Planning Vs. Wishing

Do you have big dreams and wishes but you struggle to make them happen? Do you find yourself sitting around and daydreaming, and wishing for your life to be different? And yet year after year, it feels like nothing really changes. If you can relate to that, you're not alone. That used to be me year after year. But things began to change when I stopped wishing and started planning for extraordinary years. And that's what this episode is all about. So let's dive in.

Welcome to The School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? Happy December. How in the world is it already December? I don't know about you all, but it feels like this year went by so fast and we are about to enter into a new year. And one of the things that I believe strongly in is that we still have time to end this year powerfully. I think when I look back on 2023, this last month will be the most powerful of all of the months. It's been a doozy already. The last couple of weeks have been a doozy. Do you all know what a doozy is? Is that a Southern word? It may be. But a doozy is something that's remarkable or extraordinary. And over the last couple of weeks, I have made some extraordinary decisions. I have made extraordinary plans, and I'm feeling all of the feels that come with doing extraordinary things.

I am equally excited and equally afraid because I know that when we step into the unknown when we step into a space that we've never been in before, when we make decisions that put us in new places, around new people, doing new things, it is scary to the brain. But it's also exciting because if you want something that you don't currently have, you are going to have to step into a space that you've never been. You're going to have to think thoughts that you've never thought. You're going to have to feel things that maybe you've never felt. You're going to have to do things that you've never done. And I see so many people just sitting around wishing for their life to be different, but they are not planning for their life to be different. Their actions do not reflect their wishes. They're wanting to create results without anything changing.

And you can see how crazy that is. It's impossible. But the same is true for almost everyone. The devil you know is better than the one that you don't. But I like to think that there are angels in that space, not devils, but angels in that space that are just waiting to welcome you and to support you. And I am definitely in it right now. And I'm so excited to share within the membership behind the scenes of what's been going on and the decisions that I've made, mostly in the business, that I really feel is going to take The School of Self-Image to the next level. So that we can deliver at a higher level.

And so many of the members already say, "You overdeliver. You are one of the people that when we say you overdeliver, you do." I am always looking at how to create an exceptional experience for our members, but I'm always looking at up-leveling that. I'm really excited about 2024. I do believe it is going to be an extraordinary year.

And I've been thinking that thought over the last several years. And year after year, I prove it true. And that's a really important point that I want to make. Instead of looking at how your past years have been, why not go into your imagination and right now you decide what you want to believe about 2024? And hold that belief near and dear to your heart. You especially need to practice that belief when things are hard because I know as I enter into 2024, especially with these decisions that I've made, it's not going to be easy. I'm going to encounter a lot of obstacles.

But if I hold the belief that this year is going to be extraordinary, when I encounter those obstacles, it's a different me encountering them versus the me that maybe wants to think, oh my God, this is terrible. This year isn't working out the way I thought it was going to. That version of me shrinks and hides and doesn't make bold decisions. And she ends up creating the very thing that she's afraid of versus the version of me who believes that it's going to be an extraordinary year. When she faces challenges, she faces them. She makes bold decisions, and she's navigating to extraordinary. That's where she has set her GPS. And so she's figuring out how to get there. And that's why it's so important for you right now to decide how you want to think and feel about next year.

This is a lot of the work that I do within December. I spend most of my December really assessing where I've been and what got me there, both positive and negative, defining where I want to go, what my goals are for the year, who I must become, who I want to become, looking at what I need to let go of, what I need to bring in, and then practicing that throughout the year. And that is how I create extraordinary years.

And for those of you who are in the membership, I told you all we are going to be up-leveling this year, and next year. We're starting now, we're not waiting until the new year. But we have added in a workshop that is going to set you up for success for 2024. It's called Your Extraordinary Year. It is going to be a 90-minute workshop. So for you all in the membership, this is a workshop and you all know what that means, it means we get to work. We carve out 90 minutes to really think on a deeper level.

And I am convinced that this is one of the reasons why people struggle with creating results in their lives. They're just reacting and they don't set aside time because their brain tells them, I don't have time to do this. I need to take care of this. I need to take care of that. And so they don't set aside the time to really think on a bigger level about their lives, and more importantly about themselves and what's really holding them back, and who they must become.

And this work is so incredibly powerful. I can't imagine not doing this process now that I've done it for many years. Every time that I do it, I get this surge of energy, this excitement about the future, and that's what I carry into the new year. I cannot wait to share this process with you. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of goal workshops at the end of the year. This is different. This is something that's very deep, very revealing, and very, very effective. And so if you all are not in the membership, what in the world? Come join us for this workshop.

Also, I didn't even mention, we have completely redesigned the journal that we use within the membership, our daily journal. And so you're going to be getting this beautiful workbook along with the new journal that we're going to be explaining within the membership to really support you for next year. And we have opened the doors for a few days so that you can jump in and you can join this workshop. You can really plan for your extraordinary year. It's the last time that you can join for 2023, and we would love to have you. I do believe, with my whole being, that this is the best gift that you could give yourself. If you want a return on investment, doing the work that we do within The School of Self-Image will offer you that.

I have seen women do extraordinary things. They come in having been stuck for years. And we have so many testimonials of women who have said, "I have tried to create what I created in six months within the membership, for five years before I joined." The process works. There are classes, there is a method that I run you through, a framework that will support you and your goals. There are bonus courses, there's coaching, there's the community, there's so much within this membership and it would be an honor and delight to have you in the community.

Again, just come and join us for the workshop and just see what we're about, and let's set you up for success for 2024. Decide right now that next year is going to be extraordinary. And if you want support in making that a reality, come join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join. The workshop is happening on December 7th.

Now, in this episode, I want to talk about wishing versus planning. There's a big difference, my friends. I remember around this time of year, I would just sit around and wish for things. One of the things that I wished for was that Hugh Grant would pull up and ride me off into the sunset in his limo, after watching ‘Love Actually’.

I would wish that I could lose weight. I would look at magazines and I wished that I could dress like these women. I would watch shows and wish that I could travel. I was an expert wisher. And the thing with that is if you do it long enough you create the self-image of a woman who just wishes her life away. And listen, wishes are a beautiful thing when they are backed up with a plan. I used to be so afraid of planning. I thought it would take away the serendipity. I thought it would make me rigid and less fun, less free-spirited.

But the truth is, when I, pride in myself and being a woman who was just going with the flow, I was being bounced around and it felt like I was just getting beat up by life. And I was calling it going with the flow. I saw this meme the other day, a friend sent it to me, and it's this woman or man, I can't remember, but they're kayaking and it's like me going with the flow and it's just them getting beat up by the water. And I'm like, yep, that was me before I had a plan before I started planning my life. And yet I had so much resistance to planning.

But here's what I want you all to know. Planning is sexy. Planning gives you your power back. Planning is when you stop reacting to your life and being intentional. And planning gives you freedom. Now that I plan my life, I have so much more freedom. I'm so much happier. I feel more in control. I am able to create results. And the crazy thing is I have more time. I thought planning would take away my time. But I plan for the time that I want to have and then I work everything around that. And so planning has given me my life back.

And so if you take nothing else away but the desire to plan more, your life will be changed. I promise you that. Now, yes, plans can change. Things happen in life. And I've often had people use that as an argument. Why make plans when life throws you curveballs? But what I can offer you is that when you have a plan and those curveballs come, you can still stay committed to your outcome, what you want to create. You may have to change your plans a little bit, you may have to change them massively. But not having a plan is a guarantee that you won't get there.

So let's first talk about what are the biggest objections and obstacles to planning. One of them that I've heard is I don't have enough time to plan. And ironically, not planning keeps you in that loop of not having enough time. The thing with planning, and this is another obstacle, is that it requires that you get off the treadmill for a moment and ask yourself some really difficult questions. What do I really want? Who do I want to be? What do I really want to experience in my life?

And oftentimes when we haven't been used to answering those questions and planning for them, where our brain usually goes is to confusion. You all know what I'm talking about. I don't know what I want. And that's the thing with planning. It requires that you answer some of these basic questions about your life, and it takes time. I always say planning takes a lot of time on the front end, but it saves you so much time on the back end because you're not waking up each day wondering where do I place my attention. What do I do? You've already planned for it. And so your days run so much more smoothly and with more ease when you have a plan in place. But it does require that you set aside the time to actually do it.

It's why we've created 90 minutes for this workshop because it will be a reason for some of you to get off the treadmill and actually devote and dedicate 90 minutes of your life to really think about your life. I see this in business especially. One of the big obstacles is in business you're running around putting out fires and you don't have time to step off and really think about the business, but you can't afford not to. So at some point, you have to be willing to take some risk. You have to be willing to step off and maybe some things will fall through the cracks in those moments, but in the long run, it's going to have such a positive impact on your business.

It's why every Monday is sort of my on-my-business day. That's the day where I'm thinking big picture. I'm doing a lot of the visionary work. Now of course my brain's telling me, Tonya, you should be taking care of this problem and that problem. But I know if I don't do this work upfront, there's just going to be more problems down the road.

Another big obstacle that I see with planning is that if you don't believe in yourself if you don't believe in your ability to turn wishes and dreams into reality, then you won't plan for it. So the answer there is to decide what you want and start creating the plan for it and then practice believing in it. And that is a practice, in fact, within the membership this month, it's all about how to make belief. We're taking belief work to a whole deeper level. And so in practicing believing in yourself, believing in your plan, you will start to collect evidence of, oh, wait, I got a win here, I got a win there. Maybe this is possible. And you are getting closer to the woman you want to be who can actually realize that dream or wish. But you cannot do it without a plan.

Now, some people will say, "Well, if you believe in the law of attraction, then shouldn't it just come to you?" "Can I just sit around and think about it and the world will deliver?" And I'm a big proponent and advocate of the law of attraction. I do believe that we attract who we are. However, I was thinking about just this week, I've had some very magical things happen, things that feel like it's almost too good to be true, and I'll be sharing this within the membership. So stay tuned folks to learn what that is.

But I now can look back and realize I'm actually having a plan and showing up for the plan is what opens me up for that magic. Just sitting around and wishing and hoping and visualizing what would not have been enough to actually attract this opportunity into my life. I backed it up with a plan. I can often tell what people believe by their calendars, by their plans, and by their actions. That shows me what you really believe in. And so by having that plan and showing up for it you're showing yourself I am practicing believing in myself and my ability to actually create this thing.

Another objection that I spoke to earlier, but I'll repeat it here, is that people often equate planning with rigidity. And they believe that having plans will make them less free, less fun, and less spontaneous. And as I shared earlier, time and time again not only in my life but in my client's lives, I see that the opposite is true. You gain more freedom. If you think about it, knowing where you want to go and having a plan to get there, relieves your brain of the worry, of the anxiety.

My experience with anxiety now looking back is that a lot of it was created because I didn't have a plan. I knew I wanted these things but I wasn't sitting down and getting clear on how I was going to actually create them. And so that unknown created a lot of anxiety for me. Now that isn't the root of all anxiety, but I do think for a lot of people it is. But if you know you want to go to California and you've plugged it into your GPS and you've chosen your route and you start driving there, even if you encounter a roadblock, a detour, but you still believe you're going to get to California, there's a lot of relief in that. You can just relax. You know you've planned it out.

But when you're sitting in your driveway and you know you want to move but you haven't decided where you want to move to, and you haven't decided because of how you're even going to get there, it creates a lot of uncertainty for your brain. And so, again, planning has given me more freedom, more time to enjoy my life, and it's given me my dreams. The other objection that I often hear is a combination, and I already mentioned one of them, but being confused about what you want. So if you can't decide what you want or you don't decide what you want, then it's really impossible to create a plan. But also people say, "But it's so hard." And I often say, "Yeah, but it's harder not to."

The truth is wishing is easy. Sitting around and wanting and wishing, that's the easy and oftentimes the fun part. The planning isn't so fun. It's almost like consuming versus creating. Like it's easy to consume, it's easy to sit around and let other people do the work. It's easy to sit around and dream and to wish. But the creation, the planning, that's often the hard part. But what I've come to understand and experience is that an extraordinary life isn't going to be easy, but it's so worth it. It is so worth being willing to do that hard work in order to actually create what it is that you want.
So I looked up the definition of a wish, and it is to feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable. It's you wanting something to happen. A plan, on the other hand, is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. It's an intention or decision about what one is going to do.

This is where your dreams come to life. Within The School of Self-Image membership, one of the courses that you get immediate access to is called The Dream Atelier. And it is doing this. It is learning how to plan your dreams out 30 days at a time. And this program is so brilliant because, number one, it works. But, number two, it addresses the internal obstacles that we often anticipate, as well as the external ones. I teach you how to schedule. I teach you how to break big dreams. I'm talking about dreams such as starting my business, making a hundred thousand dollars this year, losing a hundred pounds, and meeting the love of my life. Like any kind of dream that you have can be broken down into a doable plan.

And when you're planning, it's so important that you break things down to the least common denominator and then you schedule it. Break it down to being so simple that it's so easy for you to show up for. And that's what a lot of people don't understand how to do. And I teach you that within The Dream Atelier. But what I want you to do for the purpose of this podcast, I want you to think about what you are wishing for in 2024. Write it all down. What are all of the things that you want, desire, and dream of? And then you're going to have to decide. Because if you're like a lot of us, we wish for many different things.

But I do believe the reason why I've been able to grow and create extraordinary years is because I've decided on what is most important this year. It's not that these other dreams can't happen, but oftentimes what happens is we try to plan too much and then we become overwhelmed, we feel very scattered. It's one of the reasons why the members of The School of Self-Image get such incredible results because they follow this process, and some of them do it kicking and screaming. They're like, "I don't want to choose just one big dream. I don't want to have to decide, all of it's important." But if everything's important, then nothing really is.

And so getting clear on what's the most important thing for you just next year, and then you begin to create a plan for it. You break it down step by step. You put it in your calendar. And then you show up for your extraordinary year. You have to show up for it. You have to show up for your plan. Now some of you may be very good at planning, but maybe you're not good at showing up for your plan. I address all of that within The Dream Atelier. But what I do know to be true, if you want an extraordinary year you must plan for it. And if you want the support of myself and our incredible community manager Laura in helping you figure out what you want next year to look like and what plans you need to make, who you must become, come and join us within the membership and get into this Extraordinary Year workshop.

You're going to get an incredible workbook. You're going to get access to our daily journal. You're going to get access to The Dream Atelier. I'm going to show you step by step how to make 2024 your most extraordinary year. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join, and let's turn those wishes and those dreams into plans, and therefore reality. I hope to see you all within the membership. Have a beautiful week, and I will see you on next week's episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of The School of Self-Image manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and how to show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.