Hype to Bust: Stop Killing Your Goals. Crush Them Over Time.

I was working with my mentor coach on setting some goals around enrolling clients and deepening my marketing initiatives. During our call, he guided me to see some areas where I stand in my own way, make the work harder than it really needs to be, or engage in black and white thinking more than allowing spaciousness for ideas to flow in and the work to become more easeful.

We began to craft some goals, or next steps, towards my vision. The fog had lifted from my path, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. My focus landed on opportunity and possibility, and with full on excitement, I told my coach, “I want to write three blog posts by end of this week!”

To which my coach replied, “why three?”

My first reaction was to say, “because that’s easy and do-able. I can knock out three pieces of writing by the end of this week.”

… But that was beside the point of our call and my personal discovery: when building a new habit, start with one foot in front of the other. Why? Because my goal was not to have “three blog posts written by the end of the week”. My goal was to have a clear, focused and purposeful marketing plan that I can execute on consistently, week over week. Eventually, I’ll have a wealth of posts and articles in my toolbox, and an ongoing willingness to share my voice with the world.

What was I actually listening to in that moment, that compelled me to sign up for three when starting out on this new mission, soon to be habit? I was listening to a deep down urgency to get started on my writing, to have enough content, to generate top quality work. I envisioned submitting my writing to magazines and digital platforms, and growing my presence as a writer. I was hyped on my vision and ready to jump in feet first.

But in pursuit of speed and quantity, I would be sacrificing ease, and time spent developing a new habit meant for consistent delivery. Do I want to look back six months from now and see that I hyped myself up, then busted and fell flat of delivering because I was caught up in visionary reality and not physical reality? Or do I really want to learn how to make a habit by learning how to take small sweet steps to get there?

The answer is obvious. And the answer is always sitting right in front of us, once we’re able to move past the initial hype.

When starting down a path that is deeply meaningful to you, it is inevitable to encounter Monkey Mind (M.M., also known as the Negativity Bias). Because the job/idea/mission/project, etc. is so big to you, your M.M. shows up to warn you against dangers and tries to guide you away from your goal. If you’re not careful, you may end up listening to the self-limiting chatter that M.M. is spewing as you try to take steps in a new, exciting direction. This is the quickest way to kill a project. This is a big reason why I dragged my feet along the way until the point when I could no longer avoid the obvious: I’m obviously listening to some negative M.M. chatter, because I want to write and share these insights and tools with my readers.

Every week, I’m doing something small to move my business forward. I’m writing and publishing one article a week, and have a time noted in my calendar to revisit my plan in two months when I am willing to re-evaluate and probably grow my goal from there. Starting small is enough to conger consistency, and consistency is what will get me to my vision.

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