Do you want to do something big in 2021? (And hey, that’s relative – given 2020, “big” might mean one less hour on your phone every day, and that counts!)
I’m here to help you go all in on your goals. I believe that what you are capable of doing and creating is far beyond what you can even imagine for yourself now.
I also believe that many of the tools life coaches use to help their clients set expansive goals for themselves don’t take perfectionist thought patterns into account. And since many of the people who are motivated to set goals for themselves are perfectionists, that’s a big problem!
For example, the idea of setting an impossible goal – or a big goal that you don’t think you can accomplish – can be a revelation for people who aren’t used to setting goals for themselves at all. If you’ve never really explored who you want to be or what you want to do in the future, setting an impossible goal can be mind-blowing.
But for perfectionists?
Our problem isn’t that we never think about the future.
It’s that we CONSTANTLY think about the future, about how perfect we will be one day when we earn a million dollars or lose 50 pounds or achieve enlightenment or never yell at our kids again.
Perfectionists have no trouble setting impossible goals for themselves. It’s what we’ve done our entire lives.
Our problem is that we indulge in a perfectionist fantasy about how much better life will be once we’ve improved ourselves “enough”…and then when we inevitably fail to achieve this goal, we use it as another reason to feel shitty about ourselves.
If you can identify, you have to be very careful when setting an impossible goal to make sure you are doing it in a way that serves you.
How?
By asking yourself:
- Why do I want to achieve this goal?
- Why do I think it’s impossible?
If you are chasing accomplishments to prove your worth or value, if you think a goal is impossible because you don’t believe you are good enough or worthy enough to accomplish it, you will set yourself up to fail.
When you make your worth conditional on achieving any goal (whether you call it “impossible” or not), you place so much pressure on yourself to succeed that you doom yourself to quitting at the first hint of failure.
Impossible goals aren’t meant to make you feel good about yourself or to prove your worth.
In fact, the road to achieving an impossible goal may feel terrible – because it is filled with failure and doubt and the cognitive dissonance that comes from shifting your entire identity.
The reason to set an impossible goal is to blow your own mind with what you can accomplish and who you can become in doing it.
The most fun thing about being a human is doing something you didn’t think you were capable of, and expanding your vision of what is possible for you.
Most women drastically underestimate what we are capable of achieving.
We’ve been bombarded with messages about knowing our limitations and not being greedy and not thinking we are too special and not standing out and not making a scene and not getting too full of ourselves.
And we’ve been raised with ideas of what we are or aren’t good at, which are often completely divorced from the reality of our actual skills and interests.
I grew up with a story that I was bad with money.
The first impossible goal I set for myself was to create $100k in my business, to see if I could blow my own mind with what was possible for me.
I’ve now created six million dollars in revenue in my first ever business in its first five years. (It’s possible I’m not actually bad with money, who knew?!)
And the only reason I was able to achieve this was that I didn’t hinge my self-worth on it. I didn’t think that earning that first $100k, or that first $1 million, would validate me as a coach or make me feel happy or eliminate all of my money fears.
I chose it as my impossible goal because I simply didn’t believe I could do it, and thought it would blow my mind in an awesome way if I did.
I was curious to find out who I would have to become and evolve into to reach the goal.
What limiting beliefs about myself I would have to let go of.
Notice that I didn’t have to clear up all negative thoughts or limiting beliefs about myself in order to achieve this impossible goal.
EVERY goal you set will touch on a limiting belief you have for yourself; otherwise you’d already believe you could do it and it wouldn’t seem impossible.
But I DID have to remove my self-worth from the equation.
I thought I was bad at money in the same way I was, say, bad at tango dancing.
I didn’t think it meant I wasn’t a worthy person, I just thought it was a fact about myself and I wanted to blow my own mind with how wrong I was about my capacity to earn and have money. I wanted to experience this shift in identity and self-conception.
The point of setting an impossible goal isn’t about the goal at all. You can choose ANY goal to go after.
What matters is the JOURNEY you will take on your way to trying to achieve that goal.
Even if your goal seems truly, logistically impossible – like, say, you’re 5’2” and want to compete in the WNBA – just think of who you would have to become to try and reach that goal.
You would have to change your lifestyle, your skills, your habits, your thinking.
What an amazing that journey would be, no matter where you end up!
If you want to make your 2021 an incredible year, consider setting an impossible goal for yourself.
Not because you aren’t good enough the way you are, or because you think achieving the goal will make you happy.
But to experience the shift in self-conception that trying to achieve the goal would require of you.
Pick something that inspires you.
Pick something that seems bananas.
Pick something that would blow your mind.
Make sure you remove your worth from the equation, and ask yourself: Who would I have to become to create this result?
Let THAT be the question that leads you.
And then come on over to the Clutch to create the version of yourself that achieves that goal.
