The Secret to Achieving Big Goals: Anchor Into Your Future Self

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Today, I’m celebrating a huge milestone - 200,000 downloads! I share the story of how this show began, the incredible impact it’s had, and why the key to reaching your biggest goals is to stop looking backward and start anchoring yourself in your future self. This episode will leave you inspired, challenged, and ready to believe that your greatest potential is still ahead of you.

Topics in this episode:

  • Why going “back” to who you were before kids/burnout won’t create the life you want now 

  • How to use your future self to achieve goals and create balance 

  • A client story that shows the power of shifting beliefs to match new goals 

  • Famous examples (Sara Blakely, Steve Jobs, Oprah) who didn’t let the past define them 

  • Why your greatest potential is always in front of you, not behind you

Show Notes & References:

Transcript

Intro

Let me be real clear. If you're still trying to get back to the person that you were before kids, before burnout, before life changed, you're setting yourself up to fail. 

Because here's the truth: Your past self isn't capable of creating the life that you want today. She doesn't know how. She didn't have the tools, the priorities, or the perspective that you have today. 

So in this episode, I'm going to show you why anchoring yourself in your future self, the version of you that has already achieved balance and presence and the career that you want is the only way to move forward. This isn't fluffy motivation. It is a complete mindset flip. And once you see it, you're never going to look at your goals the same way again. 

Are you ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it. 

200,000 Downloads and Top 1.5% of Podcasts

Hello, hello, working moms. I can't even believe that I'm about to say this. I feel like I need like a little trumpet. So we are celebrating that we've crossed over the 200,000 download mark on this podcast.

It just literally blows my mind that women have listened to this podcast in over 50 countries all over the world. It is ranked in the top 1.5% of all podcasts out there. And that is about, I think I was looking at it, it's like, I think it was 5…now I don't even remember if it was 5.6 million podcasts ranked or 8.6. It was something like that. So many podcasts, but it ranks in the top 1.5% and it has been downloaded over 200,000 times.

Can you believe that?

From an Idea in COVID to 240+ Episodes

I remember when I decided to make this podcast. I actually don't even know if I've told this story here on the podcast before, but I remember when I literally made the decision to start this podcast.

It was in the middle of COVID. It was on this long drive to the beach because I was participating in a business retreat that was virtual since we couldn't meet in person at that time. And so I had rented this Airbnb to get away because it was like a three-day conference. I needed this space away from my family in order to really dig into it.

And I remember driving and just thinking about my business and thinking about what I wanted to create in my business. And this idea of this podcast came to mind, and it felt so crystal clear to me exactly what this podcast was all about and what I wanted to call it. And I just launched it.

I launched it within a couple of months. And here we are over four years later, over like 200 - and I think we're in like 200…what episode is this? 240-something episodes in, 200,000 downloads, in 50 countries around the world. Oh my gosh.

I'm so, so proud of this community that has formed around this podcast, the content that has been put out there, the experts that have been on the podcast, the clients that have shared their stories.

Thank you — this podcast wouldn’t exist without you

But none of that would have been possible without you. You as the listener, I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart, I feel so honored that week after week, you choose to listen to this podcast and that this content resonates with you.

I hear from listeners all of the time that they tell me that they recommend this podcast, they share this podcast to their friends and their colleagues and the other working moms out there. Oh my gosh, it means the world to me. And it's making a difference.

Hope for working moms — you can have both career and motherhood

More than anything, I want working moms to experience hope as they listen to this podcast. I want them to have hope that the career trajectory that they want and the motherhood experience that they truly desire and long to have — that these two things can coincide together.

That you as a working mom can have the life that you want to have, because the narrative out there for us, that's embedded in our culture, at least in the American culture, is that you have to choose. It's one or the other. You really can't be successful at both.

But here in this podcast, that is not what we are about. We are debunking that idea that you have to choose. It is all about having both right here.

And let me just say the biggest gift that you can give to me and to your friends out there truly is to rate and review this podcast. If you have been a regular listener for some time, this podcast has meant something to you.

If you've gotten something from this podcast, would you please do me the honor, do me the favor of rating and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast, because the algorithm really does take that into account. And it starts recommending this podcast based on ratings and reviews.

It would absolutely catapult this podcast if all of you out there, all of you amazing listeners, would take the time to just rate and review it. So please, please, would you do that in honor of our celebration here on this podcast, in honor of our crossing over the 200,000 downloads.

I am just honored — honored to be leading you here today and that you are here. So thank you so much.

Why This Milestone Episode Matters

And as I was thinking about today's episode and what I really wanted to focus on, like truly have been like mulling this over for weeks now because we actually crossed over the 200,000 mark like a month ago or something like that. And I've just been thinking, how do I want to celebrate this on the podcast? What's the topic that I want to bring to my listeners on this very like celebratory day?

And here's what it's going to be. I'm actually really excited. This episode is going to be sort of a mixture around goal setting and how important it is to tap into your future self and the mindset of your future self and how to use your future self to achieve your goals. But really, it's about not defining yourself based on your past.

The Story I Hear From Burnt Out Working Moms

Because here's the story I hear a lot from working moms. I talk to you on the phone, right? We're on a virtual breakthrough call of some kind where we're talking about your challenges that you're facing and what work-life balance means to you and what's difficult about it.

And one of the things I often hear on these free calls — and it's like my little spidey sense, my little coach ears kind of like perk up the moment that I hear it because I hear it so often from burnt out women — is this:

I hear, "If I can just get back to where I was before kids. Or if I could just get back to working out like I used to be able to. Or if I could just get back to the level of confidence that I was feeling before having kids. Or if I could just get back..."

There's kind of this feeling, this thought, like something that you did in the past is what you want to achieve today. Have any of you said that? I'm kind of raising my hand here as if I could see you. Have you ever told yourself that your mindset is sort of stuck in this like, "The past is what I want to get back to?"

Why Basing Success on the Past Holds You Back

And it's kind of odd when you frame it that way, right? It's kind of odd to say you want to get back to your past. But it's something that we as humans sort of do. We kind of put ourselves in this box of what we have done in our past and what we have achieved in our past and the rhythms that we've created in our past and the successes that we've had in our past.

And we sort of use it — if we're not kind of at that level — then we sort of use it as a benchmark, as if our past is what we want to be basing our future on, right? It's kind of ironic when you really think about it. You're using your past to define what you want success to look like moving forward.

And what you are saying by saying that ultimately is — what you're saying is that you sort of peaked in your past, right? Like it's all downhill from here. Like I just got to get back to where I was because whatever you achieved back then, somehow that's the best your brain thinks that you've got, right? That's the best. That's what's possible for you.

Instead of believing that your greatest potential is in front of you. It's in your future.

Your Future Self, Not Your Past, Creates the Life You Want

You never want your past to be the framework for your future and the future life that you are ultimately creating for you, right? Because your future is always getting better and better and better.

Now, just to be clear, what I am not saying is like you're throwing out your past entirely. Of course, you're learning from your past. You're learning from your past successes and the things that have worked in the past in order to have exponentially more success toward your future and your future goals, right?

You want to be building on what you have done in the past, which means you're not actually trying to get anywhere in your past. You're trying to achieve more than what you've achieved in the past.

But that's not how it's often framed to me when I'm talking to women, right? In their mind, they sort of have their past on this pedestal as if their past way of life and their past habits and their past successes — that's the benchmark. That's the goal.

What I want to offer to you is that in order to reach your full potential in the future, the potential you haven't yet achieved, in order to hit those goals — whether we're talking about work-life balance goals or money goals or getting a promotion or career goals, things that you haven't attained — it is not your past self that will achieve that. It is your future self.

Why “Getting Back to Your Old Self” Doesn’t Work

Now, when I hear from women and from clients that they just want to get back to being as productive as they were before having kids — they want to feel just as confident as they used to before having kids. They're saying kind of like they want to recreate this life that they had prior to kids, as if they were going to go out on parental leave, recover from that, and then get back to work and everything essentially is going to be the same.

Except there's this tiny little human involved. Except that. Like that tiny human was just going to sort of fold their way into life and the way life looked prior to having kids. Again, if you have sort of said this to yourself, like, "Oh, I just," and you're frustrated — "I just want to get back to..." If you've said that to yourself, it's pretty normal.

We don't have a context for the future life that you're going to create. We kind of use our past naturally as a framework for that.

Motherhood Changes Everything — And That’s an Opportunity

But I think this is one of the reasons why motherhood is so jarring for career-driven, ambitious women. They don't take into account that they are not the same person anymore. Motherhood fundamentally changes us physically, hormonally, emotionally. Our schedule changes. Our goals change. Our priorities change.

We're not an entirely new person, of course, but so much within us — not just externally, but inside of us — is different. Once we have kids, we're not going to pick back up our old life and then fit our new self and this new tiny human into our old life. It doesn't work that way. It's like putting a square peg in a round hole.

Rather than using your past life and your past self to dictate and be your framework for your future, you actually have the opportunity to create something new.

A Client’s Breakthrough: The Question That Changed Everything

In a recent client session that I had just a, I think it was last week, maybe it was a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about a goal that she had for herself. This is in a one-on-one coaching call. She said her goal was to sort of hit this milestone in her job — that's really specific to her job in her industry — while also being a present and connected mom. That's the goal.

We've sort of been talking about this goal for a while now, but she came to this call and she said, "Oh my gosh, Rebecca, you have been asking me this question for weeks now on some level in all of our sessions and I didn't get it, but I finally think I understand what you're asking me and how to answer this question."

Here's the question that I've been sort of prompting within her. Here it is:

In order to reach the goal that you have for yourself, what do you need to be believing about you and what do you need to be believing about your goal in order to achieve it?

Again, I've been asking her this question on some level for a while, but it wasn't until this particular session, this week, that it all really clicked for her.

Shifting From Limiting Beliefs to Empowered Beliefs

She needs to cultivate a new way of thinking about herself that is congruent with hitting this goal and achieving this result that she wants in her life.

Her current mind was stuck in, "I don't know how to do this. This is impossible. This is too hard. I've never done this before. I don't have the capacity. I'm not good enough. I'm failing my kids." Those types of thoughts were what were keeping her feeling really stuck and creating this reality for her where she was not in fact hitting the milestone and being the mom that she wants to be at the same time.

What we needed to do was start digging into what she actually needed to believe, which was this: I have done hard things and I can do hard things in the future. I can do this. I can create space to achieve anything that I want to achieve. I define what success looks like and what being a good mom looks like to me. I am in charge of my schedule and my time. I make time for the things that matter most to me.

There's a big difference here between what her current self that’s stuck in those past thoughts was and the beliefs and thoughts that she needed to have about herself in order to achieve this new goal. Big difference.

That's it. Her past framework for what she believed about herself and her schedule and her life — her past framework — wasn't going to be helpful to her to reach her future goal.

The Spanx Story: Seven Years of Failure Before Success

A couple of famous people come to mind that I think could be really helpful to anchor this idea for you. One of them is Sarah Blakely. She is the creator of Spanx. I don't know if you know anything about her story. She's actually super fascinating and inspiring to follow on social media. I love following her story.

She actually sold fax machines for almost seven years while she had this idea for Spanx, this concept. She somehow drummed up the money somehow to create her first prototypes for Spanx. She started pitching it out almost daily is what she said. Daily, for seven years, she would get hung up on. She would call during her lunch breaks and things like that. She would get hung up on. People would tear up her business card right in front of her.

It wasn't until she got an audience with Neiman Marcus who gave her just a couple of minutes to pitch this product. She actually took them into the bathroom and she put on the product herself. She showed them a before and after. It was then that they said, "All right, we're going to give it a try."

They put it in seven stores to begin with. Then she started going into those stores and she started moving her product up so that it wasn't at the bottom of shelves. It was right in the middle where people's eyes were as they were shopping. She literally went into these stores and raised up the product and moved the product forward if she needed it and all the things to make her products look better and ultimately sell better.

Seven years though — seven years of being laughed at mostly by men who were at the top of the hosiery industry, if you will, was mostly men at that time. Seven years of selling fax machines while going after this goal and ultimately failing at this goal.

Why Sarah Blakely’s Future Self Made Spanx Possible

If she would have allowed her past self — that self that had tried for seven years to get this product out there into the world, right? If she had allowed that past self that was oozing with failure to define her future goals, she would have quit a long time ago.

But instead, she had to listen to that future self, that future part of her that says, "No, women need this. I am the right person to deliver this. This is going to be a life-changing product. Whoever buys this product, their life is literally going to be changed."

In order for her to be as successful as she was, she couldn't listen to her past self that was oozing with failure. She had to listen to her future self that already believed and had already achieved this goal that she had set out to achieve in her mind, right?

Your Past Self Wants You to Believe You Peaked

We could dive into other famous stories like Steve Jobs who was fired from his company and then came back and released the iPhone, right? If he would have listened to his past rejected self, he would have never have kept going. Look where he's at today.

Your past self wants you to believe that you peaked in your past, that your best was in your past, that your greatest successes were in your past. Your past self can't see past this moment, which means if you want to achieve something different in your future, in your life that doesn't look like today, that looks different than today — like if you have big goals that you want to achieve that you have not yet achieved — you don't want your past self calling the shots.

You don't want your past self to have a bunch of airtime in your head. You need to be listening to your future self. It is your future self that holds hope, that holds potential, that sees progress even when it looks like there isn't any.

Your past self doesn't know how to create work-life balance in today's season with this job and at the age that your kids are at. If it did, you would have already created it, right? It's not your past self. It's your future self that you need to be listening to.

The First Question to Ask When Setting Big Goals

When you are vision casting for your life about how you want your life to be moving forward — maybe it's about more work-life balance, maybe it's about working less, maybe it's about being more successful or getting into the next role, or maybe you're learning how to be more present, or maybe you want that new job or you want to change industries — whatever it is you dream about, whatever goals that you have that you have not yet achieved, the starting point is not to ask, "How do I achieve these goals? How do I make these changes?"

That's not the first question. Instead, the first question is, "What do I need to believe about myself in order to achieve this goal? What do I need to believe about myself in order to achieve this goal?"

When you anchor yourself in your past, you're going to feel stuck. When you anchor yourself in the future, into the person that has already achieved this goal, you will build natural momentum.

The Secret Behind My Podcast’s Success: Belief From the Beginning

I could not have told you that this podcast could be as successful as it is. Of course, I wanted it to reach 200,000 downloads. Heck, I wanted to hit a million downloads, but I didn't know how that was going to happen. I didn't know when.

I've had many colleagues that have started podcasts only to get to episode 50, 100, 200, and barely cross 10,000 downloads. They've made minuscule progress over the years in comparison to me. I've had these countless conversations with them, and they asked me, "How has your podcast been as successful as it is?"

Almost always, I say, "I've always believed it's been successful from the very beginning. I've always believed that people are listening. I've always believed and spoken to the women that need my help. I've always believed that lives are changed by this podcast. I've always believed that my listeners are sharing this podcast. I've always believed that my time and my energy into this podcast has been worth it, that it's going to grow the podcast, that it's going to grow my business, that women's lives will forever be changed because they've listened to it."

I know that to be true now, but at the beginning, I had to anchor myself in that belief.

The Ripple Effect of the Ambitious and Balanced Program

These are the same beliefs that ultimately I hold about my Ambitious and Balanced coaching program. That's my signature group coaching program that was really born out of this podcast, out of the process that I ultimately teach on this podcast, as well as my experience in coaching over 250 women and creating work-life balance in their life.

I launched this program last fall. That was the first cohort last fall. Since then, 26 amazing women's lives have been changed through this program. Literally, lives have been changed. I see it in their evaluation when it comes to me how these women's lives are different just three months after having gone through this coaching program.

But I don't just want 26 people's lives to be changed. I want thousands of women's lives to be changed. I want thousands of women to experience freedom and clarity and more time with their kids and feelings of success and satisfaction in their career. I want thousands of women to experience it.

To achieve that goal, I know I've got to elevate my thoughts. I have to believe thoughts like this: A thousand women are waiting for a program just like this. This will literally create a ripple effect that will change an entire generation of women. I am on the precipice of creating a culture change amongst women and companies.

You see, my thoughts about myself and my potential and the potential of this program have to be elevated to meet the goal that I'm trying to achieve with a thousand women served.

Elevating Your Thoughts to Match the Life You Want

Your thoughts about yourself and your life and your future have to be elevated to match the future life that you are wanting to create — the balanced life, the life where you have so much more time for yourself and your family, the life where you know and feel that you are valuable and indispensable to your company.

I want you to take a moment right now and I want you to bring to mind your goal, whatever that is. Maybe it's related to work-life balance, maybe it's related to your career, maybe it's related to your health. I want you to ask yourself this question right now: What do I need to believe about myself, my ability, or my potential in order to achieve this goal?

The first thing that might come to mind might sound very simple to you. It might just be, "Well, I have to believe that it's possible." Yep, you sure do. You have to believe that your goal is possible and if you don't right now, then that's your starting point, 1,000%. That's your starting point. You can't create something that you don't believe is possible. You have to start there.

Borrowing Belief When You Can’t See It Yet

But you might say, "But Rebecca, I'm not really sure if it's possible right now." If that's you, then you may need to borrow belief from someone else, meaning maybe you have a hard time believing that you yourself can create the work-life balance and change the people-pleasing behavior or the perfectionist behavior and have more time with your kids and be just as successful.

You might have a hard time believing that for yourself, but can you believe it for your best friend? Can you believe it for your daughter when she gets older? If you can, whatever you believe for them, those are the beliefs that you transfer to yourself.

Your past self topped out at wherever you're at today, at whatever level of success or balance that you have achieved today. But your future self — she's just getting started.

“I Just Turned 90 Years Old and I’m Just Getting Started”

I remember watching an Oprah Winfrey Super Soul Sunday special many years ago and there was this little old woman that was on there. She said this, I remember it crystal clear, it struck me so much. She said, "Oprah, I just turned 90 years old and I'm just getting started. Oprah, I just turned 90 years old and I'm just getting started."

This amazing, amazing woman embodied this belief that her greatest potential was ahead of her. Even at her age, she believed that her contribution into the world was just getting started, that the value that she was creating in humanity was only just beginning.

Your Greatest Potential Is Ahead of You

The same is true for you, and I know you're not 90 years old. Your greatest potential is ahead of you. You didn't peak in your past or in the success that you've had in your past. It's before you. It's in your future.

When your current belief in yourself aligns with that person that has achieved that goal that you are looking to create, it might not be instantaneous, it might still take some time, but that is when you are going to create the greatest momentum and you will achieve that goal.

Celebrating 200,000 Downloads and Hundreds of Changed Lives

I am celebrating today 200,000 downloads of this podcast. I'm celebrating 26 amazing women whose lives have been changed in the Ambitious and Balanced group coaching program, along with 250 women that I have coached one-on-one over almost the last nine years of coaching.

I am celebrating all of them, but I am here to say that my greatest potential is ahead of me. You just wait and see what I am going to create for you and what I am going to offer the working mom community, because whatever it is, it's going to be fire. I know it, because I didn't peak back then. I'm not peaking now. I'm just getting started.

Let’s Talk: Book Your Breakthrough Call

I believe that for you. I believe that for me. And if you need someone like me to hold that belief for you, to provide for you not just a process to believe differently, but to actually take steps — very tangible steps — toward your goals, that is where coaching comes in.

And I would love to talk to you on a breakthrough call. That is where we dig in deep into where you're at today, the goals that you have for yourself, the blocks that are sort of getting in the way of you achieving what you want, and talking about exactly how I can help you in coaching.

If you have not yet booked your breakthrough call and you are interested in connecting with me about coaching, you can go to my website: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book. And that's going to take you directly to a page where you can book a time to speak with me directly.

Working moms, I am celebrating you and believing in you because your greatest potential is ahead of you - not in the past. I believe that. I hope that you believe that a little bit more today after listening to this podcast. 

All right, until next week, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson