How Feeling Clueless About Goals Inspired One Woman To Write A Book By Doug Bennett, with special guest Alyn Mitlyng

Have you ever struggled to set a personal goal because you weren’t clear on what you wanted?

Career goals tend to be more straightforward because there is often an obvious route to promotion, but as personal goals are so closely connected to who you are, it can be more challenging to uncover what might truly help you feel fulfilled.

I recently chatted to Alyn Mitlyng on the Goals Do Come True podcast. Alyn, a medical professional who lives in Colorado, was working through self-development exercises last year when she decided to learn more about how to visualise goals.

An internet search on “visualisation” made her realise that almost every article or book focused on how to achieve a goal, but there was scant information on how to choose and set a personal goal.

Alyn wanted to create dynamic goals that mattered deeply to her, but she was unclear on what her own personal goals might look like, or how to drill into them.

A powerful walk

Energised by this thought, she decided to walk her dogs and found her mind flooded with thoughts and ideas. By the end of her walk, Alyn had decided to write a book Dirty Goals: Breaking Conventional Rules to Achieve Your Dreams.

In our conversation, she shared some great insights on why many people find goal setting a major challenge.

Alyn: “We all want to achieve, but we go on this path that says if I want to achieve something, I need to go back to school and get another certification. We automatically try to develop ourselves in that way because that’s what we see other people do. That’s the path that we know, and the path that everybody takes. But it’s not always relevant to us. My method, dirty goals, really gets into your mind and mines your thoughts so that you can work out what really matters to you.”

Why SMART goals aren’t always smart

It was fascinating to hear Alyn’s opinion on how to achieve goals. I am an advocate of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, anchored in a Timeframe), and this strategy works well for career-focused goals, but Alyn found it unhelpful when it came to personal goals.

Alyn: “SMART goals need you to have most of the details, but when I wrote my first book [Alyn is writing her second book now], I had never written a book before so how could I know anything about it? I didn’t want to drop that goal just because I didn’t have the metrics. I knew I needed to figure it out as I went along.

I looked at my life; I had a full-time job, I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend, I needed time with my dogs and I wanted time for me as well. I committed to writing 30 minutes a day. I didn’t have any other information but I knew that if I stopped wasting time on my phone or watching TV, I could find the 30 minutes that I needed to write every single day. I did not have a deadline but I published my book five months from the day I first decided to write it.”

An ongoing process of discovery 

Alyn’s story is inspiring; we each have access to the same amount of time, but how we choose to spend it is what propels us towards our goals, or keeps us shy of professional or personal success. When we decide, like Alyn, to give up living through other people via TV or films, we free up energy and create space for new experiences and achievements.

I was curious to find out what else Alyn discovered during her book-writing process. She explained that she’d had a personal revolution around the “purpose” of journalling.

Journalling

Alyn: “We might write about our experiences, who we are or what we’ve been through, but that’s not really what the process is about. It’s about committing to yourself that you will observe and recognise your thoughts. When you document your thoughts, your brain releases the hold that it has on all the rest of the information – and lets it go. It frees you up to let these thoughts grow into big ideas and big goals!  It’s turned into an amazing tool in my life!

If I don’t write down my thoughts, I immediately lose them and there’s no way to know if they will ever come back again, even if they were amazing!”

It’s clear that Alyn has unblocked her creativity and found a path that makes her passionate about life; nor did she disappoint when I asked her if she had a golden nugget of information to share!

A golden nugget

Alyn: “You have to take action if you want to change your life. Once you take one single step, the universe starts working with you and sends you opportunities and signs that you’re on the right path. But if you’re fiddling with your phone or sitting on the couch watching TV and not working towards your goals, you’re not going to change anything.

I used to work with a sales guy who would tell everybody about the products he sold because talking about them gets the energy moving and the universe spinning. Things just start to happen in the background even if you can’t see them! Taking action gets the universe spinning, but you’re the one who has to get the ball rolling!”

When we’re intentionally progressing towards our goals, we have a lot less time to talk ourselves out of them, or wonder “what if?”

What’s your experience when it comes to goal setting? 

Do you struggle to define what you want? Do you set goals but procrastinate? (Hands up, that’s been a long-term favourite of mine!) 

If one of your goals is to set up a service-based business, you might like to check out my new book Think Simple Win Big: How to Build the Business of Your Dreams With a Few Simple Goals.

I’d love to hear about your goals. Drop me an email at doug@dougbennett.co.uk.