StevePavlina.com Podcast #018 - Faster Goal Achievement (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

StevePavlina.com Podcast #018 - Faster Goal Achievement

[Token]

Well, I've listened to the record and now I'm very interested what side effects should be introduced to my life to shift identity. My goal is to start an entartaining on-line business. So I'm stuck a little. I've never started or owned anything like that and that's why I can't figure out how it feels or maybe what physical side effects it has.
So it would be great if someone tells me what changes in thoughts, feelings or physical component he has after starting some kind of (but not very complex one) on-line business.

[Savage]

Start with the simplest, easiest, most obvious changes. Once you complete those, you'll get plenty of ideas for what to do next.

When I switched from game dev to PD for my primary career, I cleared the game programming books off my bookshelf and filled the shelves with PD books. I canceled my gaming industry magazine subscriptions. I deleted my web browser bookmarks to gaming sites and replaced them with a few PD links.

I kept looking around my life and asked, "What do I see that's incongruent with being a PD professional?" Then I replaced it with something congruent. It was actually a lot of fun. I felt like I was trying to cover up a crime scene by destroying the evidence and planting new evidence. The new evidence reinforced the new identity and kept me looking forward instead of backwards. Obviously it worked.

There's an old article on this concept here about how to use your environment to create these identity shifts:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...of-your-goals/

As I continue to progress with the MDE, I keep asking, "What do I see that's incongruent with being a millionaire?" I still see a lot of changes I need to make in this area, but one by one they're getting done.

[Athena]

very cool podcast! this also fits with the 'smile first and then you'll be happy' psychological principle.

horray!

[johnp]

Hi!

Very interesting podcast, and I believe it will work. I started thinking about some side-effects after losing 20 pounds, but nothing came to mind.
Any suggestions anyone?

John

[KeithHandy]

I think one of the tricky things is, when we ask ourselves "how will I feel when I have/achieve ____?", we're likely to immediately think "happier, of course", without really thinking through all the details.

That's why it becomes easier, for example, to get into a relationship when you are conscious that it won't solve all of your problems, and that there will be some work involved, sacrifices, etc. -- because then you're really thinking like someone who knows what a relationship is like.

[helgi]

Although I haven't yet been able to do it with consistency, feeling as or acting as if I were financially independent makes me much more open to financial opportunities. There's an immediate shift, almost as if I've been hoisted up onto a playing field I've always felt that I don't belong at. But this only lasts for a half an hour or so, usually -- maybe thinking about the side effects will help with the consistency (start worrying about capital gains tax, perhaps)

Another effect I notice is that I feel much more generous and more willing to help others (in every way, not just financially.) So this is actually very relevant to being a better person in the present moment, independent of the goal being achieved or not.

btw., I recommend The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley -- both are a down to earth and glamourless look at the wealthy, lots of talk about frugality and the habits of millionaires in various situations (shopping for shoes, etc.)

[Savage]

I find it best to work on the environmental changes first vs. trying to make an identity change by remembering to think about it: changing books on your bookshelf, changing what you carry in your wallet, changing web bookmarks, etc. Then every day you'll see something that reinforces the new identity, whether or not you consciously think about it.

[Khristine]

I've listened to this podcast and found it to have great info that I really hadn't thought of before.

I understood about becoming a vibrational match to whatever it was that I was trying to do. And before listening to the podcast I was doing "ok" with the manifestations. But nothing more than I was use to, only a little faster in the manifesting.

This has helped me to see how I am looking at money in a different light. And will be making some changes accordingly

Thanks Steve!

[kljsadfhklj]

What if the goal is not about yourself only?

I guess it involves some subjective reality work.. How do you do it if besides adjusting yourself to a goal you also have to adjust someone else?

Like your business' co-worker. Or that girl you fell in love the first time you saw. Or your poker opponent mind's when your would-be flush turns into a pair of two's.

[johnp]

FYI
I tried a great side-effect of losing weight: do all movements a bit faster than normal: walk faster, put on your shoes faster, do the dishes faster etc.
It's a side-effect with side-effect: you'll feel much better as well
When I entered the office this morning, people asked me what had changed, not noticing I moved a bit quiter :-)

[Patricia]

I loved this podcast, Steve! I was nodding here at different points, at things I could already relate to from personal experience (coincidentally mainly regarding money and weight loss) and also at things I've been trying to make sense of and hadn't yet come to a full understanding. I got almost all the answers I was looking for in this podcast. This identity shift concept is simple to understand, yet it's incredibly powerful and it makes ALL the difference!

Originally Posted by kljsadfhklj

What if the goal is not about yourself only?

I guess it involves some subjective reality work.. How do you do it if besides adjusting yourself to a goal you also have to adjust someone else?

Like your business' co-worker. Or that girl you fell in love the first time you saw. Or your poker opponent mind's when your would-be flush turns into a pair of two's.

I asked myself the same question, when applied to objective reality. I'll give this some more thought. I guess with the LoA in mind, you'd attract the right circumstances, maybe your co-worker would be transferred to a different department and the person that comes to be in his/her place would be more in tune with the goal you have in mind, but still I think there are situations in which a specific person is part of the goal itself, there is no goal to begin with without that specific person being part of it, so I don't have an answer to that one just yet. Steve, any insights?

Thanks for the podcast, two thumbs up!

[Savage]

If you want to change someone else, it means you need to make a corresponding change in yourself to be able to influence the other person.

Focus on the internal change, such as becoming more compassionate, a better listener, more assertive, less fearful of helping others, less attached to others' results, more inspiring, a better example, etc.

What kind of person would you have to become to help this person? What kind of person would have already done it by now?

[Patricia]

That makes sense, thanks Steve. I think this solution can be applied to a number of situations I had in mind with this example - and I particularly like the quote "What kind of person would have already done it by now?". However, in the objective reality model, you might still not be able to reach a goal if it highly depends on someone else changing their mind or attitude, even if you make an identity switch and become the kind of person who would be able to help or influence the other person. But, well, this is just a very specific situation and I think the overall concept is powerful, I don't want to discuss the one exception I could find, when we could be discussing how to benefit from this in so many other situations where the concept works wonderfully. Thanks for answering, though, Steve.

[kljsadfhklj]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

What kind of person would you have to become to help this person? What kind of person would have already done it by now?

Originally Posted by Patricia

in the objective reality model, you might still not be able to reach a goal if it highly depends on someone else changing their mind or attitude, even if you make an identity switch and become the kind of person who would be able to help or influence the other person.

That's exactly what I mean.

(I'll talk more when I'm back from class.. a bit out of time now.)

[JJP]

That fitness example in this podcast really hit home well. "I am" definitely one of those persons who is very athletic and into fitness, and if I were to wake up one morning stuck in the body of a fat guy... I would definitely FREAK OUT a little bit at first, but then I would be totally confident that my "fitness consciousness" would smoothly carry me into physical fitness over time, simply because, inside of my mind, healthy and fit is my very real vision of my physical body... period. Having already done it, I know exactly what it looks like, what it feels like, and what it takes to get there. All of my actions would automatically tie back to that physically fit self-image.

So this podcast makes sense to me... instead of being "the fat guy" financially, socially, etc. I should start building my identity as the rich guy, the cool guy, or whatever else I want to be, and start closing the gap in all the ways Steve mentions.

This is a lot of stuff to play with! And very, very exciting! Thanks Steve!

[alexb5784]

I listened to the podcast three times before I went into MS Word and started to journal. I thought about all my goals and asked myself what the side effects would be. Then I spent all day asking myself "What would the me who has achieved *certain goal* do?"

The result? I've gotten a lot of stuff done today and have been in constant states of flow. Has it been easy? Not at all, because I've had to go against old work habits. But it sure has been fun. It's worth the challenge. And I've worked on the activites that will lead to the results I want

I'm committed to this new way of thinking for the next 30 days. I'm not going say "Oh I'll try it" or whatever. I'm doing it. Period. I love the results and I love the process of getting over the resistance.

[Warping]

Once again, great podcast Steve. Food for thought.

Originally Posted by johnp

FYI
I tried a great side-effect of losing weight: do all movements a bit faster than normal: walk faster, put on your shoes faster, do the dishes faster etc.
It's a side-effect with side-effect: you'll feel much better as well
When I entered the office this morning, people asked me what had changed, not noticing I moved a bit quiter :-)

johnp: This is a really good idea. After I set my primary focus on health and losing weight this year, I started doing this too, but unconsciously. But at best, it has been only random and inconsistent. Now that you've mentioned it, I can start doing this consciously and much more often.

I've started a thread called 'Side Effects of Losing Weight' where we can brainstorm possible side effects.

Have fun!

[borisg]

when you mentioned the part about worrying that $200 or other amount is not enough" in your wallet. Are you not beginning to resonate with lack? or not enough? and does this not have the affect of not attracting abundance?

[Savage]

Originally Posted by borisg

when you mentioned the part about worrying that $200 or other amount is not enough" in your wallet. Are you not beginning to resonate with lack? or not enough? and does this not have the affect of not attracting abundance?

I see it as a matter of raising my standards. If I was a millionaire and only had $50 in my wallet, it wouldn't feel right to me. Ask a millionaire if $50 is a lot of money. $50 is nothing -- it's a piece of paper.

The issue for me was getting comfortable with carrying more cash and having more money in the bank. At first it felt uncomfortable to carry $200 all the time. It's not that having "only" $200 makes me feel broke -- it's more of an internal signal that I need to go to the ATM. It's just like if your car is getting low on fuel and you need to refill the tank.

Think about how you feel about a $1 bill. Get yourself to feel the same way about $100 bill, and you'll get a sense of what it would be like to have 100x as much money.

I learned that I'm able to earn and keep an amount of money I feel comfortable with. A year ago $100,000 seemed like a lot of money to have in cash. Now it feels normal to have that much. $1 million still feels like a very large sum, so I know that in order to get there, I have to reach the point where I can think of it as normal.

[Bing Wu]

Steve, this was a great podcast. Basically, I sense that you're saying "BE what it is you want to be, and you'll get there." And I can think of an example similar to your weight example. I get pretty good grades in school, but most of my friends don't. They think that I'm super smart or that I don't have a life and study all the time, neither of which is true (at least I don't think so). The fact is, I attract good grades by being the kind of person I am. The exact characteristics I can't quite put a finger on, but it comes with a lot of confidence, which feeds my competence, providing further feedback to my confidence. And if I suddenly switched spots with a friend who was getting B's and C's, I'd shriek, and immediately set the course to get A's and A+'s. Like you say, it would be hard work (it's not like I do nothing), but wouldn't involve venturing into uncharted territory or fighting balrogs. The actions would come swiftly and naturally, and there'd be no stress. I would take action very matter-of-factly because I know exactly what I need to do. And yet, getting good grades isn't exactly so fine a science that there's a set formula that everyone can follow and replicate.

So when I think about my experience that way, I turn to the other areas of my life where I'd like to improve - socially, financially, romantically, and in some of those areas, I switch places with my friends. They're the ones getting the A's and A+'s, and I'm stuck with B's and C's. I'm sure if someone else landed in my shoes, they'd be hooked up with someone by next week, made several new friends, and started a ceramic cleaning business that generates wads of cash... with time leftover to play Nintendo. To get where these other people are, I need to find out how I'm different from them in my thoughts and attitudes, and try some of them on for size. They may fit easier than I think.

[Greg Butler]

Good metaphor Steve, of waking up in a fat body. Something more realistic, however, would be to be the victim of identify theft. You were a millionaire, but someone stole it all away. You can bet that person would not go out to McDonald's looking for a job.

I guess it is similar to the idea of someone remembering his or her most recent past life with perfect clarity, as being very successful, but now finds him or herself living on skid row.

Things would change in a hurry, I suppose.

Good job and thanks.

[The Wise Turtle]

I really like the idea of looking for the positive side effects of your goal, and trying to make them happen. It really brings the big goal down to a more realistic level, and makes it seem less impossible. And even if you don't happen to reach the overall goal, you've at least made some great smaller and still very meaningful things happen.

I also sometimes think it's useful when you get stuck on the way to a goal, to look at what some of the negative side effects you might be afraid of. For example, if I , myself, were intending to become a millionaire, I would not want to spend more money on impulse buys, or give more money to a government I believed was spending my tax dollars on making the world a worse place. So I would need to find ways to see myself as a millionaire without having those bad side effects, before I would be really motivated to make any progress on my goal. (Personally, I'm still not sure how to envision a millionaire scenario that would work for me, but I'm thinking that it has something to do with creating a non-profit organization where most of my millions of dollars would live, safely away from turning into lame things...)

So yeah, it works even better when you have a very clear vision of what you want your life to be like, rather than just a broad, fuzzy vision.

Now that you mention the whole weight example, I have to say that I realized a long time ago that my periodic goals of losing x-number of pounds were always failures. I was lucky to stumble on something like your idea of looking for the positive "side effects" of the goal. I realized that I ultimately didn't care about what the scale said, but it was important for me to put good food into my body and use my body in fun and productive ways, and not to have to obsess with my body and what I did or didn't do with it. I wanted to make being healthy a normal part of my life, so that I wouldn't have to worry about trying to "exercise" or "count" calories, fats, and sugars. So I moved away from the train station, started commuting more frequently by human power (bike and foot), got lots of human powered appliances/tools, got rid of many of the appliances/tools that only required me to push a button to make things happen (like the clothes dryer and food processor), started to hang out with other people who move a lot just for fun (a bike chopper gang!), got lots of recipe books for raw foods, and started shopping at farmers markets more often. So those side effects were really where the good stuff was for me!

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

[dalante]

It took a bit of creative effort to think about the side effects of my goals once they've been achieved, but I came up with some ideas:

Dieting: one of the side effects of dieting is that you start wearing clothes that have smaller sizes. If you're an XL and loose 50 pounds, you'll probably be a Medium. So here is my idea: wear clothes that are a little too tight for me, but that I can still put on. So here I am today, sat at my desk with fitted jeans and a really tight belt, in my black T-shirt that moulds to my body, feeling a little embarrassed about love handles, but really hopeful that this will get me into the thin-think mode

Writing: one of the side effects of being a paid writer is that you write every day, since it's your job. It's the only thing I could think of... so I have been writing every day since the beginning of the year, and I can see some changes in my mental state while I write: I feel more confident, more focused towards building a piece, towards expressing emotions, and basically getting the job done. Doing it everyday makes it a more casual event (it's still important to me, but I'm also relaxed doing it)...

Any other ideas for these or other goals?
TA!

[dalante]

Adding to my post from yesterday, I think I understood why in the past I would loose some weight, then settle and ultimately take some pounds back: it is because I felt too comfortable in my clothes... my XL clothes!

It totally makes sense: I look at myself in the morning, naked, and I think: wow I need to loose weight. But then, throughout the whole day I am wearing ample clothes that actually make me fell quite all right, if not thin, because when I loose weight, I float in them. So this sensation is not congruent with weight loss: why would I need to lose weight if I feel thin in my clothes?

Plan of action: shopping trip to the mall this week end and buy tighter t shirts, shirts and pair of trousers. And also buy clothes with my dream size to put in my wardrobe, so that they are ready to welcome my new body...

How exciting!

[Savage]

I think wearing clothes that are too tight could backfire, unless you expect to be tight in your clothes after reaching your goal weight too.

I'd focus on wearing the style of clothing you'd wear at your goal weight and how it would make you feel. Dress in a way today that closely matches that feeling, so you start to feel as if you're already there.

[dalante]

I thought that you would say: "brilliant"... as I was convinced my idea was.

Anyway, I still believe that putting M-sized clothing in the wardrobe is a change of environment that is congruent with being thin. The minute I thought that, for the first time in my life, I had an image of a thin self in my head.

Regarding tight clothes, I may have gone a little too far... but what i mean is that when you start loosing weight, then adjust the size. Because I tended to stay in my XL clothes and that wasn't encouraging to keep losing weight.

Steve, I don't think you've ever been fat, but there is something that, us people who struggle with weight, we really haven't quite understood. You said in your podcast: if a thin person was in my body, he would say: "wow, I've gotta do something about it"... I have a "target trousers", i.e. a pair of pants in which I intend to fit in, button and feel comfortable in. I've started trying to put it on in the morning. Of course I can't... but trust me, that helps me get into the mentality of: wow, I've gotta do something about this.

(sorry for rabbling on and on... I'm like that when I am really excited about something new)

[dalante]

I will just add (and I promise I'll stop after that) that I am going to post the results of this experiment on the forum.

[Peeja]

Steve, you said you decided that part of becoming a millionaire was feeling like $1000, or even $10,000, wasn't a lot of money. That makes sense to me, but it also scares me. If I have to devalue money to have more of it, then what's the point? If I have to think about a million dollars the way I currently think about my present net worth, I won't "feel" any richer when I get there.

The Million Dollar Experiment is a great way to witness the Law of Attraction on a large scale, but aside from that and in terms of your own quality of life, do you feel like it has been worthwhile?

[danas]

Wow great pod cast!
One of the things Ive done to attract a commited relationship into my life is empty out half my closet. It used to be packed with too many clothes I never wore. I now gave them to friends and charity and there is a completely empty shelf waiting for him.
Any other side effects I can work on?