How to Create Inevitable Success

Welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast.

At the time of this recording I am just getting home from my first trip since the pandemic began.

I went on a trip, airplane and all, to meet with my coach and mastermind colleagues.  If you’re not familiar with a mastermind, it is essentially a group that gets together to focus on a particular goal, led by a coach or expert.  My mastermind is 6 months long and started with a 2 day event where we created our long term business plans. We will then get together weekly over the next 6 months to discuss our progress and get coached where we need it.  

It’s really an amazing container for people to come together to work toward their individual goals, together.  It creates a level of commitment that you don’t get when you try to go it alone.

And that is what this episode is all about – goal commitment.

How to create so much commitment toward your goals that they become inevitable.

My coaching program is all about goals, measuring and evaluating progress, taking action, continuing to evaluate, until your goals are met.  You hear me talk about my client results and how all of my clients have exceeded their original goals.  Coaching and my process create the container for this work but it’s also because of the commitment my clients have.

Sometimes we think that it’s just a willpower thing, or something that if we were just better at we could stick to it.

This applies to any goal.

I just coached a client recently on her commitment to a health and wellness goal she had.  We talked about the emotional change cycle that occurs when we create goals and I’m going to share that with you as well.

This also comes up when you’re searching for a job – when you decide that it’s time to move on, but then you have a good day with your boss or you finally got a “good job” for something you did and then you start to question if you really need to change jobs after all.

This also happens with new teams – if say you are part of a re-org and get put into a new team or go to a new company and have a new team.  It all seems great at first but then you hit some bumps in the road and may just decide it’s not the right place for you after all.

Creating commitment to your goals is a sure-fire way to ensure your success but it’s easier said then done right, especially when our brains get in the way.

So first I am going to tell you why you start out really focused and committed on your goals and then part way through start questioning why you started to begin with.

The Emotional Cycle of Change model was developed by Don Kelley and Daryl Connor and is well established in the field of psychology – what this model tells us is that there are 5 stages we go through whenever we embark on a change in our life.

So when we are trying a new fitness regimen, working in a new team, changing jobs, want to start a company, we go through these 5 stages.

Knowing these 5 stages and being aware of them will help you create commitment because when you start to question yourself, you will know this is completely normal and can even expect that your brain is going to play these tricks on you.

The first stage is uninformed optimism – so this is when you’re excited to start on your goal, you’re laying out all of the things you need to do to get from point A to point B.  You’re full of positive thoughts and optimism.  You are motivated and feel like your goal is as good as done.

The second stage is informed pessimism – now you’re in your goal for a couple days or a couple weeks, you’re making some progress but you’re starting to feel some negativity come on. You didn’t anticipate how you’d feel making these changes, you’re getting frustrated, and wondering why you even started this goal to begin with. In fact, you may be convinced you that you were outright delirious, maybe had too much wine or just out of your mind when you decided to do this, what were you thinking. This is where a lot of goals go to die.

The third stage is hopeful realism – If you push through the second stage your pessimism will start to decline. You may still feel some frustration, maybe not very happy with some certain aspects or areas you’re sacrificing for your bigger goal but you have a good idea now of what it is actually going to take.

The fourth stage is informed optimism – You are starting to feel more confident, you’ve pushed through some of the obstacles, and you are assured again that your goal was a good decision and you can actually make it happen.

The fifth and final stage is completion – success – you did it, you reached your goal. You worked through the tough stuff and you’re ready to celebrate.

So you see with these 5 stages, most people quit between stage 2 and 3. They start questioning themselves and convincing themselves that the goal was never realistic, that they don’t really need the goal, that they were silly for even thinking of it.

But really, it’s just your brain trying to keep you safe, trying to make things easier for you.

It is your brain’s job.

Way back in the day, us humans needed to conserve our energy, we needed make things as easy as possible.  But we’ve evolved and don’t have the same threats our ancestors did.

That doesn’t change the fact that our brains are still wired to keep us safe, to make things efficient and seek pleasure.

So when you’re in the thick of a brand new hairy audacious goal, trying to do something you’ve never done before, or you find yourself in a whole new environment, it’s no wonder your brain has a bit of a temper tantrum.

This is exactly why I am in my coaching group – because I have a lot of big goals for myself and I know that my brain will behave this way, so having a group of others working through something similar, and having a coach help me with my own mind drama, helps create inevitable success.

This is the same for my clients. Having someone see your thinking, to hold you accountable, to observe when your actions or thinking suddenly change and help you see that, helps avoid the self-sabotage cycle, create commitment – not just in accountability but in the investment you made in yourself, and create inevitable success.

Ok so you know the emotional change cycle.

You know that when you make big goals your brain is going to freak out.

You know how to spot it.

Now, when you’re starting a goal, there are two questions I want you to ask yourself:

On a scale of 1-10 how committed are you to this goal?

1 is, not committed at all, just doing it because I have to or think I have to.

10 is, I’m all in and nothing will stop me.

Then ask yourself why you rated it that number.

If you rated your commitment at a 5, why is it a 5?

Then ask yourself what would make it a 10.

What would you need to think, feel, do to be a 10/10 on your commitment.

Then do that.

Commitment is an area that a lot of you struggle with. You might think you don’t, but most of us approach goals as we want it and will try and if it works out great and if not it isn’t meant ot be, and that isn’t commitment.

Commitment is you are going to be ok with failing, you’re going to look for ways you didn’t think of to make your goal happen, you’re going to overcome the obstacles and do what it takes to make your goal a reality.  It means you might feel some feelings you don’t like and get way out of your comfort zone when things don’t work out the first time and you have to re-think your plan.

But commitment, true commitment is what is going to keep you from giving up and keep you trying and pushing through those super uncomfortable moments.

Now ask yourself on a scale of 1-10 how much you believe you can achieve the goal.

Just like commitment, ask yourself why you rated it the number you did and what would make it a 10.

Then work on that.

Belief is tricky. Belief and self-confidence go hand in hand but what I find is a lot of you believe you can achieve goals but don’t have self-confidence.  Self-confidence is believing you can achieve something you haven’t achieved yet whereas many of you believe in yourself to achieve a goal based on your achievement of prior goals, because you already have the evidence you can do it.

So when you answer this question, I want you to think of this particular goal you’re looking at, something you have not done before, that you don’t have evidence you can do yet.

That is where you may get stuck, so dig deep on that.

Alright, there you have it, those are the 3 parts to creating inevitable success.  Understand the change cycle so you can anticipate it and plan for it, know where your commitment is and create a plan to make it a 10, know where your belief in yourself is and make a plan to make it a 10.

If you are committed ahead of time, believe you can do it, and understand that you will question yourself and it will be hard, that you may fail on the way, but you still have that commitment and belief in check,  you will create inevitable success.

Anything you want to create is available to you.

This information is so life changing for people.

We get so stuck in thinking things are supposed to be easier, that if it was meant to be it wouldn’t be so hard, that there is something wrong with us, but really, it’s that your brain is sometimes a jerk and to do big things you have to be uncomfortable.

You have to push through that discomfort and have your own back along the way.  You have to commit, and decide that no matter what you’re going to make it happen.  Be ok with feeling uncomfortable feelings like fear, humiliation, scarcity, anxious…

That is where your success story is.  No good book or movie is just the person went from point A to point B seamlessly with a cheerleading squad by their side.

No.

There’s always the failures, the triumphs, that OMG another failure, people drama, then final perseverance to the end.

Be ok with making your own hero story and expect it to be messy.

Then inevitable success is yours.

That is all for this week’s episode.

If you have a big goal in mind and want to guarantee it happens and your brain won’t sabotage you, I can help you. This is exactly what I work with my clients on and my process is tried and proven to work. It will work for you too.  Go to www.melissamlawrence.com to learn more and apply for coaching.  
 
 

Have a wonderful week.