BE someone or something, you must first do that activity and have something to initiate it.
For example, I’m reading a book called, “Psychology of Money” and in it the author points out that he experienced people who would purchase luxury cars from a place of needing to be someone different than they were. In this example, the individual thought that by having the luxury car, they could then drive it (do) and become this rich, satisfied person. However, actually operating from that place creates this “never enough” mentality because you’ll constantly be on a search for the next thing to enable you to BE someone. The car does not make the person, the person makes the car. The Chanel handbag does not make the person, the person makes the Chanel handbag.
Another example is one that I am closely familiar with because it was part of my story. I used to tell myself that “when I hit six-figures, I’ll have made it.” I had put a condition on myself that I could not have “made it” until I hit six-figures.
What this does is it creates a closed loop that never puts us in a position of winning or succeeding.
If you need something in order to BE happy or BE grateful or BE successful, then you will be stuck in that closed loop.
Instead the key is to BE that person before ever doing anything or having anything because when you can be happy and grateful in the midst of chaos, in the midst of looking at your bank account and it isn’t where you want it to be, and in the midst of your life right now when it isn’t how you expected it to be, THAT unlocks you limitless potential.
Someone who I have always admired that does this really well is my husband. Regardless of what is happening around him he always finds a way to BE happy, joyful, and grateful.
I on the other hand struggled with this skill. Notice how I said SKILL. And because learning to be unconditionally happy, joyful, grateful, disciplined, you name it, is a skill; you can too cultivate it.
Yes, it takes practice. Yes, there may be times where you find yourself getting frustrated because it may “not be working.” Yes, there will be times when your body will want to revert back to its old ways of being because that is how it has been physically trained over many years. Your body may be trained to love the pain so much that it feels so good. If you haven’t read Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, you must.
Here’s the thing, I know you can do hard things. In Elevate University, my annual coaching program where every month we dive into a new topic and I coach students on it, this is what we get into because this inside work is what transforms the outside.
If you find yourself struggling with knowing how to BE, a tool you can use is trying on someone else’s brain. I remember as a kid seeing the WWJD bracelets in gift stores and never quite understood the power of them.
Today, I can fully understand and appreciate the question. Now, I’m not saying to ask WWJD (that is of course unless it aligned with you) but in this case you can always find someone that you look up to you don’t have to know them personally but think from their brain.
For example, you could ask yourself:
“What would Brooke Castillo of the Life Coach School do?”
“What would Tony Robbins do?”
Ultimately start with you though. I ask myself:
“What would 7-figure Amanda do?”
This is also a great tool not only for understanding how to BE but making decisions. If you’re troubled by a decision to make, ask your future self how she’d make that decision.
The only thing you need in order to initiate anything is from within you, not outside you.
Who you are being is driven by the thoughts you think.
In order for you to be disciplined, what are thoughts you need to think on purpose?
Maybe in the midst of trial and error, tough times, it’d normally be easy for you to “give up” but instead you think thoughts, “I can do hard things. People need my work.”
Deciding ahead of time of the thoughts you need to think also helps to direct your focus.
When you have a vision and when you know where you’re heading, it creates focus, which in turn creates results.
Identify who you need to be for your goals
What does that person think in order to become that person
This is the stuff I coach my students on in Elevate University and if you are on the path to building your business and want help getting out of your own way, building a business you love, then come hang out with us. Head to www.shedidithrway.com/elevate.
Until next week, keep doing it your way!