Why I Don’t Believe At All in Your Goals by Vendela Lilliestråle
I was going to name this article “How to reach your goals” but then I fell prey to our current clickbait culture and switched it up. I realized that headlines that attack me always grab my attention so I thought “Why not attack others now?”.
I do feel kind of bad though so I hope I’ll make up for it by sharing my thoughts that hopefully will provide some form of value. Note: some form of value. Very broad. It will be hard for you to hold me accountable. But if it doesn’t actually provide any form of value, then just make yourself a promise to never click on clickbait articles again. At least on Vendela’s clickbait articles.
Ok so enough talk - it’s time for me to provide value!
I want to jump straight into one of my favorite exercises: sleeping. I seriously love to sleep.
Ok well after that: visualizing my future self.
Today we are going to do a short visualization exercise about your future self. Are you with me? Say “YES” out loud in your own head. Or shout it out loud in your office. Tell HR to email me at vendela@businessanddreams.com if your co-workers were disturbed. Let’s start!
Imagine this.
Imagine meeting yourself one year from now. Imagine meeting a woman who is so happy with her life and who is feeling so fulfilled.
If you got a chance to talk with her, what would you ask her and what would she tell you? Imagine her telling you everything about her life and how she got there. Imagine as many details as you can about that woman.
My question to you now is: who was that woman?
If you liked this exercise, you will probably like our brand new workbook that you can download for free HERE.
I’m no mind reader (would love to be) but if I’m slightly correct you probably visualized your future self having all the things you desire in life, such as your dream house by the ocean and the successful business you dream of having.
But I'm also quite sure that you also saw some of her personality traits. Maybe you saw someone who is confident. Someone who knows her worth. Someone who takes care of herself and the people around her.
In other words, except visualizing what she has in life, you also (if I was correct and a bit of a mind reader after all) visualized who she was, i.e. her identity.
And that is according to me the important part of this exercise.
And here is why: I am deeply convinced that our identity decides what we get in life.
And now is a great time for me to nuance my clickbait headline a bit. I do believe in goals. And I definitely believe in your goals. But only on one condition. And that is if your identity is aligned with the actions that you want to take. Otherwise, goals oftentimes just work in the short-term.
Let’s say that your goal is to start a company.
That is an amazing goal and I am sure that you would create a really successful company.
But if you don’t truly see yourself as a skilled and passionate entrepreneur who will create a successful company, the risk is that you will give up when motivation is low.
So why is that?
As humans we want to avoid cognitive dissonance. We want to behave in a way that is aligned with our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. That is why New Year's resolutions oftentimes don't work - we are motivated the first weeks but when motivation isn't as strong anymore, we go back to our old ways of behaving.
So what is the better way?
We start by focusing on our identity. We focus on the woman we want to become. We focus on the actions she takes, the thoughts she has and how she talks with others and herself. We focus on the morning routine she has, the people she surrounds herself with and the type of media that she consumes.
One example from my in life is about exercise. Until about three years ago, I was the kind of person who gets a gym membership at January 1 and by January 2 (max) I was no longer using it, just unhappily paying for it. When I realized that my underlying belief about myself was of someone who just couldn’t build muscles, I realized that I had to start by changing my identity. From that point, I have been the annoying person who knocks on the gym door when it opens in the morning. To solidify my identity even more, I became a licensed Personal Trainer this fall. I have no intent to work with it - I just want my identity to be of someone who exercises. In that way, I am confident that this new habit will stay in the long-term.
One of my favorite quotes is “We don’t get what we want in life. We get what we are”. This means that in order to create our dream life, we have to become the kind of person who attracts that kind of life. Simply wanting something is not enough.
So after you have a clear picture of who the future you are, it’s time to start embodying that woman today. And that is how you will get all the things that future you have in her life.
If you like this concept of switching up your identity, there are several more things you can do except just this exercise. Here are some of my favorite ones.
Surround yourself with the kind of people you aspire to be
One of the most effective things you can do is to surround yourself with other people who have the identity that you want. If your goal is to be an entrepreneur, you simply surround yourself with other entrepreneurs.
2. Study actions and mindset
Another thing is to study and take notes of how the people you aspire to be like live their lives. You then simply emulate their ways of behaving and thinking and you will slowly change your own identity. If you e.g. register a company, your brain will be kind of forced to think “Oh well, that action tells me I’m an entrepreneur so I guess I am an entrepreneur now!”. Our brains are so easy to fool. I just realized that I used my brain to write that. That’s kind of weird so let’s continue with point number 3.
3. Use affirmations
Affirmations have completely changed my life. The first time I became truly convinced of the effectiveness of affirmations was when I read a study that showed that when trying to reach our goals, affirmations can be even more effective than actually setting goals in itself. And that is because when our identity is aligned with the outcome, our actions tend to be more consistent and long-term focused. So how do you use them? You simply write down some statements that are true for the person you want to be and you read them as often as you can. In the beginning it might feel a bit weird and perhaps won’t come that natural to you. But have no worries - eventually you will brainwash yourself into your new reality which is a beautiful thing.
So to conclude this article I encourage you to ask yourself two questions: what is the identity of the future you and how can you embody her today?
Thank you so much for reading my clickbait article and feel free to comment below if you did get any value from it. I doubt that but it felt like an appropriate thing to say at the end. One thing is for sure, all aspiring jokes aside: I truly appreciate your time and I am so convinced that all of your dreams will become your reality, and much sooner than you might think!
P.S. Make sure to download our workbook HERE if you want more of all the above!
