A Gentle Reminder: Working Towards Your Future Story

Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, host of People Magic: How to Build a $1 Million Community. And I am sharing one of my favorite episodes as we reflect on the year ahead, getting ready for the new year. It is called Working Towards Your Future Story, because it turns out the more that you can take a time machine, put in the future, look back on now and say, where do I wanna be looking backwards as opposed to forward? You are going to win. So with that, love to hear what you think of the episode. Hope you enjoy it and happy new year. Woo! Hi Gina, I'm a small business owner and I'm having a difficult time setting goals for myself. I'm not really sure how to measure success when I'm kind of making everything up as I go. I love this question. So it turns out I wrote an entire book on purpose, and I think some of the things that I captured in the book, Purpose: How to Design a Community and Change Your Life, are absolutely relevant when it comes to goals and goal setting. So here's what I want to encourage you to do. Number one, Carve out 30 minutes either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day, wherever you can get a sort of a quiet space to be able to do what I like to call the Purpose 30. And it's 30 minutes for 30 days. And all you're going to do is find your favorite beverage. Mm-hmm. Have your favorite beverage and paper and pen. So not your phone, not anything digital around. This is about pen and paper. What you're going to do is answer the simple question, what do I wanna be able to do a year from now that I can't do today? As you take then the 30 minutes, and what I love to do and what I've found doing this Purpose 30 exercise, for now about 6 years, 'cause I just kept with it, is that the clearer you are in telling your future story— again, what does the world look like 12 months from now? What world am I living in? What am I able to do? Who am I surrounded by? What, what have I achieved? But also, who have I brought together? And what are they able to do a year from now that they're not able to do today? These are not typical questions when it comes to goals and goal setting, but here's why I love them. And I've tried it all. I have tried every framework for goals and goal setting. I'm like one of those A students that are like, oh, I'll try this, I'll try this. The reason I love the Purpose 30 and this whole concept of your future story is because, for me at least, Mm-hmm. But also about 10,000 other people who have been through this and, and, you know, looked at and started to take this Purpose 30 into their lives is the clearer you are about your vivid picture of the future, the easier it is for you to make it a reality. You know, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, yes, we are making things up as we go along, but the more that you have that clarity of your North Star, You are clear on where you want to go and what's important to you. What's nice about the Purpose 30 is what tends to happen in those 30 minutes is that you will go through a dip where it's like you could be sitting there staring at a blank piece of paper. It's happened to me many times. And just staying there, and this is why the drink is so important, just staying there with your thoughts. with no distractions, and essentially meditating on that question of, what are you able to do a year from now that you're not able to do today? And what does your life look like a year from now that it doesn't look like today? It sets the stage for you to be able to start to then come back to, okay, what would I need to do today to get one step closer to that future story. And when you can then go into your day, or again, if you're a night owl, do this at night before you go to bed. The other thing that I've found as it relates to goals and goal setting is making sure that you have time set aside every week. I heard this early on and I just love this. Time every week set aside to review your progress. So, so much of goals and goal setting is about how you're looking forward. Like, and if you notice in all of this, there's no to-do lists because to-do lists are not about goals and goal setting. There's another place, another way of thinking about your, your, your to-do list, but it's not related to your goals. Your goals have got to ladder up to your future story. The world that you want to live in, the world that you want to help create and bring into existence, the people that you want to surround yourself with, the people that you want to help and have an impact on. This is the reason we're all here. This is how we create a valuable and intentional use of our time, talents, and energy while we are here on planet Earth. And the more that you can have clarity and it feels like you are living in the future, the more likely it's going to become your reality. And if you can, in parallel to that, set aside time each week To review what you accomplished, what risk you took, a fear you had that you overcame to try something new, even if it didn't work out. And use that time. I love to do it on Sundays where, as I'm thinking about the week, as I'm thinking about, you know, the reflection on the week before, That's been a really good time. And I tend to not use more than 30 minutes to have that kind of review, but that's it. That's all you need. And then the last thing I would leave you with as it relates to goals and goal settings, especially as a business owner, is trust your gut, especially around 3 traps. So there are 3 traps that you can find yourself in as a business owner that are the most dangerous of any traps that you can possibly find. And what I have experienced is when I'm in one of these traps, my gut tells me I am in them. And now that I have a name for them, it's much easier for me to be like, ah, this is the moment. And by the way, I'm about to tell you what the traps are. Ah, this is the moment where I am in X kind of trap or Y kind of trap. So what are the 3 traps? Number one is the complexity trap. So when you are trying to juggle too much stuff, when you are trying to set up, oh, well, I need to have, you know, this kind of page and then I'm going to send people here and then I'm going to do this and you feel a little overwhelmed, that is a really good indication that you are in the complexity trap. You do not want to be in the complexity trap. The best solution for the complexity trap is to take a step back, go back to that future story, go back to those first principles and say, okay, why am I doing what I'm doing? The more that you can carve out the time to get clear on why am I doing what I'm doing, the easier it is to see when you are in The complexity trap. The other thing is have your tribe, have your community of other business owners who you can basically be like, hey, wait a second, I think I'm in the complexity trap. Can we talk about this? Can I kind of walk you through and see where we can simplify? The second trap is the knower trap, and the knower trap looks like this. But I know that this is exactly how I wanna do it. This is exactly— and, and as a, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I'm supposed to have vision and I'm supposed to like stick with my vision. Mm-hmm. when everybody's telling me no? Well, as somebody who spends a lot of time trying to bring things into the world that don't exist yet, here's what I know to be true, is that it's really important to have your future story, but stay loose and open to what you're learning in the moment so that you are not taken down by that knower trap. And finally, The victim trap. And this one's tough because it, you know, there's been such, you know, a negativity around, oh, you're being a victim. You know what? Some days I feel sorry for myself. And some days you feel sorry for yourself. But the more that you stay, or I stay in the victim trap where it's about, you know, I'm letting the world happen to me, or it's not fair, or easy for that person to go do that thing. They have X, Y, or Z going for them. And those are things that I don't have. Or, um, I don't have X kind of resources, or it, you know, the software didn't do this, or whatever it is that you are listening to this right now and you're saying to yourself, well, that's easy for Gina to say because she's got X or Y or Z, and I don't have any of those things. The longer and the more time you spend in the victim trap, the more that you are writing your own— Story. Failure plan. And it's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. Is life fair? No, it's not. And, and at least for me, the sooner that I embrace that and the more that I stay in the world of life's not fair and what am I going to do about it, I have found that to be the most energizing, the most empowering, and the most fun. It's kind of fun to slay dragons, you know, this idea that you're taking on big challenges in a world that is not fair. That's okay. That is okay. And so, the more that you can navigate these traps by trusting your gut and knowing them, and when you're feeling off or you're feeling overwhelmed, again, that's typically the complexity trap. When you're dug in and feeling stubborn, when you're getting a lot of signal that the thing you're thinking is the right thing, thing is not necessarily the right thing to be doing, and you're not listening to feedback, or you're feeling defensive, that's typically the knower trap. And finally, when you're feeling sorry for yourself, that is the victim trap. None of the traps are gonna get you where you wanna go. None of the traps are gonna allow you to create that future story for yourself, for your loved ones, for the people that you wanna bring together and serve. And— Yeah. We're here for more than staying in the traps. We're here to have an impact with our time, talents, attention, and energy. And that's the power of seizing this moment to take that one small step, that one small step forward, the one that you're afraid of, the one that feels the hardest, the one that feels the most uncertain. And I just wanna thank you for taking that step and to say again, through this microphone, you know, sitting here recording this podcast, I've got your back and I'm proud of you for taking this step. I'm Gina Bianchini. Thanks for tuning in. This is People Magic. Woo! Thank you for being a part of People Magic. If you want more of a deep dive in any of these topics, but certainly having the framework of People Magic Profit, head on over to the website. The link is in the show notes. Have your own burning question about creating people magic? Well, I wanna answer it. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna just drop your question in the review section wherever you're listening to this podcast and keep tuning in.