Three Steps To Unlock Your Potential and Get What You Really Want
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Every year, usually in the days between Christmas and New Year, I sit down with my notebook, go over the current year that is ending, and note accomplishments, lessons learned, and goals with no or minimal progress. The next phase is to write down my plan for the following year.
I strongly believe (and have evidence) that writing down my goals increase the probability of actually achieving them. And when I say write down, it could be words, pictures, drawings, or a combination. I use a notebook and words because that is my preference.
I also learned that writing down stuff (in this case goals) happens on two levels: external storage and encoding.
External storage is the paper, cardboard, or software we use to transfer and store the information from our brain. We can access it later on much easier than trying to remember what we thought of a few months (or even minutes) ago.
Encoding is the biological process by which what we perceive goes to the hippocampus to be analyzed. There, decisions are made about what goes to the long-term memory and what gets discarded. Writing things down increases the probability of that information going to the long-term memory storage unit.
Sometimes writing down my goals for the year feels repetitive and even boring. When I am at my lowest, I think ‘why even bother setting up goals?’ I have been tempted to not write anything for the upcoming year. But at this point, the routine is too ingrained in my DNA… after all, I have been writing down my goals since I was ten.
For next year’s plan I decided to spice things up. I will overlay my goal setting process with the DBA method, which I will describe in this post.
What is DBA?
Bruce Schneider, founder of iPEC, created this process to allow us to become 100% energetically engaged in our goals, and as a result, create anything we want.
The process has three steps: desire, belief, and accept (DBA).
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” Dale Carnegie, American writer
1) Desire
This is the traditional first step in goal setting but with a twist.
Here we define what we want. Some examples are “I want to be promoted at work”, “I want to lose 25 lbs.”, “I want to buy a house.”
The twist is to also include the feelings we will have once we achieve the goal.
For example, if your goal is to buy a house, buying the house is the tangible portion of the goal.
How would you feel in your new home? Maybe you will have a sense of belonging, you may experience joy by seeing others in your family having more space to play.
These would be the feelings behind obtaining the goal. In this example, your true desires would be to set roots and to see your family members have more space to themselves.
Visualization is a helpful tool for the second part (or the twist) of this step. What does the neighborhood look like? What color is your house? What type of floors does it have? Does it have a backyard? Is there a porche?
And as you see it in your imagination, note what you are feeling. Maybe you are smiling when you see your own home office (instead of the sofa you currently have). Go deeper. What is making that smile? Is it the feeling of having your own physical space? Does it translate as the desire to have time for yourself and your own interests?
Attaching the true desires to the tangible goal creates that fire in our bellies. I can see you taking out your notebook and starting to plan.
An important aspect in this step is to be completely honest. Are we desiring something we think others expect we should want? Using the example of buying a house, is this something we really want or is it what is expected of working professionals, at a certain income level, age, and family situation?
If you notice neutral, no feelings or catabolic ones like fear, stress, anger, etc. coming up, the goal may not be truly yours and it may be an expectation from others.
“It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.” Eric Hoffer, American philosopher
2) Belief
The biggest obstacle to achieving our goals is us. Yes, that’s right. We are the ones in the way of our own desires and potential.
Our inner blocks and saboteurs get in the way and fill us with messages of fear, stress, anxiety, anger, etc. By the time they are finished with us we are exhausted and with no energy to pursue anything in life.
Not all is lost. There are ways to overcome our inner blocks and lower the voice of our judge or any other accomplice saboteur.
As part of writing down my goals, I make a list of all the limiting beliefs I have.
Next to each item, I have an empowering belief, one that creates abundance, possibility, and trust in the process. A sage perspective, if you will.
You may need to revisit the list often. For the strongest self-limitations, consider having the empowering reframe in a place you can see every day.
Here are a few examples from my own exercise at the beginning of 2022.
| Limiting Belief | Revising/Reframing the Limiting Belief |
| If I leave my job now, I won’t find another one equal or better to the one I have. | My focus is on aligning my work with my purpose and mission in life. I decide how I want to accomplish this and there are many possible paths. |
| Time is precious and has to be always productively utilized. Being productive = achieving something tangible (checking off items from the ‘to do’ list and having something to show for it). | Resting, recharging, and relaxation are achievements that enable productivity. Similarly, spending quality time with people I love is an achievement that nourishes who I am, my purpose and mission. Focus on prioritization and not on the number of things done. |
| I don’t have enough energy and time to do everything I want to do. | Time is a fixed value (i.e. all of us have 24 hours in one day, no more no less). I know my different levels of physical energy throughout the day and I choose how I spend my time and energy vis a vis the activities I do everyday. I have plenty of time for the things and people that are |
“Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.” Thomas Jefferson, Third US President
3) Accept
This is a crucial step in the process. This is where we ‘live’ our desire as if it has already happened. We are accepting that we deserve that goal we have set for ourselves. We use affirmations that inspire us.
Living ‘as if’ means creating a new reality and then expecting the result. For our goals, let us think they are not a matter of ‘if’. It is a matter of ‘when’ we will achieve them. They are inevitable.
We are telling our RAS to look for confirmation related to our goal. And our RAS, perfect as it is, will show us the information based on our instructions.
A note on affirmations. When I first learned about this concept, I thought it was corny and I felt self-conscious doing them. I did them anyway. After all, I was going through them in the privacy of my own bathroom.
I encourage you to practice talking to yourself in a way that is inspiring even if it feels weird. That sensation (of it being weird) will go away in time. Plus, you will do it in private (nobody has to know).
“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.” From The Light in the Heart by Roy T. Bennett
One more thing before you go
Every goal we set has underneath it specific desires and feelings. Those are the real things we want to achieve; we are merely using the goal in question as a one among many paths.
Identifying those feelings and desires will accomplish two things: a) it will give you the fire in your belly to pursue your goal, and b) it will free you from the result as you can choose another path (or goal) to attain those desires.
For example, you may discover that when you visualize your home office you also see yourself creating that business or career you want for yourself. You feel aligned with your purpose, you are learning and growing, you are discovering your inner self. There are several potential paths you could follow to achieve that alignment between your actions and your purpose: You could buy a house where you have your own office or studio. Maybe it is not a house but a co-working space. Or perhaps it is becoming a digital nomad.
The biggest obstacle we have to overcome to achieve our goals is our limiting beliefs and other inner blocks and internal voices that constantly tell us we can’t do it, we are not enough, we don’t deserve it.
We want to continually use self-talk to remind ourselves that we can remove our limitations and create abundance. For the more ingrained inner obstaces, we will need a constant, visible and even auditory reminder of our capabilities and potential.
We deserve our goals. It is not a matter of ‘if’ we will obtain them, but of ‘when’.
In that process of desire, belief, and accept you will discover amazing things about yourself, your motivations, and what you truly want out of life.
I invite you to experiment. The cost is your time and mental energy to follow the steps. The benefit is discovering your true desires, what exactly is getting in the way, and rewriting the code for your RAS to show you all the possibilities available to achieve your dreams.
As you think about your goals, what is the common theme of your desires? Please, let us know in the comments.
As a leadership coach, I enable talent to achieve bold goals with high standards. My mission is to empower underrepresented women in the financial industry transition from mid to senior level leadership positions using mental fitness to achieve peak performance, peace of mind, and healthier relationships.