Have you ever committed to reach a goal that has been – or maybe still is, fundamentally important to you? And did you commit to reaching that goal, no matter how long it took or whatever it would take?
Or did you rather get trapped in thoughts like that you might be too old or too young, too experienced or not experienced enough, too tall or too small, too good looking or not good looking enough?
You know what I mean, and I have been there – in the mind´s carousel of limitations! And did you manage to break free from your disempowering beliefs and try it nevertheless? Or did you decide it might be safer to stay in your comfort zone, right where you are?
Maybe it was a change that you aspired to make in your private life, your relationships, your health, your business, or your finances? And if so – how did you approach it? Did you formulate your goal according to the SMART principles, how it is taught at university, ensuring that it was specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound? Or did you take a more intuitive approach, for example, practicing regular visualizations, enriched with the feeling of already living your desired reality?
How much time did you give yourself to get there? And, most intriguingly, did you succeed? Or did you catch yourself to be 100% convinced at new year´s eve that you will master your fitness resolutions in the new year to come, no matter what, only to quit a few weeks or even a few days later? And if you did not comply with your commitment to yourself, have you ever asked yourself why?
By now you might think: why is she asking me all these questions? Well, as I surely have been in situations like this, and it often felt like a mystery to me how I could succeed, for instance, in getting a super difficult to obtain scholarship on the one hand, but at the same time fail miserably in going to the gym regularly and lose 10 pounds. The latter seemed to be so much easier to be reached when seen from the outside.
At the same time, I could easily convince and motivate myself to reach out to those goals that my mind told me were attainable, and, yet, I would often not feel confident or capable enough to take the first step towards those really ambitious goals, you know, those goals that light you up from the inside, and that often appear in conversations with friends about your “dream life.”
So, I kept asking myself: what is the secret? What does it take to master our mindsets in a way that every goal feels attainable to us, no matter what our origins are? And how come that after all the training or classes I have taken with personality and mindset experts like Tony Robbins, and spiritual leaders like Louise L. Hay, or Dr. Michael Beckwith, I still did not seem to be capable to apply that knowledge in a successful way?
To me, my mind feels like a watchman to my goals at times. Do I only dare to tackle goals that my mind allows me to pursue as it is able to retrieve a previous success as reference point and then switches on the green lights to “attainable?” But hold on a minute – if this is the case, then I will never dare to leave my comfort zone as there no such thing as a previous success record for the unknown, and those big exciting goals will stay exactly that: dreams, that are all up in the air!
Now, for all of us who share a somewhat similar experience, I can say that for me the insights I got from this extremely powerful conversation between Vash Tomanec, a 25 year old serial entrepreneur, and Steve have been a real eye opener for me, and I was truly amazed about the depth and wisdom carried forward by Vash´s answers despite his young age.
Considering that Vash has already been invited to be on stage with “the legend” Dr. Joe Dispenza at the age of 24, and that he has built – fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen! – three successful seven figure businesses within just two years, you can assume that Vash has some pretty remarkable things to share, for example, how to reach any goal and how to change your life completely within 90 days (only)!
Yes, you heard that right! It took Vash exactly 90 days to transform from “a pretty broke, insecure, and fearful” young guy “with bad English,” who was delivering food for Uber Eats on his bike to make ends meet as a business student, into a successful entrepreneur, making $10,000 dollars per month (initially) with his newly founded marketing agency. So, I am sure that most of you would love to know: how did he do that?
Now, for those of you who have been looking for the “secret spice” how to turn any goal into reality and might have been struggling with belief or commitment, let me unveil Vash´s 4-step framework to you.
Yet, the most important prerequisites before applying that framework are: A) you need to make a decision, and B) stick to your commitment to execute that decision and take action daily, no matter what! Are you ready to do that? I have to admit, I often was not.
So, after reading Robert Kiyosaki´s monumental book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” at the age of 18, Vash was absolutely clear that becoming an entrepreneur would be the route to enable him not to be limited in any way – not by the country he was born in, not by the beliefs of his parents that he was raised with, and not by his education level. However, it took him another six years to really make that decision, hit the start button and to go for his goal, that is: taking massive action steps to turn this goal into reality. Vash describes the pivotal moment, when he saw other Uber Eats drivers in their thirties and forties, still delivering food, and in that moment, he knew: it is now or never! In this moment, when he made this decision, he committed fully to not miss one single day out of the 90 days he had chosen to start succeeding with this business for himself and do whatever it takes to make his goal become his new reality.
Now, for me another important ingredient to implement his 4-step framework successfully is C) to be pragmatic with what kind of business you want to start with. Over the course of the years, I have met quite a few highly qualified people from the academic field, and particularly women, who seem to struggle when it comes to choosing their first offer for starting a business – and I am no exception to that. There are tendencies to think that we might not be ready, that we don´t know enough yet, that we still need to do another course or participate in another mindset training and so on. Thus, the belief of not being good enough or ready to hit the market creates a tendency to procrastinate endlessly. Vash´s solution might also be helpful in this regard as it embodies a very pragmatic approach. During the interview he simply stated, “As I had experience in marketing, I decided to create a marketing agency!” That is breathtakingly simple, and effective at the same time, as you can always adjust your offer along the way.
Alright! That said, drumroll please: here is Vash´s blueprint to achieve “any goal, whether it is in business, fitness, health, relationships – it does not really matter.” Are you curious? Let´s go!
Step 1: You need to know your vision
Maybe, you have ever heard the saying, “If you don´t know where you are going to, no wind is favorable.” When I worked still in academia, I even remember this even being the title of an academic publication in a popular strategic management journal. The message behind it is rather clear.
Vash compares your vision with a compass or a navigational system, and recommends to define crystal clear what achieving your goal precisely looks like. If your goal includes to feel happier, freer, or more abundant, you need to dig deep what you truly want to have in your life and what these rather abstract constructs mean to you. Would you like to earn $6,000 dollars per month, $60,000 dollars or $600,000 dollars? Write it down! The clearer your vision is, the more you will know what path to follow when the road becomes rocky. Then you will know exactly what kind of action is necessary to stay in alignment with your desired outcome.
Step 2: Know WHY your goal is important to you
When Vash made his decision and committed to become an entrepreneur, he had many good reasons why his commitment needed to be so strong that he would never miss a day. In his case, one reason was an emotional one: at the time being, he hated to be separated from his girlfriend, who was located in another country, and wanted to be able to provide for her and build his dream life with her together. Second, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he never wanted to sit on that Uber Eats bike again. This image of him sitting on the bike was so painful for Vash that it became a huge driver for his success. So, what is your “why” that keeps you going, even if it might not take you 90 days, but one year, or even two years to reach your goal?
Step 3: Put yourself through a 90-day challenge
If you ask yourself, “why 90 days?” Well, because Vash thought that is a realistic time frame if you are about to create substantial change in one area of your life. More precisely, pick one, two, or three actions that you commit to doing daily to get closer to your goal. We have already emphasized that it is crucial that your word matters, first and foremost to yourself, and that you should never miss a day. Vash is a strong believer in the compounding effect, not only in terms of investments, but also in terms of action, that is, you rather commit to do less per day, but to do it for a longer period of time on a daily basis.
Let me give you an example: When Vash started to build his marketing agency, he committed to three actions daily: 1) he recorded 10 (!) personalized videos daily to put them out to potential customers; 2) for two hours per day he studied communication and sales as his English was not that great and he wanted to deepen his knowledge in marketing; 3) Vash visualized for 15 min. daily that the goal of his own marketing agency, making $10,000 dollars per month, has already become a reality.
In the conversation with Steve, Vash shared that on day 63 he started to feel worthy as nobody else was showing up like he did, addressing 10 potential clients per video daily, even though he had not convinced one single client yet. Yet, over the next 27 days he did sign up multiple clients and it was exactly on day 90 that he hit the $10,000 dollar mark on revenue that he had aimed for.
Vash also shared that the visualization started to feel like a reality from day 30, “So, I wasn´t operating from, `Oh, I don´t have clients,’ I was operating like a successful business owner and I just knew that the reality is going to catch up.”
Step 4: Challenge yourself: who do you need to become to achieve that goal?
According to Vash, this 4th step is often overlooked in everyday life, and yet crucial to your success. You simply cannot “get different results […] by staying the same person.” So, what does that mean in practice?
To keep it simple, Vash recommends to analyze and change your behaviors (what do you need to adapt? What do you need to get rid of?), your feelings (what do you want to feel?), and your thought patterns (what are the thoughts that you want to adapt or that you need to let go of?).
Thus, upgrading your behaviors, thoughts and feelings on a daily basis is one of the things that Vash mentioned as absolutely crucial to reaching your goal – I am tempted to call these “success factors.”
He emphasized that once he had made these shifts in his mind, his feelings shifted, and, in addition, showed up through his daily actions. Reality just had to match what he was putting out into the quantum field sooner or later.
So, basically you need to become the person who would own that business, who has that body, earns that amount of money, is married to that dream partner, etc. before reality can and will catch up with you.
Honestly, in my opinion this is one of the most powerful, but also one of the most challenging aspects of mastering change as it requires constant alertness to catch yourself, e.g. when you repeat your ingrained thought patterns.
What can support you in doing so is another success factor that Vash proposes. He is a strong advocate of a daily meditation practice, ranging from one hour to three hours, to stay centered and grounded, and he even does dark retreats to hit the reset button by disconnecting from all outer distractions. The last experience has even enabled him to connect with the quantum field and receive business ideas that are way beyond what our rational minds could come up with, and that seriously helped him to change his way of doing business. In addition, like Steve, Vash is also convinced of the power of somatic breathwork, which he also includes in his coaching programs, as a way of letting go what no longer serves you, which can also help you to get closer to the next best version of yourself step by step.
Another challenge that might come up on the way is that there are always certain tasks we might not enjoy doing. When this happens, Vash strongly encourages us to see tasks we usually don´t enjoy so much from a different angle and to reframe them. For example, when he was committed to putting out 10 videos a day, instead of just wanting to get it done, he linked pleasure to every single video, seeing it as “another opportunity to practice sales and communication. Let me help Lucy level up, because Lucy might be the person who will help me to hit the 10k and give me the chance to travel and to create the life I want.” So, every video mattered to him.
What I find also remarkable is Vash´s absolute belief in his success is he is committed and shows up the way he promised to, even though the universe would test whether he is serious in his endeavor. I already talked about his unbending level of commitment. So, when Steve asked him what he did when some doubt crept in, Vash stated the following:
“In those difficult moments I knew two things: First thing is, I had a clear vision of what I want.
The outcome was very clear. And more importantly, I knew what is my reason why I want it. Because if let´s just say my loved one would get hurt if I miss a day, I would never ever miss a day. So, almost I created this that I said: I committed for 90 days. So, there is no way I am missing a day. I committed, my word matters. And this was crucial. […] What if I gave up at day 62, then I would not be on this call today. First, there is this idea that I could just be one book, sales call, knock away from what I want.
And second, because I visualized, Steve, every day that I already have the goal around the day 30 I started to feel it´s reality. So, I wasn´t operating from, ‘Oh, I don´t have clients,’ I was operating like a successful business owner and I just knew that the reality is going to catch up.”
Admittedly, I think I found my answers in this conversation why some of my goals would materialize and others would not:
First, in some cases, my reason(s) why would just not be strong enough, so the commitment faded away quickly when things became uncomfortable. Yet, in other cases, I could deal with any obstacle and still get to where I wanted to get, and I would do whatever it takes and not matter how long it took. The reasons for the first scenario could be various: some goals might have just been ego goals, something that I would think would be nice to have, but it was not truly a heart´s desire and therefore it was not highly prioritized; or the goals were not really mine, when I was trying to live up to the expectations of society, my parents or any other external source of influence, or I just did not associate anything joyful with the path to get me there.
Second, some goals felt so out of reach that I could not wrap my mind around how this could even be possible, not considering, that I do not need to know exactly how to get there as this is the universe´s job. My only job is to stay crystal clear about my vision, write it down, act upon it every day, and visualize it daily in perfect awareness that the universe will meet me there. Admittedly, I have never visualized my desired outcome, connected to the positive feeling of already living my desired reality for such a long period of time like 90 days. So, this practice has definitely been a missing link that I will now integrate into my manifestation toolbox.
Third, sometimes we do not struggle due to a lack of clarity, positive beliefs or commitment, but because we get swayed by the discouraging behavior of the people surrounding us. You have probably already heard about the rule of thumb that we become the average of the beliefs, of the income, of the career, or of the relationship quality, etc. of the five people we spent most time it. So, if you are surrounded by peers that are not particularly supportive and try to talk you out of things, then this is not an environment where your dreams are likely to come to fruition.
I feel that a particularly popular – and quite discouraging – phrase in Germany is: “be realistic!” Well, imagine, saying that phrase to Elon Musk when he is talking about one of his visions to relocate mankind to Mars! If a goal is realistic to reach for you or not, is only to be decided by one person: by you. So, please choose your companions wisely and also be aware of what I call the the power of location.
Consider yourself as a seed for a beautiful plant that needs sun, light, water, fertile ground, and a pot that is big enough and needs to be adjusted when it keeps growing and blossoming. If the village, city, or country where you live prevent you from blooming and growing, then think about changing locations. This could be done in a figurative sense, e.g. by minimizing the time you spend seeing people from your inner circle who drag you down energetically, who make you feel small or insignificant, or quite literally by relocating. And yes – the climate or the energetic blueprint of your place of living can affect your well-being, and productivity significantly, and this is a valid reason to move to a place where you feel loved, integrated, connected and at home, where you can breathe freely and feel a sense of wonder, and beauty.
So, there are many factors that contribute to reaching a goal or not. (I could also mention the patterns and belief systems you inherited from your ancestry or those carried forward by previous incarnations, but that is a blogpost for another time).
And in the end, your happiness, when you do something you love, will make success a natural by-product. it will inspire the people in your environment, and create a ripple effect. According to Vash, by changing yourself “you become the change you want to see in the world” and your impact and influence “will spread like a wildfire. It will inspire the neighborhood, the city and who knows – you might inspire a whole nation by changing yourself.”
And that´s a beautiful vision for all of us, and for our future.
About Petra
Petra Nikol is a Berlin-based writer and coach with a background in management science. One of her greatest passions is to uplift readers and listeners around the globe by spreading positive vibes. Petra loves dancing, travelling and any kind of adventure, yet her most favorite pastime is to connect with kind souls from all over the planet to learn, grow and heal together.
