Why You Should Ditch Traditional Goal Setting and Embrace Embodied Goal Setting

Do you find it difficult to visualize effectively? So many of us lose that ability when we enter adulthood, and a recent exchange in my burlesque class just reaffirmed that to me. In this episode, I talk about why visualization is the vital missing key to successfully setting and achieving your goals, especially for entrepreneurs.

1:54 - Why so many adults are unable to envision the goals they want to achieve

4:45 - The basketball study that shows the science behind visualization

7:22 - What happens in your brain as you visualize and its effect on achieving goals

11:23 - Traditional goal setting vs. how I work with clients on goal setting

13:35 - One thing discussions around manifestation don’t take into account 

Want to do an embodied goal-setting session with me? Let’s schedule it! Find me on Instagram or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.

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Transcript for Why You Should Ditch Traditional Goal Setting and Embrace Embodied Goal Setting

Hey, boss. It's Leslie, your six-figure sales coach. This podcast is created for central movement studio owners who are looking to scale their studios to multiple six figures, or maybe even seven figures. I'm going to share the good, bad, and the ugly of running a six-figure studio because we all know this business isn't all about booty shorts and stilettos. Let's get to today's episode.

Hey, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. I hope you're doing well. I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. This week, sometimes things happen in my day and I'm like, “I need to record a podcast about this.” Today was one of those days. For those of you who don't know, I take burlesque classes. If you follow me on IG, you've probably seen me shimming my little heart out. Well, today was a very interesting class and it just reaffirmed something that I've seen over and over again to something coaching these last few years. It is the inability for adults to visualize.

Stay with me here. One of the things about burlesque is that you need to be able to not just perform but you need to be able to emote. You need to be able to entertain, you need to be able to storytell. Sounds a lot like selling, but I digress. You need to be able to pull people into your world and they visualize and experience what you're experiencing.

I take classes with a world-renowned burlesque performer. Her name is Po'Chop. I always want to say porkchop because I fucking love pork chops, but it's Po'Chop. One of the other students in the class expressed a little bit of frustration about what to do with her arms when we were performing. Po'Chop immediately said, “Well, one of the things that you could do is take some time to visualize what you would like to do with your arms.”

Then she took it a little bit further and said that the way that she prepares for performance is by literally visualizing herself creating a world, what would be in that world, and how would she interact with the things in that world. What would things smell like? What would she feel, what would she hear? Then she starts to act that world, her being the center character in that world out on stage.

Now, the look that was on this other student's face, I’ve seen that look a million times on a Zoom call, and that is the look of “That sounds silly.” Let's tell the truth. If you've ever been encouraged to visualize, do you walk away feeling like “That sounds silly. I'm not going to do that”? I get it. Trust me because I used to be the same way.

A lot of it has to do with once you become an adult, you realize that there is a reality. When you're a kid and you've got your imaginary friend who nobody else sees but you, if you get lost in a novel, or something like that, where you see yourself as the main character, the hero that’s slaying the dragons, that's encouraged when we're children.

But something happens when we become adults that now we feel like we must be sober minded. Imagination has no part when we talk about how we create our future, meaning how we set goals and go about achieving them. That has done more damage I think to the entrepreneur, than anything else.

The inability to actually envision and embody a vision is what's keeping you from the next level of income in your business. Flat out. I'm just going to say that. I know for me, when I was able to re-claim, reconnect to my ability to imagine, things shifted for me in terms of the direction for my business.

I really do want to help us think because we do need to be sober minded, we do need to focus on reality and come up with solutions. I'm not advocating somebody to go sit in a corner and just wish upon a star for five hours and think they're going to be a millionaire. I'm not being silly, but I am saying that we do need to carve out time to visualize the life we want.

One of the things that might be helpful is to know that there's actually been science done, there's science behind visualization, meaning there's been research done around visualizations. There was a study that was done by the University of Chicago a few years ago that I learned about in one of my trainings and basically, there were three test groups that were put together. The first test group was given 30 days. All three tests were given 30 days and they used free throws.

These were basketball players. Group number one was given the assignment to practice their free throws for 30 days. For 30 consecutive days, they went on the court and they practiced the free throws. The second group was given the assignment of not to physically practice but to visualize for 30 days them doing free throws. Then the third group was told to do nothing. At the end of the 30 days, when they came back, group number one had improved its free throw percentage, that was the group that practiced every day, about 25%.

But here's the cool thing. Group number two, the group that didn't do any physical practice, but only visualized making free throws for 30 days hit like 23% improvement. Isn't that crazy? That's just wild to hear. They were almost as good as the group that went in practice every day. Of course, group three had no improvement because they did nothing. Heck, this is life. You do nothing, you fucking get nothing. That's how life works. That is just one study. There are tons of studies out there that you can look up about visualizing.

But there is the science of actually what is happening in your brain—and I'm not going to go into that because honestly, that's above my paygrade, that's outside of my wheelhouse—but basically your brain is made up of neurons, it's about 85 to 100 billion neurons dependent upon what research you look at, and there are neural pathways that happen, meaning, the things that control what you do every day comes from how your brain is wired.

Visualization has been proven, especially multisensory visualization, to strengthen those neurological pathways. The more time that you spend visioning, the more often you are going to do what it takes to meet that goal. That's about as nerdy as I'm going to get with it. But I really want you to get and really hold on to the fact that we create our future. We create it by what we think because what you think is how you want to lead what you do, and the energy behind what you do makes a difference.

One of the things that I tell people all the time about selling is you can have all the sales strategies in the world. This is why I literally created the CEO Sales Confidence program, because you don't need sales strategies, more sales strategies, like there are tons of great sales strategies. Most of you already know how to sell. But what you don't know is how to access the confidence and access the drive to sell when you don't feel like it, when you might be intimidated by who you're pitching to, or whatever that might be.

There's a process that has to happen that you have to own so that you can show up. Sales is energetic. You can have the best sales strategy but if you don't really believe in the product that you're selling, which is your service or your physical product, your gym classes, or whatever it is, if you don't really believe in the transformation of those products, the person you're trying to sell to can feel it. Something will be off. Even if you're saying all the right words, something will be off.

You've had this happen yourself like a person could be saying something to you. Maybe it's not in a sales situation, but it could just be in a dating situation where someone's saying something to you, and you're like, “They're saying the right thing but something feels off.” This is the same thing when it comes to selling your products. Energetically, you have to be right.

Spending time visualizing what you desire is not a waste of time. Turn to your neighbor—like y'all know, I'm black and Baptist so this is how we roll. We talk to each other in church—we turn to our neighbor and we encourage our neighbor, but we turn to our neighbor and say visualization is not wasting time. Using my imagination is not wasting time. It is vital to the success and health of my business. It is vital to the health and success of my revenue. It is vital to my thriving and flourishing, not only financially but also emotionally and spiritually.

So when we talk about visualization and goal setting, I'm putting on a retreat in January of 2023. We're going to Tulum. There's only going to be seven of us so I'm not going to even promote it because those spots are going to be taken up by the current clients. But I want to let you know what we do when we go and set our goals because everybody sets goals at the beginning of the year. I shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of people set goals or resolutions at the beginning of the year. But typically that goal setting process is very linear.

“I want this, I want that. Here are the steps I need to take to do this. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.” Blah-blah-blah, boring. Then we wonder why we have a tough time meeting those goals because we never took the time to embody those goals.

One of the things that I do with clients is—we call it embodied-goal setting. Very simple—but what I encourage you to do is to bring all facets of who you are into that process. I call it multisensory visualization. If we’re talking about a goal, let’s pick one, my goal might be to increase my revenue by 30% this upcoming year, the first thing we’re going to talk about is why do you desire that goal? 

I really don't feel like we spend enough time talking about why do we truly want what we say we want. It could be some sneaky shit going on in your mind about why you desire what you desire. Some of the things and some of the goals you set are so out of alignment with what you really want. It could be in response to what your mama wanted you to do or what your daddy wanted you to do, or you're trying to prove something to your ex. All of those goals have really stinky energy attached to them.

I really like to help my clients set what I call clean goals. Goals that are yours, birthed from you, that you own, not ones that are tainted by dirty little things that we carry with us in our past, i.e. Trump. Yeah, big T and little t. Once we establish that as a clean goal, we also make sure that it's a safe goal. You know, one of the things that I don't like about woo conversations around manifestation and things of that nature is it often doesn't take into account that if you are in a position in life where your basic needs aren't met, it's hard as fuck to visualize a future of flourishing when you don't know what you're going to eat.

Talking to someone who doesn't feel safe, whether it's because of money, housing, clothing, love, emotional support, those sorts of things about flourishing, it's going to be very difficult for them to do. When I encounter clients who don't have that safety there, my recommendation is always to get therapeutic support, because I know how important it is for you to feel safe before I start talking to you about the future.

Once that's established, you feel safe. Even in that moment, for people who don't have active trauma, there's still a safety component that has to come into play, which is why I start all of my sessions with some clearing and centering breath work because I want you to remember that you are safe, you are in control, and you are able to make good decisions for yourself, so that even in a situation where there is an act of trauma, safety is the foundation.

Then we move into that multisensory visualization so we feel safe. We make sure that this is a clean goal for us, like this is a goal, you know why you want this goal. Then we start to visualize what's happening physically in your body when you achieve this goal. Energetically or emotionally, how does it feel when you achieve this goal? What will your life be like? Who will be around you? What will you be doing?

We try to bring all five of your senses into it. What would you hear if there was a smell that might be going. For some people, they may want to increase their revenue by 25% because they want to purchase a second home. That second home is going to be in a warmer climate. What I would walk you through is visualizing yourself in that new home. What does that look like? How many bedrooms are in that home? How many bathrooms? What color is the living room? What color is the bedroom? What's outside, what can you see? Is it water, is it trees? What do you see? Is it mountains? Can you see it? Can you smell the air?

I know for me when I'm on the beach, there is a smell in the air of the water. Sometimes I can smell the salt. I really try to bring my clients into that moment, anchor into that moment. Because now you're actually embodying. What do you hear? Is it the voice of your husband or your grandchildren? The deeper that you can get into that visualization, the more it tells your body that this is real. The more you can feel it, the stronger the feelings, the stronger the associations, it kind of tricks your mind into believing that you already have it.

Then you start to look for evidence to make that thing a reality. That is what embodied goal-setting is. Anybody can write down some goals on a piece of paper. But chances are, if you really want to achieve it, you're going to have to spend some time visioning about it. You're going to have to spend some time just thinking about it. You're going to have to spend some time experiencing that in your body. It feels so yummy. It feels so good. It will give you the energy that you need to go after those goals to make your desires a reality.

Man, I just got hyped up. I got happy talking about this myself. Because truly it is the power to unlocking the life that you deserve. If you want help with this, you need to hit me up and be like, “Leslie, I want to do an embodied goal-setting session.” Let's talk about it. Let's get it on the schedule. Let's make that happen so that your next quarter, because the year ain’t over, we don't need to talk about 2023, we need to talk about the next quarter and what could have happened if you would embody that goal as opposed to just writing it down, you can email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com or you can find me on Instagram @lesliedlyons. Until next week, you be great. Grace and peace.