January 6, 2022 • 30 mins
Welcome to 2022! A fresh canvas with 365 days of new possibilities. 52 weeks of deciding who you want to be and what goals are going to make your life more meaningful to you.
If you're like most people, the motivation to reach those goals starts to fall by the wayside around Valentine's Day. Over 80% of goal setters give up on their New Year's Resolutions by mid-February. Why is that? What Dan sees in his own coaching practice is most people are setting goals that are misaligned from their own soul.
This week, Dan breaks this down for you. We're giving you the three goal setting traps that are going to sabotage your success as well as three questions to ask yourself before you commit to any new goal in life.
To learn more how to work one-on-one with Dan, visit creativesoulcoaching.net
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. It is a fresh canvas with three hundred and
sixty five days of new possibilities, fifty two weeks of
deciding who you want to be and what goals are
going to make your life more meaningful to you. But
if you, like most people, the motivation to reach those
goals starts to fall by the wayside. Around Valentine's Day,
(00:22):
the statistics are graham over of goal setters give up
on their New Year's resolutions by mid February. And why
is that? Is it laziness? Is it a lack of discipline?
What I see in my own coaching practice more often
than not, is that most people are setting goals that
are misaligned from their own soul. Now, I know that
(00:44):
sounds a little airy fairy, but as always, I'm going
to break this down in very simple terms. This week,
we're gonna kick off the new year giving you the
three goal setting traps that are gonna sabotage your success. Plus,
i'm gonna give you three questions you should ask yourself
before you commit to any new goal in your life,
and welcome back. What is an amplified life? It's having
(01:07):
amplified relationships with people who support and encourage you to
be your best. It's having amplified energy to conquer the
challenges of the day, and it's having an amplified career,
one that's meaningful to you, the world, and your bank accounts.
I'm Dan Mason, life reinvention coach, helping you discover your
(01:28):
calling and create an amplified life on your terms. This
is the Life Amplified Podcast. No matter what you were
celebrating or not celebrating over the past couple of weeks,
I do hope the holiday season was it from in
this time for you a reflection and restoration. You know,
(01:50):
you you really got to take that time to conclune
for a little bit, shut down, to rest up, because
if you're going to create the amplified life being want
with more money, more impact, more love and fun and connection,
You're gonna need energy to bring your goals to life.
So you know, I hope we're ready to hit the
(02:10):
ground running. One of the things that I just did
in my own community over in my life Amplified collective
group coaching program was a fire New Year's goal setting
program where I taught everybody step by step the process
that I go through each year. That's helped me create
anything meaningful uh in this coaching business since I launched
(02:33):
it back in It's the same process I used to
create this podcast, which made a huge splash globally and
debut number one on iTunes. It's the same goal setting
process that helped me six x my income when I
really blew up my practice in And it's also the
same goal setting process that we used to crush it
(02:54):
and hit some big, lofty goals out of the ballpark.
And well, I'm not going to take you through the
whole goal setting process here because that is something I
reserve for my clients. There is an exercise that I
think can be very meaningful for you, and that is
to do some future self journaling. I actually learned this
(03:14):
from my friends Chris Winfield and Jin Gottlieb. So one
of the things that I've started to incorporate is to
write a letter to myself one year in the future,
and then I seal it up in an envelope. I
don't even look at it until three d and sixty
five days later. But what I do in that letter
is really honor myself and love on myself and congratulate
(03:36):
me for the goals that I reached, you know, which
seems a little ludicrous because you're congratulating yourself and writing
down all these things on paper that haven't happened yet.
But that's really what an amplified life is about, right,
It's being that alchemist who can you know, create something
tangible and meaningful and important basically from thin air. So
(03:59):
in my future self journaling. In the letter that I
dated here January one, it says, Dear Dan, I am
so proud of you. It's been the biggest year of
your career in life. You've been committed, self integral, and disciplined,
and you booked fifty television appearances serving an audience of
(04:20):
fifty million people. Your empathy, wisdom, and humor shine through
in every interaction and interview. And you know, I look
at this and I kind of laughed, like the audacity
to think that I was going to book fifty television
appearances when I did zero the year before. I had
no publicist, I had no connections to get in with
(04:41):
any of these uh television producers, whether it be at
the local or national level. And yet opened this letter
up on New Year's Eve and it couldn't help but
smile now full disclosure. I didn't perfectly hit that goal,
but I will tell you what I did forty one
television appearances that, as far as my team and I
(05:02):
can figure out, reached an audience of fourteen million people.
And that was so exciting And it felt very sole aligned,
not from a place of me trying to be famous
or be a celebrity. That's not what this is about.
And I know that there's sort of like this movement
happening within the coaching industry that I call the red
carpet culture. It does seem like a lot of people
(05:25):
in the spiritual and personal development world are chasing fame
for fame's sake. But this for me was all about impact.
It was just about how can I find platforms beyond
this podcast to reach more people. So being able to
speak about things like men's mental health and talk about
career reinvention at such a relevant time when we're in
(05:48):
the Great Resignation and people were quitting their jobs left
and right. Uh was such a gift And it felt
like the highest and best use of my abilities and
my skills. And because those goals weren't just from a
place of vanity or trying to make myself feel like
I'm important or enough. I think it was easier for
(06:12):
me to hit them, and there was a real deep
sense of fulfillment once I did it. And when you
think about the goals that you've said over the course
of your life, how many times has there been something
where you set a goal because you're trying to prove yourself.
You're setting a goal because you think if you cross
(06:32):
this invisible finish line to get more money or the
next job or another relationship, somehow it's going to feel
the internal void that you're going to feel enough. And
isn't it funny that you can reach those goals too,
because wherever we put our focus, that's where the energy flows.
We can manifest those things and then you reach the
(06:54):
goal and you still feel empty. So what I really
want to make sure today is that we're setting those
soul aligned goals, that you're doing things that are really
going to add meaning to your life. And there are
three questions that we need to look at in order
for you to do that. So I want to start
(07:14):
out this week with question number one. In This might
seem a little stupid on the surface, but go with me.
Are the goals that you're setting this year for you?
Or are they for other people? And you know, the
automatic egoic reaction is to be like, well, of course,
and I'm setting these goals for me. Why else would
(07:35):
I set it? And notice, though, how many times in
your life you set goals that are from a place
of sacrifice, where you're giving up yourself to help someone
else achieve their dreams. How many times are you setting
goals that are really more about trying to save or
rescue other people, to take care of other people, even
(07:59):
if it's at your own expense. I got a coaching
application just this morning from someone who's been a longtime
listener here to the Life Amplified podcast and listen to
what she shared, and I want you to start to
get curious if this resonates for you. She says, I've
raised my children successfully, I've helped my husband and numerous
(08:20):
other people make their dreams come true. But now I'm
stalled in how to help myself. And this is what
I mean that a lot of times we're sending goals
that aren't even for us. I had a woman who
came to me in my coaching practice last year whose
number one goal in life was she wanted to help
her husband get sober. And you hear that and it's like, oh,
(08:42):
that's that's really sweet. That's a family in pain and
she wants to help her partner. But can you also
understand what the frustration would be in a goal like that.
Number one, She has no control over his sobriety. And
this is a woman who was the breadwinner of a family.
She was very high achieving CEO, so she's footing the
(09:04):
bill for these recovery programs and for therapists and sobriety coaches.
But yet the goal was just trying to keep him
propped up, and underneath it was sort of a denial
of the things that she needed. She needed a partner
who was going to step up and be an equal
so she didn't feel overly responsible to take care of
(09:27):
the family. She needed a partner who was sober at night,
who could hold space for her so she could talk
about all the things and the frustrations and some of
the winds that she was experiencing in her career. She
really wanted that presence, but all of her goals, rather
than doing things that would move her forward, we're all
(09:49):
about trying to get him to change and that's ultimately
something that you're never going to have control over, whether
it be your children, your spouse, your family members. This
is why the holiday season is such a trigger for
so many of us. I'll give you one more case
in points about a coaching call that I did recently
(10:10):
with someone very high achieving, very successful person who has
a special needs daughter, and what he wanted to do
was open a center that would give his daughter the
care that she needed and for other children and parents
that were like her. And this person he went and
(10:32):
got like a two million dollar loaned by a huge building,
and they staffed this up with extraordinary teachers, and of
course they have you know, found students to enroll in
this program. But the goal was actually for his daughter.
And I'm not saying that the goal is bad, but
(10:54):
I will tell you in coaching this person, at the
end of the year, after doing all these things, he
felt bad. He was tired, he was burned out, he
was stressed. He was taking on a ton of responsibility
that was not even in his own zone of genius,
managing payroll, doing job interviews. And yet this person was
(11:15):
really a creative who wanted to be writing. But out
of this sense of duty to be a good father
and to give his daughter the care that they couldn't
find elsewhere. Invested all of his energy into this center,
which was very successful, bit left him feeling exhausted, empty,
and even a little bit resentful, as much as he
(11:39):
loves his daughter. So that's what I want you to
think about right now in your life when you start
to list your goals for the coming year, who were
they for? And this isn't to say we need to
become self center dicks in our life and make everything
all about us. When I look at some of the
goals that I have for the coming year, they're very
(12:00):
much about serving you as a podcast listener, and serving
the clients that I work with internationally, and creating more
coaching programs and options and avenues for me to impact
a greater number of people. You know, my life in
my business is all about service, but it's connected to
(12:22):
me first, because the work that I do when we
put out these podcasts, when I'm creating videos, when I'm
doing TV interviews, when I'm working with people one on
one or in groups, is truly my life's work. It's
why I believe that I was created by God was
to come here and just be a transmitter for this message.
(12:44):
It's not even my message. There's nothing that you can
go back and listen to all one and sixty plus
episodes of this podcast. There aren't many things here I've invented.
All the teachings here are rooted in thousands of years
of spiritual wisdom and personal growth pack practices that have
been around forever. However, I just function as the lighthouse.
(13:07):
You know, what does the lighthouse do. It shines into
the night and calls wayward ships home. My life's purpose
is to be that lighthouse to shine brightly. So hopefully
as you listen to these episodes, you start to create
a path and find a way to come home to yourself.
So I'm very intentional each day about, you know, never
(13:28):
stepping into my coaching practice from a place of trying
to rescue people or a sense of obligation. In fact,
I usually spend the first two hours of my day
with all sorts of self care practices that connect me
to myself in my higher power, so that I even
have the energy to show up for you over the
course of a year. So that is question number one.
(13:50):
Are these goals even for me in the first place,
and if you're not happy with the answer, if you're
like that woman who submitted the coaching application is like,
oh my god, I'm raising my children, I'm helping my
husband get what he wants, I'm helping my friends get
what they want. I don't even know what I really want.
Now is a great time for you to get some
support to explore that and to figure out what would
(14:12):
that look and sound like in my life? How would
it feel for me to actually put myself in my purpose? First?
The second question that I want you to consider, and
this is another big goal setting trap for people. Are
my goals coming from a survival mindset? Or are my
(14:34):
goals something I'm called to by love. I've talked about
this concept in the past on the podcast. Many people
are setting away from goals instead of towards goals. Now
what's the difference. Well, be away from goals are goals
that are simply trying to move away from pain. These
(14:56):
are the people that say, God, I want to get
out of this soul sucking job. I want to get
out of debt in the coming year. I want to
lose thirty pounds so that you know I'm not overweight. Anymore.
It's usually about running away from a pain point. And
(15:18):
while away from goals can certainly work at least in
the short term, they're very hard to sustain over time because,
as you've heard at nauseum and personal development, where your
focus goes, energy flows. So think about where the focus
is in these away from goals. It's usually on soul
(15:39):
sucking job. It's on debt, it's on lack of money.
It could be on lack of love in a marriage
or relationship. It could be on loneliness when people are like, well,
I just don't want to feel lonely this year, you know,
I just want to find a social life so that
I'm not lonely. But just feel into that for a second.
(16:02):
Doesn't that just feel heavy and gross? And what are
the emotions that come up for you when you think
about the job that you hate, or the weight that
you need to lose, or the debt that you might
be in. If you're like most people, it's shame, guilt, sadness,
feelings of not enoughness, and that is a very hard
(16:24):
emotional state for anybody to manifest from. Remember, it's our
emotional state will create behaviors. You're gonna take very different
action in your life. If you're waking up each day
feeling fat, feeling broke, feeling uninspired, then if you wake
(16:45):
up excited and if not excited by the current conditions
of your life, at least excited about the possibilities that
you are moving towards. So the real key here is
to shift away from these survival base goals, because when
your life is just about survival, God, I want to
get out of debt. You know what happens with a
(17:06):
lot of people who set that goal as they work
and they hustle and they grind and they burn themselves out,
and eventually they'll pay off the credit card or they
pay off the student loan, and then within two to
three years they find themselves in the same amount of debt,
if not even worse off than they were before. Because
the nervous system is just like God, to escape the threat.
(17:29):
Got to escape the predator that's out here chasing me,
if it's a debt collector, or you know, the the
cholesterol level on their yearly physical So they do just
enough to get out of danger. But then because there's
no vision pulling them forward into a state of thriving,
they revert back to what they're used to. So what
(17:49):
we're talking about here is you creating goals in your
life that you are called to by love. Or you
could also look at this if that sounds too hokey
for you, What are the goals that are actually going
to help me thrive? And I talked about this before,
but it bears repeating. When I was forty pounds overweight,
(18:11):
at rock bottom in my life in you know, I
didn't I quit talking about goals about losing weight. I
tried to get clear on what's going to excite me.
I was like, I want to feel optimized and primed
and energetic when I wake up every day. I want
people to feel my confidence in my energy when I
(18:33):
walk into a room. I want to turn heads. You know,
I was in the middle of, like getting divorced from
a toxic marriage. So yeah, there was part of me
that wanted to stick it to my ex wife and
I wanted, you know, if she went on my social
media page when I started dating again, I wanted her
to see me with some really attractive women, which admitt
(18:54):
that I needed to take good care of myself. Right.
It wasn't trying to get about six pack abs or
any sort of image. We're not saying that you need
to be thin or ripped or somehow in shape in
order to be worthy of love. But I knew if
I felt confident about myself, that that confidence would spill
(19:16):
over to my dating life. And that was a huge
motivator for me. It wasn't just about, oh god, I'm
on the scale, I just don't feel good about the
way I look. It was like, no, I am excited
to create this new version of myself and boom, I
lost thirty seven pounds in ninety days. That's the value
(19:37):
of a committed decision and really starting to build a
next act for your life that is based on thriving
and not just survival. You know those of you who
were thinking about your goals for this year and you
were like, you know, I don't need a lot of money.
I just I just seemed enough to get by. That
(19:58):
survival based think that is thinking that is rooted in
lack in scarcity. I had a friend from many years
ago reach out to me on New Year's Eve and
she had sent one of those time hop photos that
had showed up in memories because we were we had
spent New Year's Eve together like eight or nine years ago,
(20:20):
and she had sent that with another picture of her
just drinking while her friend and husband were making out
next to her, and she's like, ah, and I just
hope this is the year I'm not a third wheel anymore.
And I've tremendous empathy for that. You know, everybody wants
their New Year's kiss, and you know we're all built
(20:42):
to be in connection and in relationship. But simply setting
a goal to not be a third wheel, that's not
very inspiring. That's another survival based goal that's rooted in lack.
You know, what she really wants is to have a passionate,
on fire soul mate that she can be making out
with right next to her friend and her husband in
(21:02):
the following years. So I want you to start thinking
about where are you focused on the scarcity and lack
rather than creating goals that are exciting, that represent the
highest vision of your life if you really allowed yourself
to own your desires and you allowed yourself to receive
the things you wanted. So to recap the first two
(21:26):
questions that you should ask yourself before you commit to
any New Year's goal, is this goal truly for me?
Or am I trying to force my will on other
people or trying to repeat a pattern of rescuing or
saving other people? Second question, are my goals coming from
survival or are they called to by love? And the
(21:49):
third place that you really want to start to consider
in your goals is and again this might seem a
little esoteric, but we're gonna make it very practical. Goal.
Are my goals set from a place of owning my
divinity and my wholeness? Or am I just chasing another
(22:10):
goal that I think will make me be enough? Social
media over the past, you know, ten to fifteen years
and just created a culture of keeping up with the Joneses.
You know, we're all just trying to fulfill that image
to make our lives look great. True story. I dated
a girl very briefly. It's not even like we were
(22:32):
in a relationship. We went out on like three dates
in one and really great that she was a lot
of fun, beautiful girl. It seemed like we were really aligned.
And then after the third date she sent me this
long text and she said, Hey, I just don't feel
(22:52):
like I'm in the same place you are or that
I can date intentionally. She goes, my life is kind
of a mess. She goes, I've create aided this image
of crushing it on Instagram and making myself look like
a travel blogger, but in reality, I have got so
much trauma that I haven't dealt with. She had lost
both of her parents a few years prior. She had
(23:14):
never really dealt with that, and the coping device became
posting inspiring quotes and lots of bikini picks and swimsuit
picks and exotic locations all over the world. And unfortunately
she had listened to my podcast where we had gone
out on a couple of days, and she's like, I
feel like you're going to see through the fact that
(23:35):
my life is a lie. And it was disappointing because
I really felt that that was somebody where, you know,
we could have had potential to pursue a meaningful relationship.
But I also have so much empathy for that because
it is an image based culture where everybody you know
is trying to curate an image of success on Instagram,
(23:57):
but we're chasing things to try to feel enough. Here
is why that's a broken strategy, because the energy that
you're bringing to any new pursuit or goal is the
same energy that you're going to finish with at the end.
If you're starting point in your life is I'm not enough,
I'm inadequate, I'm not lovable, and you believe that you
(24:21):
need something outside of yourself to fill the whole. Internally,
You'll work hard, you'll get there, and then what will happen.
You'll still feel like you're not enough. There's gonna be
somebody else on Instagram is making more money or took
a nicer vacation, or just bought a newer car, or
(24:42):
bought a bigger house than you, And the same internal
pattern of comparing yourself and judging yourself is going to
show up again. Your worthiness for an amazing life is
not in question because your worthiness does not come through money, possessions,
or anything outside of you. Your worthiness was established the
(25:06):
moment that you were created, that some higher power, whatever
it is that you believe in, thought enough of you
to give you a heart that beats a hundred thousand
times a day and pumps blood and oxygen all through
your body. That this thing thought enough of you to
give you lungs that are expanding and contracting and keeping
(25:26):
you alive. You didn't have to do anything to earn
that it was just yours, because you're already worthy, and
that knowledge can free you today because once you know
that you're starting from a place of wholeness and divinity
and that you were perfectly loved, perfectly lovable, and perfectly created,
(25:50):
then there's no need to strive anymore. I also want
to make sure that we address this idea that if
I reach this next goal outside of myself, then I'll
be happy. How many times if you said it, and
if I just made dollars more a year, if I
had a new job, if I could just move my
family into a nicer house and in better development, I'll
(26:12):
be happy. And you do it, But then the oxytocin
and the dopamine of reaching the goal wears off after
a few weeks, and then it's not special anymore. There's
actually a scientific phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill, and
this is what happens when we're always chasing pleasure or happiness.
(26:33):
Is that we get that thing in our life right,
We get more money, we get a better car, and
then we start to take it for granted because it
becomes an expectation. You know, the minute that you upgrade
and you're making more money, and now you're not going,
you know, to the sizzler for the state buffet, and
(26:53):
you're able to go eat at the palms. You do
that a couple of times and now you're just used
to it. It becomes an expectation, which means that you
need some new hit of significance or some other object
to chase to give you the same chemical release in
your body, and it never ends. You make a million dollars,
then you're trying to figure out how to make five million.
(27:15):
You make five million, you're trying to figure out how
to make a billion. So scientists actually call that the
hedonic treadmill. And that's why, again your happiness can't be
connected to the goal that you're chasing. So those are
the big three goals setting traps and the questions to
ask yourself, are my goals for me? Or am I
(27:37):
trying to rescue or take care of other people? Are
my goals survival based? Or am I'm moving toward a
vision that is called to by love? Are my goals
set from a place of wholeness? Or am I striving
to try to be enough? Because once you get out
of those mindset traps that we've discussed this week. You
(27:58):
get to fill your cup and decide what's going to
be exciting for you, what's aligned with your purpose, what's
going to bring you joy, what's going to help you
serve the greatest number of people. What is going to
make your life a little more meaningful this year because
you're not here to get by and survive. You're here
(28:19):
for the joy of living, and you're not here to
give to others from an empty cup. You're here to
give to yourself to experience joy in the process, because
that is the generator that's going to help you show
up for everybody else in your life. And for God's sake,
there's nothing to prove, there's only people to serve. I'd
(28:43):
love to know how this episode resonates for you and
which of those three questions has made you look at
your goals in a little bit different way. Maybe you're
even going to tweak those goals slightly in the coming year.
I would love to know about it. You can slide
into my d m s on Instagram, make sure you
follow me at c sc Dan Mason, and if you
(29:05):
love the podcast and love what we shared this week,
please by all means share this with the people in
your life that you love and don't forget to click
subscribe and give us a follow five star ratings and
reviews always appreciated as well. But it is my honor
to serve you. And one more thing, by the way,
(29:26):
if you realize you've been falling into all three of
these traps, and you've been on that hedonic treadmill of
thinking you would be enough with one more goal, or
you're just so stuck and taking care of everybody else,
maybe you've lost that connection to who you are in
the first place. Now is a great time to get
some one on one support. And what I will guarantee
(29:47):
you is when you sign up for any of my
coaching programs. However long we work together, my intention is
always that you don't recognize your old life at the
end of our time together. And I've deliver heard consistently
time and time again on that promise. Two people who
show up courageously, who show up with a willingness to
(30:08):
think differently and a willingness to be different in the world.
So if you feel like now is a good time
for us to work together, go to my website fill
out that application, set up a complimentary discovery call Creative
Soul Coaching dot net. I love you so much, thank
you for being part of this community. It's a pleasure
(30:28):
to serve you for another year. And don't forget. Turn
down the volume on your negativity, turn up the volume
on your purpose so you can live life amplified
Welcome. It is a fresh canvas with three hundred and
sixty five days of new possibilities, fifty two weeks of
deciding who you want to be and what goals are
going to make your life more meaningful to you. But
if you, like most people, the motivation to reach those
goals starts to fall by the wayside. Around Valentine's Day,
(00:22):
the statistics are graham over of goal setters give up
on their New Year's resolutions by mid February. And why
is that? Is it laziness? Is it a lack of discipline?
What I see in my own coaching practice more often
than not, is that most people are setting goals that
are misaligned from their own soul. Now, I know that
(00:44):
sounds a little airy fairy, but as always, I'm going
to break this down in very simple terms. This week,
we're gonna kick off the new year giving you the
three goal setting traps that are gonna sabotage your success. Plus,
i'm gonna give you three questions you should ask yourself
before you commit to any new goal in your life,
and welcome back. What is an amplified life? It's having
(01:07):
amplified relationships with people who support and encourage you to
be your best. It's having amplified energy to conquer the
challenges of the day, and it's having an amplified career,
one that's meaningful to you, the world, and your bank accounts.
I'm Dan Mason, life reinvention coach, helping you discover your
(01:28):
calling and create an amplified life on your terms. This
is the Life Amplified Podcast. No matter what you were
celebrating or not celebrating over the past couple of weeks,
I do hope the holiday season was it from in
this time for you a reflection and restoration. You know,
(01:50):
you you really got to take that time to conclune
for a little bit, shut down, to rest up, because
if you're going to create the amplified life being want
with more money, more impact, more love and fun and connection,
You're gonna need energy to bring your goals to life.
So you know, I hope we're ready to hit the
(02:10):
ground running. One of the things that I just did
in my own community over in my life Amplified collective
group coaching program was a fire New Year's goal setting
program where I taught everybody step by step the process
that I go through each year. That's helped me create
anything meaningful uh in this coaching business since I launched
(02:33):
it back in It's the same process I used to
create this podcast, which made a huge splash globally and
debut number one on iTunes. It's the same goal setting
process that helped me six x my income when I
really blew up my practice in And it's also the
same goal setting process that we used to crush it
(02:54):
and hit some big, lofty goals out of the ballpark.
And well, I'm not going to take you through the
whole goal setting process here because that is something I
reserve for my clients. There is an exercise that I
think can be very meaningful for you, and that is
to do some future self journaling. I actually learned this
(03:14):
from my friends Chris Winfield and Jin Gottlieb. So one
of the things that I've started to incorporate is to
write a letter to myself one year in the future,
and then I seal it up in an envelope. I
don't even look at it until three d and sixty
five days later. But what I do in that letter
is really honor myself and love on myself and congratulate
(03:36):
me for the goals that I reached, you know, which
seems a little ludicrous because you're congratulating yourself and writing
down all these things on paper that haven't happened yet.
But that's really what an amplified life is about, right,
It's being that alchemist who can you know, create something
tangible and meaningful and important basically from thin air. So
(03:59):
in my future self journaling. In the letter that I
dated here January one, it says, Dear Dan, I am
so proud of you. It's been the biggest year of
your career in life. You've been committed, self integral, and disciplined,
and you booked fifty television appearances serving an audience of
(04:20):
fifty million people. Your empathy, wisdom, and humor shine through
in every interaction and interview. And you know, I look
at this and I kind of laughed, like the audacity
to think that I was going to book fifty television
appearances when I did zero the year before. I had
no publicist, I had no connections to get in with
(04:41):
any of these uh television producers, whether it be at
the local or national level. And yet opened this letter
up on New Year's Eve and it couldn't help but
smile now full disclosure. I didn't perfectly hit that goal,
but I will tell you what I did forty one
television appearances that, as far as my team and I
(05:02):
can figure out, reached an audience of fourteen million people.
And that was so exciting And it felt very sole aligned,
not from a place of me trying to be famous
or be a celebrity. That's not what this is about.
And I know that there's sort of like this movement
happening within the coaching industry that I call the red
carpet culture. It does seem like a lot of people
(05:25):
in the spiritual and personal development world are chasing fame
for fame's sake. But this for me was all about impact.
It was just about how can I find platforms beyond
this podcast to reach more people. So being able to
speak about things like men's mental health and talk about
career reinvention at such a relevant time when we're in
(05:48):
the Great Resignation and people were quitting their jobs left
and right. Uh was such a gift And it felt
like the highest and best use of my abilities and
my skills. And because those goals weren't just from a
place of vanity or trying to make myself feel like
I'm important or enough. I think it was easier for
(06:12):
me to hit them, and there was a real deep
sense of fulfillment once I did it. And when you
think about the goals that you've said over the course
of your life, how many times has there been something
where you set a goal because you're trying to prove yourself.
You're setting a goal because you think if you cross
(06:32):
this invisible finish line to get more money or the
next job or another relationship, somehow it's going to feel
the internal void that you're going to feel enough. And
isn't it funny that you can reach those goals too,
because wherever we put our focus, that's where the energy flows.
We can manifest those things and then you reach the
(06:54):
goal and you still feel empty. So what I really
want to make sure today is that we're setting those
soul aligned goals, that you're doing things that are really
going to add meaning to your life. And there are
three questions that we need to look at in order
for you to do that. So I want to start
(07:14):
out this week with question number one. In This might
seem a little stupid on the surface, but go with me.
Are the goals that you're setting this year for you?
Or are they for other people? And you know, the
automatic egoic reaction is to be like, well, of course,
and I'm setting these goals for me. Why else would
(07:35):
I set it? And notice, though, how many times in
your life you set goals that are from a place
of sacrifice, where you're giving up yourself to help someone
else achieve their dreams. How many times are you setting
goals that are really more about trying to save or
rescue other people, to take care of other people, even
(07:59):
if it's at your own expense. I got a coaching
application just this morning from someone who's been a longtime
listener here to the Life Amplified podcast and listen to
what she shared, and I want you to start to
get curious if this resonates for you. She says, I've
raised my children successfully, I've helped my husband and numerous
(08:20):
other people make their dreams come true. But now I'm
stalled in how to help myself. And this is what
I mean that a lot of times we're sending goals
that aren't even for us. I had a woman who
came to me in my coaching practice last year whose
number one goal in life was she wanted to help
her husband get sober. And you hear that and it's like, oh,
(08:42):
that's that's really sweet. That's a family in pain and
she wants to help her partner. But can you also
understand what the frustration would be in a goal like that.
Number one, She has no control over his sobriety. And
this is a woman who was the breadwinner of a family.
She was very high achieving CEO, so she's footing the
(09:04):
bill for these recovery programs and for therapists and sobriety coaches.
But yet the goal was just trying to keep him
propped up, and underneath it was sort of a denial
of the things that she needed. She needed a partner
who was going to step up and be an equal
so she didn't feel overly responsible to take care of
(09:27):
the family. She needed a partner who was sober at night,
who could hold space for her so she could talk
about all the things and the frustrations and some of
the winds that she was experiencing in her career. She
really wanted that presence, but all of her goals, rather
than doing things that would move her forward, we're all
(09:49):
about trying to get him to change and that's ultimately
something that you're never going to have control over, whether
it be your children, your spouse, your family members. This
is why the holiday season is such a trigger for
so many of us. I'll give you one more case
in points about a coaching call that I did recently
(10:10):
with someone very high achieving, very successful person who has
a special needs daughter, and what he wanted to do
was open a center that would give his daughter the
care that she needed and for other children and parents
that were like her. And this person he went and
(10:32):
got like a two million dollar loaned by a huge building,
and they staffed this up with extraordinary teachers, and of
course they have you know, found students to enroll in
this program. But the goal was actually for his daughter.
And I'm not saying that the goal is bad, but
(10:54):
I will tell you in coaching this person, at the
end of the year, after doing all these things, he
felt bad. He was tired, he was burned out, he
was stressed. He was taking on a ton of responsibility
that was not even in his own zone of genius,
managing payroll, doing job interviews. And yet this person was
(11:15):
really a creative who wanted to be writing. But out
of this sense of duty to be a good father
and to give his daughter the care that they couldn't
find elsewhere. Invested all of his energy into this center,
which was very successful, bit left him feeling exhausted, empty,
and even a little bit resentful, as much as he
(11:39):
loves his daughter. So that's what I want you to
think about right now in your life when you start
to list your goals for the coming year, who were
they for? And this isn't to say we need to
become self center dicks in our life and make everything
all about us. When I look at some of the
goals that I have for the coming year, they're very
(12:00):
much about serving you as a podcast listener, and serving
the clients that I work with internationally, and creating more
coaching programs and options and avenues for me to impact
a greater number of people. You know, my life in
my business is all about service, but it's connected to
(12:22):
me first, because the work that I do when we
put out these podcasts, when I'm creating videos, when I'm
doing TV interviews, when I'm working with people one on
one or in groups, is truly my life's work. It's
why I believe that I was created by God was
to come here and just be a transmitter for this message.
(12:44):
It's not even my message. There's nothing that you can
go back and listen to all one and sixty plus
episodes of this podcast. There aren't many things here I've invented.
All the teachings here are rooted in thousands of years
of spiritual wisdom and personal growth pack practices that have
been around forever. However, I just function as the lighthouse.
(13:07):
You know, what does the lighthouse do. It shines into
the night and calls wayward ships home. My life's purpose
is to be that lighthouse to shine brightly. So hopefully
as you listen to these episodes, you start to create
a path and find a way to come home to yourself.
So I'm very intentional each day about, you know, never
(13:28):
stepping into my coaching practice from a place of trying
to rescue people or a sense of obligation. In fact,
I usually spend the first two hours of my day
with all sorts of self care practices that connect me
to myself in my higher power, so that I even
have the energy to show up for you over the
course of a year. So that is question number one.
(13:50):
Are these goals even for me in the first place,
and if you're not happy with the answer, if you're
like that woman who submitted the coaching application is like,
oh my god, I'm raising my children, I'm helping my
husband get what he wants, I'm helping my friends get
what they want. I don't even know what I really want.
Now is a great time for you to get some
support to explore that and to figure out what would
(14:12):
that look and sound like in my life? How would
it feel for me to actually put myself in my purpose? First?
The second question that I want you to consider, and
this is another big goal setting trap for people. Are
my goals coming from a survival mindset? Or are my
(14:34):
goals something I'm called to by love. I've talked about
this concept in the past on the podcast. Many people
are setting away from goals instead of towards goals. Now
what's the difference. Well, be away from goals are goals
that are simply trying to move away from pain. These
(14:56):
are the people that say, God, I want to get
out of this soul sucking job. I want to get
out of debt in the coming year. I want to
lose thirty pounds so that you know I'm not overweight. Anymore.
It's usually about running away from a pain point. And
(15:18):
while away from goals can certainly work at least in
the short term, they're very hard to sustain over time because,
as you've heard at nauseum and personal development, where your
focus goes, energy flows. So think about where the focus
is in these away from goals. It's usually on soul
(15:39):
sucking job. It's on debt, it's on lack of money.
It could be on lack of love in a marriage
or relationship. It could be on loneliness when people are like, well,
I just don't want to feel lonely this year, you know,
I just want to find a social life so that
I'm not lonely. But just feel into that for a second.
(16:02):
Doesn't that just feel heavy and gross? And what are
the emotions that come up for you when you think
about the job that you hate, or the weight that
you need to lose, or the debt that you might
be in. If you're like most people, it's shame, guilt, sadness,
feelings of not enoughness, and that is a very hard
(16:24):
emotional state for anybody to manifest from. Remember, it's our
emotional state will create behaviors. You're gonna take very different
action in your life. If you're waking up each day
feeling fat, feeling broke, feeling uninspired, then if you wake
(16:45):
up excited and if not excited by the current conditions
of your life, at least excited about the possibilities that
you are moving towards. So the real key here is
to shift away from these survival base goals, because when
your life is just about survival, God, I want to
get out of debt. You know what happens with a
(17:06):
lot of people who set that goal as they work
and they hustle and they grind and they burn themselves out,
and eventually they'll pay off the credit card or they
pay off the student loan, and then within two to
three years they find themselves in the same amount of debt,
if not even worse off than they were before. Because
the nervous system is just like God, to escape the threat.
(17:29):
Got to escape the predator that's out here chasing me,
if it's a debt collector, or you know, the the
cholesterol level on their yearly physical So they do just
enough to get out of danger. But then because there's
no vision pulling them forward into a state of thriving,
they revert back to what they're used to. So what
(17:49):
we're talking about here is you creating goals in your
life that you are called to by love. Or you
could also look at this if that sounds too hokey
for you, What are the goals that are actually going
to help me thrive? And I talked about this before,
but it bears repeating. When I was forty pounds overweight,
(18:11):
at rock bottom in my life in you know, I
didn't I quit talking about goals about losing weight. I
tried to get clear on what's going to excite me.
I was like, I want to feel optimized and primed
and energetic when I wake up every day. I want
people to feel my confidence in my energy when I
(18:33):
walk into a room. I want to turn heads. You know,
I was in the middle of, like getting divorced from
a toxic marriage. So yeah, there was part of me
that wanted to stick it to my ex wife and
I wanted, you know, if she went on my social
media page when I started dating again, I wanted her
to see me with some really attractive women, which admitt
(18:54):
that I needed to take good care of myself. Right.
It wasn't trying to get about six pack abs or
any sort of image. We're not saying that you need
to be thin or ripped or somehow in shape in
order to be worthy of love. But I knew if
I felt confident about myself, that that confidence would spill
(19:16):
over to my dating life. And that was a huge
motivator for me. It wasn't just about, oh god, I'm
on the scale, I just don't feel good about the
way I look. It was like, no, I am excited
to create this new version of myself and boom, I
lost thirty seven pounds in ninety days. That's the value
(19:37):
of a committed decision and really starting to build a
next act for your life that is based on thriving
and not just survival. You know those of you who
were thinking about your goals for this year and you
were like, you know, I don't need a lot of money.
I just I just seemed enough to get by. That
(19:58):
survival based think that is thinking that is rooted in
lack in scarcity. I had a friend from many years
ago reach out to me on New Year's Eve and
she had sent one of those time hop photos that
had showed up in memories because we were we had
spent New Year's Eve together like eight or nine years ago,
(20:20):
and she had sent that with another picture of her
just drinking while her friend and husband were making out
next to her, and she's like, ah, and I just
hope this is the year I'm not a third wheel anymore.
And I've tremendous empathy for that. You know, everybody wants
their New Year's kiss, and you know we're all built
(20:42):
to be in connection and in relationship. But simply setting
a goal to not be a third wheel, that's not
very inspiring. That's another survival based goal that's rooted in lack.
You know, what she really wants is to have a passionate,
on fire soul mate that she can be making out
with right next to her friend and her husband in
(21:02):
the following years. So I want you to start thinking
about where are you focused on the scarcity and lack
rather than creating goals that are exciting, that represent the
highest vision of your life if you really allowed yourself
to own your desires and you allowed yourself to receive
the things you wanted. So to recap the first two
(21:26):
questions that you should ask yourself before you commit to
any New Year's goal, is this goal truly for me?
Or am I trying to force my will on other
people or trying to repeat a pattern of rescuing or
saving other people? Second question, are my goals coming from
survival or are they called to by love? And the
(21:49):
third place that you really want to start to consider
in your goals is and again this might seem a
little esoteric, but we're gonna make it very practical. Goal.
Are my goals set from a place of owning my
divinity and my wholeness? Or am I just chasing another
(22:10):
goal that I think will make me be enough? Social
media over the past, you know, ten to fifteen years
and just created a culture of keeping up with the Joneses.
You know, we're all just trying to fulfill that image
to make our lives look great. True story. I dated
a girl very briefly. It's not even like we were
(22:32):
in a relationship. We went out on like three dates
in one and really great that she was a lot
of fun, beautiful girl. It seemed like we were really aligned.
And then after the third date she sent me this
long text and she said, Hey, I just don't feel
(22:52):
like I'm in the same place you are or that
I can date intentionally. She goes, my life is kind
of a mess. She goes, I've create aided this image
of crushing it on Instagram and making myself look like
a travel blogger, but in reality, I have got so
much trauma that I haven't dealt with. She had lost
both of her parents a few years prior. She had
(23:14):
never really dealt with that, and the coping device became
posting inspiring quotes and lots of bikini picks and swimsuit
picks and exotic locations all over the world. And unfortunately
she had listened to my podcast where we had gone
out on a couple of days, and she's like, I
feel like you're going to see through the fact that
(23:35):
my life is a lie. And it was disappointing because
I really felt that that was somebody where, you know,
we could have had potential to pursue a meaningful relationship.
But I also have so much empathy for that because
it is an image based culture where everybody you know
is trying to curate an image of success on Instagram,
(23:57):
but we're chasing things to try to feel enough. Here
is why that's a broken strategy, because the energy that
you're bringing to any new pursuit or goal is the
same energy that you're going to finish with at the end.
If you're starting point in your life is I'm not enough,
I'm inadequate, I'm not lovable, and you believe that you
(24:21):
need something outside of yourself to fill the whole. Internally,
You'll work hard, you'll get there, and then what will happen.
You'll still feel like you're not enough. There's gonna be
somebody else on Instagram is making more money or took
a nicer vacation, or just bought a newer car, or
(24:42):
bought a bigger house than you, And the same internal
pattern of comparing yourself and judging yourself is going to
show up again. Your worthiness for an amazing life is
not in question because your worthiness does not come through money, possessions,
or anything outside of you. Your worthiness was established the
(25:06):
moment that you were created, that some higher power, whatever
it is that you believe in, thought enough of you
to give you a heart that beats a hundred thousand
times a day and pumps blood and oxygen all through
your body. That this thing thought enough of you to
give you lungs that are expanding and contracting and keeping
(25:26):
you alive. You didn't have to do anything to earn
that it was just yours, because you're already worthy, and
that knowledge can free you today because once you know
that you're starting from a place of wholeness and divinity
and that you were perfectly loved, perfectly lovable, and perfectly created,
(25:50):
then there's no need to strive anymore. I also want
to make sure that we address this idea that if
I reach this next goal outside of myself, then I'll
be happy. How many times if you said it, and
if I just made dollars more a year, if I
had a new job, if I could just move my
family into a nicer house and in better development, I'll
(26:12):
be happy. And you do it, But then the oxytocin
and the dopamine of reaching the goal wears off after
a few weeks, and then it's not special anymore. There's
actually a scientific phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill, and
this is what happens when we're always chasing pleasure or happiness.
(26:33):
Is that we get that thing in our life right,
We get more money, we get a better car, and
then we start to take it for granted because it
becomes an expectation. You know, the minute that you upgrade
and you're making more money, and now you're not going,
you know, to the sizzler for the state buffet, and
(26:53):
you're able to go eat at the palms. You do
that a couple of times and now you're just used
to it. It becomes an expectation, which means that you
need some new hit of significance or some other object
to chase to give you the same chemical release in
your body, and it never ends. You make a million dollars,
then you're trying to figure out how to make five million.
(27:15):
You make five million, you're trying to figure out how
to make a billion. So scientists actually call that the
hedonic treadmill. And that's why, again your happiness can't be
connected to the goal that you're chasing. So those are
the big three goals setting traps and the questions to
ask yourself, are my goals for me? Or am I
(27:37):
trying to rescue or take care of other people? Are
my goals survival based? Or am I'm moving toward a
vision that is called to by love? Are my goals
set from a place of wholeness? Or am I striving
to try to be enough? Because once you get out
of those mindset traps that we've discussed this week. You
(27:58):
get to fill your cup and decide what's going to
be exciting for you, what's aligned with your purpose, what's
going to bring you joy, what's going to help you
serve the greatest number of people. What is going to
make your life a little more meaningful this year because
you're not here to get by and survive. You're here
(28:19):
for the joy of living, and you're not here to
give to others from an empty cup. You're here to
give to yourself to experience joy in the process, because
that is the generator that's going to help you show
up for everybody else in your life. And for God's sake,
there's nothing to prove, there's only people to serve. I'd
(28:43):
love to know how this episode resonates for you and
which of those three questions has made you look at
your goals in a little bit different way. Maybe you're
even going to tweak those goals slightly in the coming year.
I would love to know about it. You can slide
into my d m s on Instagram, make sure you
follow me at c sc Dan Mason, and if you
(29:05):
love the podcast and love what we shared this week,
please by all means share this with the people in
your life that you love and don't forget to click
subscribe and give us a follow five star ratings and
reviews always appreciated as well. But it is my honor
to serve you. And one more thing, by the way,
(29:26):
if you realize you've been falling into all three of
these traps, and you've been on that hedonic treadmill of
thinking you would be enough with one more goal, or
you're just so stuck and taking care of everybody else,
maybe you've lost that connection to who you are in
the first place. Now is a great time to get
some one on one support. And what I will guarantee
(29:47):
you is when you sign up for any of my
coaching programs. However long we work together, my intention is
always that you don't recognize your old life at the
end of our time together. And I've deliver heard consistently
time and time again on that promise. Two people who
show up courageously, who show up with a willingness to
(30:08):
think differently and a willingness to be different in the world.
So if you feel like now is a good time
for us to work together, go to my website fill
out that application, set up a complimentary discovery call Creative
Soul Coaching dot net. I love you so much, thank
you for being part of this community. It's a pleasure
(30:28):
to serve you for another year. And don't forget. Turn
down the volume on your negativity, turn up the volume
on your purpose so you can live life amplified
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