Ep 120: Getting Back on the New Year Intention Bandwagon

Did you know that only 8% of people follow through on their new year's resolutions? Yup. Not so hot, is it?

But that's ok, my friend! In this episode you'll learn to be self-compassionate and revise your goals/intentions/resolutions so that they are BETTER and more doable.

Have a listen!

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Transcript

0:51

Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to Real, Brave, and Unstoppable. I forget what episode this is, but it doesn't really matter. You can see it in the title. But this is the episode that you've been waiting for, your guide to creating sustainable goals or New Year's resolutions or whatever you might wanna call it. I'm getting this episode out a little later than I wanted to, but it is February. And most of people that have set New Year's resolutions or goals or whatever by now have fallen off the wagon. So it's like it's a very small percentage of people who actually follow through. So if that's you, this is the episode for you. New Year's resolutions are kind of a loaded topic, wouldn't you say? I mean, we're kind of a culture of people who are always looking for improvement and growth, yet, like I said, the majority of people don't stick to resolutions. So if you set them, like I like I said before, like, you may have already ditched them. I decided to do this episode actually after seeing the slogan, new year, new you, approximately 5 gazillion times over the end of December and throughout January. And I totally hate that slogan. Like, what what's wrong with the old you? To me, that suggests that you're something to be fixed. Next. I also saw many graphics with the word new crossed out or replaced by better, new year, better you. And, again, there's nothing wrong with being better, wanting to be better, but it still doesn't really feel right to me. I like something that sort of speaks a little bit more to acceptance. And when I say acceptance, it doesn't mean you can't wanna improve yourself, but, like, it's accepting the person that you are along the way. Right? So then I saw the perfect slogan, which was new year true you. So I thought that was beautiful. Because what if we all aspire to be true to ourselves, uh, to make choices that align with our values? Sounds amazing. Right? And even in the attainment of goals, like how we treat ourselves as we grow towards our goals, how we assess progress and all of that stuff. Instead of looking to what the outside world has to say about that, what if we were to look inward? So since I love statistics, by some estimates, according to an article in Time magazine online, as many as 80 percent of people quit their New Year's resolutions by February. Only 8 percent of people stick with them the entire year. So why even set them? Or more importantly, maybe, why are those numbers so grim? Because people they'll set them in a way that's not sustainable, motivating, or inspiring. They don't connect their resolutions to their core values or what's really important to them or even how they want what they're working towards to make them feel. Because, really, that's the only reason we ever do something, Right? It's because we think it'll make us feel a certain way. So the resolutions aren't really authentic or true to who they are. 1 thing that I see in women, maybe not just women, but my experience talking about my experience. And so I I see this sometimes in myself too, is is that when we hit our mid to late forties, we start to notice some of the changes that passing time brings, like weight gain, wrinkles, grays, less energy, brain fog, you know, stuff like that. And we tend to really focus on that stuff, how it makes us feel not as attractive, not as sexy, irrelevant, unnoticeable. And me and it becomes a problem because we're letting what we don't like overshadow all of the good that is there. aNd the number of women that I talk to who wanna lose weight is also astounding at any age. And I've been there too. I totally get it. We're socialized that there's a certain number on the scale that signals that we meet to that standard for beauty or even health that the world has set forth for us. Right? And we're told that that, like, number or that standard equals worth. It's annoying to put it mildly. But really getting older and, like, living at any age is really about feeling good, having energy to live the life that you Wanna Live, feeling comfortable in your own skin, managing emotions without food, feeling strong and empowered, and etcetera, etcetera. So if you're thinking, oh, I wish I I wish I were thinner. It's never about the weight or being thinner, really. It's about feeling good, feeling healthy, feeling strong. And maybe I'm generalizing, but I think that most people would agree that if they were living a healthy life and felt great at a a particular weight or shape. It wouldn't necessarily matter that they hit the number that's in their mind on the scale. So bringing this back to goals. A lot of women and men too set goals around their appearance- losing weight, getting in shape, things like that. And these types of goals are some that people tend to quit the fastest. Or maybe you have another type of goal or intention or resolution that you kind of let go of. So let's talk about how you can get back on track in a way that's gonna work for you. I have a few tips that I think you'll find really helpful. So first of all, we have to set better goals. Most people set kind of random arbitrary goals, intentions or resolutions. For example, I had a goal for many years to lose enough weight to weigh the same as I did when I was 25. That was my wait before I had kids. What was that number based on? Uh, that would be nothing. It had no basis. So the goal had no why that made any sense at all. Was I happy with my body at 25? No. I wasn't even happy with my body at 25. So why the hell would I even care if I was that weight? So I kinda pulled that goal out of thin air and didn't really think about the reality of it or why I would even like, why or what it would take to get there, let alone sustain it. And most people don't think about this. So you want your goals to feel like a hell yes. Like, you want your goals to feel exciting and that they're driven from within. Not like what you think other people will say about you go you know, going after something or even achieving it. So what does that look like? Well, here's the thing that I've learned in the last few years is and I I coach a lot of people around. well, that's the first thing that I do when I work with someone as we talk about goals. And, uh, most of the time, we will do, like, some work around values. So I like to start with the values first. What's really important to you? Because, if we don't have something meaningful behind a goal. It's gonna be really hard to reach it. When you're connecting with your values, like, asking yourself, like, how do you feel why is that desirable? What's possible when you're aligned with what's really true for you that isn't when you're not aligned? So I also like to ask the question about aliveness. What goal feels alive? Like, visioning is really important here too. asking questions like, what will be available to me when I hit that goal that isn't available to me right now? So when I do this work with people, like, we dig really deep. And what I found was that most people say, for example, like, I wanna get in shape and end up realizing that their goal isn't really about the weight. It's about, like, confidence or health or having more energy or strength or just feeling more empowered. A few years ago, I did a New Year's challenge called goals with soul. And this was based on Danielle LaPorte's book, the desire map where she talks about her process of setting goals based on core desired feelings. After all, like like I said earlier, the only reason we wanna achieve something is because how we think it will make us feel. So I not start there. So setting goals based on what's important to you and how you wanna feel. That is gonna help you. Like, it's gonna help you form a really solid why. And we need that to be able to, find meaning in those goals and to stay on track. Okay. Moving on. Number 2. Are your goals realistic? This is important. I mentioned earlier that for many years, 1 of my goals was to lose enough weight to weigh what I did before I had kids. Well, I was, like, 40. That's probably not super realistic. Or even in my mid forties, I had that goal. And then I realized, That's probably not super realistic or sustainable. But when I set goals with clients, I always ask, like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how doable, or how likely do you think you're able to reach this, in the time frame we're looking at. And if doability is anything less than 7, like, we go back to the drawing board and tweak the goal until the believability or the doability is, like, 7 or higher. You know, if your if your goal is to read a hundred books this year. You have to look at how many books that means you have to read per week, which is about 2. Some people for some people, that's totally doable, but there's that's a lot of books for most people. So if I ask you if 2 books a week is realistic and you say it's 50 50, we wanna tweak that goal. Otherwise, it's gonna feel really overwhelming, and our brains don't like to feel overwhelmed. Motivation wanes and people quit. So if you wanna set a goal around reading books, like, you ask yourself, like, what do I think you know, it might be a little stretch, but 7 or 8 out of 10. Like, what do you think that or 9 or 10, but, like, what what's the likelihood that I I think you know, what's the believability of, like, like, can I succeed at this? Setting a goal where you're saying, yeah, I probably am not gonna reach this. What's the point? It. Right? Okay. So number 3, are your goals relevant? This is a little bit related to the number 1 that, like, you know, about, you just have to set better goals that are related to values and, how you wanna feel. But, just asking yourself, is what you're going after something you actually care about? Like, is the work you'll put in going to benefit you in some way. Is the goal internally driven, or is it driven by the potential of a lot of external validation? Like, that's a really important thing. And, again, it's it really kinda goes with the first bullet point. Okay. So number 4 is to have a plan. This is probably the thing that trips people up the most. If you set a goal and don't look at how you're gonna get there, the likelihood of getting there is not so great. So last week, I coached the client on overwhelm and anxiety because his to do list was huge. And he didn't have a plan to knock things off of it, so he kept procrastinating doing anything. So, of course, that just made it worse because the to do list kept growing, and he felt totally out of control and really, like, overwhelmed and disempowered. So we literally went through and brain dumped all the things he had on his mental list into a Google Doc. For every item on his to do list, we came up with all of the, uh, like, subtasks that, you know, that item was made up of. And we kept chunking these items down into little tasks as far as we could go. His list had a lot of things that were actually contingent on something else getting done. So with this level of, like, chunking this down. He was able to prioritize and focus on the next step in front of him rather than seeing, like, all of the steps and getting overwhelmed. So same thing with goals. You need to be able to identify the next action steps that will get you closer to your goal because seeing all the steps isn't necessarily helpful in the moment. You need to break it down and kind of reverse engineer how you'll get there. So number 5 related to this... This is related. Focus on really tiny short term goals if you're having a hard time staying on track. I recently listened to a podcast that talked about Navy SEALs and the mindset training that they go through. And 1 of the things they talk about is, having really tiny short term goals. Basically, this is breaking things up into, like, these minuscule little sub goals. So, like, if you're like, Navy Seals, if they're, like, in a really tough situation, they're not thinking about the entire mission. They're thinking about each step. So, for example, like, if you have a hard time getting up in the morning to work out, focus on each step of getting there. That's a a mini goal. So number 1. You hear your alarm going off. Okay. My goal is to get out of bed. Okay. And then I get out of bed. Next goal. My goal is to to the bathroom and brush my teeth. Okay. Done. Next goal, put on my workout clothes. Done. Okay. Next goal is get on my shoes. Okay. Done. You get the idea. Right? So it's, like, every little step. You're hyper focusing on that 1 little thing. The and the point is that we're just looking at the tiniest of steps as goals, and then we're setting a new 1 once we reach it. Because, like, small steps add up to really big progress. Also, this strategy works super well if you're under a lot of stress or dealing with a lot of emotions. It's like just focusing on the tiniest little thing can be really helpful. So, number 6, and this is actually my last 1, is tracking progress, reviewing, you know, course correcting your plan, and also celebrating your wins along the way, even the really small ones. Don't get wrapped up in what you didn't do. That's where the negative feelings like guilt for not having done something we thought we were supposed to do come in. And there's nothing wrong with the feeling itself, but if we don't take time to unhook from that and normalize it, we can get stuck in a very unhelpful and unproductive place. It's okay to have the feeling, but just accept you're having it and move on towards your bigger picture. We tend to get locked into a goal and see tweaking it or changing it as failure. But we change. Life changes. Circumstances change. And sometimes times our goals aren't even relevant or really even desirable anymore. So it's okay to let go of a goal if the process of reaching it isn't bringing you the feeling you want or even important to you anymore. It's really important to check on progress frequently too. Like, where are you? Do do you feel like you know, is your plan working? Where are you getting tripped up? Like, how can you tweak how you get over obstacles? and then also, super important to celebrate your progress. Okay? So you need to look at, and and I have a client right now who's doing that every day. He's looking at just a couple little wins for the day. So he's he's starting because he tends to be really judgmental on himself. Because he doesn't get all his big tasks done. So his challenge for the week is to, every day after work, just make a little short list of a few things that were, like, accomplishments, even if they're tiny. So it trains your brain to look at that side of things because our brains don't naturally do that. So, really important to do that. I highly recommend keeping, like, a journal or a a Google Doc or something, and you can put those in there because then you can go back and see see that. I don't think it's really necessarily enough to mentally check-in with it because you forget. So I think it's really helpful to write it down. So, anyway, friends, that is it for this episode. Just remember, you're not alone if you falling off the wagon with all your New Year's goals. Like, in fact, you're in the majority. So just remember that. It's totally normal, but you can course correct, you can get back on track. So hopefully, these tips are helpful to you in regrouping and setting some goals that are aligned with your values and creating a plan to reach them that is sustainable and doable. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to reach out. I'm happy to talk about this stuff with you. And, finally, if you're enjoying the show or enjoyed this episode, I would really appreciate it if you could go to whatever streaming service you're listening to this podcast on and leave a 5 star rating and a review for me. It's the best way to help other people find the show, and that's what we want. So thanks again, friends, and I will see you next time.