Do we need complete clarity before acting on something? This way of thinking seems smart. If we think of everything we are prepared for anything. Yet, this need to have everything figured out can actually hold us back.

From discouraged to coping.

When thinking about my career path, I used to think in the way mentioned above. I wanted to have a crystal clear path towards a perfect for me career, but I could never picture it. “What do you want to do?” was an incredibly frustrating question.  I was trying to answer with the end goal in mind. When I didn’t have a clear end goal I ended up discouraged.

Now when people ask me what I want to do, I have several possible answers. While the steps are not 100% clear, I am hopeful. Even though I don’t have it all figured out, it’s okay. I am learning to cope even when I don’t know the end goal.

Instead of feeling discouraged because I don’t have it all figured out, I am learning to see each career related decision as a path that opens my vision to where I should go next. I take each step in hopes that my clarity grows. I found Jenny Blake’s book Pivot helpful for developing this focus on one step at a time (you can find great pivot resources here).

I am learning to use 2 coping skills for a lack of clarity.

2 ways to cope when you don’t know the end goal:

Be where you are. It is very easy when you dream of doing something else to focus on that dream, or to focus on anything other than where you are. This makes things worse. The most depressed days of my career search were those days where I let myself get caught up in the struggle of not wanting to be where I was, but not knowing where I wanted to be.

The first thing I would tell someone who is struggling with clarity and not liking where they are is to focus on what is good about your current job and how you can enjoy it while you are there. If you want help navigating the change situation while still showing up where you are, read Jon Acuff’s book Do Over (you can find his books here).

This is a great resource even if you aren’t currently struggling with clarity. Do Over has great information on how to build what Jon Acuff calls a career savings account. We are all going to need to change jobs sooner or later for any of the reasons he talks about in his book. He is also really good at reminding his reader that it is important to show up where you are.

Talk about it.

When I lacked career clarity I really didn’t want to talk about anything related to my work search, because it put me face to face with my lack of clarity. Yet a common theme in the books I read to improve myself was that we need input from other people.

Sometimes others help us process a decision we are considering to see if our decision fits our goals. Sometimes others help us figure out what direction we need to go, simply by listening to us talk it out.

Talking about your lack of clarity can be freeing. The more I shared with people that I didn’t know what to do, the more I found that I was not the only one struggling with a lack of clarity.

Remember the 2 Coping Skills.

When we’re tempted to focus on the end goal at the expense of looking at what we can do where we are, let’s stop and refocus. Let’s be where we are.

When we’re tempted to hide behind our unknowns at the expense of feeling like we’re the only one’s struggling with clarity, let’s share our struggles with those we trust. Let’s stop and talk about it.

Read my post How to start creating a career plan when you lack clarity.

Do you find it easy or difficult to share your lack of clarity with others?

What do you think? Leave me a comment.

Trying to move forward when you are constantly focused on all that you should have done or on everything that you think you cannot do limits what you can accomplish. Instead of focusing on all that is not yet happening in your life, focus on what you can do to get there. Goal setting is important to personal growth. Affirmations influence goal setting. Focusing on what and where you want to be, in a positive way, can help you along the goal setting journey.

In my post, How Goal Setting Triggered a Life Change, I wrote about the differences between setting goals and making a resolution. I also wrote that goal setting is an attitude change that is helped by 1) reframing limiting beliefs 2) developing a personal reflection habit and 3) giving yourself permission to stand out.

If you haven’t read, How Goal Setting Triggered a Life Change, read it now.

Trade in the negative thoughts about yourself for affirmations.

Overcoming negative self-talk.

Sometimes it is difficult to change limiting beliefs, because they are ingrained and have become our default way of thinking. In my struggle to overcome these negative voices, the voices that want me to focus on everything I still lack, I write daily affirmation statements.

Affirmations are cool, y’all. They work in the same way as my driving a certain car brings to my attention all the other sightings of my kind of car. It is this type of experience…with your thoughts.

What does it look like to focus on affirmations?

Here’s an example where daily affirmations influence goal setting.

Let’s say that one of your goals is to start your own business, but one of your limiting beliefs is an ingrained belief from years of telling yourself that you don’t have what it takes (i.e. you don’t have the money, or the time management skills, or leadership experience).

Let’s take the first statement, “I’ll never have enough money to start my own business.” The reframed belief could be, “I am working to raise my income to start my own business.” For some people, maybe this reframed belief will be enough. Yet, what if it is not?

Here are two ways to use an affirmation statement to focus your day in a positive way and reinforce the goal you want to work on:

• “I am a successful person capable of taking the steps necessary to increase my income and start creating the business of my dreams.”
• “I am making progress each day towards better management of the money I have.”

One is an overarching statement and two focuses on one step in improving your view of your money situation. Either is good. You might want to use type one some days and type two other days.

I find that I use a mixture of both kinds. Some days I focus on broad affirmations and other days I focus on step specific affirmations.

When I was getting started in goal setting, one of my regular affirmations was an overarching statement. It was a daily “I can do this” type statement.

Affirmations help you overcome those limiting beliefs.

Affirmations are fun.

The fun part of affirmations, for me, is two-fold:

• It focuses your brain on what you want to become and keeps you focused on the positive things that you are doing to better yourself and your situation.
• You start to see the world around you differently. Perhaps you start to see yourself differently.

Going back to the starting a business example and the affirmations I suggested. Let’s say that you started your day with the second affirmation on your mind, “I am making progress each day towards better management of the money I have.”

If you are focused on better management of your money, you are more likely to notice when you make a good financial decision in the midst of the day. If you notice the small financial wins, you gain the confidence to tackle the larger ones.

Affirmations help you focus on what and where you want to be.

Affirmations are positive thoughts you want to grow.

If you are trying to move forward and need help developing a positive view, give affirmations a try. If you have set a goal for something in the past and you are still struggling to meet the goal, try affirmations.

Affirmations are not magic. It might take months of focus on the same affirmation before you see any progress, but it’s a daily practice that has helped me.

I like looking back at the affirmations that I have focused on and how I have grown in each of those areas. If you try it, I hope you see some improvements are well.

If you want more help getting started with daily affirmations check out the 5 Minute Journal from Intelligent Change.

Behavior Challenge: Write one affirmation for the day. It can be related to a goal or a reframed limiting belief, or you can pick one area that you want to change how you think.

Comment on this post if you have any thoughts, questions, or want to leave me a note.

Sometimes changing your situation can be daunting. Where do you start? When do you start? What if you know what you want vaguely (increased income, healthy relationships, better job), but you do not know what it looks like to attain what you want? What then? It can be daunting when you are in this place. It might even become discouraging if you stay in this place for a long time.

Goal setting is not a resolution.

I was never one to set New Year’s Resolutions.

There was all this talk about people going to the gym and then they would stop after a few months. It didn’t work for them, so I had no motivation to try it for myself. Putting effort into something only to give up did not sound very effective.

I entertained the idea of setting a resolution – you know, once or twice – because everyone else was talking about it, but I was never someone that saw the value in setting resolutions in the way that they were presented to me. So for me to write about goal setting…something has changed in how I view working towards those things I want to happen one day.

Goal setting is more than saying that you want to change this or that.

Goal setting is an attitude change.

The first thing I had to do before I set any goals was rid myself of negative and limiting thoughts that had ingrained themselves into my discouraged being. How could I dream of the future and believe that I really could attain these big dreams for a better life, if I held on to the self-doubt and self-deprecating thoughts? Read my post on limiting beliefs.

Another important part of the goal setting journey is getting to know yourself. For goal setting to work, you need to know you. You need to know what it is that you want in the future. This is an ongoing process. The more you know yourself the better you can craft goals that you will achieve. Read my post on developing a personal reflection habit.

Give yourself permission to stand out.

I know the struggle of standing out. I know it is difficult to do things differently than what others expect. Whether it is because the process outlined is different from the way you want to go, or because you have a different outlook entirely.

A lesson that I have learned in this goal setting journey, of changing my attitude and knowing that my changing might cause me to stand out from the crowd, is that finding people that are willing to stand out in the crowd with you can keep you going when you lack the strength.

Embrace that in order to go where you want to go you might have to do things differently.

Read the following quotes from some of my virtual mentors: 

To be at a healthy weight in a country with a population that is 70% overweight, you have to be different from most people. – Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits for Weight Loss 

If you will live like no one else later you can live like no one else. – Dave Ramsey, financial mentor

Be the exception. – Darren Hardy, success and productivity mentor

As I continue on my personal development journey I notice that my behavior is more and more focused on my own choices. I have come to the realization that if I want to make progress, I often need to step outside of what not only has become a habit for me…but what is also considered normal behavior for an American in the twenty first century.

My high school year book quote was “What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.” In those days I was mostly focused on the truth of this in terms of religious beliefs. Yet as you can see from the above quotes, there are other instances where we would benefit from evaluating our decisions and actions to consider options that are different from what everyone else embraces.

It is because I am surrounding myself with the work of those quoted above and others focused on personal growth and behavior change that I am learning to give myself permission to stand out and do things differently.

Where do you start? When you start? Start here. Start now.

If you want to change your situation, setting goals in the areas you want to change will help you move forward.

To get started:

• Reframe your limiting beliefs.
• Embrace the positive and allow yourself to dream.
• Get to know yourself.
• Let yourself stand out where it is important and find others to stand out with you.
• Dare to do things differently.

I’ll talk more about goal setting in the next post.

I’d love to hear from you. Do you have a vision of what you want to attain or are you struggling with clarity?

Why I am interested in behavior change.

A Little Background

In college I studied the behavior patterns of people in groups through the discipline of Sociology. After graduation I found myself working with children of all ages providing various levels of behavior training and interventions (for more on my background read my About page). Years later I am still working with children to help them improve their social interactions and behaviors.

Lately, however, I’m not just working with children on their behaviors. I am working on my own behaviors as well. In 2017 I went through Michael Hyatt’s goal setting course for the first time. Through this course I realized the importance of not only setting goals for my life, but also for focused behavior change to help me make progress towards my goals.

Where I Am Now

In my recent career pivot into the world of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), I have learned the principles of behavior and behavior change. With the goal setting course to guide my yearly planning and a job that is focused on behavior training, I am now more aware of the effects of intentional growth versus learned behaviors.

I started this blog to reach out to others that might be where I was before my goal setting journey – stuck and discouraged. I hope I can also be a motivation to folks that want more understanding of how our behavior impacts our situation.

My Why

Last week’s post mentioned the importance of giving yourself time to understand the why when you are pursuing a goal.  The why is the deeper reason that you are facing this goal or overcoming your fear to do something big.

As I am encouraging you all to dig deep into why you want to change, I wanted to explain to you why I care so much about behavior change:

Our behavior has a big impact on our life. As mentioned in the post, Why is Behavior Change Important for Personal Growth?, our behaviors can propel us forward or keep us stuck and without momentum. There is another piece though. Our behavior in one area of our life impacts our behavior in other areas.

Once I became aware of the first behavior that I wanted to change, it wasn’t long before I found another area that I wanted to change. If you go with the momentum you can make big changes that impact your life in big ways, one step – one behavior change – at a time. I am seeing it happen in my own life.

It is a science I understand. I will never forget the day in high school that my AP Physics teacher looked up at my best friend and I, we were bemused and probably also laughing and somewhat off task, and he sighed and shook his head. He had just tried to explain and show us a cool physics thing and we didn’t get it.

Behavior is not that for me. It grabs my attention and makes me want to understand. I enjoy learning evidence based practices for personal growth that have an impact on behavior. I am also seeking out ways to learn how to use the science of behavior and the principals of learning with adults on the job.

The focus on behavior has been in my path for a long time-maybe that means I have been heading in the right direction, despite being and feeling stuck for so long!

That’s it! I hope that list helps you understand some of why I created this blog. I hope we can join together in this behavior change journey!

Before you go…Which category do you see yourself in?

A) I feel stuck and/or discouraged in the direction of my life.

B) I’m wondering how my behavior affects my current situation.

c) I’m here for something different.

 Put A, B, or C in the comments section. If it’s C, tell me what it is you’re here for.