We often experience a distinct flood of emotions when we are close to achieving a goal or completing a project.
Anticipation, excitement and sometimes a little overwhelm at what we need to do to finish.
Perhaps the most critical phase one might say?
The goal here is to refine the project just enough that we still “ship it” – as Seth Godin would say.
Don’t you love the energy of Summer? Our goal or creative project is in full swing.
We’re humming along like honey bees.
If you’ve been following this series about The Dream Activator strategy, you’ll know that in Part One we decided.
Part Two we planned the steps.
Part Three – well, we simply need to keep going.
Now is the appropriate time make some noise – if you haven’t already.
Pull out that party dress and celebrate, raise the roof and let the world know what you’re creating or have created.
You’ll notice the energy of this period has a fun kind of intensity to it. Winter is intense too, but in a different way. They are polar opposites on the energy and creativity spectrum.
“Every seed has a gestation or incubation period. Ideas are spiritual seeds and will move into form or physical results. Your goals will manifest then the time is right. Know they will” – The Law of Rhythm, from the 14 Universal Laws of Nature
In part one of this four part series, we explored the energy of winter and how it relates to completing a goal.
Winter is chance to go within, to clarify a goal that feels good because it feels like you. You can revisit that post HERE if you want to go back to the beginning.
Spring – we emerge from the dark into the light.
Step two in the dream activation process.
This step looks like momentum, creating small challenges for yourself, small actions to evolve the idea.
It is the point at which the idea starts to become a reality. We move towards it, rather than absorbing ourselves in the research and the planning phase.
How many times have you heard yourself say “I just need to find out a few more details about that course” or “I’ve got so many ideas I don’t know which way to go” or “I’ll wait till next year…”
Waiting, research and planning are comfortable.
We can do it from the comfort of the couch. That safe space to dream. But we too often get stuck in this phase.
As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear –
What truly keeps the dream alive, is the ability to know when it’s time to move onto the next phase and carry the momentum through.
Some would call this being in flow. And this is the beauty using the energy of cycles and seasons to follow through with our goals.
+ Connect – who do I need additional support from? where can I get that support? who do I know that could help me with this goal? Outreach, set up meetings, enrol in that course and if you’re game enough get an accountability buddy. We are looking for feedback here on our idea or project, perhaps even someone to collaborate with.
+ Plan – you know what the goal is, how you want the process to feel and what you want to achieve now you feel ready to put it into a plan. In this step, we’ll get really clear on what time you need in your schedule and how to make that time. We work out all the small steps. We put them in the calendar.
+ Seek resources – what do I know about this goal, challenge or project? and like-wise what don’t I know? You might find some overlap with this step and the connection piece. Once you’re clear, reach out to those who could know the answer.
The trick here for us is to not get too stuck on the “behind the scenes” of the goal and planning, which is why we included the connection piece.
I can’t wait to share with you the next phase of the process – express, a phase that has the energy of my favourite season – Summer.
As you can see, The Dream Activator truly is THE best launch pad for your goals in 2019.
This four-part, self-guided course will have you start taking action on your dream in just 28 days. To find out more click the button below.
This is your opportunity to make things you love, do things you love, with ease.
What does goal setting have to do with seasons, and winter for that matter?
First, I want you to cast your mind’s eye back to winter.
Depending on your hemisphere – right now, this feeling may be very familiar, or it may feel distant.
The frozen air, dark over light, coolness, the warm feeling of climbing into bed at night for rest, the feeling of turning inwards. It’s slow, perhaps even still and often a reflective time.
You may not realise it, but the process of taking an idea, something that might be a seed and bringing it into reality, is the exact process that we have in seasons, with the moon and as women with our menstrual cycle.
As you scroll, you might be thinking “but I’m not very familiar with the moon cycles, seasonal living, and even this idea of tracking my monthly cycle” and that’s completely okay!
For this process, we don’t need to be doing any of those things in detail – however, if your curious to know more I will provide some additional resources within the program.
This process has been designed to innovate goal setting for women (and men).
And introduce you to some concepts that will help you to bring more flow, more ease to your ambitions.
It’s about learning how to take action, make goals happen in line with our natural energy cycles. This process might be the permission you need to be “off” occasionally instead of “on”. To move, work and create with the “flow”.
When you are using The Dream Activator tool, step one is akin to the energy of winter and we’ll refer to it as Ignite or the period of the inner creative.
So how does this season fit into the process of dream activation or setting a goal? Aren’t goals about deciding then lot’s of doing?
Yes that assumption is somewhat correct – because that’s the way you’ve always known how to set goals. The ready.set.go approach. And for some of us, this works most of the time.
I say most of the time, because typically what happens is a few weeks or months after we begin, our energy fluctuates, our emotions get the better of us or life happens and we lose consistency.
What makes this process radically different?
When your goals are chosen from a place that is more deeply connected with you, when things get hard, we have a chance to pause and reconnect with why it’s important to us.
This is why phase one, is all about you.
By capturing the energy of Winter, a time when we naturally slow down – we can become more intimate with our dreams.
We decide what it is we want to create and we declare it.
Step one is…
A blank page, new beginnings, unlimited possibility, planting seeds, intention, brainstorm
In this step, we allow ourselves the space to explore ideas without limitation.
BUT if do we feel any sense of limitation, I promise to give you tools to learn why. Even in myself, I’ve noticed my emotion can be all over the place when I allow myself space to freely dream. One minute excited, heart racing next minute doubt.
It is important that we create a safe environment to allow this to unfold.
From here we learn to create goals that feel more connected to who we truly are, before we race out and start striving towards them. This is a period of nurturing the goal, of getting clear on all the possibilities, how it could look and feel.
At the end of Step One, you’ll have an opportunity to declare your goal by sharing it in our Facebook group for fellow dream activators. This is a vital part of turning your dream into a reality.
And that is what you’ll expect in step one.
The beauty of the Dream Activator process is that when we finish we get to repeat the cycle. Likewise, if we go off track or abandon the goal, we can come back to step one, reset our intention and start again.
Maybe the way you have set goals has worked until now, but doesn’t feel entirely like you anymore. If you’re ready to do things differently, then you might like to try something new.
As you can see, The Dream Activator truly is THE best launch pad for your goals in 2019.
This four-part, self-guided course will have you start taking action on your dream in just 28 days. To find out more click the button below.
This is your opportunity to make things you love, do things you love, with ease.
A thought I’m pondering today – describe the feeling of success?
Some of my best thinking comes in obscure places. Commonly, there will be no relationship between the thought and the context of thinking it.
This is perhaps the most wonderful thing about inspiration, you have to be open to to receiving it 24/7.
You never know when it might strike.
As I washed the dishes this evening, inspiration for this post came over me. This small phrase stood out –
We can all agree that in reaching the goal, something we’ve dreamed of achieving for months possibly even years – the success is externalised, it can be measured by time, money, possessions or even your social media following.
Conventionally, this is how we perceive being successful – the attainment or achievement of something. It’s wonderful and exhilarating when we do, but it’s not the full story.
Some might argue, success is entirely subjective – what you believe is successful may not be my measure of success, but that’s another post for another day. I’m simply talking about the common view of society.
Rewind five years ago, I had an inkling that something wasn’t right with the career path I was on.
At the same time, I happened to be very attracted to the work of Danielle La Porte. She created a simple yet very innovative approach to setting goals through her book The Desire Map.
Her work attempts to close the gap.
Through doing her Desire Map process, at least once a year, I soon learned that success can be both felt inside and seen outside.
I’d go as far as saying that the feeling of success, is more important to get clarity on that the actual goal.
Why is this so?
Our goals have a deeper connection, and a fullness to them.
Knowing this, tell me – how do you want success to feel?
