Ep #60: Goals Beyond Your Current Capacity

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast, episode number 60.

Welcome to The Life Coach Business Podcast, a show for coaches who are ready to up-level their business and take their impact, leadership, and results to a whole new level. If you’re ready to start taking powerful action and become the leader your business needs in order to grow and thrive, this show is for you. I’m your host, Amanda Karlstad, certified life and business coach, and entrepreneurial leadership expert. Now, let’s get down to business.

Hello and welcome, everyone. Thanks so much for joining in today. I want to welcome any new listeners. Welcome, I’m so glad to have you here. Super excited to talk to you all today. And for those of you that are in the US, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

We had an amazing holiday. It was lowkey but it was amazing. And it’s hard to believe actually, I feel like this year has been a long year in so many ways, but it’s also crazy to think about the fact that this year is almost over and that we are moving into 2021 in a matter of weeks.

And so as I’ve been thinking about that, I naturally just started to think about goals and goal setting. And so that is what I want to talk to you all about today. I think it’s a great time of year just naturally to be having this conversation and some of you may already be thinking about your 2021 goals.

I know I’ve been thinking about them already for a few months. And I want to take some time and talk about the importance of goal setting, and specifically setting goals that are beyond what I would consider your current capacity.

And so we’re going to talk today about the importance of setting these goals and setting these goals that are beyond what you might currently believe is your current capacity and the reasons for that. And I’ll start out by saying when I think about the last few years and I look at the progression of my own business, one of the things that is really clear is that along the way, I made it very – it was a very intentional decision for me to set goals that felt beyond my current capacity.

So here’s what I mean by that. When I say beyond my current capacity, wherever you are right now in your business, you probably have a certain desired goal, a desired destination that you want. And for some of you, that might be your first six-figures. For others of you, that might be your first million. And others of you, it might be 10 million. We’re all at different points along the way.

And so whatever that is, there’s probably a certain point, there’s probably a certain goal that when you think about that goal, it feels impossible. It feels as if it’s beyond your reach. But that’s exactly where we want to be setting our goals.

And I want to explain why that’s important. So the reason that’s so important is because when we set goals that feel beyond our current capacity, what it does is it really forces us to evolve. It really forces us to step up and commit to the goal and take even bigger leaps, bigger steps towards that goal.

So for example, if let’s just say that you are at a point in your business where you’re maybe working towards your first six figures. Now, depending on where you’re at, it might feel totally impossible for you to hit that goal in the next 12 months, and for others of you, I’m sure you’re well beyond that.

But for those of you that might be looking at that first six figures, and it might be feeling just a little bit out of your control. When we really start looking at that and we really start thinking about what is required of you in order to achieve that goal, it really comes down to you operating from that goal, meaning you operating today as that six-figure business owner versus working towards it, if that makes sense.

And so when we do that, when we start to operate and we start to live as if it’s already done, it really allows us to accelerate in so many ways and it forces us into that evolution that I described. And so whoever that is, whatever version of you that has created that particular outcome, we really need to start thinking about what is different from the you today and how you’re operating today.

And that’s when we really start to make big progress as we move forward. And so the other reason that I think this is really important is because when I think about society in general, I think far too often, we tend to go down the “traditional” path, and I know that many of you listening to the show right now have gone down that path.

You have probably gone to college. Some of you probably have advanced degrees. Some of you have probably climbed the corporate ladder to a certain level. You’ve probably dedicated a large portion of your career up until this point to really climbing to some – I mean, let’s be honest, some arbitrary level within your career, right?

And so when I think back about my own experience, I dedicated close to 18 years working in the higher ed industry. And even thinking back five years ago, I was doing the same thing. I went to school, I went to college, I got a job right out of college, worked my way up, moved organizations, all of the things, and really worked my way up to a point where I thought I had arrived to a degree.

If you would have asked my five years ago would I be sitting here today talking to you all, my own business, having this podcast, it wasn’t really in my awareness at that time. But I think it’s important to, as I now am on the other side of that, to recognize that for most people, I think we are conditioned to go down that path. We are conditioned to get educated, which again, I’m not saying is a bad thing, but I think it’s important to always be educating yourself.

But to get educated in the traditional system, to work our way up, to get a “steady” job that pays benefits. I know that was what I heard a lot growing up. And what happens is because that is what we work towards, that is what the vast majority of our society works towards, in so many ways, we’re not even aware as to what’s really available to us.

And when we don’t have that awareness, we don’t also stretch to beyond what we see. And so I do think in some cases that that may be the right decision, it might be the right thing to stay in corporate America, to climb the ladder, because there are certain things as an entrepreneur you have to be ready to do.

You have to be ready to take risks, you have to be ready to be all in on your business. You have to be really willing to be uncomfortable. All of the things that really are required, that I really think is a beautiful thing, is a beautiful byproduct of becoming an entrepreneur is just the personal growth that happens in the process.

But for some people, I think that it’s okay. It’s okay to stay more in that traditional path. I truly don’t think that everybody is really meant to be an entrepreneur. I think it’s available to everyone, but I do think that it requires a certain level of commitment that not everybody – it may not be right for everybody.

So when I think about that time for myself, there was a large portion of that time where even though I was fulfilled in my work, I felt positive about the work that I was doing, I felt positive about going into the office every day and in many ways was passionate about what it is exactly that I was doing.

I look back at that time now and really see that in so many ways, I also wasn’t stretching myself. I was very much stretching myself to the level that was really in the confines of what that position was, what that title was.

And so even though, again, I enjoyed the work and it definitely served its purpose at that time in my life and I would never want it to be any different, looking back at that experience now, having grown and built my business and doing the work that I’m doing today, it’s really amazing to see exactly what is available and what I’m actually capable of.

And I just think it’s such a gift to be in the position that I am in today. And I think for many of you that are also working to building your business, I really encourage you to see the gift. And even if you’re not quite yet where you want to be in your business, really appreciating the gift that you have, the gift of really evolving and stretching yourself beyond, in most cases, where you’ve probably been stretched before.

And so I do think that setting goals and specifically as I think about moving into 2021, this is a practice that I’ve been doing for, again, the last several weeks, and I would really encourage you to do, but thinking about goals that are beyond your current capacity and really setting what may feel like some impossible goals.

And so I think it’s one of the most important things that we can do as entrepreneurs. And I do think that if we don’t do that, in many ways, we stay stuck and we stay in places and we stay at levels that are – they may be okay, but it’s not really stepping into our full potential.

And I do think when you set goals that are beyond your current capacity, when you are really forcing yourself to stretch and step outside of your comfort zone and really take bigger leaps forward, it does force you in many ways to actually generate results much quicker.

And when we don’t rise to our potential, when we set goals that seem doable, they seem within reach, what happens is it becomes much more convenient to play small. It becomes much more convenient to justify to ourselves why the real goal that we want to achieve isn’t available to us.

And so I just really recommend that all of you be on to yourself with that and to really look at what it is that you’re telling yourself in relation to your goals because I see this happen a lot, especially as newer entrepreneurs are coming into this industry. There’s this sense of we’re just kind of putting one step in front of the other, which again, I don’t disagree with.

But we’re not really going forward. We’re not really setting the goals that light us up. And instead, we’re setting goals that feel as if they’re within our reach so that we don’t become disappointed, so that we don’t have reason to really play on a bigger playing field and really go for it.

And so I just think there’s so much more growth available to you when you set goals that feels beyond your current capacity and that’s really what I work with my clients on. And what’s interesting, when I look at all of my clients, I do think there’s this inherent sense with each of them that they really do want to achieve the big, big goals, that they really are ready to go after it, and that’s the work that I love doing.

And so one thing to start considering as you’re thinking about your goals, as you’re thinking about next year is to consider – I would encourage you to consider what that goal is and then consider what would be the goal beyond that goal. And so for some of you, that might be a revenue number or it might be a number of clients that you’re working with, or it might be different things within your business that might seem a little bit, again, out of reach.

But I really want to encourage you to think one step beyond what that is. And so for me for instance, I am looking down, looking at the next year and thinking about what my goals are and I have some big goals, revenue goals in terms of my business. I’ve got some big goals in terms of how many clients I really want to help really breakthrough that first six-figure mark, and also really scale up.

So really scaling into those multi six figures and I even have a few that I’m really thinking, I’m really believing that we can get to that seven-figure level. So that’s really exciting to me to think about. While it does seem achievable, when I really think about the numbers and what it is that I really want to – who I really want to serve within that, it does feel a little out of reach and it’s also exciting to me because it’s exciting to think about bringing that to a larger community, to being able to help many more clients, to being able to really have more of a reach in terms of my work, in terms of what it is that I really do with clients.

And so I’ve been thinking a lot, I’ve been thinking very deeply about that these last couple of weeks, and so I’ll be sharing more as we move forward, as we get closer to the new year. But I’m super, super excited about some things that I have in store and some plans that I have in terms of my business and being able to help more and more clients and really expand and really help more clients to get to their goals, which is ultimately my goal.

So with that, I want to encourage you to do the same thing. I want you to think about what is your goal. So December 31st, 2021, what do you want to be able to look back and say that you’ve really achieved? What do you want to be able to look back and say to yourself, you know what, I’m really proud of myself for achieving that?

That’s one of the things, one of the lenses I like to look at this through a lot is to really think about what is it that I can feel really proud about. Not necessarily what someone else might think, but what do I feel? What would I feel really proud about?

And so I encourage you to start there and to start feeling into that and start thinking about what does that version of you that’s achieved that goal, what does that version of you – how is that version operating differently? How is that version of you showing up differently? How is that version of you may be working differently? Committing in a different way.

I think there’s a lot of value in thinking about that. And I’d encourage you to journal on that, get it out of your head, actually put it on some paper. Start really putting that down and thinking about those goals that are beyond your current capacity. You’ll be so glad that you did.

Alright my friends, I hope you have a beautiful week. We’ll talk to you all again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you’re ready for a real breakthrough in your business and want to grow and scale your business to at least six figures or more in annual revenue, I invite you to apply for my exclusive program The Mastermind at amandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Life Coach Business Podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build, grow and scale your business and accelerate your results, visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com.