#322: Unreasonable Desires: Go After Your Most Audacious Goals

Unreasonable Desires

Here's a transcription of this episode:

We talk so much on this podcast about time management and how to manage your time, and what's the mindset that you have about your relationship with time that today I wanted to take you beyond time management to really invite you to get in touch with what is possible when you're not feeling overwhelmed, when you're not procrastinating, when you're going after what it is you want. So listen in to get inspired. 

Hello. How are you doing today? 

As you are listening to this, I am preparing for a speech that I get to do in Florida for the Alabama Law Association, the Bar Association. And I'm really excited about it because I'm doing a topic that I have never talked about before, which is how our ability to problem solve, manage our time, manage our mind, is really what is going to help us adapt to the future.

We have AI coming in, we have all of these new technologies that are going to be challenges for a lot of people. And the legal profession is in a beautiful position in that we have the opportunity to make so many changes for our profession. And one of the biggest ways we can really begin doing that is by dreaming up what's possible.

So this episode is really my my take on inspiring you to get out of the overwhelm, to stop procrastinating, to begin to learn the tools that I talk about so often on this podcast that I share with you in the Busy Lawyers Guide that I bring on clients who have worked on, worked with me and worked on these things and showing you what's possible. And I want you to see what's possible with this episode two, because so often we spend so much time beating ourselves up for not doing the things we think we should be doing.

And we spend so much time telling ourselves we should be better and that we know what to do.

So why aren't we doing those things that we don't really pause and just think about what the possibility is for us to create with our lives and how we can enjoy our lives. In fact, 

I was talking to one of my clients before I started to recording this, and we were going through her plan for this year and last year I did your Best Year yet, which was a program that I, I offered.

 And she went through it and she outlined her entire year, and we were going through it together. And it was so clear how much progress she had made just because she had written down what it is she wanted. In fact, she did better than what she wanted. And there's a concept around asking for what you want or better.

So we write down, we, we desire something and we say, I want this or better. So anytime you think about what it is you want and you get really clear about what it is you want, you ask for, I want this or better. And that's what I've been doing when I've been thinking about the homes that I want to live in, the circumstances I want to live in when I move to Sedona.

And those are things that you can do right now when it comes to how you think about your life.

It can be really easy to tell ourselves that things can't be different because this is just the way they always are.

That they, that's the way they always have been, and you haven't been able to change. What I want you to know is that when you learn the skills you need to learn, you'll, you'll do it in your own time when you're fed up with the life that you have.

That's what it took for me to decide that I was done, that I needed to learn the skills. So when you're ready, you'll learn the skills. It's just, it usually takes us when we are fed up with our life and we don't want what we currently have for us to learn those skills. But I wanna talk to you today about what's beyond all of that. Like when you do learn the skills, 'cause I know you will, then what it is, what is it that you want? And thinking about what we want is also inspiration for us to learn the skills. That's what it was for me. So when I discovered that I wanted to build a business, I didn't know how to build a business. In fact, I didn't even know how to make the time to build the business. So I needed to learn skills, and I was so determined to build my business that it didn't matter what was in my way, I was gonna figure it out.

And that's where you need to be in order to make change in your life. I just see it so often when we decide this is what I want, and I am going to make it happen. I'm gonna figure it out.

I'm gonna find somebody who knows what they're doing. I'm going to learn the skills on line, I'm going to do the things.

Whatever it is, you decide it and then you do it. And when I decided I wanted to build a business on top of my career as a criminal prosecutor, that's exactly what I did.

I found out, oh wow, I'm exhausted at the end of the day and I don't want to do any work, but I wanna create this business.

So how do I figure this out? And that's what inspired me to take different actions to begin experimenting with my time and how I managed it and how I managed my energy.

It took me doing things completely differently. But the only reason I could do those things is because I had a focus. I had a desire, and I knew I was gonna stop at nothing to make it happen. And I want to stoke the fire in you. I want you

To see possibility for yourself and stoke that fire so that you're fueling it. Because if you have a desire, you're meant to have it. That desire that you have was given to you for a purpose. I believe nothing is given to us in life without a purpose. We may not understand it in that moment, but we are meant to use whatever we are given to us, and we are supposed to use it to help us evolve, to grow into the version of ourselves that is our biggest, our best, our highest version of ourselves. And I've looked at that ever since my breast cancer diagnosis at 29. Like I knew, not in the moment, right in the moment. I was like, why me? I, I didn't have the skills to have anything but self-pity in that moment. But then I recognized shortly after that, this is the biggest gift I've ever been given.

This is something I needed to have in my life to really help me understand that my life was not meant to be living on a hamster wheel. It was meant to start reconnecting with myself and what my desires were. And when I started doing that, that's when I was able to get that peak into what it is I wanted. And it turned out it was a business, and I started a business. It's not the business I have now, right? It was, it was a different business. And that business then gave me, it didn't give me the tools. I went out and I hunted for those tools. I was a devout student to create what it is I wanted. And I went to conferences. I met people, I paid for trainings. I got advice, like I sought out what I needed to make that business a reality for me.

Now, the tools that I learned, it was so fascinating, yes, that business was not something that I was meant to have long term, but I was meant to have it to help me, give me the tools to make my life easier when I started my coaching business. Now, I use all of the tools that I learned in my coaching business, but it would never have happened unless I had a fire burning to create a business. And so I wanna ask you this question, what do you want? And don't let your brain say, I don't know, because our brain's default is to say, I don't know. I want you to ask yourself, well, what do I want? And, and I want you to think of it in terms of you don't have to make it happen. Because so often our brain says immediately, you can't do that.

It's not possible. It wants to shut you down, left and right. My brain did. My brain wanted to tell me, it's unreasonable.

You shouldn't be spending so much money on yourself that's fiscally irresponsible.

You should be saving your money for retirement so that when you're 65, you can enjoy your life. My brain told me all of these things, and if I had listened to my brain, I would still be working as a criminal prosecutor.

I wouldn't have the business of my dreams. I wouldn't be able to help lawyers while I'm working with them, and I wouldn't be able to talk to you on this podcast. I would not be in this position.

And so I needed to ask myself that question, what do I want? And it was vague at first. It was just a business.

It wasn't even a specific thing like, oh, here's your purpose in life.

I think we all are taught, oh, since we're little kids, right? Well, what do you wanna be when you grow up? As if that is our definitive decision. We decide when we're little and then we become it. Well, a lot of people who made that decision as a kid, they become that as an adult. And then their desires change because now they have that, right? You might have the success, you might have the accolades, you might have the respect of your peers, and yet you still want more. And part of you might feel guilty for wanting more. Part of you might be telling yourself, I shouldn't want more, or I, I really should be devoting myself to my family, and I shouldn't be so selfish and think about what it is I want. Or I should be devoting myself just to one job and I shouldn't be thinking about anything else.

I don't believe that's true at all. I think we are multi-passionate people. I think that we all have desires, and those desires are our avenues for change, our avenues for living bigger into our lives, for enjoying our life more, for feeling more fulfilled. And I know that is a hundred percent true. When I see my clients, like the one I was talking to today, she designed her year to say, look, these are the things I want. I wanna take morning walks with my dog. I wanna spend more time with my husband. I want to leave my house at a certain time. I want to leave the office at a certain time. And all of those things, it wasn't just that they came true, she got that, and it was even better than she had imagined. But she could not have made that happen until she intentionally directed her mind to ask herself, what is it I want?

What kind of life do I wanna lead? Who do I want to be? Do I wanna feel more connected with my husband? Yes. How do I make that happen? What would I like to do with him? I would like to be able to spend more time quietly to myself versus feeling go, go, go once I hear my alarm. And when she made those conscious decisions, she was able to write it down. She was able to then focus her brain on those things, and she made it happen. And you can do this too. Writing it down, writing down what you want is a powerful tool. And I wanna offer to you, if you're not driving, if you're not in the middle of something, to just pause and pull out a piece of paper and ask yourself, or write down this question, what do I want? And you can start with something simple like, what do I want my mornings to look like?

What do I want my mornings to feel like? What do I want to do in the morning? Do I want more time to myself? Do I want to be able to enjoy my cup of coffee without thinking about work? And then you just start hypothesizing about how can I make that happen? What are my best guesses about what would feel good? Right? And this is this hypothesis that I'm talking to you about. This is nothing new. This is something we were taught in science class only nobody ever talked to us about this in any other context. But in science class where we can be the objective observers of what's happening in an experiment and do it without any judgment to ourselves. So you can look at an experiment, let's take chemistry, and you have a hypothesis about what's gonna happen between two chemicals that come together.

And when you take that hypo, I'm not a chemist. So if you know chemistry, then you know, forgive me for maybe not having this perfect. But you know, if you are making a hypothesis about how these two chemicals are gonna react, you do the, you conduct the experiment, you put the two chemicals together, and you observe what's happening. Well, that didn't happen the way I expected it to. That's really interesting. And then you make an evaluation, you say, okay, well, I didn't see the reaction that I wanted, and so I am gonna guess hypothesize that this next thing that I'm gonna do is actually gonna help me get the reaction that I want. And then you start again, and you start from, here's the hypothesis, and then here's the observation, and then here's the evaluation. That is such a, such an easy way to begin playing with changing your life.

And the more you play, the more you do this, the more confidence you're gonna build in yourself. Just start with something really small. Start with something that is easy. Even don't start with something that is like this huge block to you start with something that you really want, right? Something that you're like, yeah, that would be really fun. Like if I could just have a lunch hour where I went on a walk and I got something to eat, and I sat down and just for 30 minutes, you know, I just sat and I ate quietly. I didn't do any work. Maybe that's something that sounds fun to you. Or maybe it's, you know, at the end of the day, instead of just flopping down on the couch, I wanna go for a short walk and, and just see how that, if that re-energizes me, let me just see what happens.

But that requires you to ask yourself what it is you want. And so let me, let me step you into, I wanna walk you into possibility for yourself. My one of my coaches calls this possibility dropping. And so I wanna do some possibility dropping for you. And what possibility dropping is allowing your brain to just begin dreaming, not holding yourself to anything, not forcing anything here. We just wanna open up the brain to possibilities that these are things that could happen in your life once you have your time managed.

Once you no longer feel overwhelmed, once you've decided you want to create what it is you wanna create, right? Like, and you, and you've taken those steps. This is the fire that I wanna stoke in you.

If you are currently struggling with overwhelm and feeling like you have a lot of anxiety around work, because when we have the fire, when we have a desire for something, we will stop at nothing to make it happen.

So let me just talk about some of the things that are possible when you decide to change things for yourself, right?

To really decide to take control of your practice, to create peace in your practice. You can decide, right?

This is again, possibility dropping, right?

You don't have to make any commitments here. You can decide you wanna grow your practice, right? It's amazing because when you, if you want to, to grow your practice, it can feel impossible When you don't have your time under control because you're so busy doing client work, you cannot think about how you can grow your practice easily.

The only avenue that we have is that we have to work harder. And when I work with my clients, it, it, it is retraining them to think differently about time and energy. It's a total retraining of the brain. And so it is not second nature for us to begin to manage our time.

And the only reason it's not is because we have not been given the skills to do it. We've been kind of drilled into this framework of here's what you do and you've gotta work hard. And this is what creates money and money creates safety. But hard work does not create a thriving business. It does not create ease in your practice.

Hard work is not what creates money. It doesn't.

And I learned that the hard way.

That is not what creates money, right?

People pleasing does not create money. Saying yes to everything that comes in does not create financial security. It does not create happiness. But what does create financial increase in your business or in your practice, if you're working for someone else, is creating value, is thinking about how to make yourself more valuable to the people you are serving. Whether it's a boss in your company or it's your client in your business.

I want you to really sit with us for a moment. It's not working harder, it's not studying more. And those are things that we picked up along the way in school and for other firms that we worked with who had also been brainwashed into believing these same things.

That is not what creates the money, the abundance, what we might desire as financial security. What I have learned through personal experience and through working with my clients and just observing the people who are the most successful, who are also calm and self-aware, because those are important things to me, those are things I value, is feeling calm and being self aware.

Those are things that when you have them, you then are able to think more clearly and create value and think about the impact you could have on people. Think about like, if you are a personal injury attorney, for instance, if you, if one of your desires is to ensure that people are protected, that their rights are protected, that they are able to get the most from, you know, a company, an insurance company, and not have to deal with all of the hardship of trying to figure out whether or not their case is worth it, and they're already struggling because they're injured and they have so many things going on in their life, if you have a driving desire to help them, what would you do to ensure that you could have the impact that you could have?

What would you do knowing that you cannot go at the pace, you're going overwhelmed, stressed out, and help more people. You simply cannot do it. You cannot have the impact you wanna have on the world when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed out.

You've gotta be in a place where you can sit and think clearly and be able to really problem solve for the people you wanna serve and not do it at your own expense.

We are not meant to be serving people at our expense. That's not how the universe works.

We are meant to be generous, yes, but we are also meant to receive. We are also meant to feel abundant. And it's that balance that makes life so amazing. We can have both, but you've got to want it. You've got to desire it. You've gotta burn that fire. You've gotta stoke that fire.

And then what is it gonna take for you to create that life, that version of you? What do you need to do? What is it? And you can answer this question right now. You probably have an idea. Just write it down. So now let's think about another possibility drop. Okay? Let's just talk about this. One might be the confidence to do really big things in your life. Maybe those big things look like starting a podcast, right? Being more visible. I talked to Nancy a couple weeks ago and Nancy talked about her new podcast and how she really needed to step into a new version of her and build that comfort with herself to share what she wanted to share. And now that she is, she's taking her practice to a whole new level. She's helping, she's having an impact that she wanted that she never could have if she hadn't have stepped into that higher version of herself.

But she needed to solidify that. She needed to ask herself, what do I want and why do I want it?

Well, one, she wanted to start a podcast, but the bigger reason was so that she could have an impact.

She knew if she could get her voice out there to help more people, she could do that. And it has had a ripple effect.

We didn't talk much about this in the episode we did together, but she has had more people reach out to her, ask her to be on television programs, ask her to have like a regular segment. Like it's just really beautiful, the opportunities that open up when we have the confidence to step into the version of us we know is there. And it can feel scary. It was scary for me, right? When I started this podcast about six years ago, I started it being scared.

And I think so many of us think we're supposed to feel comfortable stepping into that next version of us. But I didn't know what to expect.

I didn't know even if I had enough words to share with people, right? I didn't know if I had enough ideas that people would want to listen to.

And that takes, took me really feeling the fear and doing it anyway, right?

I felt like I wanted to throw up. And that tells me I'm on the right track, right?

That is what tells me, ah, yes, I am stepping into the next version of myself. But our brain confuses us because our brain says, oh no, this is scary. We shouldn't do this. I, over the years have decided that anytime my brain says, oh no, we shouldn't do this. This is scary. That that is something I need to do, I must do because my brain is gonna throw up resistance every way it can to doing anything new.

But if I want something, I know I want it for a reason. Even if part of my brain says, oh, this is scary. Are you sure? You sure you should be doing this? But I have this feeling inside of me that says, oh, no, no, no, this is, this is the direction. Like, I want this. I can't explain why I want it. I don't know why my brain's telling me it's unreasonable and there's all these scary things I gotta do to, to do this thing, but I do it because I feel amazing when I've built that confidence up to create those things. Not only that, but I've had such an impact on the lawyers who listen to this podcast, to the lawyers that I get to help one-on-one or in my group, right? So it's just a matter of how much do you want it, what kind of an impact you wanna have.

Like maybe that's the question you ask yourself, what kind of impact do I wanna have in this world?

Who do I wanna reach? Who do I wanna help? And then what do you need to do? What is required of you to make that happen? Come hell or high water, no matter what resistance your brain throws at you, are you going to keep going no matter what, even when your brain says you can't do this, even when your brain says, this is not reasonable, even when your brain says, this is stupid, you should be happy where you are.

Are you willing to continue to keep going? That's the decision I had to make for myself. Because when you decide you wanna change something in your life, it's not gonna feel easy. It's not gonna feel like you're stepping into the classroom with a syllabus, and here's how you do it.

Here's step one, step two, step three. No, it's going to feel scary and you're not gonna have the how. You're not gonna know, and then you just start figuring it out. You take one step, then the next step and the next step. That's what I did. That's what everybody does. That's the only way to do it. You've gotta start somewhere. So let's talk about another possibility drop. Let's talk about, I, I'll talk about something totally different. Let's talk about fertility, about starting a family. Like I have a client, and she's talked very openly about this on her LinkedIn profile and in Instagram stories, but she had fertility treatments or she, it was just something equivalent to fertility treatments. And she was taking them and she was getting really discouraged and we worked together, and I, I coached her a couple times and she, she decided like, you know what?

It's worth it. I'm gonna keep going. Like, if I knew a hundred percent this was gonna happen, I would keep trying, right? I, if I, if I knew that it was inevitable that I was gonna have a child, I would just keep trying. And she worked through that discouragement and she decided that she was gonna continue on. And sure enough, that very next session, she was pregnant. And I just wanna share with you that this applies to everything.

Whether you run a business, whether you work for somebody and you want partnership and you haven't made partnership yet, whether you haven't gotten that raise that you wanna get, anything you want in life, it applies to this, you will feel discouraged. But do you want to let the discouragement stop you? Do you want it to prevent you from having what it is you want? That's one thing I wanna share with you.

The second thing I wanna share with you is ask yourself this question. If you knew the result you wanted to create, the impact, the family, the financial result, whatever it is that you want, if you knew it was going to happen, it was inevitable, would you keep going?

Would you keep trying something new?

Would you keep hypothesizing and then observing and then evaluating?

Would you keep doing it?

That is what is required to keep stoking the fires.

Even when the brain is discouraging you, we even when it's telling you it's not possible, or this is so hard, or I can't figure this out, we've gotta keep going. And that means us keeping going even when things feel hard and things feel scary. And then we just have to decide what is it that's between me and what I want? What is it that's between me and having the life I'm dreaming of right now that that's calling to me?

For me, that was time management. It was me. Imagine me managing my emotions because I felt stressed, overwhelmed, anxious. I felt tense. I felt pressure. I felt behind. I felt all of these things, and I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know any of it. Like nobody taught me a way that worked for me. Nothing. Nothing was working. And I had to decide, look, I'm gonna keep trying new things. I'm gonna try different things. And yeah, it, it took me spending money, it took me investing in myself. And that was scary because I hadn't spent that kind of money since law school and my brain kept telling me, this is so unreasonable. You've got all these law student loans. Like, why are you doing this? Shouldn't this money be going to the student loan? I mean, isn't that the responsible thing to do?

I mean, my brain just kept pestering me about these things, but I'm so glad that I didn't listen to it. I'm so glad that I listened to that part of me that said, no, there's something more for you. There's something more for you. And you've gotta figure out how to tap into it. You've gotta figure out how to get it. And so let's take the first step, which is figuring out your time, and let's figure out the next step, which is managing your emotions and so on and so on and so on. That's how we create what it is we want. We stoke the fire by putting down what it is we want. And right now you might not even believe it's possible, and that's okay. Write it down anyway. Pretend that I have a magic wand and that I can wave it, and that you can have anything that you want, anything. And then just write it down and your brain will tell you it's impossible. And just say, yeah, it's okay. But that's what I want.

Let the brain say it's impossible. Just let it. Don't fight your brain, but write it down. Anyway, when my client was writing things down for her future this year, her brain probably fought back too, right? My brain does. It's like, whoa, how is that gonna happen? I don't know how I'm gonna do that. Like that. That doesn't sound reasonable. Be unreasonable. Be unreasonable and do what it is you want to do. Write down what it is you want to do. I want to encourage you to be unreasonable with your desires because if I had stayed reasonable with my desires, I would still be working in the same job and I wouldn't be able to live into my purpose, which I fully feel right now. My purpose is to help lawyers learn how to manage their mind, their time so that they can tap into the desires that are truly there for them and help them grow into the person they want to grow into.

And I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I had stayed reasonable in my desires. So I also, I wanna leave you with this, okay? Saying yes to what you want means saying no to what you don't want. So once you write down what it is you want, you become clearer, you're able to make better decisions for yourself. You can take what it is you want, you can put it on a post-it, you can put it on, you know, your desk, whatever you wanna do, write it down. And then every time you make a decision, take a look at that note to yourself and ask yourself, does this align with who I want to be with? The desire that I have stated here? And this applies, especially if you notice you're taking in all the things you're doing, all the things you're joining, all the boards, you are being invited to do all the things, you're getting clients who aren't necessarily in your practice area that you wanna serve.

I want you to really look at this because every time you say yes to something you don't want, you're saying no to something you do want. When you start really getting clear on what you want. Like for me, it was starting the business. Then I was able to say no to the things that weren't in alignment with starting that business. And I've talked about this before where I had this opportunity to do run trials. They were gonna be really interesting. It was a promotion, and I was like, ah, I wanted it based on ego, right? My ego wanted it. It was like, yes, this is a validation of everything that I've done. And yes, I could, I could you, you appreciate me and all these things my, my ego is telling me. And I had to say, is this in alignment with starting my business? And it wasn't. And so I had to say no because I wanted to say no because I wanted to say yes to my business, to what it is that I felt truly called to do. If you are listening to this episode and you're hearing yes, I wanna say yes to myself, I have an inkling that there's something more for me and I wanna

Explore it. And I want to do what is necessary to make it happen. I wanna invite you to book a strategy session with me. You can go to dina cataldo.com/strategy session. We will talk about what those desires are, where you are now, and what's between you and making those desires reality. So book a call, go to dina cataldo.com/strategy session. Alright my friend, I hope this episode serve to really ignite some sort of fire to help you really get some clarity about what you want and to think unrealistically, to really begin telling your brain, even when it says this isn't possible to say, that's okay, I'm gonna do the impossible. I'm gonna figure it out. And then you just put one foot in front of the other and it will happen for you, my friend. Alright, I will talk to you in the next episode.