In this week’s episode, we’re uncovering one of the most significant barriers to achieving our dreams: not truly knowing what we want to do. Drawing from my own experiences and those of my coaching clients, I explore the importance of uncovering our true desires and taking actionable steps towards them. I’m offering two powerful strategies to move closer to our goals: firstly, taking small, incremental steps towards our dreams; and, secondly, incorporating elements of those dreams into our current lives. Tune in for an inspiring discussion designed to help you uncover and pursue your deepest aspirations.
00:00 Progress towards goal, incorporate dream into present.
03:34 What would you do if money was no issue?
*Resources mentioned during the episode*
1:1 Coaching & Mentoring – If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. www.onestepoutside.com/coaching
Achieving your dreams
It’s been my experience that the biggest barrier to doing what it is that you want to do, and this is from years of struggling with this myself and helping people with this as well. In my coaching and training, the biggest barrier to doing what you want to do is not knowing what it is you want to do. And that sounds crazy, right? We think, of course we know what we do want to do, right. It’s just that we don’t have time, we don’t have money, people won’t let us. But really either we haven’t taken the time to figure out what we want to do or we do know, but it’s sort of buried beneath all of these obligations and sort of resentments and blame, and we can’t bring it to the fore. So the question is, what do you want? And then once you’ve figured out what you want and why it’s so important to you, you can actually figure out how you’re going to get there. And I found again that there are two ways in which you can get closer to this dream. Let’s call it once you’ve figured out what that big dream is.
And one is the obvious one that I think we mostly try to do, which is take little steps in that direction, right. Which, of course is how we’re going to get there. Ideally, we take some bigger steps now and then, otherwise it’ll take a very long time. But it’s really around taking steps that will move you closer to that goal. And that is hugely important and we must underestimate that. And that’s absolutely the right thing to do. So, you know, signing up to a course to. To do this thing or talking to someone or beginning to learn about something, beginning to train, whatever it is, is absolutely the way you’re going to ultimately get to that goal.
However, the second way to get closer to your goal that I think we often overlook is to actually already now bring elements of that goal, that dream into your life. So step one, take steps towards the thing, but step two, or approach to rather bring elements of that thing back into your life now. And both of those routes will bring you closer to your goal. So just to make this a bit more tangible, because I might be talking rubbish for all your concerns, if I want to be a best selling author, living by the sea, crazy dream that I came up with years ago mentioned just, you know, by the by, let’s say that were my dream, then if I want to take little steps in that direction, then obviously I can start looking at where I might move to I can start saying for a mortgage to able to get something, you know, buy a house by the sea, I might travel more to explore where I might move to, right? And let’s say it’s the writing as well. I might sign up to a course, I might try to look for an agent and that kind of thing. Right. However, the second step, which I think is more empowering in the meantime at least, is to, hey, spend more time by the sea right now. Why should I have to wait until this magical time in the future when I can afford to and have time to, and it’s the right moment to move and buy a house by the sea so I can go to the coast for weekends, for holidays, for the day, why not? And this is definitely what I did in the past.
I’d go to Brighton for a conference, I’d spend the weekend there. I’d book a holiday, I’d travel to the sea, likewise with the writing. Then I would write because really, the reason I want to be an author is because I love writing. So hey, why don’t I do some writing every day, right? And so those are ways to both take steps in the direction of my dream, but also take elements of that dream back into my life. So, coming back to my questions for you, my prompts for you today, I have two questions for you.
If you took a year off from.
Whatever you’re doing now, what would you do and why?
If you took a year off, what.
Would you do and why? And secondly, if money was no issue, how would you spend your time? If money was no issue, how would you spend your time? So I think these are really powerful questions as it’s so easy to blame, oh, I don’t have time. I don’t have the money and have that as justification for I’m not going to do things. Why? I’m not going to do these things, right? So let’s take those things out of the equation and ask, what would you do? I’m not saying that I’m waving a magic wand now and you can do anything you want tomorrow. What I am saying is we’re trying to dig into, explore, uncover what your true desires are, and then we can later on figure out how, if, when we can get there. Right? So, questions for you to reflect on today.
One, if you took a year off.
What would you do and why? And two, if money were no issue, it’s probably the right grammatical way of expressing that if money were no issue, how would you spend your time? Okay, happy thinking and I’ll see you next week for the next one.
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