In a Success Magazine article entitled Goal-Setting Doesn’t Work, Darren Hardy wrote that setting a goal is only part of what we need to do to attract what we want from life. Once a goal is set, we need to ask, “What kind of a person do I need to be to achieve that goal?”
Let’s say you want a promotion at work. Asking Hardy’s question will take you so much further and quickly. What kind of a person do you need to be to get that promotion?
• How would that person feel?
• How would that person act?
• How would that person look?
• How would that person interact with co-workers and/or clients?
You might, for example, need to be the type of person who:
• Imagines what it would feel like to have the promotion. Once you know that feeling, make sure you feel that way as you move through your days toward your new role.
• Has the self-confidence of someone who would be promoted into that position.
• Looks the part—you dress the way someone who already has the promotion would.
• Works the number of hours that someone in that role would.
• Does everything you can to learn about the new job because you know it’s coming.
• Doesn’t get involved in petty gossip at work.
• Gives the majority of your attention to what you’re doing versus what other people are or are not doing.
Oftentimes this is called “acting as if” but it’s deeper than that. It’s actually “being as if,” i.e., adopting the feelings you know you’ll have when you receive the promotion.
Joy has been (ironically, given her name) adrift in negativity since her divorce over a year ago. She came to me for some coaching so I asked her, “How do you want to feel?” She replied, “I want to wake up singing.” I replied, “That’s simple! You will wake up singing when you wake up singing!”
You see, like so many of us, she was looking for something to inspire her to wake up singing. That’s backward. When you are the kind of person who wakes up singing, something is guaranteed to come along that will inspire you and your songs will get even sweeter.
The Law of Attraction says that you get more of what you focus on. When your feelings and your actions match those of the future you who has already achieved what you are now setting your sights on, then you will achieve your goal or something similar that will make you feel the same way.
I have a friend who has made quite a lot of money in his life but like most wealthy
people, he has had setbacks. Over dinner last week, he regaled me with stories about some of those “failures.” As I asked clarifying questions, he began to see that most of those so-called failures actually lead to specifically related opportunities for even greater gain down the road. If he had quit when it looked like he wasn’t getting what he set out to, he would have missed these opportunities.
In other words, if you don’t receive the promotion, it’s not over. There is probably something even bigger on its way that you would have missed if you received the promotion. Just keep “being” the kind of person who receives promotions and watch what happens.
No matter what you want, the achievement of it happens much more quickly and easily when you figure out what type of person you need to be to get there.
All roads point to “being.” Who do you want to be?
