Marie: Hey it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV,
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 never 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. 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 Firestarter 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 kickass spirituality
and was named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes.
Danielle! This is your second time on MarieTV, the first time live because we did all kinds
of Skype before.
Danielle: I got on a plane just for you.
Marie: I love you for that. I know you're going to
take us through this incredible process and I am 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're going to teach you a lot, but it goes
so deep. Just trust me on that one. Before we get into the all the nitty-gritty,
I want to know from you what made you write The Desire Map? How did it come about? Why
is it so important?
Danielle: I wanted to feel good and I wanted to feel better about what I was going
after and the way I was going after it. All this started on New Years Eve writing some
goals out, 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 like "sexy, affluence, abundant,
earth" all of that, and I could breathe. In that whole process, I looked at how I related
to goals.
Set a goal, go after the goal fiercely because I'm an ambitious cat and not hit the goal.
Not only not hit the goal, totally bomb so I feel like a loser. Set a goal, go after
the goal, reach the goal but I'm three months late or six months late or three years late.
I got there but I still feel like a loser because I'm late to my goal. Set a goal, go
after a goal, something shinier, and something truly better over here, mid course correction,
I'm going that way. I still feel like a loser because I changed my mind. Set a goal, go
after the goal, not just reach the goal, exceed the goal, out of the park like super success
and I think I still feel like a loser because I should've thought bigger because I was
thinking so small and I should've asked for more. Contentious relationship around
goals and not loving who I was in that striving. That striving for the goal really brought
out what I call Connie; she's my alter ego and I like Jersey but she's a Jersey girl
and Connie is really fucking pushy.
My inner Jersey girl had to talk to a Buddhist about this and I had a conversation with a
llama and I said "I'm interested in this tension between just accepting what is and
presence, and the striving and attaining and going after stuff. Where is that middle ground?"
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." I was like pushy and I'm
done.
Marie: You had that idea come into you and it was like
"pushing, don't want to do that." Was it immediate link up to this concept of desires
and feelings coming first?
Danielle: Light bulb, I want to feel good, I want to feel better than I feel. Light
bulb, 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. I made a little
post-it note, put it in my Day Timer, and this is eight years in the making, and I would
ask myself "what am I going to do today to feel this way." Then I started asking
myself "what am I going to do this quarter to feel this way," and was like "what
do my yearly goals need to look like to feel the way that I want to feel?" It changed
what I went after, it changed how I went after it, and I felt more the way I wanted to feel.
Marie: That's so beautiful and I love one of the things
that you share in The Desire Map and all throughout your work. It's like we 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 articulated it is beautiful. It really is about the feeling
and that desire. And so, you've taken 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 its genius.
The Desire Map and the core concept of this is really, what?
Danielle: It's about what I call your core-desired feelings. I'm going to give
you the steps; we're going to do the reveal now. Step one of this is let's concentrate
on just three areas. In The Desire Map process, there's about five or six areas to look at
in life, but it you're at home doing this and grab a pen, you can write this down, you
can do this in meditation or do this on a walk. Go through lifestyle and livelihood,
go through body and wellness and go through what I call relationships and society, and
do a stream of consciousness about how you want to feel. Just rift and don't hold back.
If you want to feel vitality, if you want to feel energized, if 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.
With that no holding back, then you do need to move into that phase of this second step
which is about eliminating what you're not resonating with. It's really about pattern
recognition. You go through that mish mash, 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.
If your lucky number is seven and you want have seven core desired feelings, you can
have seven core desired feelings. You're going to narrow it down and what I encourage people
to do in that honing end phase is to stay away from the big audacious words like confidence
and success.
Marie: How come?
Danielle: Because it's an 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, and guess what? They're not even feeling success. It's
like the ultimate tragedy for tracing chasing other versions of success and they're not
even feeling successful. This goes on lifetimes for people. This is a big, big deal.
Success has a feeling underneath. You might say, "Success is about respect." 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 word. 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.
Marie: I love this. Keep telling me.
Danielle: This isn't about "I want to feel loved." Of course, you want to feel
loved; we all want to feel loved. 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 and 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.
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.
Marie: I love that and I feel like it's such an opportunity
for all of us to create our own game for ourselves of 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 one of the things I talked about a
lot and people always ask me about passion, how can I find my passion? 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. You
bring that to the task, you bring that to work and it's this muscle you build it.
I love to hear you say this because I can hear those voices going "people aren't
respecting me or people aren't loving me." How can you set up the rules for yourself
that anytime perhaps I take a moment to pause and really notice the beauty of my life, I
get to experience respect from myself and what I create, or anytime 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 setup your own rules.
Danielle: 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 these core desired feelings?"
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 today, I'm going to sign the contract."
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. It's micro and it's macro.
My version of spirituality has got to be practical. This has got to work in my kitchen, this has
got to work in my bedroom and it's got to work in my heart.
Marie: Amen to that. What's step three?
Danielle: Step three is the declaration of your core-desired feelings. 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 its 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.
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. Livelihood and
lifestyle, and body and wellness, relationships in society, and then ask yourself what do
you need to do and have an experience and the stuff you want to get and be in the world
to feel your core desired feelings. You should have your core desired feelings right here,
you're having your experiences and you go "I need to climb a mountain this year, I
need to 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. Narrow that down to your one, two, maybe three goals of the
year and there you have it.
There are lots of layers. 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, our psyche
immediately heads externally. "I better make my million, I better get that gig, etc."
You have to come back to center, how do I want to feel? The goal, the intention is to
feel good.
Marie: So good. It's really good. 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 and I was like Danielle, this is the
core of your work and of your message and I just think it's so beautiful. I know there
are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands Danielle fans out there and for those who
don't know, I'm curious what your core desired feelings are.
Danielle: My core desired feelings are joy; it took me a long time to get to
that. I used to think being not fully happy was sexier or something and I was like people
who are a little bit depressive. It's like happy people are so annoying; now I'm just
like joy, true nature joy. Divine femininity, that shakti of just goddess,yes, woman. Creation;
for a long time the word was creativity for me, but I want to feel creation and I want
to make creation. Abundance. 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.
Marie: 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. One of
my jobs, and I think one of my gifts, is I always tend to hear intuitively what other
people are saying and tap into that, and I can almost hear people in our audience saying
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 world is coming in on you and you don't
know how to get out. What do you say to that?
Danielle: 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 and I don't feel the way I want to feel. You
learn through contrast. This isn't about "I feel the way I want to feeling all the
time"; this is life. This is wholeness. 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, I
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 up again, I better get
to yoga, 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... and set your core desired feelings.
You just interrupted that chatter that brings you south and you have just stepped into possibility
thinking. My belief is that when you declare your desires to yourself specifically, your
desired feelings, something happens; your brain starting firing in a different way.
There's an expansion that happens so you can see different options. Solutions will come
to you, "I could apologize, and I could slam the door."
Marie: If you're feeling angry and one of your core-desired
feelings is love, a question you may ask yourself could be "what do I need to do right now
to feel love? What can I take control over to actually experience love in this moment?"
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.
Danielle: Some of my most important decisions have come from those moments where
I go "this is not how I want to feel," and that was really the hinge of my relationship
with goal setting. I'm sitting at my computer, it's 12:30 am, I 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
what" is a very dangerous phrase when it comes to your wholeness and I just thought
this is not how I want to feel. Et voila, core desired feelings. Mo better.
Marie: As we wrap up, I would love to hear your take
about the power of believing that we deserve what we're going after.
Danielle: Essential, critical; it has to happen. You can have your goals with soul
and 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
don't 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 grew and whoever is on your side. 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.
I'll just tell you now, you are worth it, you are important and you are worthy of your
desires.
Marie: 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 MarieTV. I love you.
Danielle: I love you.
Marie: 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?
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. As always, the best discussions happen after
the episode over at marieforleo.com so go there and leave a comment now.
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