172: How to Turn Your Vision Into Action with WILD Goals

Hey, friends. Welcome back to the Time to Level Up podcast. How are you? What's happening at your house today? So this morning at 7:00 AM, I went over to the gym, and I had a super duper intense workout on a Monday morning. I'm going to be honest with you, I really wasn't super excited about it, but it was really good. It was really hard. He made me do froggers, like jumping. Have you ever done that? Bulgarian split squats, walked backwards on a StairMaster.

I mean, it was challenging, but in the end, like most things, I'm always glad I did it. I'm always glad I did it. I'm willing to not be so good at it. I really am willing to not be so good at it. At one point, he's like, "I'm going to have you do these froggers today because there's not many people here in the gym. So if you don't look so great, it won't matter." And I was like, "I don't care if I don't look great, and I don't care if I'm doing them with a full gym and I don't look so great. I'm willing to fail at it."

Which brings me to today's topic. In this segment from She Thinks Big Live, I talk about two things. I talk about, one, creating three WILD Goals. And if you have not listened to the episode on WILD Goals, go back and do that. Then I also talk about creating a list of 25 things you're willing to fail at. So I am willing to fail at froggers. I am willing to fail at speaking in front of audiences. I'm willing to fail in writing a book, right? I'm willing to fail in requesting a new oven, which is something I also did today.

Our oven, it's been installed now for one, two, three, four months, and it's a lemon. We're on, like, service call number six. I'm over it. So today I said, "I just want a new oven." I'm willing to fail at that. They may say no, but I'm willing to ask.

So as you listen to this, it's me giving you some information and teaching and talking about creating WILD Goals and 25 fails. It's also lots of audience participation where you can see what they're thinking about and see how crazy some of their ideas are and see how not so crazy some of their ideas are and how I push them a little. So sit back, buckle up, and listen in to this conversation about WILD Goals and 25 fails.

So this afternoon, we're going to get to what everybody has been waiting for: What do I do? Right? What do I do? So go back to, we are working on creating an extraordinary 2024, and now you're wondering, "What do I do? How do I turn these beliefs into action? How do I turn my vision into action?" I think creating an effective action plan is really kind of a foundational step in turning these dreams into tangible results. So we're going to kind of run this session like we did the last two. I'm going to give you a little bit of teaching things to think about. We're going to have some lovely ladies come up and share what they've been doing. They've been taking a lot of action, a lot of action.

So they're going to share with you what they've been doing. So I just wanted you, first of all, though, to really think about it is possible to turn your vision or your dream into action. It's not all out there in the world, like just floating out there as something that might be nice to have. You can transition. This is one of the things I love doing most. I do what I call a Vision-to-Action Intensive, where we talk about your vision and we turn it into action steps that are very specific. Some people in here have done that before, but there's a sheet on your table about that. If that is something you are interested in, let me know.

And on the other side of that sheet is, "Hey, I think I need that, but I might need more," fill that out and we'll chat after this. But here's kind of the plan. When we turn this vision into action, this is kind of just page one of this Vision-to-Action Intensive. I use this page to kind of document your vision, which means that you need to go back to your dream.

Okay.

This morning, what did you identify as your dream? Was that super hard? Did you even write anything down? Does it seem to make sense still? Because you have the option to revise it. I'm giving you permission to revise it. You have fully granted permission to revise it, but we need to have that in order to create the action steps. The action steps just shouldn't come out of as most say at 8:00 AM every morning. They should really be fueling your vision. So this is kind of that first page of vision to action. And then when we get to the second page and we start to put some here, I'll just give you a little sneak peek here.

Some action into play.

Okay?

This is kind of what we're doing this year, what we're doing this quarter. When we do that, I am all about SMARTER Goals.

Okay?

So there's SMART goals. There's SMARTER Goals. You guys have probably heard that term before. And I do think that we need to create true, actionable, practical, "What do I need to do?" kind of steps, and I love following this SMARTER framework so that things are Specific and Measurable and Actionable and Timebound and Exciting and Risky, too.

Okay?

Your goals do need to fit in. They need to be written in this way. And this is hard. If you've never done this before, it's hard.

Okay?

But who's done it and finds it, There's people in here that have done this. It actually helps give you direction. It truly gives you direction. I see some heads nodding, but I don't want to talk about that today. We can talk about a different day when we can really dive into details. What I want to talk about today are what I am calling WILD Goals.

Okay?

Now, I follow another coach named Jody Moore, kind of been following her for a while. She kind of talks about this in a different way. But this is where I came up with this idea that your goals need to be wild. Those SMARTER Goals,

Okay.

So the very precise SMARTER Goals, they need to be WILD. WILD is an acronym and I kind of gave you a teaser this morning that the W here is standing for you need to be willing to suck at it.

Okay?

Now, my mom would be appalled that I just said suck at it up on stage. So don't tell her. Okay? Don't tell her. But yes, I sound like my son who they say that stuff all the time, but you need to be willing to suck at it. I didn't know another way to say it, so there it is.

Okay.

This is really slightly different than failing at it. You need to be willing to fail, we're going to talk about that, too. But I kind of think like I like this way of thinking about it because, on one hand, part of failing is sucking at it. It's like part of failing, okay? But when you're willing to suck at it, it goes even a step beyond that, and it kind of means that you're trying to get to the goal, which you may not have gotten to yet, and that's okay, right? It's okay. You can keep trying.

It's the science experiment again. You can keep working at this over and over and as you're trying to get good at it and not suck at it, you're going to learn a lot of things along the way. You're going to learn a lot of things you're great at. You're going to learn a lot of things you're not so great at. You might even be terrible at them.

Okay?

I did not love the thought of putting video on social media. So if I go back and look at some of those very first videos I put on, they're kind of cringey.

Okay.

They're still a little cringey. They're not amazing. But it's like, "Okay, whatever. I'm willing to not be great at this and I'm going to do it anyway," okay? And I'm also willing, here's another thing, I'm willing for people to judge it. I'm willing for people to judge it. If you think I'm horrible at it, great.

You can even let me know. I'm okay with it.

Okay?

You can delete me or block me or do all the things. I don't give a shit.

Okay?

So I'm willing to suck at it. I'm willing to have people judge me. I mean, I don't know what they're going to think. I can't control what they're going to think. I'm not trying to be bad at it, but it's okay if I am bad at it, all right? I'm just willing to be bad at it. If I go try something and it doesn't work, that's okay. But if I feel like I've put the appropriate amount of effort in, kind of goes back to like, "Well, as long as you gave it your best try," okay, that kind of thinking.

Maybe even if those videos aren't amazing, I'm still helping people. Think about that, you guys. Maybe if it's not amazing, it's still helping people. Sometimes after I record a podcast, which I never listen back to, but sometimes after I record a podcast, I'm like, "Well, I probably should have said something this way." This is the kind of thing I think about in the middle of the night. I'm sure that helped someone anyway, even though I didn't say it the way I came up with 12 hours later, okay? So you've got to be willing to suck at it and really, all dreams will come true. I really believe this, if you're willing to set these WILD Goals and experience the failed actions or the sucking at it along the way, are you with me? Okay. So I have to say that today

Remember I told you I'm trying to lose my 15 pounds from my year of the house and year of the book, okay? But today, I'm not going to worry about what I'm eating. Just going to enjoy all of the delicious food. And that's okay. That's okay. I'm willing to fail today at following my plans.

Okay?

I'm willing to fail. It's okay. I'm still going to get there. All right? If you're someone that needs to make offers to help people do whatever they want to do, then you have to be willing to put 25 offers out there and get nos, right? Get nos, you have to be okay with that. Even if you've thought about it and planned out your grand scheme and you've got every step going on, you might not get any yeses. And you have to be willing to do that.

So what is failure? I always say there's no such thing. It's either winning or learning.

Okay.

Which kind of goes back to the sucking at it. You're either winning or you're learning something. So if you didn't get the new client or you didn't get the employee or the prospective employee to say yes and accept your offer, that's okay. And I'm going to continue to believe in my WILD Goal.

Okay?

I'm going to continue to be willing to kind of fail my way there. So think about that, failing your way there. All right? I always love to think, that's a really powerful image to me. Are you willing to keep failing till you get there? Because really, failure is kind of the currency of success. So when you think about "What are the actions I need to take?" I want you to think about the fact that it may not work out. And that's okay.

Because really, failure is an experience of a thought combined with a feeling. Okay, I'm going to say that again. Failure is really just an experience of a thought combined with a feeling because there is no such thing. Like, yes, you could get an F on a paper, but no one is in school here anymore. Is anyone writing papers to get grades? Maybe someone's in graduate school or something, but there's no such thing. You're not going to get an F. It's just your thought that that didn't go well, or "I could have done it differently." Okay? So when you're afraid that you won't win, when you're afraid that you won't win,

what happens? You probably don't even get on the field, right? You don't even get on the field. When you're afraid that you're not going to succeed. What happens? You don't even put yourself out there. You don't even create any results. Nothing happens. So what you end up doing is not producing anything. You're not producing learning, and you're certainly not producing a win. So nothing happens. Your rate that you're going to learn is going to be much, much higher if you insist or you are committed to being okay with failing.

Okay.

I was kind of like, "This is intriguing to me." I tried to play out this as I was doing this presentation. How do I want to talk about this? There's taking action that makes sense, and then there's taking action to create evidence. Our brains want us to take action that's going to prove something, that's going to get us somewhere, right? We want to tell ourselves, "Yes, I can do this," but is that always the right action? Is it always the right action? Flip that around in your head. If you're taking action to create evidence, then you're probably doing it wrong. You should just be taking action because it makes sense.

It's a step for you moving in the right direction. Okay. I've seen people set huge goals for themselves. Like, "I'm going to make $80,000 in a week."

Okay?

If they're a solopreneur, that would be a lot, right? "I'm going to lose five pounds in a week." That might be a lot, too. But they give up because they don't have the evidence. It doesn't happen. So they're like, "Well, forget that." They quickly just say, "No way Jose." But what they're saying is that I'll believe in my goal. I'll believe in creating $80,000 or those five pounds only if I actually start to do it instead of saying "I'm going to do it no matter what." What I'm suggesting is that you, in creating your goals for the year, in figuring out what actions you want to take that will fuel that bigger belief,

I want you to write those as if you're going to fail. Like you're willing to do that. You're willing to do that. Goes back to belief. Goes back to belief. If I'm willing to keep working towards this, and I know that I can do it, I am capable, I have the confidence, then you have to shift to your belief as the fuel to take the next action step, not looking for the evidence to take the next action step. So this kind of all goes back to belief.

And sometimes people get really confused by this.

Okay?

They set a big goal and then they expect the goal to just start manifesting and happening because they're in this belief space.

Okay.

You have to be believing, but you do have to be taking actions that make sense.

Okay?

Now, our results in the beginning are usually pretty dismal. They're not so great.

Okay.

And that's okay. And that's okay. I love this adding "And that's okay" onto anything. "So this didn't work, and that's okay." "I suck at this, and that's okay." "No one said yes, and that's okay."

"I didn't get the job. The person didn't say yes to me, and that's okay." This is really what failing forward is. This is failing forward. The actions you're taking now will move you forward even if your results aren't there yet.

Okay.

So if you've set yourself up, though, with action steps that are just too hard or too impossible, that's defeating too. So this is like a sweet spot here. There's a sweet spot where it's got to challenge you, but it can't be too challenging that you're paralyzed. If you're paralyzed, you have to go back to thinking, "What am I thinking and feeling?" There's a fine line. But I want you to think about this failing forward, because I think that, to me, is, like a great image to have in my head. Okay. This is going to bring me to I. All right.

So with I, this stands for Ignite and a little Impossible.

Okay.

Notice how this is sort of opposite of the very SMART Goal, which is Actionable and Relevant. Okay, so this is a little different. This is going to light you up. So when Kate was talking earlier, I was like, "What's going to get you excited? What do you want to do?" I want you to feel that excitement. I also want you to feel like it's a little impossible. You're not sure how it's going to go. Impossible means probably that you've never done it before.

Well, good, because if you did it before, you'd already be there.

Okay.

So anything that you've never done is impossible. Which brings me to L, which is Let it be easy. You're like, "Andrea, this is all over the place. What are you talking about?" Let it be easy. But I did bring my easy button.

"That was easy."

Okay.

Too many times when I'm coaching, you're all making it too hard. You're like coming up with so many hard things, then you're making it complicated and telling me, "But this has to happen, and then that has to happen," and then I break out my, "That was easy."

Okay.

I break out my button. Like, "How can we make this easy?" This doesn't have to be hard, people. It doesn't have to be hard. I will tell you, last week, another coach, she coaches in a totally different arena, we've podcast swapped, and I really respect her and we've had some conversations about how she does her mastermind and how I do mine. She reached out, she's like, "Hey, listen, in 2024, I want to be really intentional about relationships that I'm fostering. I think you and I could really collaborate on a bunch of things. And I have some clients to send you that are kind of done with me, that they need you."

"They need the mindset work. They need some different structure. They need you. Would you be willing to set up an affiliate referral program kind of thing?" This is all through Voxer, I love using Voxer. I just kind of was like, "I don't know, I don't know how I feel about this. This isn't how I operate." I don't want to be affiliates and referrals. I'm all about referring people, but not to have some formal agreement.

So I called my coach and I was like, "Hey, what do you think about this?" I was like, "I kind of said to her, I think I'm a no. This doesn't feel right." All of a sudden she's like, "Well, have you thought of it this way? Have you thought of it that way?" She's like, "Andrea, these clients want to work with you because this other person has vetted you and is telling them that they should work with you. This is easy. They understand coaching. They've already invested in themselves working with her, so that's not going to freak them out. Come on. Let this be easy." And I was like, "Okay, all right."

So it changed my whole perspective. So I Voxerred her back the next morning and I was like, "Yeah, I've thought about this. I'm in. Let's figure this out." She's like, "Okay, listen, I have someone that needs you today, right now. Can I do an intro email?"

Sure.

Intro email. I email back, "Hey, I'm happy to talk to you, new person. Just find a spot on my calendar." So this woman found a spot on my calendar about ten days from now, and she kept going back in and changing her appointment to like seven days from now, and then five days from now. Then it happened, it was like that next morning, she finally was like, "I'm just going to do this tomorrow morning." I talked to her for about, I don't know, 15 minutes, and she's in, right? So let it be easy. What am I doing? Right? I want to help people who want help.

She wants help. Let's go.

Okay.

So think about that. Let it be easy. It does not have to be complicated.

All right?

So if you're kind of thinking about things that are really hard, let's let it be easy. Then D, you ready? We're back for D fun. Are you having fun? If you are not having fun, if these goals don't sound fun and exciting, no. What is your reason for setting big goals? What's your reason for wanting to do what you want to do? What is your reason to go beyond anything you're currently doing? So people who are already successful out there, why would you want to keep going? I think one of the reasons is because you want to have fun with this. Let's see what happens. Let's give it a whirl.

Right?

Like, why not? Okay. So I said to this one on Voxer, I was like, "Let's give this a whirl for a couple of months. I don't know. I'm not sure, but I'm willing to give it a whirl. This might be fun." So let it be fun. That is key. That is key.

So you can either play the game and be in the game and be okay whether you're hitting home runs or singles or striking out. You know how your parents used to say, "Well, as long as you had fun, that's all I care about." It's kind of like the same thing. Are you having fun? Should we keep doing this? You've got to evaluate are you having fun? If you're not having fun, then it's a no. So I hope you will join me in setting some WILD Goals this year. Things that you're going to be willing to suck at, things that light you up, things that seem right now impossible, things that you could figure out a way or allow yourself to make it easy, and then some things that you're just doing because it's fun.

Okay.

And a lot of times as adults, we don't even know what fun is anymore. I don't know. Sometimes I struggle with that. But assess what is really fun for you, because what's the fun part? You're not chasing the goal, you're really chasing the feeling. How do you want to feel? How do you want to feel at the end of 2024? That's what you're after, which kind of gives you this fun piece to play into that feeling. Yes? All right, so we are going to hear from some of our people.

I'm going to tell you two more things, though, before we do that. Because when you're listening to them, I want you to think about something. I want you to think about how they all had, even though they didn't know it, they did have some version of WILD Goals. To them, they were WILD Goals, and then they were forced to kind of take some wild actions. Okay, so your goals for this year need to be a combo of WILD and SMARTER. Talk about dichotomy. They need to be WILD and they need to be SMARTER because you've got to kind of have that reason, that oomph to get up in the morning and to do it, whatever you're wanting to do, it has to be based off of your feelings, based off of your feeling and then aiming towards the feeling you want to create. Okay, so we're going to shift into action.

We're going to start identifying the next best steps after we hear from our lovely ladies.

Okay?

But I want you to think about that, too, as you're listening to them. What are my next best steps? They're going to rely heavily on belief because they're going to be a little impossible.

Okay.

They're going to be relying heavily on how you want to feel. If we can do that, we can really create a blueprint for what the next year will look like.

Okay, my friends, do you have three WILD Goals? Are you willing to share them with me? Because I would love to know. So share them in an Instagram direct message. I want to know. Do you have a friend who isn't willing to fail at anything, but maybe if you sent them this episode, they would realize that that's part of the game of getting anywhere, that you have to be willing to fail? What do you think? Would they be willing to do that? Send them this episode. If this is something that you want to keep getting better at, you want to keep getting better at failing, or as I like to say, at winning or learning, because there really is no such thing as failing. I learned when I fail, I learn. Right.

A lot of times when I'm requesting things like a new oven, I can get kind of testy. My husband says that I should learn by now that I should be nicer, but I don't know. I already kill him with kindness and then I switch into not so nice. So if I fail at this new oven, then maybe I do need to go back to the drawing board. I don't know. So send me your fails. Send me your WILD Goals. Share this with a friend, set up a call so we can discuss this.

Why not? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Then lastly, rate the podcast and write a review, as I've always been asking these last few episodes. If you haven't written a review for the book, I would love for you to do that, too. All right, my friends, until next time.

It's time to level up.

You've got all the tools. Let's do it. Let's do it. Get to work. Start failing. I love it. See you next time.