In this goal setting post series, I have outlined two steps:

Step 1:
To change your life, you first have to identify what you need to change. In case you missed this post and would like to download the FREE “Life Review Deep Dive” exercise to help you get clarity, you can revisit the post and exercise here:
https://www.itopiacoaching.com/blog/change

Step 2:
Once you have identified what you need to change, there is still one more step you need to take before  setting goals. This step is: understanding your motivation for the goals. In case you missed this post and would like to revisit it and download the FREE goals setting exercise, you can access it here:
https://www.itopiacoaching.com/blog/start-with-why

Step 3:
In this step I showed you how to set goals using the iTOPIA acronym. In case you missed this post and you would like to download the FREE goal setting template and exercises, you can access it here: https://www.itopiacoaching.com/blog/set-goals

Now let's talk about the importance of celebrating success & monitoring progress.
 
Celebrating Successes
Milestones are essential steppingstones towards realising your dreams, and it is critical to recognise and celebrate these successes. Without recognising and acknowledging the achievements we make towards our goals, and, by only focusing on the result, our goals can feel and seem too overwhelming, which can lead us to give up the pursuit of our dreams.

I recommend diarising a reward in your diary at the end of each quarter to celebrate your achievements thus far – having a reward diarised will help keep you incentivised as you work towards your goals.

Key questions to ask yourself:

• How will I determine what each milestone will be?
• How will I reward myself when I reach each milestone?

Monitoring Progress 
In addition to maping out when to celebrate successes it is also imperative to set out a goal plan.
 
Setting a goal map or plan is essential to achieving our goals – without setting out a plan it is near impossible to reach our goals because, without a plan, there is no strategy or accountability. 
 
I log my goals and initiatives in an excel spreadsheet; however, you can choose to do this more straightforwardly, for example, in a notebook. The critical thing to remember is to record your progress against your goal initiatives daily so that you can refer back and measure your progress against your goals at the end of each quarter.
 
Refer to the below goal plan example:

The green fill indicates that the goal initiatives were achieved, whereas the red indicates that the goal initiative was not achieved. 

Exercise 1:
Create your own goal plan in either an excel spreadsheet or notebook. 

Exercise 2:
Once you have been working on your goals for 4 months, complete the attached Annual Quarterly Review Assessment.
  
Document the achievements that you have made towards your goals and also detail the challenges/obstacles you faced. 
​
Conducting this exercise will ensure that you recognise and celebrate your successes as well as acknowledge the roadblocks/obstacles that you may need to adapt to in order to reach your goals the following quarter.

Exercise
 
Write out a commitment pledge and put it in your wallet, on your wall or somewhere that you can see it often. 
 
Refer to the below examples of commitment pledges:
 
I am committed to refraining from what does not serve me.
I am committed to not watching the news or viewing social media.
I am committed to eating healthily and exercising.
I am committed to getting 8 hours of sleep each night.
I am committed to establishing a daily routine.
 
Read the commitment pledge to yourself 3 x a day; once on rising, once in the afternoon and once again before going to bed. Alternatively, read the pledge into a voice recorder and listen to it 3 x a day. Set a timer to go off throughout the day to remind you to read or listen to your pledge.  
  
The act of reaffirming your commitment each day re-programs your brain into believing and acting on what you are intending. And, eventually, with time and action, your commitment will become second nature, which will help you to become motivated.
 

​Exercise
 
Establish a daily routine by writing down and mapping out a schedule for your day and ensure that you stick to your plan. Some things that you may wish to include in your daily routine are:

• The time you wake up each day
• The time you got to bed
• The time for exercise
• Regular meals
• Work hours
• Social activities and time for things you enjoy
• Household chores
• Errands 

 
Establishing daily routines benefits our health and wellbeing, keeps us focused and productive and helps us to form good habits. This is because having a routine gives us a sense of control which is particularly important during these challenging times.

​With all this said, it is essential to remember that contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take 21 days to form a habit (this is a myth) but 66 days according to research conducted by University College London. Therefore, it is essential to give yourself a break if your commitment to the above ebbs and flows initially. With time, eventually, it will get easier, and your motivations will increase.

We all want to be accepted and validated. However, for some people, the need for approval leads to such unhealthy people-pleasing tendencies that they negate their own opinions, wants and emotions in favour of the approval of others. 
 
People-pleasers often do not end up living the life that they desire because to avoid disappointing someone, or to avoid an adverse reaction; they put other people’s feelings ahead of their own by frequently say “yes” when really, they mean “no”. And the reason why they do this is for a multitude of reasons:
 

• Fear of judgment from other people – not wanting to be seen as selfish 
• Assuming people will be mad if we say no 
• Avoiding conflict 
• Feeling guilty 
• Assuming that other people’s feelings are more important than our own

 
I myself was an anxious kid growing up, and this led me to become a people pleaser, which I continued to be for a good portion of my adult life. Despite having an inner voice telling me that I didn’t want to do certain things, I would invariably end up ignoring my inner voice to make other people happy. I assumed that if other people were happy, that meant that they would “like” me. Essentially I had very poor self-worth.

So how do we learn to develop a strong sense of self and drop the people-pleasing tendencies?
 
Put Yourself First
 
This is a radical concept for a people pleaser, especially for a lifelong people-pleaser. In my late 20’s/early 30’s I realised that by putting others first, I was putting myself last, and with this realisation, I began working on reversing this.
 
I began to put myself first by no longer looking for other people’s approval to make me happy. Furthermore, I stopped thinking that I had to be the source of other people’s happiness. 
 
Before agreeing to or committing to anything, I began asking myself what my gut reaction was telling me. Was my gutting screaming “hell yes” or was it screaming “hell no”? Whatever my gut told me, I went with it, regardless of if my decisions or actions would displease someone else. Eventually, with practice, listening to my gut became section nature. 
 
Key questions to ask yourself:

• Do you listen to your gut instinct?
• What can you do to make yourself more mindful of what your gut is telling you?
• What would it take for you to put yourself first?

 
Accept Yourself
 
Society and in particular advertising tell us that we need to be perfect. Our bodies need to be the ideal size and shape, and this pressure to be perfect is compounded by perfectionism being ‘sold’ on social media these days. 
 
Airbrushing, filters and the highlight reel of people’s lives plastered across social media make the people viewing these posts feel like they are lacking. And the resulting “less than” feeling can lead people to ask themselves: Why aren’t I perfect and why isn’t my life perfect? 
 
The best thing we can do to stop putting pressure on ourselves to be perfect, and, to cease being a people-pleaser is to accept ourselves as we are.
 
To cultivate self-acceptance, we need to appreciate that comparing and contrasting ourselves to others and societies expectations of us is not empowering. The media, social media, and advertisements that continuously bombard us are unrealistic, and we must recognise this. Pictures are photoshopped and airbrushed, and the sound-bites we view from friends, family and celebrities via social media are but a snippet of reality. Knowing and realising this is a fundamental step to developing self-acceptance. 
 
Furthermore, to develop self-acceptance, we need to love and accept both our positive and negative qualities without judgement. We need to recognise that everyone has faults – there are no perfect human beings and putting ourselves down and beating ourselves up is not beneficial, nor is it healthy.
 
Key questions to ask yourself:

• Where are you unfair in your judgements of yourself?
• How does judging yourself help you?
• What daily practices can you implement to practice positive self-acceptance?

 
Develop Boundaries
 
I have discussed setting boundaries on a few other occasions so I won’t repeat these here, however, if you would like a refresher on how to establish, communicate and commit to boundaries, you can read how here: 
feelings.html and setting-boundaries.html

To conclude, you do not have to be a people pleaser, and you do not need the approval of others. If you receive an adverse reaction from someone because you said ‘no’ or because you decided to honour your needs instead of someone else’s, remember that you do not need to feel guilty. Their response is an indication that they do not respect your boundaries, and as a result, this is their issue, not yours.

 
Have you ever felt, or do you feel stuck in a rut in life, yet at the same time have a fire in your belling telling you that something is missing? That there is more to life than what you are currently living? Yet at the same time, do you feel paralysed from moving forward and making changes?
 
I am asking you this question because this is a common theme that I hear in my coaching practice. And, because it is such a common topic, I want to address it here.
 
We can find ourselves falling into a rut for a myriad of reasons which include:
 

• Not having a clear vision for our lives; no defined purpose.
• Staying in our comfort zone; playing it safe by succumbing to fear.
• Comparing our wants and desires to others; favouring other’s opinions instead of our own.
• Settling for a mediocre life because of limiting beliefs & disempowering thoughts about our capacity to change.
• Getting used to what we have and wanting more; trapped by current success levels and/or affluence.
• The expectation that someone else will make us happy
• Re-living the past rather than the present moment or the future.
• Striving for perfection
• Being closed-minded to new ideas and perspectives
• Making excuses/procrastination/distractions
• Not feeling good enough; assuming that other people are better or smarter than us.
• Feeling guilty for not being happy.

 
 
The reasons highlighted in bold were my predilections. And this week, I am going to focus specifically on addressing these issues:
 
Not feeling good enough & feeling guilty
 
When I was less than a year old, my parents went through an acrimonious divorce. I was an only child, and like many children of divorce, I felt insecure and torn between both of my parents. I had a deep fear of abandonment as well as fear of not being good enough. The strain of my parents’ divorce was further compounded by the fact that I attended a strict Catholic school, which severely frowned on divorce. Given that I was the only child in the entire school that was a product of divorce, the whole school body took distinct umbrage with my own parent’s divorce. It was the 1970’s, divorce was not common nor accepted within the Catholic faith, and this resulted in my being singled out as being wrong and sinful. The tyrannical school principal had a proclivity for screaming and yelling, and in school assemblies would relentlessly bellow and proclaim that anyone who got a divorce would be sent to hell. I was petrified of the school principal, and I became convinced that alongside my parents, I too would be sent to hell. 
 
The worry of my parent’s divorce as well as attending Catholic school resulted in me living in a continuous state of fear and anxiety which was not helped by the fact that I was a poor performing student. I was a C student pretty much throughout Elementary and Secondary school with the only subject that I excelled at being English. In particular, I was terrible at mathematics, and I considered myself lucky if I obtained a C in the subject; usually, it was a D. I just could not get my head around the topic and really did not care how many marbles Johnny had left when Amy had twenty-three and took nine from Mark while travelling on a train at 160 miles an hour balancing on one leg while wearing blue socks on a Tuesday. 
 
For me, mathematics was like trying to read a foreign language and try as I might, I just could not make sense of it. And because I drew poor grades in school, this perpetuated my anxiety both at home and at school. The schoolteachers required parents to sign all test scores, and with trepidation and fear, I would muster up the courage to show my test scores to my father. He, in turn, would become infuriated and refuse to sign them, to which I would then have to return to school terrified and report that my tests weren’t signed. I would later be reprimanded in front of the class and assigned detention.
 
And this cycle repeated for years.
 
As a consequence, I grew up believing that I wasn’t smart or good enough. Furthermore, my parents’ divorce, as well as the distorted messaging I received in school about God, meant that I grew up to become a fearful, people-pleasing kid and then an adult with abandonment issues.

Feeling not good enough or smart enough was a narrative that I clung to for years, even when I graduated with honours from college and had huge successes in my previous careers. And this coupled with the guilt that I was raised with (that other people are less fortunate, and therefore I had no right to complain), paralysed me from changing my life, which resulted in me falling into a deep rut.
 
So how did I begin to crawl out of the rut I found myself in? 
 
I did this by working on gaining awareness and insights into the narrative, negative beliefs and negative self-talk that I used to describe who I was and what I was capable of. And from there I was able to create a new, empowering narrative for myself.
 
Often we are not entirely aware of what limiting beliefs and negative thoughts we have because we have become so accustomed to saying and believing them. Yet it is imperative to gain an understanding of them because limiting beliefs and negative self-talk hold us back from taking action and making changes in our lives; which can lead us to feeling stuck and in a rut.
 
We can gain an awareness of these beliefs by honestly asking ourselves and answering the following questions:

• Where do I have unrealistic expectations of myself?
• Where am I too hard on myself?
• How do I stand in my own way?
• What do I avoid feeling? How does this “avoidance” impact my life?
• What rules do I have about how I should “be” or “feel” that prevent me from changing my life?
• Do the beliefs I have about myself serve me?
• When I look in the mirror, what do I tell myself?
• What do I say to myself about who I am and what I look like?
• How would my life be different if I were to let go of my limiting beliefs and negative self-talk?

Once we gain awareness of our limiting beliefs and how we hold ourselves back, we can begin to build a plan towards moving out of the rut and into a new empowering future.

Looking to further your getting unstuck journey?
​
Sign up for the iTopia Signature Program: Getting out of the Rut by Getting Unstuck

Regrettably, there are some companies which systemically churn and burn employees. No amount of pivoting and adapting to the situation or cultivating self-awareness, emotional intelligence or taking care of our mindset and wellbeing will improve things in the workplace. For the sake of our health, sometimes we just need to realise and accept that the ladder we are on is not leaning against the right house, and we need to move on. However, taking the step to move on is often easier said than done for two main reasons: Institutionalisation and Fear. 
 
The longer we stay in a company, the more we become institutionalised. We adopt the belief that there are no other options out there for us, and we justify to ourselves that things aren’t that bad where we are. We fear change, the unknown, exposure, failure, judgement, and losing control. And, all of these fears become compounded when we become bogged down with life and fail to nourish our physical and mental health. In effect, when we don’t feel great and at our best, it becomes easy to limit the vision we have for ourselves based on our current circumstances. 
 But here’s the thing – if we allow our fears to take hold of us, then we can end up living in regret, stagnation, complacency and a deep feeling of helplessness and unhappiness. And so, to avoid this, we need to learn to release the False Expectations Appearing Real.
  
 * * *
Fear is a natural part of our natural human makeup that starts in childhood (Don’t touch that… Don’t talk to strangers) and evolves into adulthood where we become inundated with messages of fear, from society, the media as well as people around us. These messages of concern, as well as our past experiences, formulate our makeup and understanding of our world, which then creates mental roadblocks in our mind and can prevent us from making meaningful changes in our lives. 
  
The main reason why I did not change jobs and careers sooner than I did is that I had an intense fear of failure. I feared the consequences of throwing away my job and abandoning my career. The inner critic in my mind, which can be a real doomsayer, would squawk fears at me, and, for a long time, I listened to and gave authority to this pessimistic critic. I was secure doing a job that I was familiar with, and my inner critic fed me stories that reinforced my need for security.
  
You might not make it on your own; you might and probably will fail. People will judge you for failing. Your failure will be criticised. What if things do not work out? What if you don’t make any money? What if you make a mistake? 
  
I was eventually able to tame my inner critic when I began to read about people who inspire me; the athletes, the businessmen and women, the disabled and abled, the persecuted, the challenged and the gifted. I devoured books on and by inspirational people, and, the more I read, the more apparent it became to me that all of these remarkable people in pursuit of their dreams had failed at some point, and in the vast majority of cases, several times. Yet, despite these failures, they persisted, got back up and demonstrated immense resilience and determination. 
  
Reading about these inspirational people empowered me to tune out my ego and fears, and gradually I began to hear the faint cries of my inner wisdom whisper You will make it. You will succeed. You will not fail. If you fail, you will be okay. What is the worst that can happen?
  
 And when I asked myself, what was the worst that could happen? I realised that the worst had already happened – I had suffered from burnout, anxiety and depression. And, I had come out on the other side, and, with this realisation, I knew that I could endure more challenges and obstacles should they arise in the pursuit of my dreams. 
  
 The Lesson:
 To move past fear, we need to:

• Identify our concerns and what drives them and also determine what feeds our fears (i.e. other people?)
• Realise that the only way to grow is to move out of our comfort zone.
• Recognise that fear is uncomfortable but means that we are growing – we need to understand and acknowledge the uncomfortable feelings, and not allow these feelings to stop us.
• Realise that fear is an illusion – fear is created in our minds based on past experiences or the experiences of others. This doesn’t make it real or relevant to the here and now. We have to let go of predicting the future based on past events.

 
 The steps we can take to mitigate fear are:
 ​
 Using our imagination:

• Imagine a time when you did something you feared and succeeded. Remember and imagine pushing past this fear.
• Check your fear and ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Imagine the worst that can happen. Is it really that bad?

Ignore outside influences:

• Accept that some people will judge you for wanting to change your life – remember you do not need other people’s approval. Do not listen to other people’s fears, projections and doubts – because they are their fears.
• Do not wait for the approval of others. 
• Minimise your time with pessimistic people who do not share your dreams and goals. Only share your desires with people who are unlikely to support you. Remember that you are the sum of the people that you spend time with – if you spend the majority of your time with pessimistic and negative people, then this will likely influence your thoughts and subsequent actions.

Take action:

• Action cures all fears – you empower yourself by taking action.
• Do not make excuses or procrastinate - eliminate all distractions. If you do find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself what you are avoiding by not taking action.
• Do not wait for the perfect time to make changes – there is no ideal time… the stars will never align perfectly.
• Realise there is no such thing as an overnight success.
• Recognise that the people who are considered successful do not have any unique special superpowers that you do not have. They are not better or more deserving than you are.

Key questions to ask yourself

• Is the ladder I am climbing leaning against the right house?
• What actions can I take to build my dream career?
• Do I have people in my life that will facilitate me with the tools and advice I need to change my current circumstances?
• Am I limiting the vision I have for myself?
• What steps can I take to push past my boundaries and step out of my comfort zone?
• What mental monsters are preventing me from taking action?
• How is my success to date, holding me back from my next level of success? Have I trapped myself with affluence?
• What can I do to push past my fears?
• How can I push past my self-imposed, limiting beliefs and take action?
• How would I feel if I never pursued my ambitions?