Welcome back to Doing Business Like A Goddess, where I share key concepts that every feminine conscious entrepreneur must know in order to succeed in today’s new business landscape, plus how to create extraordinary income and impact while honoring that you are exactly who the world’s been waiting for.
In the last five issues, I shared the first five key concepts for doing business like a Goddess…
1. Giving Yourself Permission
2. Success Leads To More Success
3. You Must Let Go To Grow
4. Gratitude First
5. Manifesting and Receiving with Grace
You can read these here.
The 6th and final key concept for doing business like a Goddess is Setting Goals and Boundaries that Honor Your Feminine
As any expert in the personal development industry will tell us, setting goals is the first step to making your dreams a reality. But are setting goals and boundaries something you secretly resist?
If so, you’re not alone.
All too often, spiritual women resist setting goals because it feels heavy and masculine and that to set a goal means you must drive, strive and push against the divine flow – so “old paradigm!” they will say.
After coaching hundreds of women over the years, what I’ve found is that underneath the many and varied reasons for not setting goals, what exists is either a fear that you won’t meet the goal OR if you really go deep, the fear that you WILL meet the goal.
And the flip side is that when a goal is set, and not met – this perceived “failure” sets the wheels in motion of beating oneself up, feeling wrong, unworthy and questioning everything it is that you do and are capable of.
Of course it’s only natural to want to “protect” yourself from this vicious cycle. The problem with all of this is you cannot manifest what you want unless you have a clear picture of what it is you want.
The other problem is that not setting goals lets you “off the hook” from claiming and creating exactly what you want. It’s far easier to stay in a state of neutral limbo, right? But as we know, NOT moving is a stagnant, unnatural and unsupported energetic way of being in this world. Eventually if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backwards.
Another reason many women fail to meet their goals is that they have not held clear boundaries… overwork for too little money, giving oodles away time for free, saying “yes” at the drop of a hat and putting everyone else’s needs before their own.
So how do you embrace goal setting that is empowered, supportive and free from the cycles of judgment, blame and shame? And how do you hold firm boundaries to support you in achieving your goals once they are set? Here are 5 power tips to set empowered, soul-supportive goals that pull you forward…
1) Set your goals, not someone else’s.
One place where women get tripped up is when goals are set from a place of comparison. Just because someone else landed 5 clients at $5,000 each doesn’t mean this needs to be your goal too.
Instead of looking outside for what your goals “should” be, look inside and answer the following questions: What is my true Desire? What would be exciting and fun? What is my greatest desire right now? What is my Creative Spirit guiding me to do?
2) Choose goals that are realistic, and a stretch.
Many women set themselves up for “failure” because they are choosing goals that are out of alignment for where they are now. As much as goals need to be tangible, they also need to be believable by you. They need to excite you and you need to be able to envision it coming true – for you.
One of the secrets of manifestation is to start where you are – no further ahead or behind. Don’t let yourself off the hook. Is a goal of getting just one new client truly going to stretch you or keep you safe? (And sometimes, when our humanness wants to be really sneaky – a low set goal will not get met in order to reinforce non-supportive beliefs even more.) Remember, the whole point of a goal is to pull you forward.
3) Get fully on board with gracefully setting boundaries.
One reason why women give away so much and fall short of their goals is because they truly don’t understand how much it costs them to do so. They get pulled into the old patterns of “I should do XYZ” because everyone else is doing it, “it’s the spiritual thing to do,” or whatever.
The problem it’s simply that most of us were never taught to do the ONE thing that will empower us to take back our time and our energy, more than any other: set clear boundaries without feeling guilty.
It’s time to get REALLY clear, here: the shadow belief lurking behind boundaries violations is this: “The other person getting what THEY want is more important than I am.”
The key to gracefully setting boundaries without guilt is to adopt this new breakthrough belief: What serves me, serves others.
From this new belief, you can ask yourself what you need to say “yes” to and what you need to say “no” to in order to reach your goal.
Then when then time comes to say “no”, the less said the better. When women say no, we instinctively want to jump in, justify, and explain. The urge to make everyone feel better is simply conditioning. It’s a pattern. You can make a new choice at any time by simply saying, “I’m sorry, I’m unable to do that.” And leaving it at that.
4) Ask, “What’s the learning?”
In every success and perceived failure, there is learning to be had. When something goes astray, instead of going to the place of judgment, instead ask what you learned.
There are reasons you might not reach your goals each and every time and these reasons are lush with valuable clues for you. Did you not attract the clients because your niche is not yet where it needs to be? Did you say yes to something that should have been a no? Or maybe you did not attract the partners you intended because something inside you needs to be cleaned up first….
TRY THIS: Next time you don’t meet a goal, rewrite your story. Replace the antagonist with the heroine (you) and dig deep for the incredible learning that is waiting for you – then, choose to see what new opportunity is now possible.
5) Ask for support.
Are you soooo good at giving support but when it’s time to ask for help, you shrink back and try to go at it alone? Stop being the lone wolf and build a support team of colleagues, mentors, learning resources and community. With this priceless resource in place – you’ll move through your wins AND your losses with ease, elegance and power.
Remember, goals and boundaries are really just an extension of the expression of your Creative Spirit – the part of you that truly is longing to express, expand and act on its mission.
And as you take aligned action (instead of frazzled action) and hold your boundaries, your goals will manifest with ease. This is magic in action – enjoy it!
Love and magic,
Elizabeth
