Bloom Your Mind

Ep 132: Turn Your Idea Into a Goal

• Marie McDonald

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Last week’s episode lifted the curtain on the five things that get in the way of people turning their ideas into real things. The top two reasons are hard core idea killers! We have a ready made solution for idea killer number one, and that solution is the Bloom Room. The idea killer is that people don’t have an accountability system to help them achieve their dream. Your success rate goes to 65% if you have an accountability partner, and that rate goes up to 95% if you meet with that accountability partner or group once a week and check in. Enter the Bloom Room! Just by joining and checking in once a week on your goal, you’ll be 95% more likely to make it real. 

But what about idea killer number two? The culprit is that we keep our ideas vague and undefined instead of making them trackable things that have to pass the rubric of our passion, our authentic desires and our values. They have to be ideas articulated as goals that we celebrate, calendar, and measure as we go. In today’s episode we’ll break down a new take on an old way of thinking about goals. 

In today’s episode you’ll learn: 

  • How to articulate your idea as a goal, break it into milestones and track it across a data proven period of time to increase your success. 
  • How to make the specifics of your goal sexy, and how to use visualization to get your brain working towards it in your sleep. 
  • How to make measurable standards so that you can manifest your idea, celebrating every success instead of comparing yourself to what you haven’t done yet. 
  • How to take the right aim to make something achievable by ensuring it’s in line with your values and what YOU want, and that it’s within your span of control. 
  • How to keep it real as we choose goals that are relevant to our most authentic selves, our true desires, and that reflect the reasons most important to us. 
  • How to use time whispering to make it fun, easy and to stay in the flow, instead of getting “bound up” by time. 

Mentioned in today’s episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

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We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Bloom your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's. Hello, everybody and welcome to episode 132 of the Bloom your Mind podcast.

Speaker 1:

Last episode we talked about idea killers the things that get in the way of people making their ideas into real things and I promised you that in this episode I would do a deep dive into one of the top two reasons that people don't make their ideas into real things. So we're going to take a kind of a new look at an old way of setting goals. That is one of the main things that helps people either achieve their goals and make their ideas real or not. So the top two are that they go it alone because they don't have a support system to keep them accountable. We talked last time about how you are 65% more likely to reach your goals, to make your ideas real, when you have accountability through another person, and that 65% skyrockets up to 95%. You are 95% more likely to achieve your goals when that accountability system, that person, that group, is one that you meet with every week and you have regular check-ins with. So that is the primary thing that we can do to make our ideas real. We already have the bloom room for that, or you might have another accountability system. So that's the answer there. And the second, most likely, is that they keep them vague. When we keep our ideas vague and kind of ethereal and this sort of foggy vision for what our idea is that we're trying to make real, instead of turning that idea into an actual goal measured in time and space that we can track, that's the second thing that is most likely to get in the way is when people don't do that, that gets in the way of them achieving their goal making their idea real. So we're going to get into that. But you know, I always like to tell you what's going on around here and in our house.

Speaker 1:

The summer bucket list has begun, and the first thing that was on the summer bucket list for my son was to watch a Star Wars movie, a specific one that he hasn't seen yet. So we decided to do a watch party the day after school got out, and it was a Star Wars movie. So we all dressed up in character as Jedi as well. My husband my six foot two husband was actually Chewbacca and my son was on solo, my daughter was a Jedi like a random Jedi, and I was Rey, a Jedi from the movie that we were watching, and we made Jedi soup in the kitchen, which is, you know, like lentil soup that I called Jedi soup, but I made it in character. And then we went and did a Jedi fire outside and ate our Jedi soup by the Jedi fire, and then we came in and put on our big projector screen and watched this movie and it was so fun, oh my gosh, and it was a couple.

Speaker 1:

The reason I wanted to share it here is because two things one, setting a whole bunch of ideas out like this as a group whether you're a family or roommates or whatever group that are things that you want to knock off and do, that are things for fun or experiences you want to have is just so delightful when everybody gets on board behind an idea that was generated by one person, by one person. And the second thing is that when you really get behind an idea and you just think what, if, how, can we make this an unforgettable experience, you can go so far with things and it was so easy to just make soup but call it Jedi soup, you know, and it was so easy to just pull things out of our closets that could make us look like Jedis. I have to say my husband already had a Wookiee outfit. That's harder to do, but it was really easy to do and now we will never forget it. And now we have a new tradition for the day after school gets out. Every year we're going to do a watch party. That is like thematic, because it's a way to kick off summer and make it really, really feel like summer right away.

Speaker 1:

We like to do this with all the seasons. We like to like, when it's fall, get into fall, start making fires, even though it's really hot here, or other things that make it feel like fall, changing out the diffusers for candles or whatever. And in winter and in spring the same thing. We really like to get behind the seasons and embrace our animal nature. So if you have something that you have, that's an idea that you want to make real with other people for something fun, just see how far you can take it to make it unforgettable, all right.

Speaker 1:

So let's dig into this new take on an old method of turning an idea into a goal. So, first of all, every 90 days in the bloom room. Each person in the bloom room who wants to which is, I think, all of them right now sets 90 day goals, because there is a lot of data to show that that period of time it makes a goal, something that you can focus in on in a way that's acute enough to really give it some energy and keep your motivation up and make it something that feels like you can accomplish it. But it's not so long that it feels like you lose your momentum and have a lot of breakdowns along the way. You can make a 90-day goal or three-month goal, part of a larger goal, which I do all the time, and that's a great thing to do.

Speaker 1:

But when we make it into this goal for 90 days, what we do is we turn the idea into a goal. So maybe the idea is just something we want to experience and or something we want to create or make, or something we want to change about ourselves or our lives or the world, and we take that idea and, after building a vision around what it would be like to have that vision true, that idea in the world, something that we're experiencing and living, and we have some meditations to work with, a subconscious mind to support that vision becoming real, that idea becoming real, then what we do is what we call turning the idea into a goal. So then we take the idea and state it in a specific way that is goal-oriented, where we say by this date I have done this and it's very, very specific, okay. Then that becomes our guiding vision for the next 30 days. If it's part of a larger goal, we can in advance set our 90 day goals for, for instance, for the entire year. If we have a large goal for the year, we can set those 90 day goals up in advance, or we can come up with each one along the way.

Speaker 1:

So that's how I like to make ideas into goals, and that's turning this big goal into something that has milestones. The milestones are each 90-day goals. Now, with a 90-day goal, we do the same thing. We set milestones for each month. So we break down a 90-day goal into three milestones, one that we want to accomplish at the end of each month, and in that way it makes it something that's very trackable and something we can measure along the way. How are we doing? Are we making progress? What are the action steps we have to take to get to each milestone.

Speaker 1:

It breaks down something that starts as nebulous and like inspiring, you know, in its nebulosity, but like vague vision and this motivating, you know, future vision, into something that we can actually break down into steps and make actionable and measurable. That way our community can keep us accountable to it. Without the pieces of that broken down, there's nothing to keep us accountable to. So we like to use all of these tools and I just want to talk about how these tools are all built on the concept of SMART goals. Are you rolling your eyes? Right now?

Speaker 1:

Smart goals have been around for so long and I wanted to take this fresh take on them because I think that sometimes, when we have a system that is old and tried and true, we kind of roll our eyes at it. We think yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that a million times. Well, I did some research into goals for us for this episode and smart goals are just as relevant as ever and I want to make a fresh take on them, to take each part of, break down, each part of the smart goal and tell you sort of my take on why it's so relevant to us as authentic human beings, putting our ideas that only we can because we are happening once ever in the history of the world. Right, the things that we can do and say and create are only possible because we are us and this is never going to happen again. So our authentic, once-happening-ever goals and ideas, those ideas are really more successful and more likely to be real as a true expression of ourselves in the world. That brings us into presence and joy, more freedom all of this freedom and expression when we make them SMART goals.

Speaker 1:

So the original SMART goal is an acronym for the words specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. So let's break down each one, talk about why they make sense, but have a little, you know, hot new take on them. So let's take the first one, which is specific. The reason that specific really works for us in our bloom world, in this world of making our authentic contribution to the world and making our lives the most incredible, authentic, real, joyful expressions of ourselves, is that making it specific makes it sexy. So you could just replace that S, that means specific, with the word sexy, if you want. The reason specific is so sexy is because it makes it something that we can visualize and experience and like we want to do that right with our goals. The first reason we want it to be this really specific goal. The thing that makes it so sexy is we can visualize it, which will make it much more likely that we will achieve it. So we know from all these different methodologies you know the Institute of the Future I've talked about that a lot before Olympic athletes. You know the Institute of the Future. I've talked about that a lot before Olympic athletes, hypnotists, all kinds of different ways, methods, worlds, kind of thought leaders that use visualization, talk about how effective it is.

Speaker 1:

In the bloom room we visualize our idea articulated as a goal with our five senses. We use a meditation that breaks down how to visualize actually being inside the goal once it's real, and using our five senses to experience it. What this does is it makes our brain think we already have done it. It makes our brain experience the goal as having happened already, which does a lot of things to us on a subconscious level. A lot of our different forms of bias kick in in a good way. We start recognizing opportunities that match that reality, because our brain thinks oh, this is real, so it's our job to make everything match. It thinks oh, this is real, so it's our job to make everything match it.

Speaker 1:

When we have a thought, when we have a belief, the brain goes to work, making sense of it by making it real, by selecting all the things that match it. So that bias, that cognitive bias that seeks out the things that match the idea in our head, goes to work as well. So we have this vision, we're experiencing it. I do it every single morning. Then our brain goes to work, looking at the world around us and actually recognizing the opportunities, the actions, the habits, the things we need to do and say that will match that reality coming true. We'll see opportunities that kick in that we can take hold of.

Speaker 1:

So making it specific makes it sexy and allows us to visualize exactly what we're trying to create. Making it specific also is sexy because it becomes really clear and much more doable. So, for example, if we say someone in the bloom room wanted to get more sleep, we are much less likely to accomplish something that's vague like that than if we articulate it as I want to get eight hours of sleep a night, which is where she ended up landing. It doesn't mean she has to perfectly achieve eight hours of sleep a night, but it does mean she has something to measure against. So that sexy specificity of eight hours of sleep helped her boost, over the course of two or three months, her sleep way up and she experienced incredible success because she was able to track every night how she was doing against her goal.

Speaker 1:

When we make it specific, we can write down that sexy goal on anything really. We can put it on our notes on our phone, we can put it on our calendar, we can write it on a sticky, we can write it on a piece of paper that we read every single day when we wake up. It allows us to experience our goal in a multisensory way. So instead of just thinking about it and visualizing it, we're also seeing it. We can also touch and hold it. It's appearing in front of us in a place where we're likely to see it every day, and that makes it more likely for us to do it All right. So that's the first one. That's sexy specificity. That's the first one. It's a smart goal.

Speaker 1:

The second one, that M, is about making it measurable, which I think helps us manifest it. When it's measurable, we can track the thing I talked about setting milestones for each goal. When it's measurable, we actually can measure our progress, almost like doing laps or having when you're on a hike and you see the trail markers and they tell you how far you've gone. We can not only measure, you know, the rest of the distance between us and our goal, which is not as helpful. We can measure how far we've come. So if we don't set a milestone, the only distance that is apparent to us is the distance between us and the end. That is not helpful. When we measure ourselves by the gap between ourselves and the ideal, we are much more likely to let our negativity bias in our brain kick in and we're just going to start to see all the lack everywhere, all the ways we're failing and all the lack.

Speaker 1:

When, instead, we break things down into milestones, two things happen. It's measurable in a way that allows us to manifest it piece by piece. This is what happens you achieve one milestone and then you experience some success which, literally, is scientifically proven to boost your confidence. Confidence compounds. I just read an article about this yesterday. Confidence is a product of confidence. When we experience one success, then we build that confidence and it's a loop that allows us to keep moving forward. So we want to give ourselves tiny steps so that we can feel that measurable manifestation of our goal in little increments, little bit at a time.

Speaker 1:

Now, the other thing is, time and time again I see people when they put onto their calendar which we talked about in the time whispering course, when you put into your calendar a block to, let's say, work on your trip plan, when we sit down at our computer to work on the trip plan, oftentimes people feel overwhelmed. They don't know when to start. When, instead, we break things down into real, measurable chunks, we can say on this day I'm going to find two hotels. Then when we sit down at our computer to do that work, we can jump right in. We don't feel overwhelmed, we feel like it's something that's doable. We can bite it off, we can chew it, we can take care of it, we can get it done off, we can chew it, we can take care of it, we can get it done and we don't have to waste time reprioritizing the entire project. That gives us that confidence boost and that confidence loop. So we're on our way and that's going to give us more confidence for the next step and the next step and the next step. So we want to make it measurable, which allows us to manifest our goal by breaking it down into milestones, by making each milestone measurable and by making the entire goal measurable so that we can work backward from it and we can really manifest it through having that sexy visualization and understanding exactly what it is that we're creating.

Speaker 1:

Step number three in the SMART goals is traditionally, making it achievable. I like to think of this as aiming right. We wanna aim correctly, so taking aim. What I mean by this is that we've heard me say before most likely a couple of things that we overestimate what we can do in the short term and we underestimate what we can do in the short term and we underestimate what we can do in the long term, and this happens again and again. So when we really focus on aiming in a way taking aim, making a goal that is achievable in the time that we are setting, we can be aware of our tendency as human beings to overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term. It allows us to take that into account and take it into account as we set our goal. We also making it achievable allows us to focus within our realm of control. So we want to make sure it's something that we can actually have control over. Whatever that achievable goal is, we're aiming at something that we can impact, that we can achieve, and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute.

Speaker 1:

What I really want to say with this idea of making it achievable and aiming correctly is that life always gets in the way, and this is one of the things that I talked about in the last podcast that a lot of times people get excited about a goal and forget to plug the goal into the life that they already have. It is okay to deprioritize things. It's great to deprioritize things that are not regenerative for us in our lives, or that are not regenerative for us in our lives or that are not as important for us as achieving our goal, and we also have to know that the unknown is going to happen. The life is going to continue to happen. Crisis will come up or just complication, or people will get sick. It doesn't mean I was just working with a client who said you know, I knew this was going to happen as soon as I started working towards my goal, and then we talked about the actual circumstance of what was happening and we realized something like what's happening now has always been happening. Her mind was just correlating it with when she's working on a goal. When she separated those things, she realized oh, I'm just not planning for life to continue to happen as I'm working on my goals, and we were able to see it in a really different light and set her up for success. So when we aim right, when we make something achievable, we're setting our goal up to happen in our life, with all of the other responsibilities that we can already see and with the ones that we'll get in the way that we can't see yet. So that is what we mean by aiming right and making something achievable.

Speaker 1:

Number four out of five in the SMART goal acronym is that R, and it usually stands for relevant. What I like to say is let's be real here. Let's be real First. Let's make sure it matters to you Like are we setting a goal because you think you're supposed to do it, because there's a lot of societal pressure, because you have low self-worth and you think that people will love you if you do this thing? Let's just catch ourselves, because we all have thoughts like that. Let's catch ourselves. If that's why we're doing something. That's not why we do things. We do them because we're passionate about them. They're an expression of ourselves. They're where our heart's deep longing meets the world's deep need. It's because it's what we want to do, not because it's what we're supposed to do, right? So let's be real. Let's make sure it matters to you and that it's authentic for you, and within that, let's make sure we know your why.

Speaker 1:

Once you find that why that's not about making other people happy, not about living up to some weird blueprint of you that lives who knows where in somebody's head, maybe only on your own Then what is the reason that you love? Is it because it feels like freedom? Is it because it feels like what you want to do? What is your why? Is it because you've always wanted to see this change in the world and you're all fired up to make it? What is your why?

Speaker 1:

When we're being real and we're choosing relevant goals, the relevance is that we understand why we're dedicating the resource of our time and energy to this goal. Because we're being real and, again, we want to make sure that it's within your realm of control and your realm of influence. You're not choosing a goal that's actually not something that's yours to do or create or control, that's outside of your control, that you don't have a lot of influence over. We want to make sure it's in line with your values, your pillars and your realm of control. So that's making it relevant and being real. And then our last letter is that T, and originally they call it time bound.

Speaker 1:

We like to use time whispering because it makes it way more fun. We don't want to bind ourselves up Ew, we want to be time whispers where we use the resource of time in a way that feels playful and good and wonderful. Time is the only resource we ever have. What we spend our energy and our attention on in this moment is all we ever have. There is nothing other than this moment. Right, we all know this.

Speaker 1:

So when we make it enjoyable by planning time to dedicate to this goal and we use time whispering skills to make it not stressful but make it wonderful, we use our time whispering skills to organize our calendar and our lists and our time so that they feel like a party, with our favorite guest list, with our favorite people doing our favorite things. The whole process of using 90 day goals and these cycles, plugging it into our calendar, tracking our progress, breaking it into chunks, planning into our calendar, by the result that we're going to create. With that time I'm going to have booked two hotels, not I'm going to work on my trip. We're planning it in chunks and we're planning it with results first. Then it feels so fun, we're time whispering, we're not all bound up in time, and there's a lot of important evidence to show that when we focus in on one thing at a time rather than five things at once, for instance, when we set one or two 90 day goals and I like to make one that's related to my work in the world professionally and one personal goal that's maybe related to relationships or health or something like that I like to have one of each every 90 days and we are so much more likely to compound our progress over time by accomplishing one goal after the next, after the next, after the next right, and after a year I've accomplished four goals in my professional and my personal life rather than stretching myself thin and for all five of them right and not doing any of them that well, I know I have had that experience.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if you have, but it's much less likely that we'll have that experience. If we make our goals smart, make them sexy, manifest them, aim right, be real and be a time whisperer. And if we strive towards achieving our goals, making our ideas into real things by articulating them as goals and doing it in the company of other people who are keeping us accountable, that's the new take. It's sexy, we're manifesting, we're aiming right, we're being real and we're time whispering.

Speaker 1:

All that stuff makes our ideas real and that's the world I want to be in, the one where I'm just rolling around in all the ideas that started out as glimmering glimmers of possibility in my mind and now are just the life that I'm walking around in. That's what I've got for you today. If you want to talk more about this, if you want some help making your ideas into real things, you got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. I'll see you in the Bloom Room.