When you have a vision but aren't sure how to create it
Understanding the practical how-to of realizing massive dreams
Welcome to Week 4 of An Insanely Simple Plan to Actually Achieve Your Goals.
This structured, 4-week plan is about building the clarity and confidence you need to live as your highest self during the last few months of 2024.
You will:
Clearly define purposeful goals with a practical action plan to achieve them
Release the fear holding you back from achieving your goals this Fall
Understand the practical how-to of realizing massive dreams » you are here
Join the Journaling Club to access the full course. This is the only low-cost, high value membership helping ambitious creatives find their life purpose and become successful by following their hearts.
If you have a big vision…
If you want to create a fulfilling career that allows you to earn amazing money while enjoying time or location freedom…
If you know deep in your heart you have special gifts to give the world that deserve to be richly compensated…
But you have absolutely no idea how to realize that vision, this blog is for you.
Hearing from Journaling Club members as they’ve worked through this course, I realized that perhaps it should’ve been called How to Clarify Your Vision instead of How to Achieve Your Goals.
Because you have the broad strokes of a vision but feel uncertain about the specifics, and it’s keeping you up at night.
You know you want a career based on your purpose, but don’t know where to begin making that a reality.
You don’t know what your purpose is, and figuring that out feels like a monumental task that could leave you working a job that consumes too much of your time and energy, potentially for the next 30 years!
This blog will give you a framework for realizing a big vision when you don’t know exactly what it looks like.
The good news is you don’t have to know specifically what you want right now. I didn’t when I started my journey of creating a business around my purpose.
The mistake most people make is waiting for clarity not realizing that clarity comes from action.
I know you’d love to have a business up and running in 6 months and quit your job, but if you want to do this right, find your true purpose and not create another empty career, patience is key. Take small steps forward without putting so much pressure on the outcome.
The need for speed slows you down.
The need for speed comes from limiting beliefs that:
You should’ve found your purpose by now
That you haven’t means it’s too late
You should be able to do it on your own (and will be criticized if you ask for help).
None of these things are true.
Finding your purpose is hard. It takes work, and for some people takes a lifetime, or never happens at all. (But I can help you find yours much sooner.)
It’s never ever too late. Colonel Sanders started KFC at 62. (Age is a mindset.)
I used to feel terrified of people helping me. I didn’t want to be criticized. But it’s honestly been such a healing experience, learning that not knowing isn’t wrong or bad. We all have blindspots we need help with!
If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that you have a purpose.
Your soul carries the vision of what you’re meant to create in this life. That vision becomes crystal clear when you process the negative thoughts and painful emotions blocking you from it, that tell you it’s not possible or you don’t have what it takes.
It’s okay that you don’t know how to realize your vision. The entire point of your purpose is growing into that person. To juice your gifts, build your character, expand your wisdom.
As you align with your purpose and click in to your unique path in life, that current of energy will pull you forward. Over time, as you deepen into yourself and your gifts, your vision will likely look different than you originally expected.
That’s because your purpose might be something you currently look down upon, don’t value, or think isn’t possible.
Those pre-conceived ideas block you from owning your true gifts.
For example, for years I thought I wanted to be a famous writer, grow a huge audience and create large group offerings.
My inner self resisted the label ‘life coach.’
I thought it was the cringiest, dumbest thing I’d ever heard.
I even once wrote an email entitled: “Your life purpose isn’t to be a &@!*#&% life coach.” (Projection much?)
I really resisted this.
However, recently I recalled those times I felt the most fulfilled in my business, and it was working with people more closely. Unleash Your Magic, a program from 2018 designed to help soulful women make money while following their hearts, was the most fulfilling program I’ve ever run. (It was a group / 1:1 hybrid.)
Not only were the women incredibly special, but working with them over a year to connect with their purpose, release past pain, and move toward their wildest dreams filled my soul with a sense of completeness. I realized I have a true talent for helping people understand themselves.
One of the women, Chloe, said: “When I consider the fact that I have been trying to figure this out for about 10 years or more and I just freaking did it in the last 6 months — I mean — it's crazy!” (Love you, Chloe! Hope you’re well!)
The point is that you have blindspots preventing you from finding your purpose and making it your career.
Blindspots stopping you from spending your days writing / speaking / creating / serving in the unique way you’re meant to, and feeling the joy that comes from having a career that feels like an extension of you.
And even if you’re already on that journey, we all have inner blindspots thwarting our growth, stopping us from achieving our goals.
One of my greatest gifts is helping people identify those blindspots. I’m highly intuitive and can usually tell in just a few minutes of talking to someone what’s holding them back from knowing their vision or taking the next step toward it.
If you want to go deeper on this, go back to last week’s lesson, join The Journaling Club, and explore the prompts.
(You can also inquire about my new 1:1 program. Just a few spaces will open soon, but you can secure your spot now if you’re motivated to identify a fulfilling career before 2025. Start the year with your wildest dreams mapped out, in phases, ready to execute. Simply DM on Substack/respond to this email. Tell me a bit about yourself and your immediate goals.)
Here’s a basic framework for creating what you want when your vision is cloudy
Identify a goal based on what you can see right now and create an insanely simple plan to achieve it using the journal prompts in Week 1 of this course.
This could be a goal related to your vision, or if you have no idea at all, tune in and make a plan to follow a curiosity. It’s all about getting into the energy of experimentation and committing to something.
.Carry that plan out while continuing to do the strategic inner work from Week 3 to clarify your vision, shift your mindset to support the highest version of yourself, and heal any pains limiting your confidence.
Pursuing your goals will naturally bring up the thoughts and emotions that need to be healed in order for you to grow (and receive more clarity on your vision).
.Evolve your plan when you gain more clarity on your vision, or in response to a setback you need to overcome.
You don’t want to be totally changing your plan every 5 seconds, but it’s important to adjust as you go.
This is the basic process that I’ve repeated through multiple layers of growth, from finding my purpose to building a business around it.
This is what ‘your purpose is followed not found,’ looks like practically.
There’s an energetic piece to this, too.
You want to take action (and respond to setbacks) from the right energy.
The energy that will naturally lead you forward rather than keep you stuck.
That’s what we’re exploring in this week’s inner work for Journaling Club members.
The Journaling Club is for ambitious creatives who want to find their purpose and become successful by following their hearts.
As a member, you’ll receive powerful journaling prompts and step-by-step inner work weekly to accelerate your journey of building a career (and life) around your natural gifts and core values.
This is a high-value, low-cost offer because not everyone wants or can afford coaching, and I wanted to make this transformational work available to everyone with important gifts to give.
Join today!
All the love,
Suzanne
PS — Would love to hear your reflections in the comments even if you’re not a Club member :)
I used to see changing my plan (that didn’t truly exist 😬) as leaning into my explorative spirit, but in reality I never truly had an actual plan and was aimlessly wandering.
I had ideas. Great place to start, but not a great spot to stay.
Picking a singular direction and seeing that as the exploration has been the shift I’ve needed and wanted for a long time 🥰
Suzanne, Your insights about blindspots are so valuable. I don't have or want a big vision. I'm in a more contemplative stage in my life. But I want to continue to contribute through my writing. Your discussion of blindspots has helped me see how to make a few rearrangements. Thanks so very much.