Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have HER Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. HER Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, handling hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career and life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside HER Collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Erica: If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. Have you mapped out your personal vision for your life? Have you worked it backwards to determine the steps you need to take to get there? In the corporate world, the most successful businesses have a clear vision, followed by a roadmap to get them there. And we're going to talk through how to jump forward into the future, envision your destiny, and then walk it backward so that you can implement the actions you must take to live out the life you've always dreamed of.

Erica: You are listening to the podcast that empowers women to get seen, get heard, and get promoted. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and I've made it my mission to help you break free from the sticky floors, those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors, to bust through the glass ceiling. I'm obsessed with all things growth and abundance, and I'm here to talk you through the tried and true secrets to get you to level up your career and your life. We talk about the hard stuff here. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear, and burnout.

Erica: So pull up a seat, pop in an earbud, and let's dive in. So many of us have goals that we've set for ourselves. Graduate college, get married, earn six figs, climb the corporate ladder. We've even set ones for our personal lives, such as losing weight, traveling more, spending more time with our kids. It's these goals that tend to hang in the air almost as this nice to have that we don't quantify.

Erica: They become inspirational ideals that we hope will just happen while we're out there chasing our corporate dreams and climbing the ladder. But that's not how this works. You must get crystal clear on what it is you want your life to look like. You have to have such a vivid and evocative vision for your life, the one and only life that you get, that you inspire yourself and others around you to do the work so that you can live the life you want.

Erica: So I want you to close your eyes, as long as you're not driving. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to fast forward three years. Where do you wanna live? What does your home look like? Are you living in a four bedroom house in suburbia on a cul de sac, or in a high rise in New York City looking over the Hudson River?

Erica: Is your home cozy or does it have more of a modern vibe? How do you feel when you're in your home? What type of job do you have? What type of company do you run? And yes, girl.

Erica: I said run, because we are dreaming big on this podcast. What does the culture look like? What is the vibe? Who are the types of people that you work with? Are they visionary?

Erica: Are they strategic? How do you spend your time when you're not working? Traveling, volunteering, spending a ton of time in the garden or reading? What do people say about you when they think of you? If you have a partner, what do they say about you?

Erica: What do they perceive your strengths to be? And if you envision a partnership or a marriage, what does that union look like? If you have kids, what does your relationship with your kids look like? What types of things do you do together? What do your friendships look and feel like?

Erica: And I want you to just think about those things. You can take a moment, pause the podcast, listen to those questions again. You could jot them down in a journal, but I want you to start thinking about what your life looks like and what it feels like. And you might be asking why three years? Why not one year, five years, ten years?

Erica: Three years is enough time that you can wildly change your life. It'll go by in a flash, but when you intentionally plan out your vision, your destiny by design, you will be able to map out the answers to all of those questions I just asked you. Now before we dive into the how, I want you to reflect back on your answers. I don't want you to base those answers on your current reality, where you're sitting today. I want you to dream big.

Erica: I want you to ask yourself, is this what I want? Or is this what society is telling me that I want? Your destiny by design, it should feel a little wild, a little crazy, a little out of reach, and it should also be inspiring. It needs to light a fire inside of you that is so bright that no one, no one can deter you from chasing after your destiny. Now if you need to go back and you need to dream bigger, do it now.

Erica: If you feel yourself pausing and judging your answers, go back and do this exercise again at a different time. If you struggled to dream big when you answered those questions, close your notebook, go somewhere else. Maybe not your office, maybe not your current home, but somewhere that you feel inspired, that maybe has a different vibe. And I want you to try again. It can be limiting when you write out your future dreams sitting in your current reality.

Erica: Find a place where you can clear your mind of today's worries and truly dream into your future. Now when you're ready, when you feel confident, but also a little bit scared with what you wrote down, come back to me, and let's get into the how, which is walking it backwards. Now I will walk it backwards by working through my own destiny by design with you. The vision that I have for myself and for my family is that we travel, that we travel a lot. We have the freedom, both financially and with our careers, to travel whenever we want in comfort and in style.

Erica: My kids are growing up appreciating the differences that exist all over the world. They're exposed to different cultures, different lives, different ways of doing things, and they're learning so much through experience. Another piece of my destiny by design is I am changing the lives of a 100,000 people a year. No. Scratch that.

Erica: That's not scary enough. That's not big enough. It's not inspiring enough. I'm changing the lives of 500,000 people a year. Actually, let's take it to 1,000,000.

Erica: In three years, I am changing the lives of 1,000,000 people per year. My marriage is strong. My husband is a true partner in life. Our communication game is strong.

Erica: Our bond is strong and we laugh so much as we travel the world. The freedom I have with my finances is that I can take care of everyone in my life. I can bring them on the trips with me and I can provide a level of comfort and security for them as well. My work that I'm doing is giving me a feeling of fulfillment and also a feeling of freedom. The people on my team are goal getters as well, who love a hustle, but also love balance and boundaries.

Erica: And I am surrounded by others who are greater than me, who also inspire me on so many different levels. My Rolodex is just filled with exceptional people who are visionaries, who aren't scared of chasing dreams, even when you have to go do those hard things to get you there. I work with people all over the world because we have the freedom of remote work, and they too love to experience life. Everyone in my circle is laser focused on doing meaningful and fulfilling work and living life through experiences. I take care of myself through my fitness game, and massages and facials.

Erica: Those are all a part of my regular routine. Does my destiny by design scare you a little bit? Did you just listen to all that and think, how the hell is she gonna get to all that, especially 1,000,000 lives per year? Erica Rooney, how the hell are you gonna do that? Here's the best part.

Erica: I don't necessarily know, but I can see it and I can dream it. And I trust that I will get there. And I trust that I am exactly where I need to be in my journey today. I imagine that I can do this through authoring books, podcasts, speaking engagements. I can inspire through social media and through channels that may not even exist today.

Erica: That's the fun part. To reach these big and scary dreams, you may not have that exact step by step roadmap for success, but what you do dream, it could require technologies that aren't even available to the world yet. When Steve Jobs envisioned the iPhone, a phone without a keyboard, do you think he knew the exact technology that he would use to create the iPhone? No. He did not. But he had the vision, and he surrounded himself with brilliant people who believed in his vision to create the iPhone.

Erica: Your destiny by design will involve failure. I wanna be very clear about that. It will involve pivots. It will require you to trust that you may not have all the answers today, but that they will come. So back to my three year plan, my destiny by design.

Erica: Well, I may not have all the answers right now. Here's what I do know. I have a podcast. I can continue to capitalize on that.

Erica: I can look for people who can bring in more and more listeners, and I can grow my audience through them. I can go all in on my speaking engagements by taking more of those, going after bigger audiences, getting on bigger stages, connecting with speaker bureaus, doubling down on my community, just putting myself out there for everything I can do. The point is there's a lot that I can get started on today, and the same goes for you. If your destiny by design is to climb the corporate ladder and be the CEO of a 10 figure business, what do you need to do to get there? Who do you need to be working with?

Erica: What gaps do you need to fill on your leadership team? How can you communicate your vision to your employees and colleagues about where you're going? There's always some step you can take. And with each day and each step you take, I want you to ask yourself, is this getting me closer to my destiny by design? If it's not, and you know it's not something that's meant for you, you walk away.

Erica: If your vision involves a person who is a healthy and fit person, I'm talking about you, not talking about a partner, your daily actions add up. And before you order that burger, fries, and shake, you can ask yourself, does this get me closer to my goal? Michelle Obama said, if you wanna be an honest person, be an honest person. It really is that easy, and it really is that hard. If you are steadfast in your dreams, if you believe in yourself and you trust that even though you may not know the step by step directions yet, you know the destination. Work your vision backward where you can and trust that what you don't know will show itself with time.

Erica: And lastly, I want you to know when to pause and pivot. Your vision may not turn out exactly what you have imagined it to be today. Do not hold on so tightly to that vision that you fail to see the obvious answers that are in front of you. Your destiny, your dream, your decision. Friend, the last thing that I want you to understand is that this is your destiny.

Erica: This is your dream and it's your decision. Do not, I repeat, do not live your life for someone else's dream. We have talked about this ad nauseam on this podcast, about worrying what other people will think, societal expectations. That stops today. I have heard so many women say that their parents told them that if they were not a doctor or a lawyer, they were a failure.

Erica: Do not let that be you. I'm here to tell you, you are not a failure. The only failure is to live your life according to someone else's roadmap. So whatever you're doing, if it isn't fulfilling you, if it isn't raising your vibe or your paycheck, it's a hell no. Now we all have to do things sometimes that serve as a means to an end, and I get it.

Erica: But do not set out on a journey that is someone else's dream. Take the time to answer the questions that we talked about earlier on in this podcast. Go back, rewind, listen again, and journal the heck out of those answers. And then take the steps to live out your destiny by design, because this is your destiny. This is your dream, and this is your decision.

Erica: Thanks for listening, friend. Here's your reminder that it is time for you to stop putting a ceiling on what is possible and start breaking through it. If you liked this episode, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and all my socials so you don't miss out on the freebies. Trust me on this.