Chasing your ace

Progress is a process

Let’s talk a little bit about goals and the mindset it takes reach them. We all want results right now but when it comes to health and sustainable weightless there is no quick fix; no magic pill. We simply have to show up for ourselves everyday, put in the work, and trust the process. Progress is progress, small or slow as it may be! I’m excited to share with you all some insightful words from Lisa Williams! Lisa Williams is a professional coach, a leadership consultant, and a speaker dedicated to helping others connect with their purpose and unleash their potential. Check out her inspiring perspective on mindset below!

Chasing your ace

Have you ever had a goal that you’ve been super excited about?  A goal so exciting that it motivates you to get out of bed earlier and stop eating sugar and do all of the things that you’ve been scared to do? You get off on a great start …only to find that a few weeks in, the excitement starts to fizzle because you aren’t seeing progress fast enough. Have you ever had a goal that you’ve been super excited about but you stopped short of chasing it?

When it comes to chasing goals, it’s important to remind ourselves that progress is progress…..and PROGRESS is a PROCESS. Because we prefer for our goals to happen sooner rather than later, we try to rush and force progress and when it doesn’t happen fast enough, we stop. We stop doing the work and we stop believing that we can reach the goal. We reassure stopping by saying it’s not meant to be or “it just wasn’t in the cards”.  We stop the progress because we forget that progress is a process- a process that takes time and effort and commitment and belief.

Progress is a process

This is where the Chasing Aces Mindset comes in. When you are Chasing Your Aces, you are committed to the process regardless of immediate progress or not. You know that the process of progress can be messy and that it takes time, patience, and effort.  The Chasing Aces Mindset is about wholeheartedly believing that if you consistently show up and do the work, you will achieve your goals. When you are Chasing Your Ace, you don’t stop because you don’t see progress, you keep going because you have trust in the process of progress.  

Here’s an analogy about chasing goals that I offer to my clients.  It’s a big lesson in mindset that we get from a simple deck of cards. 

You can't hit your ace without flipping your cards

Imagine you have in your hand a deck of cards that has been shuffled and the objective is to flip the highest-valued cards in the deck- the 4 Aces. That’s it, it doesn’t matter how many cards you have to turn over to hit the Aces or how quickly you’re able to hit them….it only matters that you hit the Aces.  All you have to do is flip one card after another until you hit your first Ace and then continue flipping the cards until you hit the second Ace and so on until you have all 4. It’s a game about showing up, doing the work, and believing that the Aces are resting within the deck waiting to be found. Seems like a fun and easy game. You in?

But, what if you’ve flipped over ¾ of the cards and you haven’t yet hit an Ace? Do you begin to slow down or stop flipping the cards? You may be a bit frustrated, but I bet you choose to continue flipping the cards because you know the first Ace has to hit soon.  And, why would you stop when you’ve already flipped over more than half of the cards? After all, progress is a process. While it’s taking longer to hit the Ace than you anticipate, you see that messy discard pile off to the side and are reassured that progress is happening and that you’re almost there.  You continue to show up and do the work (flip, flip, flip, flip) and soon enough, you begin hitting one Ace after the other, with the fourth Ace sitting at the bottom of the deck. Winner, Winner!  The effort, patience, commitment and belief have paid off! 

So... how does this apply to your goals?

Our goals are much like that deck of cards. I use the term Chasing Aces because I think that our life’s goals- those goals that matter most- are like the Aces in the deck. We’re uncertain when we will hit them but we know if we keep “flipping the cards” (consistently showing up and doing the work), then we will hit our goal, our personal Aces.  

In life, we don’t always have a way of knowing if we’re a ¼, ½ or ¾ of the way to our goal so we stop. We stop because we forget that progress is a process. We stop because we’re unable to see that we are so very close to the Ace.  The lesson is in TRUSTING the PROCESS of showing up and doing the work because if you keep doing that- keep flipping the cards- then you *will* hit your Aces. There may be times when you have to pivot and reshuffle the deck, but just don’t stop. 

Go on Ace-Chasers. Trust the process and enjoy the progress. Set goals that align with your life vision, show up, do the work, and CHASE YOUR ACE!

If you’d like to jump on the next Chasing Her Ace webinar, where I dive into this idea in a bit more detail, please send me a message on Instagram @chasing.her.ace or email me at lisa@lisawilliamscoaching.com. If you're interested in my coaching philosophy and services, reach out and let’s chat.

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