“A goal is not about what you accomplish. It’s about what you become.”
Michael Watt

I grabbed this quote from a planner I’ve used for the past 4 years. It is one of those planners that you buy quarterly, so I’ve bought it multiple times and I’ve seen this quote many times before. I remember the first time I read the quote, I stopped for a second to think about it and I truly didn’t get it. I thought about it for a few seconds and I moved on because I couldn’t come up with the meaning behind it.

I have to give you a little context and background about this planner because it plays a big roll in this story…

The first time I bought this planner I did it with the hope that I would finally be able to plan my days, create time blocks and in general be more organized with the structures I was putting in place for myself, my time and my business. At the time I was reading and listening to a lot of advice for personal and business growth. So, basically my goal with buying this planner and starting implementing this approach with my schedule was to be able to do and accomplish more. I thought if I had a clear structure with time blocking the exact times during the day of when I should be doing specific tasks I was going to be able to get more done and hopefully grow my company.

When I finally started using the planner and creating the time blocks, by the end of the day I’d noticed that it was almost impossible to be able to do all of the tasks I had written down to accomplish for the day. I started to become extremely impatient with myself and my reaction was to think that it was obvious that I was not going to be able to get more done and grow my company. I had heard and read in multiple places that this was the key to be able to accomplish more and to be a high performer entrepreneur. So, naturally I was inadequate to be this successful business owner that gracefully accomplished all the tasks she set herself up to. I had the evidence: my planner and all of the unchecked boxes.

I kept trying to use the planner and the time blocks for a few months. Nothing changed during those months, only I had more and more unchecked boxes and tasks moving from one day to the next day. I kept telling myself that I was simply not fit for this, that I had a problem with distractions and that my drive was clearly not enough to help me grow and do more.

2020 came, I stopped using the planner because… well working in the wedding industry there was not much to add to the tasks on a daily basis since all humans were in lock down. A year went by and weddings started to happen and everyone wanted to get married before shit hit the fan again, oh! and yes, everyone that had put things on hold in 2020 was ready to get married again. This meant that my days were completely full, working non stop even on the weekends.

Around this time the planner made a come back into my life. In an effort to “not forget” important tasks since I was completely overwhelmed with the million projects we had going on, I started writing those priority tasks in the planner. At that point I didn’t even have time to write all the tasks because every minute was important to get things done so, I stock to the priority stuff only.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago (March 2023, around 4 years after I first started using the planner) when I saw this quote again in the planner. Yes, I’m still using it but here is where this whole thing makes sense…

The first thing I have to mention, if you are reading this for the first time and have no idea what I have been up to for the past year, is that on March 2022 I decided to stop working in the wedding industry. The main reason? I was burned out. Yes, there are many layers to that decision but the main reason why I completely stop from one weekend to the other was because I was simply exhausted.

So, a few weeks ago I saw this quote again and I felt it, I had the inner knowing, that “aha moment”. THIS IS WHAT THE QUOTE MEANS!

The first obvious lesson today is that when I thought I didn’t have what it took to “accomplish more” and be a “successful” entrepreneur I was simply using the planner as a unit of measure to validate my potential or what I was truly capable of. Because, when 2020 to 2022 came and the number of clients, sales and work increased exponentially and I was forced to simply do more, I was able to debunk this conclusion I had come to. I was able to see clearly that I had the capability to accomplish A LOT in one day, was I choosing to that at that point? not really, life simply happened, a pandemic happened and it completely pushed me to change the way I operated in my business.

But, the main lessons lay in the relationship I had and have with myself. Looking back I truly can see how hard and demanding I was with myself, quickly making assumptions of my lack of potential and thinking that by accomplishing more and following a unit of measure of success that I had learned from someone else I was going to be more.

I accomplished my initial goal to do more and grow my business, not how I had planned it but thanks to the ups and downs of life itself. I was able to experience doing more and accomplishing more but getting there allowed me to realize that I didn’t find any sense of fulfillment checking off that original goal.

I became a person that is more aware of the harsh and demanding inner dialogues that leave me feeling like I’m not enough. I became a person that needed to question what success meant for her instead of looking for those answers elsewhere. I became a person that uses a tool in her favor instead of letting a tool demand of her to behave in a specific way. I became more of my authentic self, someone that gives her self grace in the process and that is little by little able to discern what feels good to her.

How are you using tools and goals to help you become who you truly are?

love, Nat.