If you had told me this time last year that by the end of 2020 I would be a transformational coach, with a full roster of clients, developing a new language around adventure consciousness, writing regular articles that people read and get value from, and charging 10s of 1000s to work with me, I would honestly have laughed at you and told you it was impossible.
You see, I had never been a writer. I had never been a coach. No-one had ever given me their personal cash because of the value they saw I could bring to their lives.
Up until then, I had always been an employee. Doing a job.
I had dreams, but they were impossible, and I was quite happy to leave them that way, saying things like “I’d love to…” and “Wouldn’t it be amazing if…”
But this year has been different. I’ve done a TON of personal work. I’ve learned so much. and my outlook is completely different.
An impossible goal is now a place to come from, rather than a place to aspire to.
There are 3 aspects to achieving the impossible. Attention. Intention. Action.
ATTENTION
“We can’t create a new future while we’re living in our past. It’s simply impossible.” ― Joe Dispenza, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter
Where attention goes, energy flows. What we focus on expands in our lives. If we put our attention on all the reasons we can’t do a thing, the money we don’t have, the time we don’t have, the fact that people from my family don’t do that, etc etc, those reasons will grow and multiply, we will subconsciously seek out confirmation of our belief that it can’t be done, and we will find it.
Whereas if we can focus on all the things we CAN do to make it happen, the time we DO have, the phone call we CAN make, those things will grow, new possibilities will appear, and the impossible becomes possible, and then the possible becomes probable.
I have an impossible dream that I am working on right now. It is something that has never been done before, and for good reason.
I’m planning an adventure that starts and finishes at the south pole. Using wind power only, I plan to circumnavigate the world. Using a kite to pull me to the edge of Antarctica, transferring to a boat and sailing up the Atlantic, through the Northwest passage, down the pacific, and then skiing back to the south pole.
Why do I want to do this? I couldn’t tell you. Can it be done? I couldn’t tell you. But recently I have had a couple of conversations that have brought the impossible a couple of steps closer, by seeking out Antarctic experts, and experts in kite travel. In the end, it was remarkably to get on a zoom call with someone who could tell me exactly where all the runways, crevasse fields, roads, supply stores and science labs are in Antarctica. The impossible became significantly less impossible after that conversation.
You are known by the company you keep. We tend to inherit the beliefs of those with whom we spend the most time. Therefore, if you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Whereas if you surround yourself with people who are already doing the thing you dream of, then you will inherit their beliefs simply by osmosis.
I paid WAY more than I could afford this year to attend a coaching intensive with one of my mentors. Almost the biggest single investment I’ve made in anything in my life.
It was scary, I questioned myself, but in my core I knew that the people I would meet at this intensive would change my life. And that is exactly what happened.
I’ve never felt more inspired AND more like a fraud all at the same time. To be received as a peer by some of the best and most successful coaches in the world changed everything about who I saw myself as. To get their feedback on the things Curtis and I are creating. To be listened to and celebrated. It was a paradigm shift.
So what are you putting your attention on? Are you focussing primarily on your limitations? Or the possibilities that exist? Who are you surrounding yourself with? Are they lifting you up or holding you back? What’s your impossible dream?
INTENTION
“Make your intentions clear, the universe does not respond well to uncertainty…” Joe Duncan — Beforesam
Intention is a clear vision of a desired outcome. Do you know what you actually want? Why are you striving for this or that?
Attention energises and activates, while intention orchestrates the forces of the universe to support our desired result.
My intention in speaking to the Antarctic expert was threefold.
1. To find out if it is indeed possible to use a kite to travel all the way across Antarctica
2. To enrol him in my dream and get his support
3. To add fuel to the fire and create forward momentum
Knowing in advance what I wanted to get out of the conversation made the conversation much easier, and the desired result much more likely. In the end I achieved all three — he thinks I am crazy but is excited to help, we think it is indeed possible to do the antarctic part of this, and momentum has been generated.
When we get clear on our intention, and connect with the feeling of achieving that intention, we literally change the frequency of the electromagnetic field around our body in measurable ways.
We’ve all had the experience of meeting someone and knowing that this is a person we want to spend time with, or conversely showing up at a party and knowing immediately that you don’t want to be there.
By putting your attention on places and people that support your dream, and by being clear in your intention, you become the person who has achieved what you dream of achieving.
Tony Robbins calls it rehearsing the future. Abraham Hicks talks about vibrational alignment with the future you are creating. Joe Dispenza says that new thoughts lead to new choices, which lead to new behaviours, which lead to new experiences, which lead to new thoughts…
They are all talking about attention and intention.
ACTION
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin” — Tony Robbins
All this is well and good, but nothing happens without action. I had to get the credit card out and make that scary payment for the intensive. I had to reach out to the guy I’d never met before to request a conversation with him. If you want to climb a mountain, you have to put one foot in front of the other until you get there.
And that’s the beauty of it. All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other.
You don’t have to climb the whole mountain in one step.
Every tiny action takes you closer to your goal. Next week I’m talking to the kite expert. I don’t know where it will lead but I know that talking to a kite expert is an important step in me becoming someone who uses a kite to travel across Antarctica.
The other beauty of it is that you know what action you need to take next. The real question is why aren’t you taking that action? I have resisted saying anything in public about this circumnavigation dream, because it’s big and scary and I hope no-one else will do it and by speaking it I have to actually do it…and all that stuff.
But now it’s out there. And someone might read this and have a piece of the puzzle that will take me another step closer. Please do reach out if you have that piece!
What ACTION do you know will take you closer to your impossible dream?
What is your INTENTION behind taking that action?
Where are you putting your ATTENTION, and is that holding you in the past or propelling you into the future?
Let me know your impossible dream and what action you are taking to make it real in the comments!