Written by: Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It’s that time of year again when people start to look back over their year at what they’ve accomplished or what they haven't and it’s usually about this time that the panic sets in.
You look back at the goals you announced (out loud) that you were going to achieve by this time of the year, and yet when you look at your list, you become disappointed and discouraged because the only goals reached seem small and insignificant. But is that really true? You see, it’s because we hold to this mindset that if the goal achieved isn’t a huge goal, then it must not be important or at least not as important as the other goals on our list. Let me give you some peace of mind and let you in on a little secret that I have come to discover. Every goal accomplished, no matter the size, is important and should be celebrated because when you are in the doing of your life and going after your goals (even the small ones), it means that you are not sitting on the sidelines waiting for life to happen to you. No. What you are doing is allowing life to happen for you and you’re getting involved and immersing yourself in the day-to-day and learning and growing and seeking out answers to questions and marking each task as complete. What I have often found though, is that if we don’t actually anchor in those accomplishments by celebrating and creating celebration memories, that is when we get stuck yet again, and we forget that we are resourceful and have maybe even accomplished some of these tasks, or a similar one, previously. I feel like we live in a society that creates to do lists and check mark done and then we move on, and we don’t allow for time to celebrate that we did something; that we created something, and then accomplished it. Why is that? I believe that I have found the answer and I’m sure you have thought about this yourself. Simply put. We live in a world of More and Now. We want to achieve more and more and whether that’s accumulating things, or experiences, the next part to this puzzle is that we want it Now because we have been told that no goal is too big and if we work hard enough for it, we can have it. But with that wanting of More comes impatience because we start to look around and see how everyone else is crushing their goals and it looks like they are getting what they want (and more of it) Now. So that takes us down a path of comparisonitis and we start looking at what everyone else is doing and comparing ourselves to what others have accomplished and if their accomplishments look better (if what they created looks better than what we are doing), we start to feel insecure, maybe even scrapping our dream altogether. Looking outside at what others are doing is not meant to hold you back or make you feel bad. Looking outside at what others are doing is meant to inspire you and to give you hope that if they can do it, so can you. That’s something I learned as I was growing my coaching business alongside being an independent contractor and serving as a Post-Closing Paralegal to a team of Lawyers and Paralegals in California. I learned that in order for me to achieve my goals that I had to learn to celebrate others accomplishments because that was proof right there that if they could do it, so could I and by adopting a celebration for others mindset, that lead to inspiration. I learned to visualize in a way that allowed me to pull on what others had accomplished and take from that ideas that inspired me to continue dreaming and building my own coaching business. I wish I had known this when I first started my coaching business 4 years ago, because for the first 2 years I struggled with comparisonitus, imposter syndrome, and I chased after every magic pill thinking that there was a secret that every successful person knew about that was illusive to me. This kept me on the perpetual entrepreneurial hamster-wheel. I kept myself believing that you could only be successful if you were in that secret club of entrepreneurs that had the magic pill, the answer to everything, the answer to success. What I’ve found, once I dialed it in (and got coaching of my own), is that yes there are secrets or rather mindsets that most successful people have and that’s this.
They are willing to stay in it for the long game.
They understand the reason why it is important to have a Big WHY for what you do; for what you are passionate about; your purpose.
They understand that having clarity about their Big WHY for what they are passionate about will help them stay in it for the long game.
They have learned to trust their intuition and when Fear pops up, as it will for anyone from time to time for anyone who is reaching for bigger and better, they understand that if they want to reach a goal, that procrastination won’t serve them. So, they will do preliminary research and if they see a chance of succeeding, they will take action for they know and believe that waiting for life to happen to them won’t serve them.
In other words, taking action in spite of fear of the unknown, of the what if’s, of the “what if it won’t work out thoughts”, and being okay (in fact more than okay) with the result because it will be more evidence for them to learn and grow. Look at Thomas Edison for example. According to the Franklin Institute,
“By January of 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn't work with it given the tools available at that time. One day, Edison was sitting in his laboratory absent-mindedly rolling a piece of compressed carbon between his fingers. He began carbonizing materials to be used for the filament. He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination.” Thomas Edison, himself said this which I believe is because he allowed himself to keep on going, in spite of fear, and in spite of his first attempt only getting himself so close to his goal but not knowing how long it would take to reach it. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material." "The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments," he wrote."I was never myself discouraged, or inclined to be hopeless of success. I cannot say the same for all my associates." "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." I absolutely love his enthusiasm because I believe that that’s another secret that successful people tap into. Being inspired and being enthusiastic about every step of the way and acknowledging the before, the now, and what’s possible. In his famous quote about his journey and the things that didn’t go right, when asked about the things that didn’t go right, he said this: “I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” This to me is another clue I have learned about successful people. They are willing to learn from their mistakes, tweak it, and get back at it because they don’t give up on themselves.
I believe that timing is far more important than the deadline that we put on our goals. I of course, believe that we should have a date set in mind because it gives us something to work towards. But I also believe this.
When you recognize that timing is far more important than how long it took you to get to where you are, you will realize that you are right where you are meant to be, right now.
This is meant to inspire you so that as you look back over your year and start taking what I call an Annual Accounting of Your Life, be kind to yourself.
It’s not easy going after goals, especially the ones that are so far out and where we have the potential to get discouraged if it hasn’t happened yet.
Sometimes the goals we had in mind for our lives, when we intentionally take the time to really think about them, are not as important to us as we once thought they were.
In fact, if you were to look at your goals, some of which you may have started but not finished or may not have started at all, would you still want them as badly today or has your mind changed because something bigger and better has revealed itself?
That’s a question that I have pondered over the last 2 years and I have come to realize that some of the things that I wished for, that I dreamt about, were just part of the picture and that when I allowed myself to get quiet and reflect and visualize what I really wanted, I found that my desire for my life was and is bigger and better than when I first started down this entrepreneurial path.
I’ll leave you with this quote I wrote a few years ago as I was thinking about what I wanted my life to look like.
Your destination is in your journey and your journey is ever evolving. You will learn more about who you are and what you want when you allow ourself to continuously move forward. You must also be open to and accepting of change because change is inevitable and if you allow yourself to accept that pivoting may be part of your journey, then you will in essence allow yourself to step into your own greatness and you may even surprise yourself by realizing that what you thought was your dream is so much bigger because your picture keeps growing. Leslie Gaudet
Remember this as you continue down your life path.
Learn to embrace that your life is a journey and that it keeps growing as you evolve and as you get clearer on your purpose and then everything you do will come from that place.
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Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Leslie Gaudet is a Mindset and Emotional Awareness Coach for women. She helps her clients achieve self-awareness around their emotional triggers by shifting their mindset to make better decisions when they respond, allowing them to bring more balance, peace, and harmony into their lives.
Almost 4 decades working as a Legal Assistant and Paralegal in the corporate world left her feeling emotionally and physically drained. That’s when she decided that she had to make some changes for her to live the life she loves. Those changes involved learning to love herself (without judgment or criticism). That mindset is the key to everything because our mindset influences our thoughts, and in turn, our thoughts dictate our words and actions. Thru her journey to self-love and self-acceptance, Leslie became certified as a Life Coach and attained further certifications in Group Coaching and Emotional Intelligence.
She works closely with her clients, starting with mindset because that is the foundational piece to self-love and self-acceptance. She teaches her clients about triggers and how they affect us emotionally by helping her clients tune into, spot, and understand their own so that they can become more self-aware of their trigger moments and emotional responses.
With proven tools and techniques and with her guidance, her clients tap into and discover their true potential to living their life and loving the life they are living.
Leslie believes that you will transform your life when you Change Your Brain (the way you think).
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