Uff, this may be a rough reality check.
When we don't make our goals we tend to mask the pain and chop it up to these various excuses:
"I couldn't do it because of <insert excuses here>."
“ the economy is rubbish, my health went downhill, my team are idiots,etc”
Your excuse is actually a pretty good one—that's why it's called an excuse.
If it was a bad excuse, it would be called a bad excuse, "excuse" itself means there's a reason why it didn't happen.
Here is the harsh truth is:
"If you really wanted it, you would have already accomplished your desired goal." A phrase that my mentor Althea Montgomery says often.
I can already hear the denial that is in your head. Trust me, it was triggering for me to hear too, yet I realized it was true.
Let's say you wanted to increase your monthly income by $35,000/month but you didn't. It is because majority of your time, you were acting like the person who didn’t have $35,000/month and only wishing to be that person. If you wanted it, if you truly wanted it, you would have focused and acted majority of your time as the person who has the ability to make $35,000/month.
It's the old phrase: "The person who got you here is not the person who will get you there."
In Atomic Habits, James Clear explains that focusing on the identity you want to adopt can make it easier to change your habits.
For instance, instead of just setting a goal to lose weight and relying solely on strategies and actions, you could start by thinking,
"What would a healthy person do?"
By acting in alignment with that identity, the strategies and actions needed to achieve your goal become more natural and consistent because you spending majority of your as the new version of yourself.
If you want to explore a similar concept, consider the Raikov Effect, developed by Russian psychologist Dr. Vladimir Raikov. This method is designed to help individuals rapidly improve their skills or achieve success in a chosen profession by using a form of deep visualization and self-hypnosis to "embody" the traits, skills, and mindset of a successful person in that field.
Sidebar: If you wanna go down a rabbit hole definitely, read more about the Raikov effect. Raikov used mental techniques, including visualization and hypnosis, to help a beginner student play the violin at a professional level in just 3 weeks!
So in essence, if you want to achieve the goals you desire, you truly need to make it a full-time job to become a different person who has those goals achieved and how they would act. Here are a few favorite tips to execute on that:
Visualize Daily: Picture yourself as your ideal self every day.
Ask Identity-Based Questions: Consider, "What would my ideal self do here?"
Surround Yourself with Role Models: Learn from those who embody your goals.
If you’d like more details on how to put this into action, just let me know—I’m happy to share!
Remember, it's not what you do but how you do it! Style supersedes everything!
As always, I am here to help you get ridiculously loyal customers, so let's get to it!
Althea is a mentor I worked with for several years, and I highly recommend her to anyone ready for transformative growth. She’s phenomenal. Here’s her website if you’d like to learn more.
