Ep #51: How to Set Goals from Abundance

Episode 51, How to Set Goals from Abundance.

Welcome to Clinicians Creating Impact, a show for physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists looking to take the next step in their careers and make a real difference in the lives of their clients. If you’re looking to improve the lives of neurodiverse children and families with neurological-based challenges, grow your own business, or simply show up to help clients, this is the show for you. 

I’m Heather Branscombe, Therapist, Certified Coach, Clinical Director, and Owner of Abilities Neurological Rehabilitation. I have over 25 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, and I’m here to help you become the therapist you want to be, supporting people to work towards their dreams and live their best lives. You ready to dive in? Let’s go.

Angela: Hi, this is Angela, one of Heather’s podcast producers. Heather asked us to pick an episode we thought would be perfect for you all to hear again this time of year. We decided to go with episode 3, Why Create a Bigger Impact? As we enter a new year with new goals and ambitions in our careers, it’s important to remember our why. For so many clinicians your why is that you love helping people and you want to make a bigger impact. 

In this episode Heather shares how to set goals from a place of abundance and a place that allows you to make the biggest impact you can. Please enjoy. 

Welcome to the latest episode. Do you remember why you became a therapist initially? I don’t know about you, but I became a therapist because I fundamentally loved helping people, and I knew I loved the body. My teenage self, who liked sports and science, chose physical therapy as a potential career option because I thought at the time that I wanted to be a sports physical therapist. 

Once I got into PT school, and I saw the breadth and the scope of who I could help and how, that was the start of my career trying a lot of different practice areas before settling on serving children and adults with neurodiversity and neurologically-based challenges. 

So as I moved around, what I took with me was my desire to continue to set goals for myself and for my clients. I wanted to create a bigger and better impact for everyone. So I identify as a super goal-oriented person, and I know that many of you feel the same, or maybe you used to. Whether you do or you don’t, today I want to talk to you about what can truly help you to get the results that you want to help you create the career of your dreams. 

So what do you think the purpose is of goals? Have you ever thought about that? I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about this recently, probably because I’m recording this in January. But many of us set goals from a place of scarcity. And I want to include myself in that camp in the past, and maybe sometimes even today.

I would set goals, and sometimes I still set goals because I wanted something that I didn’t have. So in the past, it could have been like better grades, making more money, or getting more clinical skills, because, fundamentally, I didn’t think that I was enough as I was or as I am today. So I wonder if you have a history of setting goals from that place as well. 

When we set goals from that place of scarcity or not enough, then it makes perfect sense that we think that we need to learn more, work more and be more to get our goal. Well, I would submit that this kind of thinking does work for a while, and I know that because it has worked for me. And it’s pretty natural to set goals from that place. I just want to offer that there is another option. 

That option matters because when we continue to set goals from a place of scarcity or not being enough, we can eventually come to a place where setting goals doesn’t seem fun anymore. So right now, as I listen to my co-workers, friends, and even people I follow on social media, I can hear people talk about goals in a couple of different ways. 

Either they’re talking about how much they love goals and how they have their goals, or they’re thinking about their goals for the year. Or how they don’t love goals, so why set them? So I want to offer first that nobody needs to set goals ever. But it’s just interesting to get curious as to the why. 

Why do you want to set goals, or why don’t you want to set goals for the year? Have you really ever asked yourself that? If not, here’s a great opportunity to ask and answer that for yourself, especially in the context of work. When you ask yourself why, just notice what comes up for you. What is the answer that you have to that question? 

A past version of me at work would set goals because I felt like I needed to be more, learn more, and do more to be a “good therapist.” Not knowing where you are in your career, maybe you’ve already learned this, but it took me a good 20 years into my 25-year career to figure out that setting goals from that place of scarcity really wasn’t sustainable. 

It wasn’t sustainable because even when or if I hit the goal, I could still see where I was lacking. So what I did next may be where you are. I decided next that I didn’t want to even set a goal. And if you asked me why I would tell you it’s because I was just tired of feeling like I wasn’t enough. Instead of being curious if there was another way to use the tool of setting goals, I just decided not to set a goal so that I wouldn’t feel bad about how I thought I needed to be to achieve them. 

Then that is really especially true about big goals. If we were to put this into a model, and if you don’t know what a model is, I’ll refer you back to episode two. What I would do is I would put goal in the circumstance line, then my thought would be setting goals mean I have to work more or do more. And that creates the feeling of pressure. 

But instead of noticing that it was my thought creating the feeling of pressure, my brain would make it mean that it was the goal itself that made me feel pressure. So now, knowing and applying the model, I can see how I was contributing to my misuse and eventual distaste for goal setting from my own thoughts. 

So that’s the other option. How can we use goals and the model to create amazing things in a much more fun and sustainable way? The other option is really to think about creating goals from a place of abundance. That’s the place that says I am already enough. I’m already enough as a therapist. I don’t have to learn more, do more, or be more to create whatever I want to create. 

Now, does that sound a little woo-woo to you? If so, I get it. That was a thought that I had before. That was just because it just didn’t feel believable to me at first as well. But go with me for a minute. If we believe that we are already enough, we are already worthy and whole as a person and as a therapist, what feeling comes up for you? 

Now, there’s no right or wrong answer to this. But for me, it’s a feeling of peace or love. That feeling feels much less like scarcity and so much more abundant or expansive. When I feel that love, I’ll approach the action of goal setting and achieving from an entirely different perspective. And the idea of a goal feels much more fun. It gives my brain an opportunity to use it and to use the resources it already has to create something new. 

And sure, I know that I will learn and grow along the way. But, again, notice how it feels much more expansive and much more fun. Setting goals from this place gives my brain direction and an amazing problem to solve, especially when I have no idea how I’m going to solve it in advance. 

When I set a goal from that expansive place, it isn’t even a problem that I don’t know the answer or that I might not even get the answer or know the how in a way or time that I expect. Again, doesn’t that sound so much more fun? If it does, here’s something that you can try. Ask yourself, in your ideal world, what would you create at work if you knew that failure was not an option? 

Let your imagination and your brain go wild. What would be different? What kind of impact would that create for yourself and for your clients? Let that goal be completely impossible for a moment, and see what you come up with. What feelings would you feel if that impossible goal came true? Feel those feelings. And finally, ask yourself, what do I need to believe to feel that feeling? 

The most amazing part of setting goals from an expansive place is that goals become much less about what you will achieve and much more about who you will become in achieving it, knowing that you are and always have been enough. 

The amazing part is also that all of those feelings and those thoughts that the future self has is available to you right now. So I just want to ask you, did you know that you’re allowed to believe whatever you want about yourself, especially if it serves you? Sometimes we don’t even think about that, but when we ask that question, I’m here to tell you that it’s true. You can believe whatever you want about yourself. 

Now, you don’t need my permission. And I just want to grant you full permission to start feeling and believing those thoughts that create that impossible goal for you right now. 

The final amazing thing is when you set goals from this expansive place, knowing that you’re already enough, you not only create an expansive impact for yourself, but you show up, or you act differently. Imagine how that future you will be, how they think and feel, and how they’ll influence those that you work with. How will that change the impact that you have in their lives and in your own life? 

My challenge for you today is to become curious about your relationships with goals. How are you two doing? Does your relationship need a reset? Are you using goals for yourself or against yourself? And what do you want to do about that? I can’t wait to see the impact that you create. See you soon.

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Thanks for joining me this week on the Clinicians Creating Impact podcast. Want to learn more about the work I’m doing with Abilities Rehabilitation? Head on over to abilitiesrehabilitation.com. See you next week.