E35: When Your Actions Don’t Match Your Goals

EPISODE 35

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] AW: You’re listening to The Transcend Podcast. I’m your host, Asha Wilkerson, an attorney by training and an educator at heart. This podcast is all about empowering you to build a business and leave a legacy. Here’s the thing, the wealth gap in America is consistently increasing. While full-time entrepreneurship is not for everyone, even a side hustle can change your financial landscape if you are intentional about using your business to build wealth.

I’ve run my own law firm for over 10 years. In that time, I’ve helped countless California businesses go from idea to six figures. On this podcast, we talk about what it truly takes to build a sustainable business and find financial freedom. Let’s dive in!

[EPISODE]

[00:00:44] AW: Welcome back to another episode of Transcend the Podcast. As usual, I am so excited that you are here listening with me today. Today, I’m just going to jump right into it. I’m going to talk to you about what happens when your actions don’t match your goals. What does that even look like? If you’re like me, which I’m assuming you’re probably similar, since you’re listening to this podcast, you are a goal setter. If you’re like me, traditionally, beginning of the year, I set a bunch of goals, a whole bunch of goals. Then about six months later, I go through the process all over again, and I look back and I’m like, “Dang, some of them, I get a lot of them, I get, and some of them, I don’t.”

I started actually looking at the goals that I wasn’t hitting and thinking about whether or not I did the work to actually make that goal come true. One of the things that I’m presently dealing with just in life outside of business, is gut health issues. I have taken a break from working out, because meeting with my health coach and my gut health specialist, I think my body just needed a break. I had so much stress going on, so much cortisol in my body. Although working out is obviously very healthy, it also produces stress in the body. I took a break, which was a really hard mental shift for me.

Now I’m looking in the mirror and I’m like, “All right, Asha, time to get back to it.” I want to be this this healthy person. Then I realized, I’m saying I want to be this healthy person, but I’ll tell you, I just had tortilla chips for lunch, right? That action doesn’t actually match up with my goal of wanting to be this really healthy person. Now, that’s just one example.

I’ll tell you what I haven’t done, since it is February, early February and I’m sitting in Portland, Oregon. If you’re watching this, you can see my lovely M&M machine behind me from my middle school and high school days. Part of being healthy that is not stress-inducing is also just going for walks. Let me tell you, your girl is cold. I am so cold out here in Portland. I’m freezing all day. My fingertips are cold, my nose is cold, even though I’m in the house, under blankets, all kinds of stuff.

I have to actually realize that my lack of action, literally lack of walking, is not supporting my goal of being this healthier person that I want to be. I think, same stuff in business, right? I want to make sure that I sell X number of memberships in my business community. I’m saying it. I’m giving lip service to what I want my goal to be, but am I actually taking the steps to make the sales that I need to make?

What about, I want to get more exposure for this podcast, or I want to invite more members into the community in terms of just following on Instagram and invite more people to that digital community, that internet community. Am I actually doing the things that are going to get me to those goals that I want? Whether you’re thinking about launching your business, starting to invest in the stock market, buying a house; we probably all want real estate of some type, whether it’s our primary residence or a rental property, are you, am I, are we actually taking the steps and the actions that align with our goals?

Chances are, there are some areas where your actions don’t match your goals. What’s happening? In your brain, this is called cognitive dissonance, where your thoughts and your actions aren’t aligning. Why does this happen? If we’re able to articulate these goals, how come our brains and our bodies just aren’t falling in line with what our goals are? Well, what I have learned in my neurocoaching certification is that it’s just like affirmations, too. If you don’t believe in what it is that you were working towards, then your brain, on the subconscious level, is not going to allow you to work towards that goal.

If I say that I want, I don’t know, national exposure for this podcast, but I don’t believe that national exposure is really possible for me, my little old podcast, then I’m subconsciously going to stop myself from taking the actions and the steps that would actually lead to national exposure. It doesn’t just happen because I’ve said that it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen because I put myself in the position to be discovered or seen nationally. What might that look like if we’re talking about this podcast getting national exposure? That might mean creating press releases. That might mean reaching out to other people who can interview me on their podcast who have a national following. That might mean reaching out to whoever makes a list of the top 10 business podcasts to listen to, for XYZ group. I could reach out to them. I could do all of these things, to help me get to my goal of receiving national exposure. The only way that I am going to do that is if I truly believe that receiving national exposure is a possibility for me.

Let’s take another example. If you want to, buy property. A lot of us have a big block about what it takes to actually qualify for the property, have enough money for the property, what the process looks like to be able to buy. If you’re not sure in your mind, or if you’re not even thinking that it’s a possibility to be a reality for your situation, then you aren’t going to do the steps, like making sure you save a little bit of money each month towards a down payment, making sure that your credit score is in a good place, you can qualify for a loan with a low interest rate, reaching out to the people who can help you find a property that’s going to meet your needs.

You’re not going to take the steps that are going to put you in the position to get to what your goal is, because deep down inside, somewhere, you don’t believe that it’s actually a possibility. That’s what’s happening. If you’re not reaching your goals, if your actions aren’t aligning with your goals, I can guarantee you it’s because, on some subconscious level, you don’t actually believe that what you want is a possibility.

How do we fix this? We need to get to the root of that inconsistent thought. If I’m trying to get national exposure for my podcast, and I’m not taking any action to support that, first of all, I think your actions are a more clear indicator of what you believe than what your thoughts are, than the words that come out of your mouth, right? If I want to be on this – have this national exposure for my podcast, but I’m not doing the work, I need to get quiet and ask myself, “What is it? Why am I not taking the action? Why am I not taking that step that’s going to get me to my goal? How come I haven’t reached out to a publicist? How come I haven’t pitched my podcast to Business Insider Magazine? How come I haven’t done whatever steps that I could take to let people know that I had this podcast on the national level? Well, is it because I’m afraid to be seen? Is it because I stutter during my – or say lots of ‘um’s during my podcast and I don’t think that’s professional? Is it because I don’t think that I’m good enough? Is it because, whatever?”

Whatever it is, I want you to figure out. Just pick one thing. Pick one area where you set a goal for yourself and where you feel you’re not making the progress that you want. Just ask yourself, why aren’t you taking the steps that you need to take to get it done? What is that discomfort? What is that fear that you have? What is standing in your way? What is that mental block that you have? It might not be obvious. I want you to keep asking yourself why? What’s next? What about this?

I want you to go deeper, because it’s probably not going to come up on the first round of questioning for you. You need to ask a couple more layers and really get down to the root of what is that belief that is holding you back? I don’t think that I’m good enough to be on a national level. Or, I am so afraid that someone is going to think that I’m a fraud, if I’m discovered nationally, or whatever it is for you, right? I’m afraid to start my business because what if I fail? Then ask yourself, what would failure mean? What are you making that mean for you, if you are discovered as a fraud, right?

Really, unless you’re truly actually being fraudulent, you’re not going to be discovered as a fraud. Really, the question for me then would be, or my example would be, if I think that someone might think that I’m a fraud, well, why would I even think that? Because I’m not confident in what I’m saying. Well, why am I not confident in what I’m saying? Because, I don’t know, no one looks like me in this space. Well, what does that mean about me that I’m the only one who looks like me in this space? Then go deeper and deeper and deeper.

Turn those questions around into ones that that are right and work for you. I really want you to uncover that root thought, that root belief that is really keeping you stuck and holding you in place, that’s keeping you from taking the action that you want. I want you to write it down for yourself in a journal, or on a piece of paper, in the words that your brain is speaking to you. It’s important that you use the words that it actually comes up in in your brain. If it’s like, “Asha, you’ll never be good enough.“ If that’s what my brain is telling me, “You’ll never be good enough. You’re too loud. You’re too wild. You’re just too uncool.” Then I need to write that down exactly as my brain is telling me. “You’re too loud. You’re too wild. You’re too uncool.”

Don’t restate it. Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t make it prettier. Write it down exactly as you hear those words in your brain. Then, what I want you to do is I want you to write down in the other column, all of the evidence that makes this thought untrue. Because thoughts are the things that are going to dictate the actions that we take. If you’re not taking the action that you want to take, if you’re not taking the action that you’ve said is a part of your goal, it’s because deep down, somewhere, there’s a thought that is unaligned with the action that you want to take. I want you to really work on rewiring that thought. I want you to dismantle, disprove that unhelpful thought, by providing evidence in your life that this thought is untrue.

Well, actually, I do know what I’m talking about. Not only am I formally educated in the subject matter of business and legal, but I also have 10-plus years of experience. I’ve also read a number of books. I’ve also counseled a number of business owners. I actually do have the experience and the knowledge. I have been useful and will continue to be useful to people who may listen to this podcast on a national level. Then, how you rewire that thought is I want you to replay the evidence over and over and over again.

That means that you can make a recording, or you can write it in your journal repeatedly, repeatedly, daily, for about two and a half months, this new thought, this new rewiring, the opposite of what that original negative thought was. All the evidence to the contrary of that original negative thought. I want you to play it over and over and over for yourself, until you have rewired this new positive thought that tells you that you can do it, that is supportive of that goal that you want.

This is some of the reprogramming that I’ve learned in my neurocoaching certification and it’s definitely something I can help walk you through if you are interested. I promise you that if you are feeling upset, feeling bothered, feeling this dissonance between what you say that you want and the actions that you’re actually taking to get what you want, then it all boils down to one or a few thoughts about what you can and cannot do.

Once you get to those underlying thoughts, those negative thoughts that aren’t supporting you, then I promise you, once you rewire those, your world will start to open back up. It’s not to say that you’ll never have a negative thought again, because that’s not true. Each new level of success brings a new level of something that our brains have to conquer again. You are completely normal if you’re feeling you’re stuck in place and you’re wanting to take action, but you’re just not able to do it.

This is a lot of the stuff that we talk about in our Transcend the Business Membership Community. If you are interested in working through some things like this, or joining a community of like-minded Black and Latinx entrepreneurs, then I want you to visit transcendthemembership.com and check it out.

All right, if you have more questions, find me on Instagram, @AshaWilkersonESQ. Leave me a message under the posts for this podcast episode, and I will be sure to get right back to you. I hope that that was helpful for you. Don’t forget, that when your actions don’t match your goals, your task is to get to the underlying thought that is actually holding your yourself back. Give yourself some space and some grace to dig in and to grow. I promise you that you’ll be happy with the results that you achieve.

All right. Ciao, ciao. Talk to you soon.

[END]