Recently, in my One Year From Now Workshop, we talked about the big goals we will set for next year.
I explained to the group how our primal brain (the least developed part of our brain) doesn't like big goals.
The primal brain's job is to keep us safe, alive, and lazy so leaving our comfort zones to pursue a big goal just doesn't fly. (The primal brain seems to have a Laziness Rule it doesn't want broken.)
So to keep us from reaching our big goals, the primal brain sends us thoughts and feelings of self-doubt (such as imposter syndrome, comparison, perfectionism, confusion, and procrastination) in its attempt to get us to stop working on our goals and return to our comfort cave.
And a lot of the time, it is successful. (Just think: How many of your new year's resolutions have you met in the past five years? 🤷♀️)
One of the self-doubt roadblocks that the primal brain uses when it comes to big goals is to tell us that what we want is IMPOSSIBLE. It will lead us to spin in confusion over what to do. It will try to convince us that we don't have the skills, experience, or stamina to make the goal a reality.
How do we deal with our over-protective brain and still meet our big goals?
🔥 We start taking action. 🔥
We do not allow ourselves to sit and spin in confusion over how seemingly 'impossible' we *think* something is.
Thoughts are not facts. Thoughts come from our years of conditioning, education, environment, biases, and experiences and as such, they are not universal truth -- they are just our truth.
So thinking that something is impossible doesn't mean it is impossible.
Instead, we consider the possibility that maybe we can do what we want to do and then we go to work creating results.
We take the first step toward our goal and we KEEP ON GOING.
Taking the first step will reveal the next step and so on.
There is nothing quite like taking action to bring about the results you want.
Don't let your thoughts convince you otherwise.
Jen Laffin is a Self-Doubt & Empowerment Coach for women, a master teacher, host of The Flight School Podcast, a possible thinker, and a recovering procrastinator. She teaches women how get the results their inner critic is telling them they can't so that they can do the things that they've been running away from. To learn more, visit www.jenlaffin.com, or find Jen on Linkedin and Instagram.