4 Steps To Set Goals With Soul with Danielle LaPorte

Hey. It's Marie Forleo, and you are watching Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And today, I have got a question for you. Does goal setting burn you out? Do you ever feel like you're on achievement autopilot, constantly striving for more and more, and never quite feeling fulfilled? Even if you love goal setting, you're about to learn a revolutionary new way to set and reach those goals, no stress, striving, or affirmations required. Can I get an amen?

Amen.

My guest is about to show you how. Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map, a guide to creating goals with soul, author of The Fire Starter Sessions, and soon to be publisher of Danielle Magazine, launching this spring. An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and business strategist, her site, daniellelaporte.com, has been deemed the best place online for kick ass spirituality, and was named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes. Danielle.

Marie.

I'm so excited you're here. So this is your second time on Marie TV, the first time live because we did all kinds of Skype before.

Yeah. I got on a plane just for you.

I love you for that. So I know you're going to take us through this incredible process, and I am so, so excited about it. And I have to say here right now, we're going to talk a lot about The Desire Map. If you do not have this book, you need to get your hands on it ASAP. We are going to teach you a lot, but it goes so deep. Just trust me on that one. Okay. So before we get into all the nitty gritty, I want to know from you. What made you write The Desire Map? How'd it come about? Why is it so important?

I wanted to feel good. I wanted to feel better about what I was going after and the way I was going after it. And it really, all this started on a New Year's Eve, writing some goals out, so watching Ryan Seacrest by the fire. It's like pay off MasterCard, lose the baby weight, get to Hawaii, all that. And I looked at my goals completely uninspired, and I thought, "How do I really want to feel?" And then it was sexy, affluence, abundant, Earth, all of that, and I could breathe. And in that whole process, I looked at how I related to goals, so set a goal, go after the goal fiercely because I'm an ambitious cat, not hit the goal.

Not only not hit the goal, totally bomb, so feel like a loser. Set a goal, go after the goal, reach the goal, but three months later, six months later, I'm three years late. So I got there, but I still kind of feel like a loser because I'm late to my goal. Set a goal, go after goal, something shinier, really something truly better over here, mid course correction, I'm going that way. Kind of still feel like a loser because I changed my mind.

Yes.

Set a goal, go after the goal, not just reach the goal, exceed the goal, out of the park, super success, and I think, "I still feel like a loser because I should've thought bigger. I was thinking so small. I should've asked for more." So contentious relationship around goals, not loving who I was in that striving, so that striving for the goal really brought out what I call Connie. She's my alter ego. And I love Jersey, but she's a Jersey girl. And Connie is really fucking pushy.

And so my inner Jersey girl had to talk to a Buddhist about this. And I had a conversation with a lama, and I said, "I'm interested in this tension between just accepting what is and presence, and then striving and attaining and going after stuff. Where is that middle ground?" And he said, "You're always going to have desires. There's always going to be a reaching. You just have to ask yourself if you're being pushy about it." And that was like a [inaudible 00:04:26], I was like, "Pushy. I'm done."

So did you have that kind of idea came into you, and it was like, "Okay. Pushing. Ah. Got it. Don't want to do that." Was it immediate link up to this concept of desires and feelings coming first? Okay. Tell me about that.

Light bulb, I want to feel good. I want to feel better than I feel. Light bulb, you know what, it's not about the goal. I am wanting to feel a certain way when I get there. It's not about the goal. It's about how you want to feel when you get there. And I made a little post it note, but it in my day timer, and slowly, I mean, this is eight years. This is eight years in the making. Right? And I would ask myself, "What am I going to do today to feel this way?" And then I started asking myself, "What am I going to do this quarter to feel this way?" And I was like, "Hm. What do my yearly goals need to look like to feel the way that I want to feel?" And that changed what I went after. It changed how I went after it. I felt more the way I wanted to feel.

That's so beautiful. And I love one of the things that you share in The Desire Map and all throughout your work, is it's like we kind of have goal setting and achievement backwards. We have it inside out because if you break any goal down, and you go, "Why do I want this? What am I really going after?" I think it's so genius and so simple and so profound, and how you articulate it is beautiful. It really is about the feeling, that desire. And so you've taken what in the personal development world, goal setting has been talked about a zillion times, and put it inside out. And I mean, people love this stuff. I love it. I just think it's genius. So tell us really. So The Desire Map and the core concept of this is really what?

So it's about your core, what I call your core desired feelings. So I'm going to give you the steps. We're going to do the reveal now. So step one of this is let's concentrate on just three areas. So in the Desire Map process, there's about five or six areas to look at in life. But if you're at home doing this, grab a pen. You can write this down. You can do this in meditation. You can do this on a walk. Go through lifestyle and livelihood. Go through body and wellness. And go through what I call relationships and society, so three areas of your life. And do a stream of consciousness about how you want to feel, just riff and don't hold back.

So it's like if you want to feel vitality, if you want to feel energized, you want to feel connected, so many people just want to feel connected. If you want to feel spicy, just write spicy down. Write down blue. I want it. And then there's with that sort of no holding back, then you do need to move into that phase of the second step, which is about sort of eliminating what you're not resonating with. It's really about pattern recognition. So you go through that mishmash, that outpouring of feelings. And then the intention is to get that down to three, four, maybe five. And this is an art. This is not a science. So if you're lucky number's seven, and you want to have seven core desired feelings-

Rock it out.

You can have seven core desired feelings. So you're going to narrow it down. And what I encourage people to do in that honing in phase is to stay away from the big, audacious words like confidence and success.

How come?

Because it's en epidemic that we have bought into other people's version and visions of success. And this is one of the reasons that we are disconnected from our core desired feelings. We are living other people's dreams. We are doing what we think the Jones are doing. Guess what, they're not even feeling success. It's like the ultimate tragedy. We're chasing other versions of success, and they're not even feeling. And this goes on lifetimes for people. This is a big, big deal.

So success has a feeling underneath. Maybe success for you, you might say, "Success is about respect." Okay. Go deeper. What is respect about? Respect is about confidence. Go underneath that. Look up the definitions of the word. Find out the ontology of the words. And what's under confidence? Love. One of your core desired feelings is love. And then there's one more refinement I would add to this, which is getting clear on your core desired feelings is not about you setting up the world to help you feel the way that you want to feel.

I love this. Keep telling me.

Okay. So this isn't about I want to feel loved. Of course, you want to feel love. We all want to feel love. This is universal. This isn't about I want to feel honored. I want to feel respected. You may need to live with those core desired feelings for a while, try them on. But this is not about going into the office on Monday morning and thinking, "I know my core desired feelings, and I want to feel respected from this crew." You are relying on outside forces to inform your reality. This is not good.

Knowing your core desired feelings is really about you becoming an intentional creator of your life. You cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you feel about it. So let's say respect is, you're playing with this as a core desired feeling. Just let it be respect or respectful, not respected. You can even feel the difference of the energy in those words. And you will put respect out into the world. You will put beauty out. You will put energy out.

I love that. And I feel like it's such an opportunity for all of us to create our own game for ourselves of: Well, what has to happen in order for me to experience respect? Honoring that it is not about how the outside world treats us. But how am I approaching the outside world? How can I bring respect to the party, so to speak, or love, or anything like that? That makes me so excited because I think one of the things I've talked about a lot, and people always ask me about, passion. Well, how can I find my passion? And you've heard me say this a million times because you and I are such good friends. But it's like passion isn't something outside of you. Passion is something you bring to the moment. It's you bring that to the task.

You bring that to work, and it's like this muscle you build up. So I love to hear you say this because I can hear those voices going, "Well, people aren't respecting me. Or people aren't loving me." It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." How can you set up the rules for yourself that, you know what, any time perhaps I take a moment to pause and really notice the beauty of my life, I get to experience respect for myself and what I create. Or any time I take a moment and really notice my surroundings, and really appreciate it, I get to experience love in the world, where it's like you set up your own rules.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. This is about getting up every day and saying, "What am I going to do today to generate this core desired feelings?" And it's as simple as I'm going to make that phone call. I'm going to wear a skirt instead of yoga pants. I'm going to make sure I get to yoga tonight. I'm going to sign the contract. And sometimes being devoted to being this truly creative force in your life means you're going to make dramatic changes according to your core desired feelings. You are going to sell your house and go to India. Or you're going to get out of Indiana and move to New York. Or you're going to dump the chump. Or you're going to commit. So it's micro and it's macro. And it's my version of spirituality has got to be practical. It has got to work in my kitchen. It's got to work in my bedroom, and it's got to work in my heart.

Amen to that. So what's step three?

Step three is the declaration of your core desired feelings. So this is it. This is my three to seven core desired feelings. And hopefully it feels like a big righteous moment. And you can experiment with this. Some people do The Desire Map in a weekend. And for some people, it's months to get clear on their core desired feelings. I worked with my core desired feelings five years. Five years, I had that same little ratty post it note sitting in my day timer. So step four is really where you're going to match your soul with your goals.

So you're going to go through those lifestyle areas that we've already listed, so livelihood and lifestyle and body and wellness, relationships and society. And then ask yourself. What do you need to do and have and experience? The stuff you want to get and be in the world to feel your core desired feelings. So it's like you should have your core desired feelings right here. You're doing, you're having, your experiences, and go, "I need to climb a mountain this year. I need to just launch my business. I need to propose to feel this way. I need to sign up for belly dancing lessons. I need to read the books I've wanted to read," whatever it is that's pulling at you.

And narrow that down to your one, two, maybe three, goals of the year. And there you have it. And there's lots of layers that are much ... You're going to go deep into asking yourself what's really going to make the final cut for you. But this is precisely where so many of us go into default and go astray. As soon as we get into that mentality of I'm setting my goals, we start to go, our psyche immediately heads externally. I better make my million. I better get that gig. I better, I better, better, better. You have to dial. You have to come back to center. How do I want to feel? The goal, the goal, the goal, the intention is to feel good.

So good.

It's good.

It's really good. I mean, I think it's revolutionary. I remember when you first shared with me The Desire Map and this whole core concept. I had the feeling inside, and I literally got chills. I was like, "Danielle, this is the core of your work and of your message." And I just think it's so beautiful. So I know there are tons, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Danielle fans out there. And for those who don't know, I'm curious what your core desired feelings are.

My core desired feelings are joy. Took me a long time to get to that. I used to think being not fully happy was sexy or something. I always like people who are a little bit depressive. It's like happy people are so annoying. But now I'm just like, "Joy, yeah. True nature, joy." And divine femininity, like really that Shakti of just goddess, yes, woman. Creation. For a long time, the word was creativity for me. But I want to feel creation. I want to make creation. Abundance. And is that five? Yeah. Those are my core desired feelings. And they guide the restaurants I eat at, and how I parent, and how I love, and what I say yes to.

I just got chills listening. And I've seen you evolve, and I've seen how you've brought those core desired feelings to life. And one of my jobs, and I think one of my gifts is I always tend to hear intuitively what other people are saying, and kind of tap into that. I can almost hear people in our audience saying, "Well, all this is well and good. These feelings are great. But what happens when everything sucks and you don't feel the way that you'd like to feel, you don't feel your core desired feelings?" And however temporary it may seem, the kind of world is coming in on you, and you don't know how to get out. What do you say to that?

I say two things. One, that's life. That's how you make progress. I feel the way I want to feel. I go this way, I don't feel the way I want to feel. You learn through contrast. So this isn't about I feel the way I want to feel all the time. This is life. This is wholeness. Right? The best thing about being clear about your core desired feelings is when you're in those moments of hell, really, like I'm angry. You don't want to be in the agony of anger. You don't want to be in the agony of restriction or insecurity. But when you're in those places, the very simple act of, stop, this is not how I want to feel. You've already stopped the monkey mind because what happens when you're in the agonizing feelings is you go, "I should be doing this. They should be doing that." This is family of origin stuff. This is my mother issues coming out again. I better get to yoga. I better, better, better. I better move my therapy appointment.

All those things may be true, but they're not actually helping. They're just keeping the monkey mind amped up. This is not how I want to feel. Stop. What I really want to feel is insert your core desired feelings. You just interrupted that chatter that brings you south, and you have just stepped into possibility thinking. And my belief is that when you really, when you declare your desires to yourself, specifically your desired feelings, something happens. Your brain starts firing in a different way. You start to ... There's an expansion that happens, so you can see different options. Solutions will come to you. Oh, I could apologize.

Right.

I could slam the door. I should leave.

Right. If you're feeling angry and one of your core desired feelings is love, a question you may ask yourself could be, "Well, what do I need to do right now to feel love?"

That's exactly it.

What can I take control over to actually experience love in this moment? So it's almost like we keep taking the power back for ourselves, and stop being such a ping pong ball to the rest of the world.

Some of my most important decisions have come from those moments where I go, "This is not how I want to feel. This is not ... " And that was really the hinge of my relationship with goal setting. I'm sitting at my computer, it's 12:30 AM. I've got a cold pot of tea on my desk because I haven't moved my ass in hours. And I'm hustling in a way that I don't want to hustle because I said I was going to reach that goal no matter what, no matter. But no matter what is a very dangerous phrase when it comes to your wholeness. And I just thought, "This is not how I want to feel." And voila, core desired feelings, more better.

As we wrap up, I would love to hear your take about the power of believing that we deserve what we're going after.

Essential, critical, it has to happen. You can have your goals with soul. You put those out to life, to your mastermind group, to whoever's supporting you. And if internally you're thinking, "But I'm too small for the bigness of this. What have I done to earn this? I don't have the cred for this," then you're really sending mixed signals to your mastermind group and the angelic crew, and whoever is on your side. So you have to really do whatever you need to do. The sacred homework is that opening, that allowing into worthiness. And if you can't feel it yourself, because we've all been there, and we will hit that in different levels again and again, then really this is the sacred time to turn outside of yourself and look for affirmation and support that you are worth it. So I'll just tell you now, you are worth it. You are important. And you are worthy of your desires.

Which is a beautiful place to wrap. Danielle, you are a magical, incredible being. I am so honored to call you my friend, and I am so thankful and grateful that you came here today to share this beautiful work with us. Thank you so much for being on Marie TV. I love you.

I love you.

Now Danielle and I would love to hear from you. Number one, what was the single biggest insight that you're taking away from this interview? And number two, which I would love to hear about. What's just one of your core desired feelings? Tell us all about it in the comments below. And as always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com. So go there and leave a comment now. Did you like this video? I certainly did. If you did, subscribe and share it with your friends. And if you want even more great resources to create a business and life you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only talk about in email, get those sweet buns over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world really needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll catch you next time on Marie TV. B-School is coming up. Want in? For more info and free training, go to joinbschool.com. (Singing). Can I give this to somebody? [inaudible 00:22:36] right there.

I was getting a second opinion on my hair. Sorry.

That's what I wanted to hear. I'm ready.

[inaudible 00:22:45].