The Lauren Dragon-Cook Goal Setting Method

How many of us struggle with, not so much figuring out what you want, but how to get there? How do we get form point A to point B when it comes to goal setting?

First things first, one thing I think most educators and most thought leaders and most gurus (if you’ve ever watched a webinar on goal setting or taken a course or listened to a podcast), what most people fail to realize is the fact that goal setting and intention setting and manifesting and inspiring… all of those things are on in the same. It is just a matter of where you are at in your life and how you look at the world, how you look at things.

Before I started my woo-woo journey, I would have only said goal setting. These are my goals, my bucket list, my dream… that is just one way to look at it. Now that I have been down this path for the last 6 years or so, I’ve come to realize that it is all the same thing. Goal setting is the same thing as manifesting as creating a dream board. It is just a matter of how you approach it.

I am going to do something I guess not every business leader or business owner does. I am going to incarnate a little bit of how I myself set my own goals and how I’ve been able to attain them. And what it looks like to manifest. For those of you that don’t know and are looking to see what that’s all about… how many of you have heard of the word manifest or manifesting?

Manifestation Story

The power of manifesting is real. It is legit. Really quick story… I told some of you this story but my Macbook that I’ve had for 6.5 years, literally was about to self combust over the winter. The fan was gone and I did not feel comfortable leaving it on unsupervised, because it was literally going to blowup. So I needed a new one. If you know me at all I don’t do anything half-ass. I’m all in or not at all. It’s the same thing when I make a purchase. If I am going to buy a Macbook I want to make sure it is the one I want. I’m not just going to buy something. I was saving up two grand essentially for a new Macbook and I was like $450 short. When you really dig and dive in to this whole manifestation thing the power of it is honestly amazing. I was like “I’m in no hurry, I’m alright, but by the end of the week I’ll have what I need to buy that Macbook”. I just went about my business. I set that intention. I literally just had it in my head. I will have the Macbook by the end of the week. I just put it out there. Because I felt it so strongly, it wasn’t just a desire or a wish… it was already on its way.

I went out to the mailbox in the middle of the week and I have a check. The check is from State Farm from 2011 for $287 because we had overpaid that in 2011. I shit you not! I’m like “Oh okay alright, thank you!” I continued to go about my day. Later that night I remember hoping on Dubsado and I am an affiliate with Dubsado but not because of the money, but because of how much I love the company and the service they offer. I had never checked my affiliate earnings, ever, because I just didn’t care. I went on there and that night I have $405 in my affiliate account. Same day. On a Wednesday. I had said by the end of the week I will have that money. I even had extra on top of that! Like what!? That insane, it is still crazy to me. And now I have my Macbook.

That is the power of manifesting. That is the power of setting intention. That is the power of goal setting. If you believe it whole heartedly and you realize where you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to be doing… if you are in it to win it then it will happen. It is when you start to have doubt and when that doubt creeps in. Its when you start to do a bit of self sabotage talking. It doesn’t happen. And we don’t even realize that we are doing it! It is how we were born and raised in this society and culture. But if you are able to kind of learn how to separate it and leave it to the curb, I promise you some crazy stuff with start to happen.

Lauren’s Technique

I am going to show you how I personally set my own goals and intentions. It is a combination or how you think about things, how you react to things, but also the law of attraction. First you have to set your intentions. You have to set your goal. I’m sure some of you have heard the acronym SMART goal. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Setting a goal for yourself and what can goals look like?

There are many different categories for how to set that goal for yourself, right? You can set a goal for yourself based upon finances, health/diet, business, family… you can have these different goals but you have to kind of separate them. What you can do to yourself is if you start to see all these goals you have for yourself but they aren’t dispersed into their proper categories it can get overwhelming! I’m like “oh my god way too much shit, I can’t”. It is one of those things where you have to take it step by step.

Write Them Down

Sometimes that can be annoying to hear. You just want the end result. But half the time you receive a gift from the universe along the way. If you are so set on the end result, you are going to miss all that stuff along the way. Happiness comes from the journey not the destination. The journey is part of the goal setting process. What I would encourage you to do is write down all the goals you have for yourself initially. Anything that comes to mind.

“I want to be debt free.”

“I want to be able to pay my bills on time.”

“I want to have 25 clients each season.”

Once you have written them all down it is really important to be realistic with how long it is going to take you. If you say oh it’ll happen in 10 years for every single goal you have, its never going to happen. You have to push yourself but still be realistic enough with the goal setting you have. If you said you want to have 25 clients by the end of the season and here we are two months in and that leaves us four months… okay if you have 0 on your calendar that would average out to 6 clients a month… okay well how will you get those 6? It is a matter of breaking it down.

The other piece of it that other people don’t talk about is looking at the end result as if it has already happened. You have to live it and breathe it. It has to be part of your daily life. This is where affirmations come into play. Look on Pinterest for affirmations that correspond with your goal. What happens is when you start to combine strategies and the law of attraction magic happens. That is literally the heart of Wedding Boss Life. I combine the strategy with woo-woo to really enhance and emphasize your success.

Add Your Bucket list

I am telling you this works! I’m not just preaching! I’m telling you from experience it works. Once you can kind of write down all of these goals… add your bucket list stuff to it! Add the things you have always wanted to do. For me… I want to go to Hawaii, I want to have a ride in a hot air balloon, before I die I want to have dreadlocks. These aren’t necessarily goals but fun stuff I want to happen.

Now once you start to figure out how short of a time frame you want it to happen and you’ve separated them into different sections… that is when you can start to really see the progress and work towards the goals. You are able to have weekly or daily tasks that you are doing to work towards those goals. Visualize that they are already done!

Measure Your Success with Tools

This is now when you start to measure your success and watch the growth. Maybe sometimes you might shift your goal or your goal with change.

There are so many freakin’ worksheets out there and stuff on Pinterest… endless stuff to help you set your goals. But remember most people don’t talk about combining the two. It is combining the actual strategies as well as the mindset. You can’t just create a goal and chug along… it can happen much faster if you allow the other side of things to play a role.

There are no goals that are too crazy. Nothing out there that is too insane. I want to help you break it down. Sometimes you just need a friend and someone to tell you what you need to do. They will help you figure out how to go about it. Feel free to let me know what your goals are. Let me help you.

Breaking It Down

Some categories to get your wheels turning:

Exercise
Health
Saving money
Business
Family, partner

Are their projects you want to take on in your house? What do they look like? Make sure you still write those down. How many of you are guilty that have this honey-to-do-list and you forget what half of the stuff was you need to do? ME! Painting the deck is one of mine… it has taken us 2.5 years. Maybe another goal is your spiritual journey. Make some goals for yourself!

Someone in the group mentioned they’d like to retire their parents. Lets break that down a bit, first you would need to know what they are living off of now. You need to know what they are making this year now and if that is comfortable for them? Do they want to be making more than that? Are they content? So now you have to live and survive and carrying yourself but also them. You have to combine those two areas of income. You need to figure out how much YOU need as well. Then you just start to think… how much do I charge per wedding? How much do I charge per shoot? How many will I need to do per year to make that happen? Taxes play a role too.

It can seem so daunting when we set goals like that for ourselves, but if you start to realize you only need to do X number of weddings a year… how am I going to get those weddings? That’s where you start to really break it down. It’s sort of one big circle.

Really checking in with yourself to see if you are on track. Knowing how much you should be making per month… you just need to have faith that the month after will be better. You’ll make it up. Just be prepared and flexible to see the different levels of growth and what not.

Measurable Goal Example

Another thing I manifested… I wanted to have 1,000 people in my group, our Facebook community by the middle of the year. Here we are and it is June 19th and we are at 894 members. Pretty close! Numbers don’t necessarily matter to me when it comes to likes, but it was just a measurable goal for myself.