The Three Keys To Escaping The Rat Race

The late Bob Proctor was the one who gave me the advice I needed to finally escape the rat race once and for all. Before I met him, I had spent too many years leaving the house at 6:30 in the morning, getting home at 6:30 at night, working like a fiend in between, while also trying to juggle a life, working out, and starting my coaching business. I was overwhelmed and exhausted every single day.

I met Bob in 2016 at a seminar in California and started working with him right away. He had such a huge influence on me in the six years I knew him. After he passed away this year, I was going through old photos and videos and found a video from 2017 when I was part of a small group working with him in Hawaii.

At that time, I had just started my coaching business. I was in the military but knew I wanted to retire. My twelve-hour days were eating up all my time, and I was struggling to get my coaching business to where it needed to go. While I was in the group, I shared with Bob where I was in my journey.

“How much are you working right now?” he asked.

That simple question made me think. A lot. I had always been in the mindset of having to be constantly hustling—working hard, putting in a ton of time and a lot of effort. Especially if you are building a side hustle or business. That mindset, however, simply wasn’t true, Bob told me. His advice to shift my mindset really helped me lighten up a little bit. Ironically, when I did that, that’s when my business started to take off.

During the thirty-minute conversation with him, he gave me three key pieces of advice:

1. Set a Goal and a Timeline: Often when I first start working with clients, they’re reluctant to set a really big, beautiful, worthy goal for themselves. We are so used to setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and have a Timeline). But when we do that, we’re often because we’re setting goals that we either think we can do, or goals that we’ve done similarly in the past. And we’re basing our expectations of achieving that goal based on what we’ve done in the past. The type of goal setting that I teach and that Bob has taught me is setting a goal that’s worthy of you and your unlimited potential. When somebody sets a goal like that, they’re immediately reluctant to put a timeline to it because the fear kicks in.?What if I fail? What if I don’t make this?

When you are setting a big, beautiful goal, you’re guessing at the timeline. Maybe it’s a year from now, maybe it’s two or here. This morning, I was reading one of Thomas Trawler’s essays. This one happened to be one that Bob had all of us read over and over and over again during that session and every day for the next ninety days. Trawler talks about entering into the spirit of your goal instead of the old mechanical, analytical way of doing things. We habitually look at the mechanical side of things, because we can see the physicality of the goal, what mechanisms we will use to get from A to B. By doing that, we limit our spirit to doing things one way.

You want to make sure your goal is planting a spiritual seed. The process of finding out how you’re going to get there is the fun of reaching the goal. When you do that, you’ll find you progress further and faster toward your dream and in your life.

2. Work expands to fill the time allotted: So many of us can relate to this example: Your house is a mess and you’re expecting to spend all day Saturday cleaning. Then a neighbor asks to pop by and what would normally take a few hours is done in fifteen minutes. They come into this beautiful, spotless, candle-scented house that you cleaned in a fraction of the time. That works with every goal you set. The pressure of the timeline made you act faster and more efficiently. If you set a big goal and a vague?someday?goal, you’re telling the Universe that someday can be way down the road in the future. Instead, set a date so you create some urgency around reaching the goal, because it’s going to take as long as it takes. If you keep pushing that date out, the work will expand to fill the time allotted. At the time Bob told me this, I was working a lot. I was trying to talk to ten people every single weekend in order to reach my goals. Bob said to only talk to two people a week instead.

Two? I thought he was crazy until he explained that if I talked to more than two people a week, especially as hard as I was working, I was going to become resentful of the work that I loved. This was a scary idea because I was used to being in the grind and just jamming through. But when I slowed down and focused on two clients at a time, it helped create the space I needed and also fine-tune my approach by concentrating more on each individual call.

3. Quit getting ready: He told me I was already ready to go after my goal. I had been working hard to become certified in my coaching program, and had twelve modules to complete over the course of a year. I was only a third of the way through it. He told me I didn’t need to be ready, that I could start changing people’s lives now. I didn’t need to wait to build a website or hire a staff. I could start right away, talking to people and having conversations and helping them. If I had waited, I might still be waiting.

I remember talking to a coach who worked very, very closely with Bob Proctor. At the time, I was going to get another certification on top of the one I was already involved in (another doctorate degree). The coach said, “Are you getting it because you want it? Or are you getting it because you think you need it?” I really had to reflect on that. I realized I didn’t need or want anything else on my plate. I was only getting the degree because I thought I needed it, instead of shifting my paradigm to realize that I was already enough. I had more than 27 years of experience. The work I had been doing with my mindset was enough. It was time to stop preparing and move into action.

Those three pieces of advice were life-changing for me and for my clients. I hope it is for you, too. If you want more information, listen to my podcast or visit us on?ratracereboot.com?where you can download the Quantum Leap Handbook so you can continue planning and growing and committing yourself to your goals and your big beautiful life. Remember, everything is created twice—once in your mind and then in physical form.