Welcome back to the Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today is episode 49, Making 2021 Your Best Year Yet(No Matter What's in Store) with our guest, Heather Lahtinen, stay tuned.

Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody.

Welcome back. I hope that you joined us last week for how looking back helps us look forward because we did some retrospect and retrospective questions. I think that's the right word. Anyway, we looked back on 2020. And again, I know you guys are like ready to turn that page, but it was such an important thing to do every year to look back and reflect on where we've been, what lessons we've learned and what we want to take with us and not take with us into the new year. So if you did not listen to that episode, go check it out. Now, hair of the dog academy.com/four eight before you listen to this week, and we're going to get started here in just a minute with making 2021 your best year yet, no matter what's in store, but before we do that, just wanted to let you guys know that the hair of the dog Academy is going to be opening its doors for enrollment on this Thursday, January 21st, 2021 through the following Thursday, January 28th, 2021. So if you have been thinking about wanting to improve your pet photography craft or get started with a business of pet photography, that is the membership for you. Not only do we have a ton of incredible content and lots of guests instructors, we also have a ton of incredible support from myself. Other coaches. We have Charlotte Reeves in the Academy that assists with craft related, um, critique corners, and, and helps with the technical aspects of the craft. So you definitely want to check that out. You can go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/academy to enroll on Thursday. And, um, we would love to have you there, but enough about that. Let's get on with the interview. Nicole here from Hair of the Dog. And welcome back if you were listening last week, you know that this week is part two with our editing and mindset Ninja Heather Lahtinen right here from the flourish Academy and our hair of the dog and Elevate coach. Welcome back, Heather. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited. This is the second part in the series. And might I add if you did not listen to the previous episode yet, please go do so and work through those exercises. In fact, you are not permitted to continue listening until you have that completed. You must pause and come back. If you have not done, um, uh, agree a hundred percent because this today is setting is only going to be as effective as you prepare it to be. And by through last week's questions, there's only five of them. I know we rambled on for like 45 minutes or so, but there's only five questions. so at least go to hairofthedogacademy.com slash four eight, print out that, um, sheet. You can also print it [email protected] slash four nine. I'll put the same sheet on both weeks. It has the pre questions and the post questions, answer those questions. And, um, by listening to episode 48, you're going to get more context for the question. So I definitely recommend that. Um, and then, yeah, and then come back here and we'll dive into this week, which is looking ahead, which is Heather, I don't know one of my favorite things to do, cause I always seem to have 8,000 plans going on in my head.

Yeah, I'm a future planner. In fact, you know what? I learned this, um, as a very, very young adult based on my childhood, I forget if I took a personality quiz or something, but it said that you can determine how a person looks at the future, by how they eat their ice cream cone. So when a kid, if I got an ice cream cone, think with hard-packed ice cream, like hard-scooped ice cream, right? Not saucer, I would be eating my ice cream. And what I would do is I got to push the ice cream down to the cone. Right. Did you do that? Why did you do that? Well, because I didn't want to have cone left at the end without ice cream. Right? You didn't want to have a cone without ice cream, which tells me that you are always thinking about the future. Even if the future is 10 seconds away.

Well, Heather, I got to say ice cream is my love language. So, so

I learned this about myself, um, as a child and then as an adult, obviously I love planning the future. Do you know why? Because the possibilities are endless. You can make it anything you want. I don't, I don't get discouraged if I hit it or I don't hit it. It's just, to me, it's very exciting to dream. Is it not? It is, it is.

Sorry. I'm just still focused on what kind of animal wouldn't push their ice cream down in their cone.

I bet there are people. Yeah. There are people listening who did not push it. Yeah.

And those you guys, I'm sorry, you're not an animal. I just, I just can't comprehend having a whole bunch of cone left without ice cream. So if you are out there without pushing it down, send me a DM, let me know, let me know why you do it that way. And you, maybe you just really like the cone without the ice cream. And that's cool. There's no judgment here. This is a judgment-free zone. I'm just really curious, but anyway, back to goal setting

Funniest thing. Okay. So I'm always thinking about the future and apparently you are as well again, even if it's only 10 seconds away. Okay. So in order to complete this exercise, much like last week, I recommend that you get yourself in a positive state of mind and in a place where you will not be interrupted. You're well rested. Listen, you guys, if you do this, when you're irritated and you're grumpy and you're hungry, I mean, you're not, you're not going to set yourself up for the best year. So just use your brain on this one and make sure you're in a good place. Okay. My first question right in is what do you want to be most thankful for one year from now? Oh, I love the way that is worded. Thank you. Thank you. Because you know, if you look back, you want to be grateful, right? I mean, in the previous exercise we were talking about reflecting and you know, looking back, what am I grateful for? Well, what if I could future cast that? What if I could say, what is the one thing that I wanted to look back and say, well, I'm so thankful that I did that or that that happened or that I became that person. You can future pace your gratitude. I love it. I love it. And I think a great way to get in that mindset would be to get in a nice, quiet place. So we're talking about, or in a good frame of mind already, and just kind of close your eyes and just fast forwarding, pre picturing that it's December 31st, 2021. And you are wherever you usually are in the last day of the year, you're getting up. What are you feeling? What's your life look like, then? What's your day? What have you done in the past year? And like, what is the most amazing thing that happened in the past year that you're still just like, Oh my gosh, pinch me. I can't believe that happened. Yeah. Let me give you two really straightforward, simple examples. Like for people, a lot of people want to work on their finances, right? They want to saved more money, maybe pay off than that. So you could ask yourself, what, what do I want my bank account to look like in a year? What do I want my debt to look like in a year? What do I want to be most thankful for regarding my finances in a year? So if you have a couple of debts that you'd like to pay off, you know, that helps you focus on well, what one would I be most thankful to get rid of? So I have a lot of friends currently who are battling their student loans, you know? And they just, if they just got those paid off, they would feel so much better. So that's one thing you can look at finances. Another is your physical health. What do you want your body to look like in a year? What would you be thankful for? If your body looked a certain way one year from now that you would, you would be so grateful that you took the time to work on your nutrition and your exercise, and now you feel good. You have more energy you're well rested. You just overall, Jeff, those are, are two pretty easy examples because those are two areas that most people need some help with or would like to make some progress I should say. Right? Yeah. And I think one thing that they can also help to make this more tangible, because it's one thing to just say, Oh man, I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to get in shape. Okay. Well, what is getting in shape? Right. But to look at the why, like, why do you want to pay off that student loan? Why do you want to, you know, lose weight? Like why? Because just paid off student loan. What's that do for you? Um, what, uh,

So by coming up with that"why," I feel like they're going to have some more motivation to then continue down this planning list,

Right? Because in the case of the student loan, if you were to ask somebody, well, why do you want to pay it off? They'd say, well, so I don't have that payment. Well, okay. What would that do for you? If you didn't have that payment, what have more money? Well, what would you do with more money? Well, I'd pay off this other debt. Well, I would do that. I would go on vacation. Well, I'd have more freedom, right?

Or whatever that value. Yeah. A hundred percent. There's always an underlying value that we are working towards when we want to do these things. So by keep asking, what will that give me? Why, why, why, you're eventually gonna under uncover that value that's driving you. And then if you say, Oh, I want to pay off that debt so that I will have more security. Okay. Now you have this value tied to it. And you're going to be way more motivated, um, to, to continue on with the process and really the habit change that is going to have to be required to get to anything

It's going to take a, yeah, I really love this question. What do you want to be most thankful for one year from now? Okay. Yeah, I do too. I love that. I love the phrasing. The next question is how will, you know, when you've had a breakthrough, what specific outcome or experience would make this evident? So this is taken from our mentor, James Wedmore. He asks us this question, like, we all want us to have this breakthrough in our business, you know? And he's like, okay, that's great. But how will, you know, how will, you know, when you've had that breakthrough? Because again, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it. So is there a specific outcome or experience that would make this evidence? So I have a friend, speaking of the debt issue who is working really diligently to pay off her student loans and some other debt. And she really wants to take her first family vacation, but she is a young toddler, so they haven't been able to do that. And so for her through, with her dad would, the outcome would be a family vacation if she, if they were able to take that family vacation, that would be a breakthrough for her.

That's fantastic. Yeah. All right. That's fine.

Pretty straight forward. The next one is on listen. We could all list a million things here. What habits will you adopt this year? So, okay. Listen, I actually, the first, when I first typed this question, I wrote, what habits do you want to adopt this year? And then I deleted it. It just say what habits will you adopt this year, put it in more of the positive, present tense. So do you have any that you want to shift Nicole?

Well, yeah. Before I get to that, um, I imagine these habits, should you be looking at what you just asked, answered before with what you want to be thankful for and how do you know when you've had that breakthrough and then asking yourself, okay, what habits do I need to instill to have that breakthrough year? So for me, I did, um, I did my planning when I was in Florida and some of the habits that I need to instill, I broke them down into quarterly habits, monthly habits, weekly habits, and daily habits. Wow, you're an overachiever. Um, but it's just like basic things. So like, you know, quarterly, it's having a team meeting with my team. Monthly it's meeting with my Facebook ads person, uh, or planning a promotion weekly. It is doing a business metric review, having individual meetings with my team members and daily, it is connection. So visibility is my word of the year. So to make a connection, whether it's one in Elevate or the Academy or doing a live, like no, just sitting on my computer and doing work, I must make a connection a day, at least one met at the end practice, my Italian. Wow. Those are

Fantastic habits and good for you for breaking them down from their bigger components into the daily, because you need to eat that. What that did was that just connected you with the end goal, like the game, you know, like this is what I want to achieve. So I'm going to work my way backwards in order to get there. So like with the finances, if you want to pay off a certain number, well then obviously you have to break that down. How much extra to what I have to pay per month, per week, what would I have to save? What would that look like and break it down? I think that's fantastic. You know, when I was thinking about this question, Oh, I have to be honest. I'm actually still struggling with this because, um, in the past couple of years, I went through the Miracle Morning with

How L Ron, you know, which I love. I also

Read Atomic Habits with James Clear years ago. I read with Charles Duhigg, who also wrote the power of habits. So I have been diligently working on my habits for the past several years. And, um, I'm doing

Really well. I have to figure out what

Habits I think I need to focus on my business. Like you just did with your business. Because when I looked at this question, I was thinking about, uh, exercising and eating and reading and meditating and journaling and all of those types of things. But I didn't really apply a habit to my business

Because I'm so we're good for my[inaudible]. Okay. No worries. No worries. Sorry. All right, let's cut that please. So for all the pet photographers out there that have sort of, sort of pet photography business component to your breakthrough year, to what you want to be thankful for, whether it's$50 in sales or a hundred thousand dollars in sales, or$500,000 sales, I want you to ask yourself, what do you need to be doing? What habits, you know, of course, Oh, exercise and eating right? Those are very worthwhile habits. We don't have our health, we don't have anything, but if you want a business-related outcome, what habits do you need to adopt to hit that? So is it doing a promotion is following up with leads. Is it reaching out to a potential partner once a week, like sending out an email every month? What step-by-step pieces that lead to leads and sales do you need to do every week, day, month, quarter? Um, and if you figure that out, it's going to be a lot easier to do it, and then you're going to be way,

I think that is extremely solid advice. I think I'm going to take it. I'm going to, um, revisit this through a different lens. I think I was only looking at it personally, which is bizarre because I love my business and I look at everything through my business lens. So I'm surprised that I, I kind of overlooked that I was just thinking of my personal habits, but, uh, by the way, congratulations to you. I know your word is visibility and you wanted to make a connection. And I saw that you did an Instagram video today, so good for you. You were making yourself visible by putting yourself out there and you knew to do it because it's on your list of things to do.

Yeah, you guys, aren't following the hair of the dog Academy on Instagram. Definitely do it. And then you can also go to Nicole Begley photography, if you want more, um, cute pictures of my horse, because

The next question is, who do you want to be? What type of person? And I'm going to work this in a couple of different ways, because you also, this is from Jim Fortin, you know, who do you need to be to achieve what you want to achieve? Like what type of person would this, this goal of six figures in their photography business? What type of person would that be? What habits would they have and who would they have to be? Who would they have to become? So you're starting to look for, um, personality, characteristics, traits, actions that you take in your business that, you know, would get you to the next level. You see people that are already doing it. What do you have to be? So for example, if you want to be more visible, you, you have to take action, but you have to be more conscious of when you're going to do that. You have to plan it, right? You for some people, this means they have to be a little more brave and maybe courageous. Now this might not apply to you, Nicole. But, um, a lot of people really, really fear video or putting themselves on any type of social media. But if they want to promote their business well, this is an extension of who they are. And people, my people, not things. Then they're going to need to do this to reach more people to connect. And they might have a lot of fear around that. Well, okay. Well, what type of person does that? Well somebody that's brave, right? Somebody that's courageous, it's focused somebody that has their, their eyes fixed on an end game. So who do you want to be? What characteristics do you want to cultivate? And what type of person is where I want to be,

Right? Yes, yes. And one person that you could be for that type of situation. Um, I know for me, it wasn't necessarily a fear. It was just a laziness because it's more comfortable to work on my projects. And quite frankly, I don't shower every day. And often I shower at the end of the day, cause I'm going to the barn anyway, in the afternoons. Why would I shower in the morning when I'm a shower later on? So I'm like, I use that as an excuse. Uh, so anyway, so you guys might see me with my hair up in a ponytail or like right now there's lots of gray in my hair. That's getting colored. One of the other ways to look at that too, is who you'd want to be. You want to be of service, you cannot serve anyone in your business. If you don't show up, um, you know, one of the, I do this it's to help you guys. And one of the, to get so fulfilled is hearing stories and ways that I, you know, the Hair of the Dog has people that follow this business. And Heather, I noticed the same for you too. So by looking at it, as you know, I am someone who serves my audience, you have that by showing up. Um, and yeah, so that's just another way to look at that. And one other thing I would throw in there too, like for those who you listening, you're like, well, wait, I'm not in business. I just want to improve my pet photography craft. All right, great. What would a world-class photographer? Who would they be? Whether they're getting paid for it or not, would they be practicing and getting model calls and try new things and not worrying it's going to fall flat on its face or if it's going to look good or not, and just things and learning and goals, are there are ways of being that you can adopt and try to emulate and try to be that person? Um, I actually have, um, a it's well, yeah, for passwords, I have it on my thing. I'm right here on my, on my little desk. I have a little thing of the game I choose to play, which is my revenue goal for the year as, just as that game. Um, just different ways to have that stuff right there. So you can put a little post-it note on your computer and just say, I am here to serve. I am visible. I am, um, brave. I am committed. I am whatever, fill in the blank. And then again, you're going to see that every day we talked about the subconscious, let's see it every day, you're going to internalize it and you're going to start acting differently.

Yeah. And then you are going to become it. You going to internalize it and then you are going to become it. And that is the type of person you want to be. So don't just wish it'd be better. Make it happen. Now you can. Okay. Great. The last question is, what is your most positive thought right now? Now the reason I did this, a couple of reasons. I, I obviously I want people to focus on what's positive and what's good and being grateful. But as we step in to setting our actual goals, I really want you to be in a positive frame of mind. And I want you to work from unlimited ability, not your current circumstance. Everybody works from what they can see, their current circumstances, but high performers, high achievers, people that accomplish amazing things work from unlimited possibility. So in the way we can get our mind in that frame is to ask yourself most positive thought I have right now, I am extremely hopeful. And I really believe that everything is working out in our favor, you know, for us. So I'm honestly, I'm excited about everything. Of course. I mean, I get excited I'm I try to look at everything through the positive frame, right? So this is not difficult. Okay. Sometimes it is difficult for me to do. Sometimes when my kids are getting on my nerves, I'm not gonna lie, but when I'm, when I'm at my desk and I'm working, I'm just, I'm so excited, so grateful for the opportunities that we have and that we can create anything we want. So take a moment to look off and then ask yourself what is my most positive thought right now? Um,

I love that at this could be an incredible way to train your mind if you asked yourself that right before went to

Bed. Ooh, good. One.

I mean, I don't even think you'd recognize who you were next year. If you go to habit of asking this question every day,

What is my most positive thought right now? Can you imagine falling asleep with that on your mind? Yeah. Instead of your, um, like murder Netflix, what are these, these real life murder family shows? I'm not, I don't know. I don't watch that stuff. Although I do find it really intriguing. I do, but I don't watch it because that gets into your brain. And then that's what you're thinking about. Like, no, I'm going to think about my most positive thoughts.

Yeah. Some questions remember guys. So you can download@hairofthedogacademydotcomslashfortyeightorhairofthedogacademy.com slash 49, which is this episode show notes, download, um, that, uh, just like basically cheat sheet that has these five questions. And last week's five questions to ask yourselves. And then after we've asked these questions, Heather now is the time to finally set our goals.

Yeah. So the final component of that, this is actually setting your goals. So what I would like you to do is set seven to 10 overall goals in the following categories of your life there's career in business, there's your spiritual, your family, or relational, personal hobbies, health in financial. So those are the high level categories. You want seven to 10 total, not in each category. That's crazy. And I recommend setting these goals on the 12 based on the 12 week year. This is a book by Brian Moran. He sets everything in 12 week increments. So rather than giving yourself an entire year to hit these seven to 10 goals, you set seven to 10 goals for the next 12 weeks. Why? Well, there's just a ton of evidence that if you set, let's say you set 10 goals and they're all due December 31st. Well guess what, you're going to get really busy on December 1st, trying to get all your goals accomplished. And, and none of them might get done because, um, you've just given yourself too much time, you know? So you need to bring those in a low, you actually need to go through this particular component of the process every 12 weeks. So you just frame your goals. First, you select a category what's important. And then you state the goal in such a way that there's this framework called smart goals. It's very, probably the most popular framework. So you may have heard of it. There are a couple other frameworks that helpful. Uh, I find this one to be the most straightforward. It's an acronym. The goal must be so smart specific. It must be measurable because how will, you know, if you've hit it, it has to be actionable. Meaning there are actions you can actually take to get it done. R is for realistic in T is for time bound. So I said the 12 week year, that doesn't mean all your goals are for those 12 weeks. Right? You can pick one of your goals. It's like, I need to have that done next week or within this month. So it's not that they're all, you know, so time bound is like, I will have this done by X date. And it has, again, it has to be very specific and measurable or how, how else will, you know, when you've hit it?

Yeah. Quick question for you about, um, figuring out which of those seven to 10 goals, is there a way that we could kind of take stock of how satisfied we are in our life from those different areas? So that way we can be like, Oh man, like these are all really high, but Oh, I wish I had more. Yeah,

Actually. Okay. So within the six categories of goals, before you start writing your goals, look at each of these categories and from a scale of one to 10, you cannot use five can not because you'll put five and that's just such a cop out from one to 10, where are you at, in satisfaction with that area of your life? So those are career one to 10. Where are you at spiritual family, relational, personal hobbies, health and financial. Each of those areas, write those down from one to 10, where are you at on a scale? Okay. And don't put 10 for anything because the truth is there's always room to grow, right? You can't use five. So what you do is you write those down and you look at them on paper, anything that is four and lower needs your attention pretty quickly, right? Yeah. Okay. And it's not that we're neglecting the other areas. It's just that these areas are clearly the ones that are pressing on us. The most, what we're looking for is what I call not, not, I mean, this is everybody calls it, this a domino goal. And it's the one goal that if you pushed it over, all of the rest would fall so much easier. It's the push goal.

Right. Right. And you know, if there is an area of our life that you're like, you know, let's say relationship is a two and there is no way you're actually going to be able to focus on these other areas because there are some areas of our life or financials that too, you're going to be so stressed out about that particular like actual life need that you can't focus on. Oh, I'm going to move my career from a six, 10, eight, right? Yeah. It's not possible. It's actually, Donald Miller said you are only as successful as your most important relationship. So whether you, if that's your spouse, if you're married, it could be a friend. It could be a sibling or maybe your parents, if your most important relationship has an issue or struggling, or is less than a four on that scale, it requires your attention today because you are only as successful as your most important relationship. And shortly behind that are finances like you just described. So those two things, if they're low on your scale, those those are where you need to put more of your attention. Again, that's not neglecting anything else, but how can you, like you said, how can you be expected to say perfect your tennis game? If your finances and your marriage is a mess. Right. Just, I would imagine health is another one too, because it is up there with finances, right? Yeah. For sure. So we know where to focus and we've talked about what those goals look like with the smart, specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound right. Okay, perfect. So we are going to break those, those down. I have a little bone to pick with the smart, the smart, is that right? I sure do. I sure do. And that is the R for realistic, of course, that should not come as a surprise. So, well, here's my thing. Here's my thing. And I totally get it. Yeah. And it actually does make sense because, you know, we've talked about this before that your goals do have to be believable, but who's to define what realistic is. Anything is possible at any time I work from the, I work from the premise that truly anything is possible. So I could choose to take my photography business from zero to 500,000 in a year. Uh, just do a lot of people do it. No. Is it impossible? I don't think it's impossible. I think it is challenging. I think if you make that goal, but you don't 100% fully believe it's possible, then there's no way that you would ever possibly hit it. So you have to believe that your goal is possible for you. So maybe that is looking for other instances where someone has accomplished that or someone is doing that. That's like that four minute mile, you know, for however many years, no one could break the four-minute mile. And then one runner did and then like 10 more people did like the next month they bring up the timeframe, but you get the idea. Um, so yeah, so that's my challenge with realistic because here's another little, um, food for thought for a sneak peek into Nicole's life is I don't think I've actually hit any of my goals in several years. And that's because that's because they're, they're a bit of a stretch, but I know that I'm getting further along by having those stretch goals than a safe goal that I know I can hit, but here's the thing people choose. Well, Heather, you could take it. Why do people choose the safe goal?

Here's the difference between you and most people is you are not defined by what someone classifies defeat. So you set the goal really, really high. It doesn't bother you. If you don't hit it, you say, well, I've got this far, right. Or I'm able to do these things, but most people cannot take that level of defeat. It's just too disheartening.

Yeah. They, they bring meaning to it. Right. And they label themselves as, Oh, I failed so they can hit it. Right. Right, right, right.

So that, I mean, have you ever done this? I'm guilty, guilty as charged. Have you ever written something down on your to-do list that you've already completed? Just so you can cross it out. Okay.

That is completely not the same. I'll tell you why it's similar. It's a mood enhancer. Yeah.

Liz just became a mood enhancer. Some people look at their goals that way and they just cannot take the defeat. So they're not willing to face it. So they play it really, really safe. And they keep themselves very small because they would rather hit it than aim really high and feel defeated. So in your case, you're like, Oh man, I'm going to set this. Like, so off the charts and if I don't hit it, so what you don't let it define you, but you've also been working for the past several years on, on your emotional mastery.

Right? I mean, you really, so you're

It doesn't, it doesn't define you. You don't assign it a story. You don't make it mean anything about you. You just say, Oh look, I'll do it again. Or, or maybe I didn't set it high enough. I'll just go higher. You know, where it would be depressing to someone else.

That's a hundred percent true because there was, you know, I'm not a superhuman. There were certainly times where I would set a goal and miss it. And I would be all mopey and sad and be like, Oh, well, maybe that wasn't as successful. As I thought, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. You guys know the drill, all those things start coming through your head. So please hear me that I'm not saying that this never happens to me anymore. Cause that's still, it's still can. And then I just have to like, again, that awareness that we talked about, I'm like, Oh, this is not productive. Turn it off. This goal means nothing except what I choose to make it mean. So it just becomes practicing that awareness and always asking yourself, what meaning am I assigning here? Or here's the key that I think helps me out when I'm starting to tell myself a story like this is I look at when I'm feeling bad, when I'm just feeling not good when I'm feeling out of alignment. And I'm just like, ah, I just, I just feel like there's no other word other than, ah, and then I asked myself, okay, what am I saying? What am I thinking to myself right now that's causing me to feel, Oh, and usually it's because I've assigned meaning to something or I'm stressing about something that's already happened that I can't change. Or I'm worried about something that could happen in the future, but has not yet happened. So I bring my attention back to the present and I stop myself from saying, all right, that story, me not hitting this goal does not mean I'm a failure. It just means I earned X amount of money instead of X amount of money or whatever. I have four new clients instead of 10 new clients. I have four new clients like focus on the good on that. And yeah, so

You've worked really hard to look at factually what happens rather than assigning a meaning to it. So like you said, you, you gained four clients, you didn't gain 10. Like that's the, those are the facts where a lot of people are like, Oh, I'm a loser. I'm a failure.

Yeah. This is going to work. I only got four clients, four new clients, right.

Prevents them from setting these goals. So this are with this realistic. I can see this, especially for you. I think it depends on your personality type, but you alluded to this. It also plays into the law of believability, which is a very real thing. If you don't believe it's possible for you, it will never happen. So I think some people need to set a realistic goal that they actually can believe will happen. Other people like yourself, and I believe you to be somewhat of an outlier truly because you've been working on it. Some people can set a goal. That's so far out of the water. It can fall outside of the law of believability because you believe in unlimited potential.

Even, even believe it in that, I still find myself sometimes where it's like, Oh, I'm studying this big goal, but I can hear my, my conscious brain in the back of me saying, you're not gonna hit that goal. Right. I can already hear myself doubt kicking in. Sometimes when I do that and then it's like, Oh, do I lower it? Do I not? Do I just tell it to shut up? Like,

It's all conversation with yourself. Right. But okay. The key is there, you have awareness, right? So step one, get the awareness that that's, that's popping up for you that, Oh, you're never going to do that. That's that's not realistic. Make sure it's realistic. I think this, I think, you know, the other one's like specific, measurable time on asphalt. That's fine. I think this one can get tricky for people because they can trick themselves into thinking, you know, either playing small or is that realistic or what is realistic or what's even possible for me. So I think for most people, they probably need to push themselves a little bit beyond realistic because chances are they're under setting it. They're not in your case, you're over setting it. But chances are, most people are under setting it because they want to make sure that they can hit it so that they feel better about themselves. Well, what if you could feel better about yourself another way or just because you are you and you are deserving and you don't need to get your self worth from whether or not you hit that goal. If you can separate those two things, you become incredibly powerful and in control of your future. Because then this realistic is just out the window. It's just like, I'm going to set it. And I'm going to do whatever. And LA believability, who cares this? I know, I know that this is possible. People can do it. I'm going to do it. So we want you and I, as coaches walk this fine line with somebody who might come to us and say, you know, I earned a couple of hundred dollars this year in photography. You just kind of on the side for fun, but I'd like to turn this into a business. And I'd like to make half a million next year. Right. There is part of me that wants to say to that person. You're awesome. Go for it, make it happen. I support you. We are here for you. And then there's another part is like, okay, are we being realistic? Is that within the law of believability? And I would never want to, you know, minimize anybody's dream. So I hesitate to even say anything there because maybe that person is, is like you, you know, maybe they're, they're not attached to it.

I think that's the hard part is, uh, I try to start to have a conversation with them to gauge that attachment to it and be like, and basically tell them, listen, this is an awesome dream, but I, and I believe it can be done. Is it going to be easy? No, but it is possible, but you can't let it define you. Right? Um, because if by having this outlandish dream, they are going to be hard on themselves. Be depressed about the fact that they didn't get it, consider it a failure. Tell themselves are not cut out for this. Tell themselves they're never going to be successful because they didn't hit this really hard to reach dream, not impossible, just hard to reach metric. You know, we just have to make sure that everyone has the right expertise.

I think it's, it's the mindset. I think it's what you assigned to it. Are you giving it an interpretation? If we can get you into this habit of saying, this does not define me and I'm not a loser. If I don't hit it, then, I mean, I would encourage you to set as many outlandish clothes as you can just go for it. Why not?

And then all you have to do is go back to episode 48 and ask yourself, what lesson did I learn from this?

Either you get the results that you wanted or the lessons that you needed. That's so true. So why not just aim for anything? If you can, if you can separate yourself from like, I'm not going to make this mean anything about me, but if you're going to get so attached to your goal, that, you know, if you don't hit it, you're the worst person on the planet. Please remember that there are no police. So if you don't hit your goal, who cares? Yeah. I mean truly. Okay. You didn't hit it. It'd be okay. It's okay to feel a little disappointed. I think that's fair, but nobody's going to come knocking on your door and cart you off to jail because you set goals that were not realistic, right? Nothing's going to happen.

If your goal was, I want to earn a hundred thousand dollars in my photography business this year and you got to 97,000, are you going to say, Oh, I missed my goal

Really seriously. Right, right. That actually happened to me one year. I had this, literally I wanted to hit six figures and I hit 97,000. I'm not even kidding you. That was the number. And it was like, you know, December 28th or 29th. And I'm like, is there a way I can, I can collect$3,000 to hit that six figures and I didn't do it. But do you think for a second that I was disappointed that I hit 97.

That was all ego coming in to be like, no, get that 3000, 3000. Cause she just wanted to say I did

It right. You

At that point, 100% deserve to celebrate that you did it cause you did 3000 give or take 3% off. Your goal is not bad.

Well, the point is, if you, what are you going to focus on? Are you going to focus on, Oh, I need 3000. I need 3000. Or are you going to focus on, I have 97,000. I mean that's stupid. Right? Stupid. Don't do that.

I love it. I love it. Awesome. So yeah. So to recap here, we have our five questions. Um, we have the, what do you want to be most thankful for one year from now? How will you know when you've had a breakthrough, what specific outcome or experience would make this evident? What habits will you adopt this year? Who do you want to be? What type of person, what is your most positive thought right now? And then take a quick stock of those different sections of your life. And just kind of write down one to 10 where not five of where you are feeling those different areas of your life. And if there's anything lower, maybe you need to make some goals in that area. Um, and make, make, uh, what did you say? Seven to 10 goals for the next 90 days?

Yeah. Seven to 10 goals for the next 12 weeks. I love it.

So the end of March, come back here. Well, I mean technically and you guys don't because I know this is something I'd tell myself. You're like, well right now it's January 19th. So I need to wait until April 1st to do my next round of goals. Now do it from now until April 19th. It doesn't matter. Your goals don't know if it's January,

January 22nd, whatever. Good advice. Awesome.

I love it. All right. Is there anything else, Heather goal related success related that you want to share? Um, I mean, if people have taken the time again, you guys by you doing this, I mean, it's not going to affect the day to day Heather or myself, the only person that is going to get the incredible benefit of doing these exercises is you. So please, please, please take the time to do them, share them with us and our communities. And we would love to support you. Share your wins. You guys celebrate your wins. Even if it is a little tiny win. Like I mentioned last week, I learned to use my Instapot without fear of blowing up the house when your house is still standing. So what did I make? A beef and broccoli stuck to the ceiling. We're good. Right? You're set, you're set. Okay. Yeah. I would say this. I would say goals push you forward. They hold you accountable. They help you measure progress. And without them you would just become completely reactive to the world around you. So you just need to ask yourself, do I want to design my life or do I want society to do it for me? I also think that goals inform your action, what you do every day. They help you set priorities. They give you clarity on, on specific tasks that you need to complete. And they, they just help you achieve your dreams. They give you a defined path. They boost your morale. They give you focus. They improve your overall outlook on life. I mean, why would you not do that? And the truth is you have more power than you think. Typically the only thing that's missing is clarity. And you also have more resources than you can imagine. So it's not a lack of resources. I think personally, I think it's time to just drop the excuses, create the life of your dreams, set your goals. End of story. And own it and be unapologetically excited to move forward with it and just don't care. What other people think about it is are your goals not theirs? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for sticking with us. Um, Heather, thank you for being here again with us. Of course, people can find you inside the hair of the dog Academy and um, as an elevate coach, but where else can they find you out there on the interwebs you for asking me, they can find [email protected]. That's our website. I also have a podcast just search for flourish Academy on any podcast player that you listened to. You can also find those episodes on the website and on Facebook flourish Academy. Definitely connect. I'd love to hear from you. Excellent. Yeah. And let us know what those goals are. You guys gonna decide to do and make sure to tag us when you have your wins. Cause we love celebrating wins with other people so much. Um, thanks again for being with us and we will see you next week. Bye everybody.

If you were like most photographers, you may be thinking that taking gorgeous images is all you need to fill your calendar. Well, I've got some bad news. That's not the case. There are plenty of incredible artists out there that struggle to make consistent money in their business. And on the flip side, there are lots of photographers that produce average work that are killing it with full calendars and high sales. You successful photography. Businesses are just that businesses. I'm Nicole Begley, creator of hair of the dog. And I believe every artist can make money doing what they truly love. So I help pet photographers maximize their potential by improving both their craft and their business. If you're ready to follow a proven path to success, join us inside hair of the dog Academy.