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Take a minute and reflect about where you are starting. What are your goals right now? I needed to know where I was starting, to know where I was going.

My goals used to be vague and short sighted. I thought that if they were small goals my chances of failure were smaller and if I did fail, the goals were so vague, no one would notice. Let me address why both of these tactics do not work. 

1.) Vague goals: a goal that doesn’t have a clear vision doesn’t give you much to look forward to. When your goals are specific you can see them more vividly and imagine what your life will be like once you’ve achieved your goals. For example: my old goal used to be “to have a lot of money.” Good thing to strive for? Eh. Not really. How much is “a lot?” What do I need “a lot “ of money for? Do your research. Not only is this good for goal setting, but it is a lot of fun! How much is the car I want? How much will the insurance be? How much will the wardrobe I want cost? How about the engagement ring you want to buy? I had to do my research because I truly didn’t know what the Audi Q8 cost, or how much a 4 karat solitaire diamond on a platinum band would cost. But in doing this research it allowed me to visualize possessing these things and what it will actually feel like to be able to give my girlfriend the ring she really wants. I can’t yet tell you exactly how much money I need because I’m still doing research. I’m currently working on my chef’s kitchen in my 4 bedroom house on 3 acres of land. 

2.) Small/tiny goals: lets say my goal was to get out of bed everyday. Again, good goal to go for. But honestly, who can you celebrate that with? And then what? How is setting out of bed going to make you life any better or different than it is now? Sure! That’s a great start! But if I set a bigger goal, I have to get out of bed everyday to reach it. 2 birds, 1 stone. When accomplishing my goals will be life changing they are wildly more important to complete. 

I think instead of SMALL goals we should set goals with SHORTER timelines. One very important goal for me is to pay off my credit card debt I built up in my early twenties. My Goa is to be debt free by January 2020. But for instance, it is my June goal to to set aside an extra $300 to my debt (besides what I already pay monthly). My short term goal is important to getting me to my longterm goal, but it also provides encouragement when I am able to reach it in a shorter period of time. 

Another key to goal setting, I’ve found, is to write your goals down. I’ve been writing them down and editing them and perfecting them. Spending time focusing on my goals, brings me more desire and more dedication to accomplishing them. Writing them down makes them feel more real. And sharing them with other people (like you guys) makes me accountable. It’s hard to share you dreams and goals with other people, it makes you feel super vulnerable. It has made me feel like I’m inadequate almost. Admitting that I don’t like the way my life is now and that I have something in mind that I have not yet been able to accomplish. But if you think about all the people you admire most in your life, don’t you think they are striving for something better in their lives, even if from the outside it seems perfect. I have reached expert level in sharing my goals. I share them on social media, a lot. For beginners, write down your goals in a journal, tell your best friend, or your sister, or mom. Say them out loud, for you or someone else to hear. Solidify what you are going after. 

Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.

Rachel Hollis

Sometimes people make opinions about us, sometimes they share them. Sometimes we make opinions about other people and sometimes we talk about them around the water cooler (is that still a thing?) The thing about opinions is that they are developed through one’s own experiences. This includes things people learn in school, people they talk to, things there parents teach them, lies their siblings tell them, who knows! Opinions can sometimes be factual, but they are never definitive. Rachel Hollis says, “Other people’s opinions are none of your business.” To me, this means other people’s opinions don’t have much to do with you at all. It’s mostly just a collection of their own experiences and knowledge. Opinions are not to be ignored however. It is important to be aware of how other perceive you. But it a perfect world I would hear an opinion, internalize whatever is valuable and forget it. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. Hell, I still think of what people’s opinion of me in middle school was. During spring break in the 7th grade, I got an email from a “friend” calling me a “penguin” and telling me that no one liked me anymore. I came back from spring break and had been kicked off the popular table. But that’s a story for another time. Let me tell you why opinions are dangerous for me now. 

As I stated before opinions are peoples perception of you. This perceived notion can come from facts learned in school, ie. Doctors, or other “grow-ups” who we usually blindly listen to. I go to therapy and pretty much listen to whatever my doctor says as fact. So when she says I’m doing a good job, I’m sure I am doing a good job. But what do I actually think? Yes experience and 7 years of medical school has taught her that the signs of my behavior shows I’m living my life pretty well, but is her “pretty well” the same as mine? Don’t get me wrong. I love my doctor, she is awesome. No nonsense, doesn’t sugarcoat anything and doesn’t let me ignore conflict like I would prefer. But I need to take what she says and then consider how I feel about it. I’ll give you an example with a different professional who’s opinion I took as fact by mistake. When I was about 25 I went to a hypnotist for weight loss. Before (unsuccessfully) being hypnotize we talked about my history with anxiety. She told me that it was no wonder that I couldn’t lose weight because my body was so overwrought with stress that it was in survival mode and had no energy to devote to burning calories or fat. FINALLY! An explanation. It felt like a relief almost. Look, I don’t know the science here. Maybe there is some validity to it. But in reality I was doing barely anything to try to lose weight on my own. I was maybe making it to a personal training session twice a week, eating what I normally ate and definitely drinking too much. But this explanation excused me from making the changes to improve myself. I was convinced that the problem wasn’t me it was my “biology.” It sounds silly saying it now, but I truly believed that my anxiety was preventing me from losing weight and there was nothing I could do about it. Then this theory expanded to other aspects of my life. If I didn’t get important things done it was because of my biology or chemistry or whatever. And here we are 5 years later and I am starting to lose weight. And guess what, I still totally have the same anxiety I had before! 

So here is what all of this means to me. Opinions are important. They sometime hold validity, and it is important to be aware of other people’s perception of you. But that is all. It is a perception. My INTENTION is what I really care about. When I focus ferociously on my intention, other people’s perception fades away. People often think I’m abrasive or a bitch. That is their perception, my intention is to be direct and clear, so I don’t apologize for this. But I do realize that some people do not respond positively to this kind of communication so I have to be able to adjust my approach when necessary. Just as the hypnotists opinion was that it would be difficult for me to lose weight because of my circumstances, but when I focus my intention on losing weight, I am able to do it just as anyone else. 

When people form opinions about you, YOU MUST remember their life experiences have caused them to form these opinions and not YOU. They did not create these opinions out of nothing, but they probably also don’t have much to do with you. 

The purpose of this blog was created out of this theory. It was my families opinion, and my doctors opinion that I was doing well for myself, considering my anxiety and depression. So I went along with it. “Yeah, I’m doing great! I get out of bed in the morning. I have a job. etc.” But is that really what “doing well for myself” meant to me? NO! I want more than that! I decided I had set the bar too low because I was convinced by outside opinions. Now I have set goals that are much larger than getting out of bed in the morning. In MY opinion, I am capable of SO MUCH MORE.

It’s only by saying ‘no’ that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

Steve Jobs

I come from a family of hard workers and entrepreneurs. My mom had her own medical practice, and all three of my siblings AND their spouses have their own businesses. My brother even invented something (show off!). I’ve always wanted to have my own business, but I never did the work. Maybe I thought I would get the talent and will power through osmosis, I certainly didn’t think I possessed it myself.

Truthfully, some people would call me a workaholic, but that was just a disguise for my inability to say “no” and if I wasn’t at work I would’ve been in bed. I was always doing what came easily to me and never challenged myself. It seemed to me that all the good things that had come to me in my professional life, had fallen in my lap. Maybe I’m not giving myself enough credit. I was a restaurant manager by age 22, and a General Manager when I was 23. But again, when you don’t say “no” to anything, you become a pretty desirable employee, but not a great human being.

I was pretty good a being a restaurant manager. My employees liked me, I am excellent at customer service, I love teaching people about food and spirits, and I can multi-task with the best of them. But as a restaurant manager my job is to execute someone else’s dream. How depressing! What was my dream?

That’s the real challenge? What was my dream? Forever, I thought my dream had to be my career. What did I want out of my career? Did I want to open my own restaurant? Not really. Did I want to keep running other people’s restaurants? Definitely not. What I just learned is that your “dream,” doesn’t have to do anything with your career. Sure, it can, but it certainly is not required. Your dream is what you want you life to look like as a whole. From how you want to dress to how you want to feel to what kind of stove you want to have and if you want a door knocker or a doorbell.

You never ever learn how important it is define your dream, when really we should be doing this first before making any kind of decisions about your life. Your dream will evolve and change as you learn more about yourself and your desires. I write it all down. Anytime I think of something I want. I write it down in a journal.

Start writing.

When we share what we were brought here to give, we are in alignment with our highest, most powerful selves.

Jen Sincero

I read a self-development book that asks me to identify my “old story.” What was “defining” me that I wanted to change. The next step was to identify the “false rewards” that were telling me that the tory I had been living was good enough. This did no feel good, but it is what brought me here to you.

This is exactly what I wrote down. It’s not pretty, and frankly, fairly harsh. But here we go. The first task, “list off your old stories.”

This sucks right? These are things that I believe(d) about my story.  This is a reality I lived in. Writing it down opened my eyes. From the outside I’m sure people thought of me as lazy. Sleeping until noon, not getting out of my pjs, watching tv all day. But I saw it as “hey, AT LEAST I got out of bed today.”

• I finished college, but not really in a way I was proud of. I set out to do pre-med and ended up being a Spanish major who used Google Translate A LOT. My perception of those around me was that college was much easier for them, so I must be stupid.
• My father has never been anything but supportive of what I want to do. But all of my siblings are entrepreneurs and parents and I felt like I haven’t done anything for him to be proud of.
• I felt like it is ok to be sad all the time, like I had a right to be because my mom is sick. 

Now that I had identified my old story, I had to identify the “false rewards” I was reaping from it.   Again this is exactly as it was written. 

I had lived in a way that seemed right for me and I was being rewarded for it, in a way. 

The sympathy I got from my family and friends was all out of love and support, but it let me continue to excuse my behaviors. I let myself believe that what I was doing was good enough, because I was being praised for basically doing anything at all. Frankly had my friends and family responded any differently it still could’ve turned out just the same. Finally I was tasked with “thanking” those false rewards.  

I recognized that these rewards let me be who I was, but also that they limited me. 

It is time to expect more. It is time to do more. I am certainly not “cured” but it is time to set new standards, and new expectations, and new goals. I don’t want to settle for the bare minimum. I want to take it To the Limit!

“Your Are a Badass” by Jen Sincero Read it. Learn it. Love it.