Welcome back. What do you wish you could change? I'm sure there's something. Right? There's probably a list of quite a few things, and it's easy to say that you want to change all of these things, things that you want to be different or better. But when it actually comes down to it, you know what I know is true? We all wanna change, but none of us want to change. I was just telling a client of mine that earlier this week, and she cracked up. But it is true. We want the end result of what change will bring, but actually making the change can be hard or uncomfortable or scary. And because the work that it takes to actually change kinda sucks, to be honest.

 

We avoid it. We just absolutely avoid change. Meanwhile, if you change nothing, nothing changes. So if you do nothing, I'm curious, where will you be in a year? If you change nothing, if you do nothing different, where will you be in 1 year from now? I've had the pleasure of speaking with literally hundreds of women all around the world about their dreams. And I keep notes because it's inevitable that many of them will come back around and speak to me again. And I like to reflect back on the things that they said that they were struggling with and the goals that they had when we spoke before. I remember speaking to 1 woman about her dreams. She lived halfway around the globe from her family, and she had a young child.

 

She was staying home and hoped to start a business. She was doing some work, but it hadn't really taken off yet. She was afraid that she was going to have to go back to a 9 to 5. She was so far away from her family and was afraid that her young child would grow up not really getting to know her side of the family. And she had huge dreams. She didn't want to just stay home, she actually wanted to make an impact. She wanted to impact the lives of the women around her through her writing, and she had this dream of helping to edit books, but also write one of her very own. About a year after we initially spoke, our paths crossed online, and I checked in with her and said, how are things going? How's the book coming along? How's the launch of your programmed all of these things that she had talked about wanting to do.

 

And you know what? Her answer is what I fear most for the women that I speak with. She admitted that nothing had changed. Nothing had changed since we spoke a year earlier. There's so much that could have happened in that year for her business, for her book, but she had made no progress. Unfortunately, that's not really an uncommon story. It happens so often. And, again, it's one of my biggest fears for the women that I speak with. What I fear most is that they will not live the life that lights them up.

 

And that's why I'm so passionate about what I do. And in that process, in this journey, there are 5 steps that I've seen that will help women create a plan for that real and lasting change. And that's what I wanna share with you today, these 5 steps. The first step is to set a goal. And when I talk about a goal, I mean, just set 1 goal and start with the short term. Sure. We talk about vision and how you want life to look can be different, and that's incredible. But break it down.

 

Get really specific. What's one short term goal? Maybe in the next 30 to 90 days. Get really realistic and set that one specific goal so you can actually start taking action. It won't be so overwhelming. You can break it down, take a next step, and move forward. That way, you guarantee that something is happening. Some progress is happening towards this goal of yours. Number 2, determine the input that's required for the outcome that you want.

 

So there's a difference between input goals and outcome goals. And most likely, in step 1, you set an outcome goal, what you want to happen, what you want to accomplish, what you want to finish in that time frame. But most of our outcome goals are hard to grasp. They're hard to reach without breaking them down. And so I want you to look at the input that's required each day. What are the daily actions that you could take that will guarantee that you'll get to that outcome? When you break it down in this way and you focus on a list of things that you need to do each and every day, all of a sudden, it becomes more manageable. You see the potential, the possibility, and you're focused on taking the right actions versus wishing, waiting, and hoping for the right outcome. So let me give a couple of examples of this.

 

Let's say that you wanted to book in 3 new clients within the next 30 days. You can focus on that outcome goal and each and every day wake up and try something new to get there, or you can set an input goal. You can think strategically about what it's gonna take to get 3 clients booked in. Now if you work backwards in the sales process, depending on the price point of your program but let's say this is a high ticket client. If you know that you wanna book in 3 clients, how many calls do you need to book in? Maybe you need to book in 6 calls. Maybe you need to book in 12 calls. It depends on your conversion rate when you're on the phone speaking with people. But if you know that you only need to book in a certain number of calls, then you can start to break that down and give yourself an action list each and every day to get more calls booked in with potential clients.

 

And if every day that's what you focus on, speaking with more potential clients, then you'll start to see that you'll book in 3 or more calls per week, and you'll start to land those clients. Another example that's not business related at all but is so common for women it's a focus on health. And many of us might set an outcome goal. One such example would be to lose weight. But each and every day, that requires a different input. You can spend weeks thinking about your outcome goal, or you can show up every single day and do just a few things. If you just exercise and eat healthier each and every day, you'll see some results. You'll see that progress toward an outcome.

 

And instead of focusing on what's gonna happen 30 days, 90 days, or heaven forbid, a year from now, which doesn't give you any sense of urgency to take action at all, by the way. That's why I break it down to 30 days or 90 days. But if you're focused on that instead of what you need to do today, you'll be far less likely to take action. But on the flip side. If you know what you need to do each day, you'll be making that progress. You'll know what your input goals are, and you'll feel better because you're accomplishing your goals. Keep in mind that by setting input goals, those are goals that you have control over. They're actions that you can decide to do or not to.

 

You are in full control. If you eat better and exercise, you don't know exactly how much weight you will lose. There are so many variables, so you're not 100% able to control the exact number of pounds that you'll lose. On the other hand, you can control if you exercise for 20 minutes, if you get in a certain number of steps. And so you wanna focus on what you can control. Focused on the input goals that are required for the outcome that you want. Okay. Number 3, plan for roadblocks.

 

They're gonna happen, ladies, and so there's no reason to pretend that everything's gonna be perfect. Just magically, you're gonna set this goal and everything's gonna go great. We know that's not true. We wish that it were that easy, but we know that that's not true. It's not realistic. So I I want you to go ahead and think about what could go wrong. What could derail your progress? What has derailed your progress in the past? Make a list of those things and then planned for how you're going to handle them. Plan ahead of time.

 

You will be far better at overcoming obstacles when you've thought about them ahead of time and decided how you're going to respond. Let's say that you're in a place in your business where your time is spread thin, and you're really trying to protect your time and your energy to focus on the right things. If that's the case, then you may have some roadblocks pop up around other people's requests for your time. Let's say, someone asks you to be a guest expert, but it's in a group of people who aren't your ideal clients at all. And the time that it would take you to do that for free isn't worth it for your business. There's no return for you. If your time is spread thin and you know that that's a possibility, maybe that's happened before, and you felt bad and you wanted to help, but you really wish that you wouldn't have said yes, then think about what you could say ahead of time. How can you say no? What's the polite way to say no.

 

Is there another way that you can say yes so that you can help them accomplish whatever it is that they want without taking more time. Maybe they want your expertise, but instead of showing up live, you give them a recording of another talk that you've done. Or maybe you just turn them down politely and explain. But preparing that language ahead of time will help you. There's so many examples of this that can pop up. So think about all of the obstacles that you might face and exactly how you will respond. Additionally, if there are obstacles that could pop up but you may be able to prevent by setting expectations now, then go ahead and do that. Maybe some obstacles would pop up with clients or family or friends.

 

Go ahead and think through those now and have conversations. Set expectations so you prevent the obstacles before they ever become a problem. Number 4, connect for accountability. You want to enlist help on this journey. Change, again, as we said, is hard. You need help. Don't try to do this alone. And even more so, find the right person to help.

 

You need to find someone who there are 2 things. 1, someone who you're gonna listen to, and 2, someone who will actually give you some tough love. You may want to find an accountability partner and think, oh, my best friend would be great at this, but you're so used to her that she would actually struggle to give you the tough love that you need. Maybe you know that about her, that she's not gonna want to rub you the wrong way, and she's just gonna tell you what you wanna hear. She's not gonna be the best person for this specific role. Or maybe you'll find someone, and you've known them for a long time. And so you realize that you're not actually gonna take them seriously. You don't mind letting them down and not holding up to your promise because you're so close that you know that they're gonna love you anyway.

 

They'll forgive you anyway. You need to find someone who you will listen to and someone who will tell you like it is. You need someone who will give you that tough love. You may be able to find an accountability partner online, or you may want to hire someone. When you hire someone, that investment automatically ups the ante when it comes to your commitment level. You're going to take things more seriously when you seriously invest. So consider hiring someone for that accountability. It is a game changer.

 

Now 5th, you have to measure your progress. You can't manage what you don't measure. So just saying that you want to reach a goal at the end of 90 days and not keeping track along the way is a surefire bet that you're not gonna reach your goal. If you're gonna wait until 90 days and just see where you are, that's really not the best strategy. Right? It's best to have check ins at regular intervals to set some milestones. What do you want to accomplish by when? Break down this goal into even smaller pieces. Going back to the example earlier about booking in clients, we talked about how you need to decide what you want to do each day. But we also talked about some milestones.

 

We talked about that check-in of trying to hit at least 3 calls per week with someone that could be a potential client. That's an example of a milestone that you could measure that is a progress metric. So be sure to measure your progress along the way, not wait until the end to see how you did. So let's go back over those 5 steps really quickly. 1, set a goal, a short term realistic single goal. 2, determine the input that's required for the outcome that you want. 3, plan ahead for the roadblocks that are gonna come up. They're gonna come up, so be prepared.

 

4, connect for accountability. And be sure it's someone who's actually gonna tell you like it is and someone that you will listen to that may require investing. And number 5, measure progress along the way. Don't wait until the end. Alright, ladies. Now you're ready to create this plan for real and lasting change. Follow these 5 steps and make sure that you're taking the simple daily actions. When you do that, you will be amazed at the progress that you'll make, and you won't look back a year from now wondering where the time went.

 

So much can happen in the next year for you. So much can happen in the next 6 months, in the next 90 days, in the next 30 days. So set your goals and get started.