Last updated: 20 November 2020
![[GUIDE] From Stress To Success: 5 Steps To Achieving Your Business And Life Goals While Mastering Change](https://d28ufb1dgqfiui.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/how-to-make-your-business-and-life-goals-happen.jpg "[GUIDE] From Stress To Success: 5 Steps To Achieving Your Business And Life Goals While Mastering Change")
In times of epic change, it can be tempting to hunker down and wait for it all to pass. Although you might be craving leadership success or a booming business of your own and thinking of starting taking steps to achieving your business and life goals, it can be easy to get stuck in a wave of bad luck, procrastination or indecision.
However, in doing so there is a potential to miss out on mastering change because such times can present an opportunity to go from stress to success, with a little mastery and know-how.
Based on Life Coach Michelle Boulé’s Five-Step Guide To Erase Doubt, Claim Your Truth and Create the Business and Life You Desire, here is the ILN guide to succeed in mastering change. Taking you from stress to success, both in and out of work.
5 Steps To Achieving Your Business And Life Goals While Mastering Change
Have your business and life goals been affected by the pandemic? This could be the time to readjust and realign.
Maybe you lost your job? Take heart because this could be your opportunity to kick off a business idea you’ve been wanting to do for a long time.
Ok, let’s get to the how-tos.
To set the foundation for any successful changes the first thing is:
1. Get Clear On What You Want
In Boulé’s words, this step is about turning chaos into order.
After all, she says: “Not knowing what you want reflects the root of so many challenges.”
Knowing what you want is your compass, it means you are oriented towards living from your desires, rather than living out of someone else’s. There are clues that show you if you are living without being aligned to your own desires.
Michelle writes that little inner voices saying the following indicate exactly that:
When you see these restrictive thought patterns written down, it’s easy to see why they might be holding you back. And easy to see why your career path may be less than fulfilling.
The antidote to this is to get clear on what you want.
Boulé advises taking some small steps and building up:
- Ask yourself daily what you want and write your reflections in a journal – however big to however small.
- If it feels daunting start super small: What do you want to wear? What do you want to eat?
- Build up to the big stuff by training your desire muscles on the small stuff.
To get even more clarity, Denise Duffield Thomas offers an exercise in her book Get Rich Lucky Bitch, called My Ideal Day.
Take your journal and imagine what your ideal day would be:
- How would you spend it? Where? With who?
- Kicking it in the Caribbean, running your new biz poolside?
- In the mountains? In the city?
- Your own business, your career? Family and loved ones?
Write it down– the more detail the better. From what you are wearing to where you are living. Include it all. And read it regularly.
If you want to take this further, create a vision board, and place it where you can see it. If it’s digital, make it your desktop screensaver and wallpaper.
If it’s paper stick it on the wall either next to your desk or bed – somewhere you will see it a lot.
Michelle Boulé affirms that by listening to your desires they become stronger and clearer, ‘your truth will start to reveal itself.’
Getting clear on what you want is your foundation in mastering change.
To build on what you want, the next task is to get real about success by:
2. Understanding the Truth Behind Success
Behind every success story is a process.
This process will have involved dedication, multiple failures, a ton of risks, a load of courage, myriad choices, and patience.
When you see success embodied it’s easy to think that success came overnight or by some fantastic stroke of luck. However, the reality is that this person is and has been repeatedly making choices and taking actions to create success on their vision board.
Boulé says that it is your job to keep showing up to your desires and to get free from ‘magical thinking’ around success.
“Keep showing up in service of your vision, through your thoughts, behaviors and actions.”
Realize that behind every success story is a lot of dedication to meeting challenges and overcoming adversity.
In her book Purposeful, Jennifer Dulski, head of Groups and Community at Facebook approaches challenges as opportunities by asking a simple question: “why not me?”
In the face of epic change or massive adversity, you could say “why me?” Yet, Dulski says that one of the most valuable life and career lessons she learned from her mother, was to reframe these events by asking instead “why not me?”
This flips the event from helplessness to empowerment.
“Why not me” she says is the voice of hope and change: ‘it allows you to take a first step toward following a purpose and creating a movement. It’s what makes you stand up for what you believe in, even if your legs are shaking when you do.’
Patience is essential in mastering change and taking steps to achieving your business and life goals.
Boulé’ says that patience is vital because ‘people often get so close to their dreams, but then they STOP due to lack of patience.’
Her formula for hanging in there is a 3-point reminder:
1. Remember you deserve to be successful and happy
This is your birth-right because you are a part of Life. Success, love and happiness all support Life – so they are yours for the taking.
2. Become the change you want to see/be
If you aren’t seeing the results you want, make changes to enhance who you truly are. Make positive changes to your thoughts, choices and behaviors to bring out your true self, your best self, your best life.
3. “Fail” often
Growth is a process and failures are learning experiences, not to be taken personally. If you stop, you won’t get there! Look at any failure as a first attempt in learning and keep going.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
– Seneca
So now you know the truth behind success, next is to:
3. Get Rid of the 4 Little Words that Stop Your Progress
Those 4 little words are “I’ll do it later” says Boulé.
If you start the day with a promise to yourself, like getting up at the time your alarm goes off, and you don’t do it, you are breaking a promise to yourself.
No big deal! – you might think. Actually, it is a big deal.
By breaking that promise to yourself you are undermining the trust in yourself. In other words, you are training your brain to believe that you are not trustworthy.
Self-trust is effectively self-confidence, so not trusting yourself spells disaster for your self-confidence.
Benjamin Hardy in his article 23 Smart Ways To Increase Your Confidence, Productivity, and Income says that you gain confidence (and therefore the ability for mastering change) by doing what you say you’re going to do.
By doing what you said you’d do, from anything to going for a run, to making that important phone call, Boulé says that your clarity, fulfillment, and purpose will come flying at you. Because you are stepping up to the mark.
By keeping your promise to yourself you are being the person who is worthy of the greatness that wants to move through you.
So, the time to take action is now. Do what you said you would do.
- To help you on your way go back to point one and get super clear on what you want, remember your desire is your compass.
Knowing what you want shows you the way you need to grow and change to reach your goals. - When you know what you want, break it down into steps:
1. What does it take to get what you want?
2. What do you need to do / be / have?
3. Keep breaking the steps into smaller and smaller chunks until you have an action plan with an achievable first step in front of you. - Did you just say, ‘sounds great, I’ll do it later?’
Procrastination, or, putting the important things off, looks like being in the same place you were a few months ago, or a few years ago. This can turn into a whole lifetime. So, don’t delay. - Start today!
You are either taking daily steps towards your dreams, otherwise, you are moving away from them says Boulé.
So, don’t stand still– ditch the excuses, leave the lies, and move towards what you want, not because you think you’re not enough. Believe you are enough, right now. And do it.
Ok now you’ve mastered your progress and got a plan of action, it’s time to:
4. Collaborate – Get Support, Build Relationships
You might have heard that house plants grow better if you talk to them nicely– well it’s true!
This is because a supportive environment for growth is crucial and it’s the same for you too.
Your success at mastering change and going from stress to success lies in creating the right environment.
Take a look now–
- What do you surround yourself with?
- Do you have sufficient space to work, dream or create?
- Do you have mentors, friends and colleagues that inspire and support you?
- What about your home life and social life?
Notice, too, your internal environment: the thoughts that are running through your head and how you talk to yourself.
In Michelle Boulé’s words, “Your current results are a direct reflection of everything you deeply believe. Create a beautiful thought environment, and watch your life grow.”
This is your time to take a close look at your environment on all levels: home, people, sleep space, workspace, thoughts and physical practices.
What needs an upgrade? Do you need to bring someone in to support you?
There is a world of information and people out there to support you getting to your goals right now.
Teachers, mentors, coaches, therapists, books, courses, music, art, you name it.
Open to the possibility of your goal being a reality and, Boulé writes, start saying YES to what supports you in achieving your vision.
In the first few years of starting her own fashion and travel magazine House of Coco, Laura Bartlett called herself the YES girl.
She went to every event, party and launch that she was invited to so that she could build her network, the relationships that would support her new venture.
Even having been told her magazine idea was impossible, she made it happen – without investment and with sheer determination.
Her business now takes her and her team of 40 around the world in style and is stocked by high-end stores such as Harrods and Selfridges in London, and beyond.
“Whether you believe you can do a thing or believe you can’t, you are right.”
– Henry Ford
5. Align with Your Values – Get to your ‘Why’
Michelle Boulé calls this claiming the “heart” of your work. In other words, you must know why your vision is important to you. Without your ‘why’ work feels meaningless.
Being connected to the meaning, the driver behind your vision not only gives your mission meaning, it also helps you set next steps. Furthermore, it will give you the courage and determination to move past those bumps in the road known as fear and doubt.
When you are onto something big, fear shows up.
Boulé says that this is a good thing – it means you are stretching and growing. It means that you are going beyond what you’ve known so far. And the flip side of fear is excitement.
The unknown contains the seeds of potential. The most important thing to do with seeds if you want them to grow is to water them. Water them by focussing on how your vision can happen (rather than reasons why it can’t).
To get to your why, there is a great, simple exercise that will get you there, by Benjamin Hardy in 23 Smart Ways To Increase Your Confidence, Productivity, and Income. You can use this in any aspect of your life and work, when you need clarity, or to realign with your motivation.
1. Bring to mind what it is you want (or where you are looking to reinvigorate your motivation).
Then, ask yourself: ‘what is it about — that is important to me?’ He advises keeping it simple and putting down the first thing that comes to mind.
For example: What is it about creating my own business as a marketing and PR consultant that is important to me?
The answer might be something like this: to share my knowledge and experience with others.
2. Then put that into the question and ask:
What is it about sharing my knowledge and experience that is important to me?
The answer: to improve prospects and generate understanding/opportunities.
3. Then put that into the question and ask:
What is it about improving prospects and generating understanding/opportunities that are important to me?
The answer: we all win: professional achievements, business growth, personal accomplishment
What is it about all winning: professional achievements, business growth, personal accomplishment, that is important to me?
The answer: My client’s business and my business is thriving, my business is growing, I feel happy and excited by my responsibilities.
Keep going for 7 ‘what is it…’ questions. This is guaranteed to connect you with your whys.
It’s easy to think of basic motivations for doing what you do like paying the bills or increasing your chances of a promotion.
And although this is important, it’s not usually your main driver. By getting clear on your deeper motivation behind your vision means that you have the dedication, the reason to dig deep when times are tough, and a reason to get up when the alarm goes off.
“Our aspirations are our possibilities.”
– Dr Samuel Jackson
The global pandemic is a huge challenge but it can also be a big opportunity.
By getting clear on what you want, understanding the truth behind success, ditching procrastination, getting support and getting to your why will set you up to go from stress to success. With these steps, you are ready to make your business and life goals happen all while succeeding in mastering any change.
