An Extraordinary Goal

I don’t know about you, but personally speaking, I used to be someone who set very small goals for myself. I was too afraid to fail. I was too afraid to be disappointed. And so, the result is that I was living a really small life. But when I started to create extraordinary goals, goals that challenged me, that grew me, that even scared me, that’s when my life started to change dramatically. And that’s why, in this episode, I’m going to be encouraging you to set an extraordinary goal for yourself.

Bonjour, and welcome to The French Kiss Life Podcast, where personal development meets style. I’m Tonya Leigh, certified master life coach and the hostess of this party, where we explore how to live artfully and well. Each week, I’ll be sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and timeless wisdom on how to elevate the quality of your everyday and celebrate along the way. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Hello, beautiful friends. What an exciting week it has been. We opened the doors to the School of Self-Image and welcomed in over 1000 members. And I cannot describe to you the energy within this community and this group. It is going to be an extraordinary year. I already know it.

I am already excited about the after stories that women are already creating for themselves. In fact, I just received an email today from a woman who joined and she was like, “I’m just blown away, within a short week, how I’m feeling different.” And she was like, “I swear, I look different.”

And I’m like, this is what happens. This is what happens when you commit to living an extraordinary life and you begin to make these little subtle daily changes that, in the moment, don’t seem like a lot, but they’re adding up to create our lives. And so, I’m just having so much fun with this community.

But I wanted to share something with you all that I am asking everyone within the School of Self-Image to do, because I want the whole community to do it. Now, within the School of Self-Image, I’m going to be coaching them around how to actually achieve it and we have so many incredible things planned. But there’s no reason why you can’t do it too.

And that is, I want you to consider setting an extraordinary goal for yourself. What is an extraordinary goal? It is a goal that’s out of the ordinary. It’s a goal that feels impossible. And guess what, it is to the woman you are today. But when I think about changing our self-image, one of the best ways to do it is to set a goal for ourselves and literally create ourselves into the woman who can achieve that. Because when you do that, it’s so much easier to reach your goals.

But a lot of you, you’re dreaming so small. You’re setting these little tiny goals for yourself that it’s barely moving your life at all. And I was talking to my clients tonight actually – I just had a call with them – and I asked them, I’m like, “Why do you do this? Why are you so afraid to set an extraordinary goal for yourself?”

And they told me things like, “I’m afraid I’m going to fail.” And what I told them, you have to be willing to fail. A lot of times, we look at successful people or people that we think are successful and we don’t see all of the failures that they went through to create that success.

In fact, I was listening to a podcast with Kevin Harrington, I think that’s his name, who is like the big infomercial guy. He’s made, like, hundreds and hundreds of millions selling on informercials. And he was saying, the number of infomercials that he created that failed were so much more than the few that he did that made the millions.

But imagine if he would have bene unwilling to fail. If every infomercial he did had to be a huge success in order for him to put himself out there, he wouldn’t be such a well-known brand. But so many of you are afraid to fail, that you’re setting these tiny little goals for yourself.

When we have this one life where anything is possible, but you’re not allowing yourself to step into that possibility because you’re only choosing goals that you think are possible from where you are now. But an extraordinary goal, it’s going to feel impossible, or it wouldn’t be extraordinary, right?

And the reason why I love an extraordinary goal is that they literally change how we see ourselves, which is what we do in the School of Self-Image. It’s one of the best ways to change your self-image is to create an extraordinary goal for yourself and then to go for it, to literally birth the woman that can create that for herself, which means you’re going to have to shed so much of your thinking.

The moment you set an extraordinary goal, all of your doubts are going to come up, all of the reasons why you think it can’t happen, all of the reasons why you’re not smart enough, rich enough, whatever enough, that’s going to all come up. And those are the very parts of yourself that you have to be willing to let die, in order to create it. And it’s the parts of yourself that’s holding you back in so much of your life.

The other thing they told me is that they’re afraid to be disappointed. And what I told them is that disappointment is a choice. I would much rather go after an extraordinary goal and not reach it than to live a life of ordinary, where I didn’t even give myself the chance to see what was possible. And at the end of the day, even if I go for an extraordinary goal and I fail miserably, I can choose to be disappointed or I can choose to be delighted. It is my choice.

And why would I choose to feel disappointed when I had the courage to do something that so many don’t? Even if I fail, even if I never achieve it, what I do know is that I will not be the same woman just in the striving for it. And number two, I will be so much further ahead. I may not be at the extraordinary goal. But I certainly won’t be sitting where I am now. It will move me forward. It will change how I see myself just in having the courage to go for it.

Another thing that women express to me, when I was asking them, like, “Why are you so afraid to set an extraordinary goal?” is some of them said, “Well I’ve never been able to do it before.”

Listen, you’ve got to stop looking into your past, my friends. The version of you that can create an extraordinary goal for herself, she doesn’t do it by constantly focusing on what has been. Do you know what she focuses on? What can be and who she must become to create it.

If you keep looking into the past, you’re going to keep recreating the past. I want you to look into the future, and you have to be 100% honest with yourself, what do you really want? If this is your one life, and as I know, this is, this time around anyway, if this is your one life, what would you just be delighted to say that you achieved, experienced, accomplished, created?

A lot of you are not allowing yourself to be honest with what you want and you have a lot of split energy. Deep down, you’re wanting something and you’re not allowing yourself to have it. You’re not even allowing yourself to want it.

But the moment that you allow yourself to want it and then you work through everything that tells you that you can’t have it, that’s when you become a match for it. That’s when you start seeing opportunities and the right people start showing up and you take the next step that gives you more information about what ese you should do.

The other thing women told me when it came to their extraordinary goal is, “I don’t know how.” A lot of you are letting the how stop you. I didn’t know how I was going to be where I am today when I started this journey. There was no way I could have told you the how.

What I did know what the what and the why. I knew what I wanted, at least the next segment. And I knew why I wanted it, which was my fuel for creating it. And I just started taking a lot of action and I failed over and over and over again. And that’s what a lot of people don’t talk about. They don’t talk about the failures.

Just last week, when we opened the doors to the School of Self-Image, we had a major tech issue, something that I could not have anticipated. In my honest opinion, it was a failure on my part. And I learned so much from that. I’m not going to let it stop me. I’m going to use those failures for me. I’m going to ask myself how can we make this better for our customers? How can we assure this never happens again? How can we fix this ASAP? Which we did.

And everyone was so gracious, and once they got inside, they were so delighted. But still, no one talks about this. No one talks about the failures. No one talks about all the mistakes. But I can tell you, that is how I have figured out the how to my extraordinary goals, is by being willing to take action, fail, learn, get up, and do it again and again and again.

And here’s the thing you all, when you stop tying your self-worth to your success or your failures and you just look at this as, like, a big playground for you to learn and to grow, you’re not as afraid to fail. But so many of you are not allowing yourself to dream bigger because you’re so afraid of failing and you’re so afraid of not knowing the how.

Do you know how you figure out the how? You get on the playing field. You decide what you want and then you start playing. And that is how you figure out the how. It saddens me when I see so many extraordinary people with so much potential, so much goodness, so much buried within them that they want and they’re not allowing themselves to go for it.

I want us all to have the courage to set an extraordinary goal for ourselves. A year from now, what would you be mind-blown to say that you achieved? And again. I say this many times, I’ve said it on the podcast. I tell my clients all of the time. The best part of reaching a goal is not the goal itself. It’s who you have to become in the process.

And here’s the thing. Who you become in the process is setting you up for so much other goodness in your life. You are going to have to let go of parts of yourself. You’re going to have to break up with parts of yourself. I even have a podcast on this topic.

You are going to have to learn new skills. You’re going to have to learn new things. You’re going to have to think differently. And that is the juiciness of having an extraordinary goal.

So, I want to ask you, if you’re 100% honest with yourself, what would you love to create this year? What would be an extraordinary goal for you? And I want you to have the courage to state it and then all you have to do at that point is work through everything that says that you can’t have it. Because that’s what’s truly holding you back.

Because if you believed you could have it, guess what, it would be yours. And so, the work is believing in your extraordinary goal and showing up, taking action, failing, and learning again. But first, you have to decide, what do I want? What is my extraordinary goal for this year?

And hey, listen, I would be so delighted if you would head over to Instagram or Facebook @schoolofselfimage and share your extraordinary goal with me. Because one of the things that I want to do is hold an intention for this community that one year from now, not only will we be so much further ahead because we had the courage to decide what we wanted, but that we will not see ourselves the same.

Have a beautiful week, my friends, and I can’t wait to see you in the next episode.

If you enjoyed this episode and you want to dive even deeper into the French Kiss Lifestyle, let’s start with a makeover; a mindset makeover. You can download my free training, The Three Mindset Makeovers Every Woman Needs, by visiting frenchkisslife.com/mindset. Because, after all, mindset is the new black.

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