Did you get what you wanted?

How to Get What You Want Clipboard Checklist Dream Plan Do ItIt’s the end of the year! WOW, where did a whole year go? Can you answer that without having to look back at your calendar? If you can, I’m impressed. And I hope you can. It means that you are living a life on purpose; you are the cause of your life rather than being at the effect of it. For that you get a big “Congratulations!” I’d love for you to share how you do it. See, there are many people who are living their life at the effect of everything and everyone around them. I’ve written about that in the past and, in fact, I call it ‘being a victim’. It’s energy level 1 in my Energy Leadership Index Assessment.

As a business owner, if you can easily share with someone your top successes and accomplishments then you are probably among the select 2% of successful business owners out there. You more than likely have a vision, a plan, take action and course-correct.

If not, don’t worry. I’m here to help you. The below outline is a very quick way for you to have 2015 be all that you want it to be… even if 2014 was a bit disappointing to you.

My last article outlined my mentor Mark Luterman’s 5 Secret Weapon Steps. Here they are again:

  1. Purpose – what is your purpose, what is it you want to do, what end result do you wish to have?
  2. Plan – from your purpose, what is it you will do in order to reach your goals? Create a well thought-out plan of action so that you know the exact steps you will take to have your purpose materialize.
  3. Action – rather than just waiting for things to happen, you need to go out and do things. From your plan where you created the exact steps, it’s time to take action on them to realize results.
  4. Desire to Accomplish – this is your motivation for doing the actions to move you closer to your goals.
  5. Faith, Belief and Confidence – you must have faith in yourself, belief that you can and will accomplish your goals, and confidence to take the actions you laid out for you — no matter what — in order to reach your goals.

In the Small Business Secret Weapon process we also work with a bonus step and that is: exercise the principle of autosuggestion. This means that as you take action and complete to-dos and tasks, stuff starts to happen. You run into someone who can help you move closer to your goal, you get an unexpected but needed surprise, and so much more.

I often do VIP days with my clients so that they can start outlining what they want for their business and what they will do to get it. We take a day to do this together but you can do this for yourself. I suggest you take several hours so that you can get very clear on what it is you want. Find a quiet place where you can spend some time and get comfortable. Have a notebook and writing instrument or your computer/tablet so that you can write down your ideas and your plan.

Here is what you are going to do:

  • Define your purpose. State your overall purpose and then all the other reasons you are doing what you are doing or want to do. Get very clear, visualize how you will feel, what you will be doing, and don’t leave anything out – allow yourself time to create this.
  • Write out your roadmap. This is your to-do list so to speak. You will do x in order to reach $100,000 this year or x to get your business started and so on – write out each step that you can think of. While you want to be very clear, don’t worry about being so specific that you get caught up here. Remember, your bonus step from above will help you here!
  • Schedule your actions. Put each step that you have in your calendar so that you know what you will do and when. If you have a deadline such as ‘launch new business’, that goes into the future, and then you put the actions that lead up to that date closer to the present so you can take action to get there.
  • Write out the reason(s) you desire to accomplish your goals. Be as detailed as you can. This is your touchstone so that when things get a bit challenging, you can come back to this to motivate you back into action. It will act as your motivator. Examples: I want to quit my full-time job and work for myself; I want to send my children to college without having to take out loans; I want to retire by 50; I want to do what I love and be my own boss; or I want to be available to my kids. It is what is important to you in your life. Do not judge, this is strictly for you.
  • Write out why you have faith, belief and confidence. This is another touchstone. I have faith because I know I will be successful, I have faith that this will be exactly as I envision it, and I am confident that I will succeed.

Be as detailed as possible, envision all that you want to accomplish and see yourself accomplishing it. Trust that once you begin taking action, opportunities will find you because the bonus step is real, it does happen.

I’d love for you to share your experience. Feel free to send me a personal email at kim @ kimravida.com or post on my blog below! And if you find that you need help with this or just want someone to walk you through each step, I have several VIP slots available, so give me a shout! And if you want the support of me and a group, there are a few spaces available in my group mastermind program too.

It’s Up to Me!

what do you want questionDid you know that you are the one responsible for happiness in your life?  That’s right, you are.  There’s only you to blame if you don’t have what you want in your life.  If you want a better relationship, you need to be the one to create a better relationship.  If you want a dream job, you need to be the one to create a dream job.  If you want more money, you need to be the one to create more money.  You may notice I’m using the word create here.  That’s because you get to create what you want.  It all starts with you.

What?  Yes, I know that is a scary concept for some of us while for others it’s a Yahoo! and a permission-granter.  See, no one can make us happy, give us joy or help us feel better about ourselves; only we can do that.  And in order to do that we must know: 1) what we want and 2) how to get it.  It’s all about the plan, man.  Create a blueprint, a roadmap of what you will do in order to get what you want.

I’ve said it before in other articles and you’ve probably heard it elsewhere too, but if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  You operate blindly and without purpose.  Purpose is key to getting what you want.

Let’s look at the 5 steps to your success.  This is adapted from Mark Luterman’s 5 Secret Weapon Steps that I use with my business clients.

  1. Purpose – what is your purpose, what is it you want to do, what end result do you wish to have?
  2. Plan – from your purpose, what is it you will do in order to reach your goals?  Create a well thought-out plan of action so that you know the exact actions you will take to have your purpose materialize.
  3. Action – rather than just waiting for things to happen, you need to go out and do things.  From your plan where you created the exact actions, it’s time to take action on them to actualize results.
  4. Desire to Accomplish – this is your motivation for doing the actions to move you closer to your goals.
  5. Faith, Belief and Confidence – you must have faith in yourself, belief that you can and will accomplish your goals, and confidence to take the actions you laid out for you — no matter what — in order to reach your goals.

In the Small Business Secret Weapon process we also work with a bonus step and that is: exercise the principle of autosuggestion.  This means that as you take action and complete to-dos and tasks, stuff starts to happen.  You run into someone who can help you move closer to your goal, you get an unexpected but needed surprise, and so much more.

This is how you create what it is you want: a great relationship, dream job, amazing health and wealth.  You get clear, you plan, you act, you stand in your own power and you start to see results.  Give it a go and see what comes to you.  It’s a great time to plan for what you want to realize next in your life.  Right now is always the best time to plan.  No waiting necessary.  What is it you want?  What will you do to get it?  If it’s meant to be, it’s up to you!

I’d love for you to share your experience.  Feel free to send me a personal email at kim@kimravida.com or post below!

 

Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Light at the end of the tunnelI used to be one of those people who would say I wanted to do this or do that… and, well, I never did.  Until one day I realized that I had spent too much time talking and not enough time doing. I finally had enough talk and needed to take action!

What changed for me was I had let myself down, and it wasn’t for a bad reason but it wasn’t something I wanted to continue.  I regularly put those I loved and cared about ahead of me.  Back then I did what they said I should do.  I took care of their needs and wants first and always before my own.  Then one day I was so upset with myself because I had ‘wasted’ what I felt was a lot of time giving myself away and I decided that I needed to make a change.  I realized I was not granting myself permission to go for what I wanted in my life.

I spent a lot of time in a job that was not right for me, and I felt that I had wasted a lot of my life—like, umm, 20+ years of it!  So what did I do?  I hired a career coach who helped me figure out where to start and then I hired a life coach to help me get there.  Turned out I didn’t get a new job, but I got a new career as a life/business coach instead!  Very cool, eh?  What changed?  Well, I finally gave myself permission to fulfill my personal mission which was to make a change.  See, change isn’t always what we think it will be and yet it always seems to turn out even better!

One of the things I learned, and now teach my clients, is that when you see the light at the end of the tunnel you have to take steps regularly in order to get there.  One of my favorite sayings is from a book The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and he talks about how your car goes where your eyes go.  Keep looking ahead because what we focus on we get… both for the positive as well as the negative.

Here are three tips I want to share to make sure you keep your eyes on the prize and head toward the end of your tunnel.

  1. Give yourself permission to fulfill your personal mission.  No matter what you want to improve or to have — a new relationship, job/career, better health, improved finances, more time with family, with self, etc. — give yourself permission to have it.
  2. Envision what the result is.  Think ahead and envision what your life will be like once you have it.  What are you doing?  Where are you?  Who is around you?  How are you feeling?  This helps to set the stage and get into the feeling of having it.  Some people find it fun to create vision boards that they can look at regularly to keep themselves on track with their goals.  It can be a creative way to keep your eyes on your prize.
  3. Design your action plan and time frame.  Pick the time frame of when you want to have this in your life.  Is it a month, a year or longer?  Now that you know what you want and when you want it, you work towards that goal.  What is the first thing you will need to do in order to reach your end result?  Let’s say you want to start a business.  The first step might be to figure out what type of business.  Or you want to improve your finances.  The first step would be to know how much money comes in and goes out each month and you’d need to get out the support documents for this.

There are often many steps that we need to take to reach our goals.  We aren’t going to start a business or increase our income overnight.  Knowing what to do, when to do it and having a timeline to keep us on track are key to successfully reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now that you know where to start, give it a go and take action!  If you get stuck, feel free to shoot me an email as I’m happy to help you get on track.  Email me personally or share your thoughts, insights and revelations below!