#101: An Impossible Goal for 2020

What is an Impossible Goal, why you might want to have one, and how to do it.

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Transcript:

Hello Lovelies and welcome to 2020!

It's the beginning of a new year. The beginning of the decade! Welcome to Episode 101, the first show of our third year!

I am so incredibly excited about what is in store for me and for you. I have such a clear and distinct sense that something is happening here.

See, something clicked for me recently. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the outgrowth of some challenging years, maybe it's the fresh new slate that is this new decade. Maybe it's the fact that this is my double-digit year…which I always consider to be extra powerful. I've always considered to be extra powerful…so yes! In just a few weeks I'll celebrate my birthday and turn 55.

Recently I was a guest Natha Campanelli's Star Narratives. And because Natha is a gifted interviewer my conversation reflected back to me that my natural tendency as a seeker and learner for the past many decades is now coming to a deeper fruition and that this year, which will be so powerful for so many of us, it's time for me to step much more fully into my role of teacher, advocate and guide. And when she reflected that to me in our conversation, it landed in my body in the deepest of ways…and so I know this to be true.

[for women over 50 who are fully embracing their power and stepping into this time of life artfully, with wisdom and understanding of what it feels like to hold it all.]

I've always loved the metaphor of Saturn Return which is that archetypal experience that happens to so many of us around the age of 30 when we often are compelled to turn our lives upside down in order to step into the next stage of our authentic adulthood.

What I didn't know before speaking with Natha is that there's another rite of passage represented in astrological charts called Chiron Return which happens sometime around the age of 50 which is the length of time it takes for Chiron to do a full orbit.

In astrology, Chiron is known as the wounded healer and it represents the possibility of transmuting our past traumas into our higher purpose where we can help influence or heal others based on our own experiences.

Natha described this period of life as stepping over the threshold into the role of the wise elder. Since our world hasn't historically given the credit and the honor it deserves and somehow in my conversation with Natha, I saw the possibility of really claiming this role more fully this year.

So I didn't really plan to talk so much about astrology but fun fact, I met Natha when she pitched me to be guest on the show and I initially said no because astrology wasn't a domain I particularly related to. She said just let me do your chart and you can decide. Well, I have to that I do love all systems for exploring and understand the self and her ability to relate my chart to my actual experience was super refreshing and engaging…I became a convert and I love the metaphors and archetypal understanding available to us through the symbols of astrology.

While we're going out on a limb into the woo woo, let's talk about numbers. I know nothing about numerology or angel numbers but there's some about the number 2020 that screams out I HAVE MEANING. A google search suggests that the angel number 2020 symbolizes huge potential and the encouragement to live your life with optimism and enthusiasm. Apparently in angel number 2020 means it's time to use your gifts and talents to better your world.

Ok, so this, this friends! This is the meaning of the year 2020 to me, for all of us! Seriously, this is the year when our pleasure leads to use our talents and our gifts and our Super Powers to have an altruistic impact. It is time for us all to make the world a better place for having had us in it. And for that reason, it's going to be a big, big year.

And I feel SO positioned to do this. I don't know exactly how it happened but somehow all of the personal growth work I've done over the course of about 35 years somehow converged this year and I now have such clarity about my willingness and commitment and my ability to be a model and to support you in making big, bold changes in your life. And I'm feeling called and committed to finding all the ways to support this, to step into my role of teacher, to create content to inform and inspire and to step up my time and energy to support you in doing the same.

With 2019 we let go of the old way of doing things…the places where we have become stuck and stagnant and comfortable and constricted.

While the last few years (let's call it 4 years) have been extremely challenging for me (I've talked about that on the show)…I've had to strip down a lot of what I thought I knew and who I thought I was, as is always the case when life happens like that, I grew in my resilience, my friendships deepened, and I've had to rebuild myself in some ways from the ground up. Because this is how it happens. This is how we rise up. Sometimes we're forced into in ways we didn't even know we'd chosen.

As I say that, it sounds a bit dramatic…and in many ways it was dramatic AND I mean, ultimately I have to be so grateful for my life, because even at it's most challenging it's a first-world life of gifts and privilege and it's humbling and sobering when I think of the realities faced by people all over the world who live in war-torn countries, who don't have enough to eat, or people right in my vicinity who are alone, who are hurt, who are disheartened, who are suffering in all the ways it's possible to suffer as a delicate human being. So while I digress, that is an important digression…remembering that really creates a kind of softness in me, a sort of heart-opening and a real compassion for our collective challenges.

And still, I don't want to undermine any challenges first world or other that you've faced in recent years. They are real and meaningful and I have no desire to undermine your experience if it's been a rough go.

But 2020 is our new beginning. It's the time I feel us collectively rising up from all that been challenging us and growing us in ways we might not have asked for. And I am feeling completely clear that whatever adversity has been yours in the past year or the past decade, has done its work on you.

Just as forged steel is stronger for having been heated and pounded and hammered you and I have been altered by the adversity we've faced. And now, 2020 is the time, the year we bring it all to fruition and harvest some of the seeds that have been planted, and dormant unknowingly being fertilized by the ash from the fire.

And I am personally so excited to go into this new and this new decade ready to support more of you than has been possible before in creating a massively switched on future for yourself and for all of those whose live you touch. It's the year for us to link arms, break out of boxes and rise up together.

One of the ways I'm personally kicking off this year is by identifying a Crazy Big goal. So let's talk a bit about this so can apply some of this energy and this thinking in a tangible way.

I want to talk about setting an Impossible Goal. I used to use the phrase Big Hairy Audacious Goal which comes from James Collins' Book Built to Last the idea of which was intended to change the nature of the way a company does business. The concept is that a BHAG should be a long-term goal, like 10 years long and it is big and bold and really make an exponential unprecedented impact or change.

So, enter the Impossible Goal which feels like an upgrade or a subtle shift but it feels nonetheless like a radical difference. I heard this term through Life Coach Brook Castillo who you will be hearing me talk about a lot this year because her teaching style really speaks to me as, like me she is a syngergizer of ideas and her concepts build on a lot of the learning I have done the past 35 years a lot of the work and teachings that I reference, and that have impacted and influenced me.

So, how is an Impossible Goal different. It's also big and bold but in some ways it's way more spacious. In some ways, by identifying up front as impossible we've taken removed some of the obstacles. Since we've already that it's impossible we don't need to trip ourselves up, or freak out because we don't know how to make it happen. We don't need quit at the first sign that maybe we aren't going to make it. Because we already know it's impossible.

One of the characteristics of a Big Impossible Goal that I love most is that you probably have no idea how to achieve it yet. If the YOU you are now knew how to achieve it you already would have done so and it wouldn't be impossible. But an Impossible Goal is by definition, something present day you has no idea how to do. No idea how to make it happen. Because it's impossible. So you're good. You don't need to quit or retract your plans or get discouraged when you realize you don't know how to make it happen. All you need to do is pick an Impossible Goal that you are excited to pursue. And then your job will be to do the work you need to do to become a person, your future Self who does know how to make it happen.

This concept of the Impossible Goal has been activate in me and inspired by a new teacher I've discovered recently who is a brilliant synergizer of so many of the great teachers that I've learned from in the past. Her name is Brook Castillo and you're going to be hearing me talk more about her in future episodes I suspect. Because I'm fan.

So, going forward I'll be sharing my learnings and my experience around creating my 2020 and learning to be a person who could achieve my impossible goal.

But for now, I want to give you a few tips for identifying your Big Hairy Impossible Goal.

First of all, simply do a brain dump without any limitations or self-editing. I used my Post-It Note Brainstorm technique which means I simply get out a stack of post-it notes but you can also:

Get out a piece of paper or open a computer document and do a braindump. Write down any goal that comes to mind. Doesn't matter how big or how crazy. Doesn't matter if no one has ever done it before. Notice how quickly your brain wants to limit itself by what's possible. Notice how when you try to go big, there's a habitual response that says “no, that's not realistic”. I want you thank that face in your head and thanks for your opinion, please go away for now. Do NOT censor yourself on the basis of realism. Go for that exciting, crazy outlandish impossibity. After all, right now all you're doing is writing it down.
Write down all of your goals on post-it notes. Consider income goals, big hopes, childhood dreams, relationship desires, goals you'd be 100% thrilled to achieve, goals you haven't even dared to consider. Put it all down, no matter how impossible it seems…remember that's the idea. Don't let the editor show up.
Organize those post-it by groups. Are there some goals which are actually possible strategies to reach another goal. Are there some that are similar. See what shows up by spending some time just moving those post-it notes around. I like to the big window in my living room but a table or the floor work just as well.

Does something jump out at you? Is there one goal you've said in more than one way? Is there an overarching vision that could be an umbrella for many of the other possible goals? Is there something there that just makes your heart sing? Or terrifies you..in the best of ways. That just might be it.

I would love to hear about your Impossible Goal. Please go on Super Power U Facebook and send a fast DM or send email to me to share a bit about it.

This year I'm committed to huge impact and massive contribution. In the coming weeks I'll be doing more solo shows then before (if have thoughts on that in either direction I'd love to hear about it if that sounds good to you or if you'd miss weekly interviews). I'll be talking about the metaskills and metacognition tactics necessary for taking on an Impossible Goal.

And to really launch in the direction of unexpected magic I know could be showing up in your life, I'm offering free 20 minute coaching sessions for January. You can use that time to explore what kind of Impossible Goal you might want to set yourself, or use the time to explore how to launch yourself into the year if you already know what that is. I want you to come with me on this journey because one thing I know for sure is that anything worth doing is better done together. And this is a great way for us to connect.

If you want to jump on to a call with me just go to lisabl.com/coaching and get yourself on my calendar.

I look forward to speaking with you and to supporting you this year.

As always, signing off with big love, sent out right to you. See you next week.