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What big goals do you have for yourself? Do you want to make a certain amount of money? Do you want to reach a certain level in your career? Maybe you want to be a stay at home mom. Getting in tune with what it is you really want and then declaring that to yourself is an important part of having a regret free working mom life. In today’s episode I will be talking about declaring your dreams. I will talk about why your brain puts up so much resistance to dreaming and then share three magical things that happen when you allow yourself to say what it is you really want.
Topics in this episode:
The importance of dreaming
3 reasons why it might be hard for you to dream
A sort of magic that happens when you dream
The importance of a north star (a dream) in your life
Why you might feel like you’re walking in circles
How to get out of a rinse and repeat life
Show Notes:
Study on walking in circles - https://www.science.org/content/article/why-we-walk-circles
Ready to finally get to the bottom of what you want and make a plan to have it? Schedule a free breakthrough call where we will begin the dreaming process and create a process of attaining it. Book your call here: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
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Transcript
Hello, hello, amazing women. I feel so excited coming into this week because I just got back from my mastermind a little over a week ago. A mastermind is a term kind of often used in the business world or the entrepreneurial world where you bring together a group of like-minded individuals all working toward the same goal.
So, in this case, it was a group of around 100 mostly female life coaches that are all looking to grow their business to $200,000.
Now let me tell you, it is electrifying to be in a room with other people that are all working toward the same goal. I just want you to imagine the energy in the room when you are surrounded by your people, all believing and working towards the same thing.
It's amazing.
And the coach that runs this mastermind, she gives out awards on the last day for those that cross over the 200K mark. And to hear these amazing coaches speak about the belief that they have in themselves in order to get them to this point - I mean, it just blows my brain up with possibility.
I've been with this coach for almost two and a half years, and I remember having to indicate my goals for the next three years when I first started. So, this was in 2019 and every round, which is every six months - I re-up with this particular coach and mastermind, we have to do our three-year goals.
And so, the very first time I did that, it was in August of 2019. And I wrote down in August of 2019 that I wanted to make $100,000 in 2019 and then I wanted to make $125,000 in 2020. And then I wanted to make $150,000 in 2022.
My brain had the hardest time even writing those numbers down - it literally felt impossible to my brain.
I was putting myself in a 200K mastermind, and I couldn't even believe that was possible for me within three years. I couldn't even write those numbers down. All I could see was that I was going to incrementally grow little by little.
That was how restrained my brain was from being able to dream big and believe really big things for me. But now, two and a half years later, like for sure, 200K is happening this year and my three-year goal is 500K and then after that, a million dollars.
And I believe all of that is inevitable.
It may not happen in the exact time frame that I have laid out for myself, but I believe 100 percent it will happen. And it's amazing to be able to talk numbers like this with people that also believe that big numbers are possible for them as well.
And that inevitability, it's possible because I surround myself with other people that are also reaching for impossible goals and making them happen. I'm putting myself in a room that is literally energized with possibility and belief, and I hired a coach that has that same sort of energy.
So, I'm watching her reach her goals and her dreams and make them a reality as well. And that sort of energy really shows your brain that this thing that you thought was sort of impossible - people are doing it. It's totally normal.
When I am seeing a hundred other amazing coaches reach financial goals that at one point I never even could utter out of my lips, it shows my brain, 'Hey, if they can do it, so can I.'
You're giving evidence to your brain.
One woman coach, she coaches network marketers, she went from joining the mastermind, making around 200K in her business when she joined - to just two years later, she's made 5.4 million dollars. I know her - I consider her one of my colleagues. I have lunch with her. I talk with her. I have watched her fail and fail and fail, and then succeed in her business all the way up to millions of dollars.
Now I tell you all of this, not because I think you intimately want to know about my finances or my successes or even other coaches in my circle.
But I really want to show you what happens when you dream, and you believe in what is possible for you; and you put yourself in a room with other people that are also believing.
And when you make investments in yourself for those dreams, you essentially create an inevitability that they're going to happen.
Our brains don't like to dream, and I 100 percent experienced that back in 2019 when I could not even put down anything beyond $150,000 three years from then. And that even felt like there was just no possible way. I remember just feeling like I'm putting this number down here, and there's just no possible way that this is going to happen.
The reason for that is because our brains don't like to dream. Our brains like to stay right here in the now because it is the most comfortable place to be. To dream about making a lot of money or moving up in your career or going after a dream business or becoming a published author, or just if your dream is to be a stay at home mom, and so just leaving your career altogether, you know, whatever dream it is that you have for yourself, your brain sort of freaks out when you say that you want something big and that you deserve something big.
Literally, your central nervous system literally produces feelings of anxiety and worry and doubt and confusion, and sometimes even pure panic at the thought of going after a big dream in an effort to block you from even believing that it's possible.
Remember your brain's job - its number one job - is to keep you safe.
And going after big dreams, that's not safe for your brain. There's really three reasons for that.
The first one is when you go after big things, when you dream, you're going to fail. Failure is literally inevitable because with great success always comes lots and lots and lots of failure; and failure never feels good, and it certainly does not feel safe. In fact, it often feels wrong.
Number two, the reason why your brain does not like going after big dreams is because people might think that you're kind of crazy, and they might think that you're a bit egotistical.
And the idea that other people might sort of look at you funny or judge you, particularly people that are close to you, your family, or friends, that is really unsafe to your brain because that's your people. Those are your community. That's how you identify yourself. That doesn't feel good. It feels very unsafe to your brain.
And the third reason is because when you name and go after big dreams, it's likely going to come with some big changes. And change always feels risky. Quitting your current job. Going back to school. Carving out an immense amount of time to do maybe a creative project that you want, or for me, the risk was very financial.
I paid $25000 every six months to be a part of this mastermind, and I don't have that type of liquidity in my bank account, so I have to put it on a credit card and then I pay it off little by little. I use strategic debt in order to do that. One time I sold stock in order to pay for coaching. Our brains don't like taking that kind of risk, whether it's financial or whether it's with our time or whether it's just with big change. Moving from one career to another risk always feels unsafe.
But let's talk about why it's important to really override your central nervous system and dream, despite the fact that your brain is producing all of this anxiety and fear and worry and doubt.
Why is this important?
Why should we dream even when it's uncomfortable?
Whether we're talking about smaller dreams or big goals when you actually name what that is - not in sort of like a flippant way, like, 'Oh, I wish I had a million dollars' or 'Oh, I wish I could just be a stay-at-home mom', or 'oh, I wish I didn't yell so much.'
But in a like, 'I want this for myself', sort of declarative way, like I'm willing to do what it takes.
I'm willing to pay money to make it happen.
I'm willing to sacrifice my time or some comforts of today for whatever it is.
When you declare your dreams, your brain pays attention to that energy, and it starts to go to work to make it happen for you.
Let me give you an example. When I decided to get my coaching certification, I didn't know I was going to turn it into a business. It was a possibility, but it wasn't the goal initially. I started classes and then that's when I really fell in love with coaching and then even more desperately wanted to leave my job and make coaching my career at that point.
And after about three months of being in my training, a few different opportunities began to present themselves to take on contract work doing event logistics, which is what I was doing at that time. I'd been offered work like this plenty of times before, but I totally blew it off. I never even considered it because I wasn't even looking for that type of change in my life.
My brain wasn't tuned in to the opportunities; but now my brain was -because I was looking for a change.
I had declared that I wanted to go into coaching, and I wanted to leave my event management job. And so, when the first opportunity came, somebody offered me a contracting position. I was like, 'Oh, that's interesting'.
This is a chance for some flexibility in my day.
This is a chance for me to start pursuing coaching on the side while I was still working.
There was still a lot of fear and there were doubts and questions, but because I had firmly declared what I wanted in this case, which was to pursue coaching as my career and I wanted to leave my full-time job, opportunities began to arise.
Dreaming big is about declaring, telling your brain what it is you want, so you become aware of the opportunities when they present themselves.
Now, I believe that opportunities are presented to us all of the time. It's just that our eyes and our ears aren't tuned into them, and it's like we're operating at two different frequencies; and through the process of declaring what it is we really want.
When we allow ourselves to say the unsayable dream, the thing we want to pursue - it's in that moment that we get on the same frequency with the opportunities around us and we start to see them.
It's not like they come out of the woodworks like they weren't there before, and then magically, somehow, they happen. It's they were always there.
We're just now tuned into them in a way that we weren't before. I remember the way that I found my current mastermind. It was sort of in this vein of 'opportunities began to present themselves'.
I was looking for a coach or a program of some kind that was going to help me get to the next level in my business.
I had started to have some success.
I had a good foundation for my business.
I was in a groove of coaching and growing my business.
I was ready to take it up a notch.
I remember asking my current business coach at the time if she had any podcast recommendations, and so she suggested I listen to the Life Coach School, particularly listening to Episodes 1 and 2. And so I did, and it blew my mind.
What this woman Brooke Castillo teaches is just remarkable, and it felt like it was the missing piece for both me as a coach and me as a human being, and then me as a business owner, too. So, I started listening to this podcast and then a couple of months later, she had one of her coaches on the podcast.
Her name was Stacey Boehman - that's my current business coach - and I was really taken aback by her. I immediately went to her website. I signed up to receive her newsletter, and then a couple of months later, I got an email that said she was opening up her 200K mastermind - I immediately applied, and in the end, I was one of seven selected for that particular class.
It's through declaring what you want that you tune into the frequency of opportunity around you.
Doors simply begin to open for you because your brain starts to see them as doors to what it is you want. You still have to walk through them, obviously, which can still very scary. And there's a lot of fear and anxiety that comes with it.
But the doors are there for you in a way that you didn't notice that they were there for you before. So, declaring your dreams, literally, as some might say, the stars begin to align when you put them out there and you say the thing that it is you actually want.
The second thing dreaming does is it gives your brain some direction. There was a study done quite some time ago, and I like to share the study a lot because I think that it's a really poignant example of the importance of giving our brain direction. So, I might have talked about this already in the podcast, but I'm going to talk about it again because I love this story and this study that was done.
So, they basically blindfolded a group of people. They put them in a plane, and they left them in the middle of nowhere. So, the people just essentially didn't know where they were or didn't have any orientation of where they were going. And all they were told to do was to walk in a straight line.
There wasn't necessarily a destination in mind.
They just were told walk in a straight line. That's it. So, what happened was when the sun was out, essentially when their brain had a point of reference, the group essentially walked straight for miles.
When clouds came in and covered the sun, and they no longer had a point of reference, the group immediately started walking in circles. You can actually see the pictures of this in the study.
They give you an overhead view and they show you the path, and you can tell the immediate moment that the clouds rolled in because the entire group starts to go in a circle. It's fascinating. I'll link to the study and at least to the picture in the show notes you can see it.
I think this is such an amazing illustration of how important a point of reference is for our brains. If your brain knows which way is north, if it knows the end goal in mind, if it knows where you are headed, it's going to act like a guide to help you get there. It's going to start moving you in that general direction.
If you don't have any dreams that you've declared, if you haven't given your brain any kind of direction, if it doesn't know what's most important to you, it’s like there's a cloud covering, and your brain doesn't know which way to go. And so, it goes in a circle.
So, dreaming is declarative.
And it tunes your brains into opportunities, and it also provides direction, so you don't feel like you're just living this kind of rinse-and-repeat life where you're just going in circles. It knows the end goal so that you can begin to orient yourself in that direction.
Now, the last thing that dreaming does is that it ensures that you don't have any regrets - because you're constantly naming things that you want.
The dreams that you have, the things that you want to be different, the goals that you want to attain, you're declaring them, you're telling your brain, 'Hey, these are possible.'
If you're living a life with that level of intention, with that level of self-awareness, you're guaranteeing yourself a regret-free life.
When I was about five, I started dance classes. I did ballet, tap and jazz, and then when I was about seven, I started singing. And then when I was about eight, I did my first community play. I was a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. Maybe I'll try to find a picture of that and link to that as well.
And I just kept going. So, I was a theater kid in middle school. I did it in high school. I did plays. I did drama classes and then my junior year of high school I actually started taking college acting classes. I ended up graduating from high school with both my high school diploma, of course, but then also an AA in musical theater. And then I went to a four-year college again, getting my degree in theater. And then I got out of college and then I got a job in theater.
This was just sort of my path from a very young age, I was in the performing arts.
It was what I had always done.
It was what I enjoyed.
And when my husband and I moved from Seattle to California, I decided that I just didn't really want to go into theater anymore. It wasn't really something that I was passionate about anymore, or maybe really ever.
Then I got into event management because there is a lot of similarities between theater management and event management - like managing logistics are very similar skill sets. And I kept down this path because it was kind of the only path I knew - doors just kind of kept opening and I kept walking through them.
But then when I was pregnant with my daughter, it was one of those first moments that I stopped and I said, I know this is the path that I have been on, I can see how I got here, but is it the path that I want to be on moving forward?
Do I actually want to keep doing what I'm doing right now?
Or do I keep doing it because it's easy and because doors just keep opening up for me?
Now, obviously, you know my answer to these questions because I ended up leaving that profession behind. I started my business as a coach, and I absolutely love both being an entrepreneur and being a coach.
This is a conversation I have with many of my clients where they're on a career path simply because it's been the path that they're on.
It's the path that they know.
It's the path that's been the easiest.
They aren't maybe happy in it, but they just don't stop to ask themselves, 'Is this what I want?' And we have a lot of conversations in coaching where we just get to the heart of, ' Is this what you want?' We answer that question.
When we allow ourselves to dream, what we're doing is we're inherently asking ourselves, 'what do I want?'
And if you're incessantly asking that question, what is it that I want today?
What is it that I want this year?
What is it that I want in my lifetime?
And you begin to declaratively name some of those things, and you begin to create for yourself some direction towards those things - you will always be on a path of moving towards the things that you want.
And so, you'll never have regrets.
With all of my clients, I have them go through several exercises of naming their dreams. We talk about dreams in the short term, and we talk about dreams in the long term, because we want to talk about the things that you want to be different today. That's your short term.
We want to start making little adjustments to your everyday life, so you start to experience happiness today and not be waiting for something big to change down the line.
Now we also want to talk about big dreams so that you have a really clear sense of where you're going and why.
Because if you know that down the line, you want to change careers entirely, that's going to change the way we think about how you're approaching today's job or maybe even a job search if you decide to change jobs in the short term.
If we know that down the line, this is what you want down here, then we're going to start to make decisions today to orient yourself so that you can have that. In coaching, I believe that we make dreams come true. I truly believe that. That's why I'm in my mastermind and I have a business coach - so that I keep my brain focused on making my business dreams a reality.
Saying what it is they want and then having someone - in this case, a whole group of a hundred other coaches and then my business coach -keeping me on track. And it's also why I have a life coach to make my everyday life the best it can possibly be.
To make little tweaks in the way that I approach my marriage, to make changes in the way that I'm interacting with my kids, to start naming some of the big things that I want to teach my kids, or the big goals that I have for us as a family so that I can start to make little decisions about that in my day to day life.
I never want to settle in life. I never want to think, 'Oh, I've arrived.' We're never actually going to arrive anywhere.
I want to constantly be evolving to the best person and the best life that I can create for myself.
And I don't think you want to settle in life either. I don't think that you ever want to get to that place where you say you've arrived. So, I want to leave you with this exercise.
What secret dream do you have inside of you?
Maybe you've never told anyone what it is, or maybe you have. Maybe you've never written it down, but you've said it out loud.
What dream do you want to declare to your brain and to the universe today? It doesn't have to be big. I know dreaming big can be hard for some, and it has been a muscle I've had to grow at. But I can always tell you little things that I dream about, little things that I want.
So, it doesn't have to be over the top. But what do you really want? I want you to say it out loud and I want you to write it down.
In 2019, when I started my mastermind that year that I said I wanted to make $100000. I wrote down every day for about nine months: I will make $100,000 this year. I wrote it down almost every day.
And guess what? I made my first $100,000 in my business that year. I declared it.
I owned it. I oriented my brain around it, and I saw opportunity and I started to take it.
One of the big opportunities I took was joining that mastermind. I have other goals that I write down regularly as well, that I have no idea how they're going to happen, but I declare them. I go through in and out of doing that practice daily, but I declare them because I know that declaring them and then writing them down, even as a whole another step to making those things happen. I know that coaching is a container.
It's not the only container, in my opinion, it's the best container and it has been for me at least to refine your dreams and then help you become the person that makes them happen.
I love dreaming with my clients, and I want to help you do the same.
If you're really ready to dream big, to have a regret free life, to get to your kid's high school graduation and look back at your kid's adolescence and think, 'Oh, I had the exact motherhood experience that I wanted. I gave my kids the childhood experience that I wanted.'
That kind of regret-free life. If you get to retirement and you look back at your career and you say, 'I did it. I feel so good about what I accomplished and where I'm at.' That type of regret.
If that's what you're looking for, you're ready to create that for yourself, so you're ready to name what it is you want and go after it. And then I want you to schedule a free 60-minute breakthrough call with me when we are going to start on the call actually talking about those dreams and then creating a process for you to make them happen.
You can go to RebeccaOlsonCoaching.com/book to schedule that call.
And of course, as always, I will put it in the show notes. All right working moms have a great week. And let's get to it.
