I’m going back to my roots today and giving you a pep talk of sorts around following your dreams. I know, I know, follow my dreams? In this economy!? Stay with me…
So, a dear friend of mine is turning 50 at the end of this year, and she posted on Facebook about bucket list items she wants to do before she turns 50. She wants to have 50 things to do and needed more ideas to fill her list. As I was reading through all her comments, things like skydiving, volunteering at a shelter, and traveling to Europe, it got me thinking about all of you.
Listen to this episode as I give you some coaching questions to ask yourself as you think about your own bucket list, small action steps to take, obstacles to look for, as well as giving you a good old fashioned motivational speech about going after your dreams. You may want to listen to this one more than once and send it to your friends!
Resources:
52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life
Right-click to download the episode.mp3
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Andrea 00:00
You're listening to Make Some Noise minisode number 505.
Andrea 00:12
Welcome to Make Some Noise Podcast, your guide for strategies, tools and insight to empower yourself. I'm your host, Andrea Owen, global speaker, entrepreneur, life coach since 2007, and author of three books that have been translated into 18 languages and are available in 22 countries. Each week, I'll bring you a guest or a lesson that will help you maximize unshakable confidence, master Resilience and make some noise in your life. You ready? Let's go.
Andrea00:47
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad that you're here. And before I forget, I wanted to tell you about a way to work with me that is unprecedented. I know we're so tired of that word. I sent out an email, you might have seen it if you get my emails, that there are three ways to work with me this year. And my apologies if my dog…if you can hear her growling behind me, she's trying to get my attention to play with me. I'm trying something new having her in my office while I do work and record podcast episodes. But at any rate, my apologies for the bouncing around. I am offering three things this year, you can work with me privately, you can come to a Daring Way retreat in the fall, or you can do a Daring Way online group this year. But the thing that is coming up really soon, within the next few days, if you listen to this podcast live, around the second week of February 2023, I'm going to be opening up 25 single coaching session spots for 25 different women who want to have a one-off session with me. I'm calling them Calling Forth Sessions. And I'll tell you a little bit about that. But they're 97 bucks, which normally I charge $750 for a 90-minute call with me. So this is ridiculously low. I love doing these calls so much that I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to do something crazy and open up 25 spots to do this.
So here's how it's gonna work. Yeah, and there, she goes there and she's working, she wants one of those 25 spots. Basically, if you go to AndreaOwen.com/one, that's where the information is going to be and the button to sign up. So it's really, for people who are afraid to make a decision about something who wants to do something that they kind of deem as crazy and they're afraid to take action on it, or they just feel stuck or in transition. That's really the gist of it. And also, if you want to pick my brain, you can do that, too. It doesn't have to be a Calling Forth Session, it doesn't have to be that you're in this stuck transitional place. But head on over to AndreaOwen.com/one. And you can see all the information, see if it's right for you, and see if there's any spots left.
The other thing is that this podcast episode minisode, if you will, is kind of about that. I started thinking about the whole, you know, the places that we go in our minds when we start thinking about like the things that we want to do in our life. One of my dearest friends is turning 50 this year and she posted on Facebook that she has she's doing kind of like a bucket list this year. She doesn't turn 50 until the end of the year. And she was asking her Facebook friends, what should I do before he turned 50. And she's clearly stated, you know, I'm not an adrenaline junkie, I don't want to jump out of an airplane or, you know, bungee jump in the Grand Canyon. Different things like she wants to go to Paris, she wants to volunteer at a homeless shelter. It's like all these kind of like random things that that she wants to do. And I was reading through the comments, and it's so interesting, all of these different things that people kind of have on their bucket list. And then it reminded me of a chapter that I wrote in 52 Ways To Life A Kick Ass Life more than 10 years ago, I wrote this book. But the chapter is called Tell Five People About Your Secret Dream. And the whole point of the chapter really is kind of around accountability and also the vulnerability of telling people our secret dreams out loud. And this can be really anything to… Something like if you want to create and craft your life to where every Sunday, or I guess days before that, you figure out where all the garage sales are in your town and like Sunday mornings are for garage sale scouring. Like that's how you want to set your life up and that's kind of your dream right now. It can be something like that. Or it can be something like you want to totally change career paths and go back to vet school and like become a veterinarian and open up a vet in some small town in the Midwest or something. Like it really could be anything.
But the point of it is, when you speak it out loud, that's when it becomes more real. And there's a lot of vulnerability in that, because we're afraid of what people are gonna say, right? Well, I mean, the obvious is we're afraid once we speak it out loud, it does become more real to us, but we're afraid of other people's reactions. You know, they might not support us, they might support us. And then we're like, oh, shit, I really might need to make this happen. Or the fear of, you know, like, what happens if you lose interest, because that's happened to me before, too. You know, we change our mind and then we're going to kind of feel like an idiot, that we told people about it. Or if we try to do the thing, and we flunk out a vet school, or, you know, like it kind of falls apart, because there's no guarantee that whatever it is, is going to work out. And it's just really comes down to the fear of actually doing something about your dream.
So I want to give you a place to start. And if you have something that you've had feel like is a quote unquote, pipe dream, then I want you to pay attention. First of all, you know, what is it? Write that down. Get out a piece of paper, write down what it is. And then I am always interested in what's important to you about it? If it is that you want to go back to vet school, maybe it's important because it's been a dream of yours, since you were a child. You've been talking about it for that long and you're bored and the career that you have, and you just want to do something that's close to your heart. Maybe it's important to you, because you have always had a value around traveling and visiting other cultures and learning more about how other people live. Maybe whatever it is, is important to you because you want a different kind of financial stability in your life, or you want adventure.
But the main thing that I'm pointing to here is, what is this dream or thing have to do with your values? Because most of the time it does, it has to do with so much more than just doing the thing. So, again, what's important to you about it? Dig a little bit deeper than simply it's just something that I've always wanted to do. It's just something I've always admired and other people. Like what's important about the thing and what does it have to do with your values? And then ask yourself from a scale of one to 10, how excited are you about it, like, take out the logistics, take out the judgment from other people, take out the fear that it might work out like just for a moment, pretend that you could wave a magic wand, and everything was a guarantee that it's going to work out. From that place, how excited are you about it? When you think about it, how excited are you about it on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most excited, and then, I might be jumping the gun here, but the last question is, what are you going to do about it? Now what are you going to do about it?
And it might just be that you start thinking about it more, or that you do a little bit of research online about it, that you reach out to someone who has done the thing and asked them the pros and cons of it, gave him a little interview about it. And maybe, and what I encourage you to do is to tell someone about it. You can even have the entry point be that you listen to this podcast episode and it just kind of got you thinking about this secret dream that you've always had and it makes sure that you're very intentional about who the person is that you tell. Don't go to the person who is a pessimist or you are fairly sure they might poopoo your dream. Tell someone who you're pretty sure will support you, or at the very least know that you can preface the conversation by saying hey, I'm gonna tell you about this thing, I was listening to this podcast episode and she was talking about secret dreams, and I don't know if you know this about me, but and then you fill in the blank and tell them whatever your thing is. And it just, you know, it's so true, and it's cliche, but it's cliche, because it's true, that none of us are guaranteed any extra time than we have in this moment. You know, even my friend who's turning 50 this this year, it's not guaranteed that she's going to even make it to 50 and I know it's like morbid to talk about that but that really is the truth of it. You or I could get hit by a bus today and it could all be over. So there are times when we… I just think it's such an important vital part of life where think about these things that we want to do that are in our hearts that we've been carrying around for so long, whether we've kept them a secret or not, we are not guaranteed more time. And you know this, there are no do overs like this is it this is this is our one true, beautiful, gorgeous life.
I'm getting myself all pumped up here, that was really not my intention. But I also want to point out this other thing, and that when you start thinking about this thing, and maybe you put down a 10, on the scale of one to 10 of how excited you are about this. For many of us, probably for most of us, I would say the next step is that our inner critic comes in and tells us that it's impossible, that we can't afford it, that we are too old, that we're too young, that there's just no way that this can happen. And I want to say this. The faster that your inner critic jumps all over it, typically, the more important the thing is to you. When there's a lot at stake, our inner critic comes in and really just tries to protect us. Protect us from disappointment, protect us from rejection, or judgment from others about this thing for possible failure that it might not work out. And I just wanted to remind you about that. There's nothing wrong with you, if your inner critic comes in. It just means that you're onto something big. It just means that this thing is extra important, or it wouldn't have anything to say about it. But you, my dear, you have been listening to this podcast episode long enough, or at least been in the world of self-help to know, my hope is that you recognize your inner critic. That you recognize when that voice happens, and that you don't listen and you continue to do things like use your mantra, tell your inner critic like, Okay, I hear you and I'm actually going to research this further. I'm actually going to tell someone about it. I'm actually going to take some steps to make it happen, then the next thing you can do, if it's this trusted person that you have told about it, ask for some accountability. And you know, and if you have a coach even better. Tell your coach about it. And you know, that's what you pay them to do is to hold you accountable around these big life juicy things. But maybe it's a friend, or sibling, or whatever it is, and say to them, hey, can you set a reminder in your phone to ask me about this 30 days from now, or ask me about this six months from now. And then you know, that they're gonna tap you on the shoulder about it. Or maybe you each have something that you're holding each other accountable for. Accountability can be a huge help. A huge match, if you will, that lights that fire under our ass to take action and get things done.
And I just want to say one last thing about you thinking about planning, doing the thing. You deserve it. You deserve it. You are living, breathing, beautiful human who deserves to have the most fulfilling, joyful, extraordinary, phenomenal life that you can possibly live. And it doesn't matter whether you want to start like a big cat rescue, like the Tiger King and like be the Tiger Queen, or if you want to move to another country to teach English as a second language to people, or if you want to… It doesn't matter. If your dream is your dream, and it's yours uniquely, even if it's something that you know, a million other people have, as well. When you keep them to yourself, they are much less likely to materialize. They are much more likely to just sit in your heart and be a wish and a dream and I don't want you to be an 85-year-old lady thinking back and wishing that you would have at least tried. That you would have at least given it a go.
All right. All right. So have this be a lesson in being a better human. Our lives always don't have to be around being of service because believe me when you do these things when you go after the thing that you want when or whether you know when you're checking off the bucket list item. You are serving others. You're showing other people that life is worth living you're giving your life meaning. All right. I feel like I've made my point here. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for supporting the show and telling your friends about it and sharing these episodes. And remember, it is our life's journey to make ourselves better humans and our life's responsibility to make the world a better place. Bye for now, everybody.
Hey, did you know there's free secret podcast episodes waiting for you that are not part of my regular podcast feed? Yes. AndreaOwen.com/free and you just sign up. You get a link sent to you. It's very secret. It's like a secret club. We don't have a secret handshake. Don't worry about that. But it's these motivating podcast episodes that I made for you. They're under 20 minutes each. There's three of them there for wherever you are in your life. So head on over there and grab them. They range from really supporting you and seeing you where you are and being compassionate all the way to giving you a giant kicking your ass and telling you how amazing and gorgeous and phenomenal you are. So AndreaOwen.com/free and get your hands on that free podcast feed.