Abundant Mind #012

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Hey bud,

Have you ever felt the desire to achieve a certain life in the future, however you felt stuck on how exactly to get it?

It can be frustrating knowing that you want something but you just aren’t sure how to get it.

I’ve been there too.

In fact, I was in that exact situation in the early parts of 2023.

In this week’s newsletter, I want to share with you the progress of my journey so far in achieving a life of freedom.

In doing so, I hope to leave you with a few small lessons from my own experience that may help you in your own journey.

But first, let’s set the scene.

A Vague Desire To Experience A Dream Life

For now, I don’t really know where these desires come from, but I do know when it started.

I was a lost 19 year old boy when I was forced to attend a Tony Robbins seminar called Total Success in Singapore.

My parents were avid seminar goers, and brought me and my sister, Gaea, to the 3 day workshop back in 2013.

I had no idea what the event would be about but we tagged along our parents’s trip as we usually do when they fly out to other countries.

At the time, I was in the “irresponsible university phase” of my life.

All my interests were around going out to party, getting drunk, and chasing girls.

I didn’t really have any direction and was just going wherever life would take me.

I never thought of how the future would look like and just lived so that I can enjoy day to day life — a go with the flow kind of attitude.

Little did I know that I was in a “current reality trap.”

Had I continued down that path, I would have been assigned goals, schedules, and a life that society wanted for me — but maybe not what I wanted for myself.

After that seminar, my eyes were opened to the possibility of designing my own life.

I started to understand that it was possible to make my desires a reality, and so I started to allow myself to dream of what kind of life I wanted for myself.

I started setting goals, creating direction in my life, and I began looking forward to living life on my own terms.

At the time, all I wanted was to experience more out of life. I wanted to grow into a bigger and better person than I once was, and I wanted to contribute and be of help to others in this world.

Over the years, I started to find clarity in what I wanted.

And then, I slowly realized that the first step to experiencing the dream life I wanted is to start to find clarity in setting precise goals.

Goals that I needed to hit in order to arrive at that life.

You see, many people have vague desires of what they want out of life.

“Oh it would be great if I had more money. It would be amazing if I had more love in my life. It would be great if I had better health.”

And life will give us what we ask for.

“It would be great if I had more money,” they say.

Life says: “Alright then, here’s $1, get out of here.”

Life still technically gave them more money. Maybe they just weren’t clear exactly how much more moeny they wanted.

What separates those that actually move towards fulfilling their desires and those that stay the same, is clarity.

Clarity is power.

Setting Clear Goals for The Future

As I learned the lesson I just shared with you, I started setting clear goals.

One of the clear goals that I set was to do the kind of work that Tony Robbins did — facilitating seminars, helping people find clarity in their lives, and getting paid extremely well for it!

Why?

Because I was so inspired by him.

I was drawn to the idea that I can help people move closer and closer to what they wanted in life and get paid millions and millions for it.

I was drawn to being of value to others and getting compensated handsomely for it.

And because I set that as a clear goal, I started to become aware of opportunities and baby steps that may bring me to hitting that goal.

Now, I won’t go into detail anymore of how this goal drew me in to exploring the world of sales, or how I became drawn to attending multiple personal development seminars and mentorship programs in coaching, public speaking, and facilitating.

The overall point of this example is that the clarity I had allowed me to become aware of such opportunities.

There is another recent experience that I want to share with you that showed me the power of setting clear goals.

Let’s fast forward to this year.

Because I started to fall in love with personal growth, personal development, and self improvement, I would constantly look for educational creators online that produced these types of content.

Whether that’s on Instagram, Facebook, or Youtube.

(One of my mentors, Russ Juson, even calls it Youtube University.)

In my exploration of these content creators, I started to realize that these people are doing the exact same thing Tony Robbins was doing, except in a digital landscape.

They were helping people move closer and closer to what they wanted in life and they get paid millions and millions for it.

These are namely creators like Clark Kegley, Aaron Doughty, Quazi Johir, and Dan Koe.

I realized that this is a possible path for me as well, and so I set a clear goal to one day, develop this sort of new business model in the digital economy.

The vague but strong desire was created in me in January of 2023.

I then eventually set the clear goal sometime in March of 2023.

Once I had the clear goals in my mind that were aligned to my desire, I started to realize that I had NO IDEA how to actualize those goals.

I was stuck.

I was seeing and anticipating problems waaaay down the line that caused me to be in a state of inaction.

Analysis paralysis.

Self-doubt started to creep in — “What if I can’t do it? What if I don’t find my audience? What if people think I’m a fake? What if others say ‘get a real job!’ or something to that effect?”

And so for 2 months after that I just kept consuming content, searching for answers to my problems.

Until sometime in May, I realized something. And I and told myself:

“I should just start… even if I don’t know what’s going to happen or how to handle things later down the road. I may not be able to handle it now, but future Zach can handle it! I trust in him.”

Just Take The First Friggin Step

And so, in May of 2023, I started this newsletter series.

I didn’t really know what I was doing.

I never saw myself as a writer.

I had to google proper grammar and whatnot.

I had to ask help from my wife, Bea, who has been encourging and supporting me throughout this journey.

(She proofred my first 5 or so newsletters to teach me how to write better lol)

But, 12 newsletters later, I can now confidently call myself a writer.

In fact, I enjoy it.

It allows me to reflect on, develop, and articulate my thoughts and ideas.

As a bonus, it’s helped me immensley in my speaking and facilitating work as I can now synthesize and communicate my ideas faster and better.

Here’s the exciting part: there’s more to it than just the newsletters.

The newsletters gave me confidence to start developing my ideas and put myself out there online.

It gave me even more clarity to develop a goal which I eventually set in June 2023.

I set a goal to grow my Instagram and social media audience to 5,000 followers by the end of September 2023.

In the last week of June 2023 , I had roughly 890 followers on Instagram, and now I’m at about approaching 930 followers.

Not that much, I know. But I’m motivated by the progress I’m seeing.

What I’m even happier about is that there have been people reaching out to me on Instagram from different countries like India, and even Norway, asking for my thoughts on finding clarity in their own lives.

(Shoutout to you guys Tania and Pål)

You have shown me that there is demand for this type of work and this is a path that I can go on to fulfill my desire to experience my dream life.

Here’s the thing, I never expected these possible next steps to appear when I wrote my first newsletter back in May.

I just took the first step.

I was even joking with Bea after Pål messaged me the other day that “I’m not sure how exactly to respond to this unexpected but welcome surprise, I didn’t expect I’d get this far haha.”

But these little surprises are allowing me to develop ideas on what my next steps can be on this journey, and what I can do to be of help to my future audience.

And I’m enjoying every bit of it.

The Path Becomes Clearer As You Take The First Steps

So, if you also have a vague desire to achieve a certain life in the future but you feel stuck on exactly how to get it, I’m here to tell you this:

It’s normal to feel that.

Find clarity first on exactly what you want in this life.

Set clear goals that can move you towards that future.

And just take the first friggin step.

You don’t have to know exactly what steps 1 through 10 on your journey look like for you to begin.

(That’s like leaving your house for a roadtrip ONLY when the stoplights leading to the destination are green ALL at the same time. It’s not gonna happen.)

You just need: A clear goal, and even just a vague idea of what step 1 is.

Just start.

The path WILL start to become clearer as you take action.

And by doing so, you’ll start moving towards your dream life.

Always remember, that you deserve that.

Talk soon,

Zach

P.S. Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways that I can be of help to you:

1. Follow me on Instagram here if you want a source of bite-sized ideas and content that can help you reach your next level in life.

2. Book a free kick-off conversation for one-on-one coaching here if you are an entrepreneur or sales professional currently looking to create solutions to a problem or challenge in your life but you seem to be stuck.

3. Download my goal setting guide here if you are wanting to create clarity on your desired outcomes (Free until 100 downloads — and then I convert it to a paid resource).

P.P.S. If you are from the Philippines and are looking for a personal mastery workshop to help you experience growth and transformation, check out Discovery by I Am Plus Coaching and Training Systems. It’s where my journey of self evolution personally got fast-tracked.