How to reach your goals - 3-step personal development plan
I originally wanted to title this blog "How to take a fresh start for the New Year" or "How to prepare for 2023" (it's December 23rd today) but I thought "meh"...
Time is an illusion after all and you can take a New Start anytime: your birthday, new year, any day you feel like...
As a leader, it's important to remind yourself that you can start over anytime an adjust along the way!
You are unlimited and aren't bound by any rules when it comes to your expansion and self-leadership embodiment journey!
So let's dive in and see how to reach your goals.
- Releasing the pressure related to time - Why is time an illusion?
- The slowest way is the fastest way - the guaranteed recipe for success
- Preparing the plan: making it about YOU!
- Your 3-step personal development plan
Releasing the pressure related to time - Why is time an illusion?
It's important to talk about it to release the time pressure we all put on ourselves.
I'd like to share 2 perspectives: the human perspective (the rational mind) and the soul's perspective.
✧ From a human perspective, we think time is linear.
It is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. But this is a human concept, the proof of what I'm saying is that not all countries have the same calendar.
Think about the Mayan Calendar / The Ethiopian Calendar that celebrate the New Year in what we know to be the month of September. There's a difference of 7 years.
Ex: The Mayan prophecy of 2012 announcing the end of the world actually happened in 2019. It was indeed the end of the world as we had known, I guess we can all agree on that...)
The Chinese New Year is also different from "our" New Year (I say "our", I am located in France).
I could go on about how the Calendar has been changed (Gregorian Calendar / Julian Calendar, etc.) but that would be off topic...
Time is an illusion, it's not linear and it's only measured here on Earth in a linear way.
In reality, everything is a continuous movement of birth, death and rebirth, everything constantly transforms and evolves...
✧ From a soul perspective
At a soul level, from a higher perspective, time is "measured" (so to speak) in terms of experiences.
Life is a succession of events and experiences. Nothing is set in stone per se.
We go through experiences that shape us and prepare us for the evolution of our soul as we're also growing as human beings.
My point here is that when something doesn't happen as planned, it's important to remember the bigger picture.
Of course reaching your goals is important, but even when things don't go the way you'd have wanted them to go in your business, you can still learn a few things along the way and sometimes slow is fast...
The slowest way is the fastest way - the guaranteed recipe for success
That might seem paradoxical, but I'm 100% convinced that when you want to change your life, reach your goals and improve your results, the guaranteed way to do so is to take one step at a time!
When powerlifters want to lift heavy weight, they don't start lifting 100kilos straight from the start, right? They start with the lightest weights and move their way up increasing the weight progressively to prepare their body, work on their mindset and build up muscle in a healthy way so their system can deal with the heavy weight.
Well, in personal development and self-improvement, it's exactly the same!
When you want to develop new habits, you change things progressively, one step at a time for durable results.
How many take New Year resolutions, they decide to go to the gym, eat healthy, stop smoking, you name it, and go all it. That's the best way to relapse, in my opinion.
You need to take your system - especially your nervous system - into account.
You build new habits little by little, you don't want to create a shock to your system, you don't want to fall into the fake positivity (which is toxic actually and a denial of human nature with its range of emotions).
You want to encourage yourself and taking small steps prevents you from having to start over...
Preparing the plan: making it about YOU!
It's about YOU, your personal journey and what you learn along the way.
Do here are 2 steps you need to take to prepare for the plan:
1) Being gentle and releasing the pressure
The 1st thing is to release the pressure to get it "right" (and especially to get it right straight away).
It's important to say that releasing the pressure to get it right does NOT mean that it's not possible for you to get it right! It just means being gentle with yourself in the process.
So let's reframe your thought: there's not ONE right way of doing things, there's your way!
Can you accept yourself radically and unconditionally and be gentle with yourself along the way?
2) Releasing expectations & having a positive self-talk
Expectations are different from goals or from wanting the best for yourself.
I believe it's safe to say that the only expectation that is healthy to have on yourself is the expectation that you're doing your best from your heart... That's it, that's enough!
Here are a few journal prompts to help you release expectations and prepare for your goals:
- Who are you when you drop other people's expectations of you?
- Who are you when you release your perception of what others think of you?
- Who are you when you release your own expectations you have on yourself?
- Who do you want to be?
Then here's a little exercise:
When you close your eyes and imagine your dream life:
- how is it?
- who are you?
- what are you wearing?
- how is your language?
- what food are you eating?
- which habits do you have in that dream vision?
You can listen to this "Create a life you love" Shamanic Guided Meditation Journey to help you.
Your 3-step personal development plan
Here are the guidelines, step by step:
Step 1: Analyse
Analyse the past (whether it is recent past or any given period) without getting lost in the "if only" "I should have", etc. You're just going to observe the given period.
Then you're going to take a notebook and a pen and make 2 columns: the "meh" and the "yay", meaning in one column you'll write what you didn't like/what didn't work/what you want to change and in the other column you'll write what you liked/what worked/what you want more of.
Step 2: Reverse engineering
You're going to take your big goal and break it down in different steps.
Ex: you want to grow your business and reach 10k per month, ask yourself what you need to reach that.
Of course you'll say "clients", how can your reach more clients?
Is it your marketing strategy you need to redefine? Maybe you need to revisit your services and create new offers that will help you reach more people?
What can you do this month to change?
How can you break your monthly goals into weekly actions to take?
What action can you do every day to reach your weekly goals?
Plan the big lines but stay flexible about how to get to the end result and be open to adjust along the way.
Step 3: The How in the now
Use the step 1 and Step 2 to define the "how" you'll get to your goals more precisely in the now.
What does your morning routine look like, how do you want to feel during the day and at the end of the day. And start NOW! Not next Monday, not for the next New Moon but NOW!
I feel that sometimes when we set a big deadline, we pressure ourselves so starting now can help get into a natural motion.
To summarize:
1) What you don't want any more
2) Where you want to be
3) What you need to do now
Break down into smaller steps to from from where you are now to where you want to be while creating more of what you like.
You can use this plan for your life, for your business and also for your relationships, it works for everything!
Even if you are not sure what you want at this moment in time, start with what you are sure you don't want anymore and how you feel right now. You don't have to be precise if you don't have any clear idea.
It's healthy to allow yourself to stay open and adjust along the way.
I hope this personal development (in the big lines) will have helped you!
If you'd like to hear the complementary podcast episode I made on this topic, you can listen to it below.
Need help to set up your goals and make sure you achieve them? Book your free clarity call here and let's talk about how we could get you there.
Take care and I'm looking forward to connecting with you!
Much love,
Morgane