112: Creating Safety to Reach Your Goals

Transcript

Creating Safety to Reach Your Goals

Hello, and welcome to the Money Mindful podcast. I am your host Meaghan Jean Smith. I'm a money mindset and life coach for entrepreneurial women, I help women create their money and life goals. And today, I want to talk to you about creating safety to reach your goals. But before I get into that, I just want to give you the heads up about a training that I have. If you go to my website, meaghanjsmith.com you'll see there's a bar across the top of my website where you can click the link to get access to this training. I actually have a free three-day video training that gets sent out to you over three days, there's one video training each day. It's free, it is going to help you create your goals. It's to get you set up to create your goals, like how to work out what you want to work on, how to overcome your obstacles, and a process to get it done, basically, and I have that as a resource for you. So because I'm talking about goals today, and a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about goals on the podcast, I wanted to make sure you knew about this training and how to access it because it will help you. And it's a way that you can get help from me before even working with me in person in real life.

 

01:57

Okay, so let's get into creating safety to reach your goals. Now, sometimes, the non-sexy sounding options are the most successful and aligned for you when you are going for your goals. Let me explain. I've been seeing a lot of marketing lately, and I've done it myself, where it's about how much money people are making in a very short period of time. And don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with talking about money, or normalising women making lots of it, or making lots of it in a short period of time. However, if you're transitioning to a new career, or you're getting started on building an amazing relationship with money, there's nothing wrong with going at it at a pace that feels safe for you. There's nothing wrong with letting your current job be your business's biggest investor, right, like work in your current job while you build the business that you want to build. Or while you work on getting the skills that you need to transition into your new career. There's nothing wrong with making a rock solid financial plan to ease into your new career or business.

 

03:24

I'm working with a few clients at the moment who have built long term plans to transition slowly out of their current job and into running their businesses in a staggered approach. And this framework has them feeling financially at ease. Are they, you know, quickly creating a business at rocket speed? No. But are they creating a business that is stable, really financially backed and supported? Yes, because they're giving themselves plenty of space and time to learn the skills of being in business whilst still having a regular income. And they're financially setting themselves up, right? And so this allows them to have attention on their clients who they're bringing their product to,  building their new business from a place of calm, abundance and safety. There's no graspiness for sales or pressure to make money to survive. Now this might not sound as sexy as 'I went all in on my biz and made a bazillion dollars in the first five minutes.' And that's totally okay. So when you work with me, I help you create your big, audacious life goals from a place that feels safe and aligned with who you want to be. Now that doesn't mean that you won't have to take courageous action - you will. But taking courageous action doesn't mean that you have to do it from a place of not being safe. Right.

 

05:12

And the other thing that I wanted to talk about safety is when we're trying to create something, and we don't feel safe, it's almost like we're working against ourselves. And so I don't want you to interpret this as keeping your goals small. I want you to interpret this as creating your goals from a solid, calm, grounded, safe, stable - what's the word I'm looking for? - foundation. Right? So speaking from experience, when I first started my business, for me, I wanted to, you know, create a profitable business in my first year. Now, of course, I wanted to make lots of money because I mean, that's why you have a business right? To make money. Otherwise, you've got a charity, or it's a hobby, right? And a lot of, especially in the coaching industry, it's like, there's this bar, like, Oh, you have to make $100,000. I don't know where that came from, or why, maybe it's because it's a rounded number.

 

06:30

But when I started, my goal, I wanted to create $60,000. That's what I wanted to make in my first year of business. That seemed really like a big stretch for me, because first of all, I hadn't even created a business before, it was my very first year. So many people that I've seen, colleagues, and just when I've been growing up, people in business, they don't even make any money in their first year. That's just a side note. Let me just say that because often people say, you know, I made whatever, $100 grand in my business, but did they make $100 grand revenue, or $100 grand after tax? Because there's a big difference between making $100 grand in your business, but spending $200 grand to make that $100 grand, right? Then making $100 grand and having your expenses at $30 grand, right? So you've actually made $70,000? Just a side note there, because I often see people say 'Oh, I made this much money in my business.' But what does that mean? Right? Did they make that much revenue? Is that just how much money came in overall, but actually, they spent more than they earned? Because for me, it was really important. I wanted to have profit, I wanted to have a profitable business, I did not want to spend more money than I earned. In my first year, my goal was $60,000. And for me, that felt massive, that felt like a huge stretch, because I was starting from zero, going from having no business, making no money. There's a big difference between - so $60,000 for me as a general salary, sounds low to me, right? That's like a graduate wage or whatever, but $60,000, to make that in a business in my first year, I was like, wow, that would be amazing to do that.

 

08:37

And when I first started getting clients, I certainly wasn't charging the amount of money that would get me to $60,000 with the amount of clients that I had capacity for in the beginning. And I'll flesh that out and explain that to you more in a bit. Actually, I'll just flesh that out now. And then I want to tell you how you can create safety, like ways that you can create safety, to create your goal. And what I mean by that is because sometimes we have an idea of something that we want to create, right? But it feels so audacious, so unreasonable, so impossible, because it's so different to what we're doing now, that it's almost like we freeze up. It's like our body has an adverse reaction to it. It's like, 'Oh, I couldn't possibly do that.' Right? I've had consults with people who have come to work with me because they want to create a business but they're still so on the fence because they're afraid to take that leap. They've never created a business before. They've always worked for someone else. And even though it's a dream, that they want to create a new business, it feels unsafe to do it, right? They haven't have created that safety for themselves to be able to do it. And that's what I mean.

 

10:05

That's what I want to help you with in this episode. And so when it came to my business, when I first started, I had the capacity to take on 12 clients. That was all I had time for when I first started my business. So to make $60,000, I would have had to charge my clients at that time $5,000 to work with me. Now, when I first started my business, I didn't have the self concept that I could charge that amount. It felt very foreign, I didn't feel comfortable with that amount, like charging $5,000. And it was just too big a stretch for me and my belief system and my self concept when I first started. And so I could have tried to charge $5,000, like I certainly was delivering $5,000 worth of value, but my belief system didn't match it, right?

 

10:05

And this is the thing that I see when people are trying to create new businesses, their belief system doesn't match what they want to do yet, and that's okay. But what can happen sometimes is we don't move forward because we don't feel safe, like I didn't charge $5,000 when I started because that did not feel comfortable in my body, I did not feel safe charging that and I felt like I wouldn't get any clients if I'd tried to charge that in the start. Now I charge more than that, and feel very comfortable with that and it's totally fine. But in the beginning, I didn't. And so what I did was, well at first I charged less, but I grew into the belief that I could charge more. And I also created a lot of safety for myself to build a business where I was charging money and that I could earn $60,000 and that that was safe for me to do. And I want to talk about how you can do that too. And this doesn't just apply to if you're creating a business, this can apply to any business.

 

12:15

So ways that you can create your goals from a feeling of safety is first and foremost, be kind to yourself. Right? Like you've got to be on your side, you've got to be your own best friend, when you are going for big goals, where you're actually - I mean, look, people set little goals all the time, myself included, like little things that I already know I can achieve, I've just got to do it, right? Like it's either stuff that I've done before, or it's stuff that's not really stretching me, right? It's like I know what to do to create the goal. I'm talking about goals where you don't know how to create it, right? Like you want to change your career, you want to earn more income, you want to build a business and you don't know how to actually do that. Right? That requires that you practice empathy and kindness to yourself.

 

13:19

Because for sure, when you are going after goals that you've never done before, that you don't know how to do when you start, you are going to fail multiple times. That's how you create success. Failure is inevitable, you will definitely fail. Otherwise, if you're not failing, and you're not making lots of mistakes and needing to adjust things, it's not a big enough goal, right? You're just doing something you already know how to do. But because you're going to be failing, you want to be your own best friend through that, right? Because that's why you don't feel safe. Because if you're going to be waiting with a big stick to beat yourself up if you're not successful on your first attempt at doing something that you've never done before, of course you don't feel safe, right? Because you're waiting there to beat yourself up. So you're under so much pressure because you've got to get it right. And this was definitely the case for me.

 

14:16

So practising empathy with yourself, being kind, being compassionate and soothing your nervous system, that's outside the scope of this episode, but there's things that you can do to create safety in your body. And I mean, one of them is simply, like something I do is actually just pat my arms, almost like I'm hugging myself, and it's sort of 'It's alright, I got you,' like talking to myself in a kind manner and physically touching myself and letting myself know everything's okay. Another thing that you can do, and actually, before I move on from that, there's a lot of work that you can do, and this is something I do with my clients, about regulating your emotions, like learning how to process emotions and learning how to process negative emotion. So if negative emotions come up, like you feel embarrassed or ashamed or regret or whatever, you know how to handle that, that's really important to create safety. Because if you're not afraid to feel negative emotion, or if you know how to process negative emotion, that makes it really easy to move forward, right? Because you feel safe that if a negative emotion comes up, you know what to do.

 

15:39

The next thing is, going at your own pace and working within your own timing, not someone else's. Right? So for me, that looks like, I'll give you the example of, like me, starting with a goal of $60,000. I didn't start with a goal of $100,000. That wasn't going at my own pace, like I would have been working against myself, I only had a limited amount of time, my daughter was at home. And I wanted to create a goal that felt big for me. And that was about being in my own lane. And I knew I wanted to be charging above the $5,000 mark, but I worked on getting there, right? I grew into the belief of becoming somebody who could charge that amount of money. Because in the beginning, I didn't feel like I was somebody who could charge that kind of money, and I didn't have the belief. And so when you want to create safety to work towards your goals, you can use techniques to grow into the belief of being the person who can create that goal. And I'll give you some examples of that. I go into this in depth with my clients, and it's kind of beyond the scope of this podcast now, but I'll just give you briefly some examples.

 

17:09

To grow into the belief of who you want to be to create a goal, it can look something like you practise thoughts that you want to believe, like 'I'm becoming a person who charges $5,000,' right? 'Every day, I get more comfortable with charging $5,000.' That's something that I worked on, in the beginning of my business, but I didn't charge that amount in the beginning, I charged much less than that. And that was fine. You know, like, I just charged what I felt I could charge at the time because I didn't want to have a lot of attention on what I was charging, I just wanted to help people and charge what I felt like I could believe that I could charge, but then I just worked on my belief to increase that.

 

18:00

And so that's something that you can do. It's like if you don't believe that you can do something like start a business, for example, you can practise with like, 'Well, I'm becoming a person who has a business.' Right? 'Every day, I'm getting more comfortable being somebody who has a business, or growing into somebody who has a business.' And then what you can do to support that, is find evidence for that. So, for example, if you're building a business, let's say, somebody who builds a business, well, what kind of person, are they? Right? What's the image that you have in your mind? Now maybe there's somebody who's really organised with their money. So to build evidence for that maybe you could look at how you're already organised with your money in your personal life, right? Like, you start to find the evidence to grow the belief.

 

18:59

And this is just a step by step, little by little process that you can do. And I have done this with all of my goals. Because, you know, I have some really big goals that when I think forward, five, ten years into the future, I almost can't even connect with them yet because they're too big for my brain to kind of grasp on. So what I do is I break it down to more being in the present and I grow into the belief of the person who creates those goals. And that's how I can create my goals from feeling safe. Because I don't know about you. I mean, I know there's some people out there who just go hard and can really shift quickly, like they talk about quantum leaps or whatever, can go from earning nothing to you know, $200,000 in one year, but that's not me. And if that's not you either, you're in the right place, because I want to create my goals from a place of feeling safe.

 

20:05

But just finally, I do want to say, that doesn't mean I don't do courageous things. That doesn't mean I don't take bold action or show up for my goals courageously. But there's a difference between being courageous and feeling unsafe. When I feel unsafe, that's when I stop, and I don't move forward, I don't take action, because it's a natural human response, right, to want to feel safe. And feeling safe also isn't the same as feeling comfortable. I do lots of things that make me feel uncomfortable, like I put myself out of my comfort zone. But I do it from a foundation of safety. And there is a difference there, and I hope that you're catching that nuance there, is because I create that safety for myself by being kind to myself, because if I stuff up or make mistakes, which for sure I will, I've got a safety net there for myself, because I know I'm going to treat myself well, no matter what happens, and that allows me to move forward.

 

21:22

And then also, what I've already said is I create that safety for myself by moving at my own pace and growing into the beliefs that I need for those goals. But this is the work that I do with my clients. This is what I can help you with if you want to take this work deeper. I would love to help you with that, you can go ahead and book a consult on my website, if you want to meet with me and talk more about creating your own goals, creating your goals from a place of safety so you can actually do them. Because when we don't feel safe, we don't move ahead with our goals.

 

22:06

Okay, in the process of doing this podcast, my family have all just got home. So if you can hear them yelling and banging and crashing around in the background I apologise for that. I actually recently read something in a podcast group that I'm in about, you know, when's the best time to record a podcast, you know, at night time when the birds aren't tweeting. And, you know, I have birds in a tree outside my window and I hear them all the time when I do the editing of the podcast and I never edit it out. I want you to hear that. I think it's beautiful that there's birds tweeting in the background. But maybe not so good with kids yelling and banging in the background, so sorry about that. Alright, until I get in your ears again next week, have an amazing week. Bye bye.