The second habit in the book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to begin with the end in mind.

Having the end in mind gives you something to work towards and allows you to recognize what you want when you see it. It helps you to stay focused and avoid getting sidetracked with distractions. 

If your efforts are not directed at a purpose, how will you know what to do every day?

This is important: Beginning with the end in mind is certainly not a guarantee that you will succeed at reaching your goal - but without it, you are almost always guaranteed to fail!

When you take the time to be really clear on your goals and practice managing your mind, any task (including losing weight) becomes so much easier.

Part 1: Big Goals

What is your big, "ideal situation" goal?

Think about something that seems impossible.

Maybe it seems impossible because you have failed in the past or because you just don’t know what steps to take in order to reach it.

If you know exactly how to reach your goals, you aren’t making big enough goals.

If you do NOT know how you will achieve your goal yet, it means it is scary - and the unknown scares us more than anything!

The brain is wired to keep us safe.

It’s wired to believe and work off the many stories that we’ve told ourselves growing up and over the years.

So, first things first, if it’s a big goal that is worth achieving, it is also going to require some failure.

All great successes are built on a pile of failures.

Every winning football team has fumbles...

You don’t just not show up to the game because you are going to have a few fumbles, right?

Playing it safe means you are working from a place of what you think is possible usually based upon goals that you have already achieved in the past.

So you create your future based on your past.

When we start to rewire and think differently.... things start to change.

The work that you do in this course is all about creating the vision, doing the work, and enjoying the excitement that comes from thinking in a bigger way than you are used to.

If we want our life to look different than it is now, we must make big, scary, impossible goals.

Part 2: Visualization

Think about when you go to buy a car. You find the perfect car in the perfect color and you think that it’s very unique, nobody out there has a color and a car like that. You certainly don’t recall seeing any of these on the road before. And then as you’re driving home, you see the exact same color and exact same model as the car you have. You now see more and more of these cars in your life because your brain is now wired to think about and look for these cars.

Your brain has been rewired to look for that car and now you see it everywhere.

That is how it is when we visualize our success. We see ourselves living that way and identify as that person.

This gives you a destination to head towards and allows you to recognize what you want when you see it. 

When you visualize your success, AMAZING things start to happen.

Instead of creating goals with an end result, think about creating goals based on WHO you want to become.

So, if you want to set a goal to lose a certain amount of weight, maybe you would say:  “I will be a healthy weight so that I have energy and self-love to be fully present and happy around my family. I am role model for my children. I am happy, content, and loving.”

Or let’s say you want to set a goal to run a marathon, your goal is “to be a marathoner who respects the training and fuels my body with proper food, rest, and recovery.”

Then think about how you would BEHAVE when you reach your goal.

Example: “I would wake up earlier because I would have more energy and eat breakfast with my kids before school. I would meal prep on Sundays so I ate healthy during the week and didn’t reach for junk when tired or stressed. I would cook healthy meals for dinner and we would sit down as a family to eat them together,  I would go for weekend walks with my husband and enjoy him more. I would stop hating what I see in the mirror and love me for who I am - perfectly imperfect!”

And finally, think about how you would FEEL when you reach your goal

Example: I would feel confident in who I am. I feel like a good mom and wife who is a positive role model for her family. I would feel happy and excited for life.

Sometimes we picture success and want it so bad but we never stop to think about how it would make us feel!

This takes the focus away from the very end result and allows you to identify as that person (who you already are) and live in a way that aligns with who you want to be.

Because, guess what - whether you reach your big goal or not, you can start feeling and acting like the person you want to become NOW.

Downloads

• Goals worksheet
• Vision worksheet

Lesson Activity

Write in your journal or use the Goal + Vision Worksheet to help you work through these three steps.

Step 1

Write down your big, "ideal situation" goal.

Step 2

Rephrase that goal to describe who you will be and how you will feel as that person. 

Step 3

Think about what your day looks like as the active and confident version of you… how would you behave, how would you feel?