A Unique & Playful Approach to Goal Setting

Remember those New Year resolutions that fizzled out before we could hit February?  Join me on the Receptive Impact Podcast as I share my unique approach to setting goals, a process that's given me more joy and a deeper connection with myself. The focus is less on the end result and more on the journey, the experiences, and the personal growth that comes along with it.

Ever had that overwhelming feeling of setting too many goals at once? I've got you covered! Tune in to know more about how to simplify your goals and make setting them less daunting. I'll let you in on how I plan small, manageable actions for each goal, making it less about pressure and more about exploration and play. You'll also learn about my quarterly retreats where I reassess my goals in a pressure-free space, maintaining the spirit of play and experimentation.

Serving as your guide, I'll share my journey from hitting rock bottom on my path to self-realization, and how it led me to this unique goal-setting process. I've learned to take responsibility for my reality, be honest with myself, and find joy in life. This episode is all about inspiring you to approach goal-setting from a fresh perspective - whether you're looking to create new experiences, stretch beyond your comfort zone, or deepen your connection with yourself, this episode is for you. Let's embark on this journey together, shall we?

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Receptive Impact Podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:05

I'm your host, nina Elise. Hello friends, it is Nina and I am fresh out of a weekend-long quarterly retreat that I do with myself every few months where I set goals, and I really just wanted to explain my process of setting goals because I feel like it's unique and very different and it's not like a typical way that people set goals at least the intention behind it because for me, the goals that I set are actually not really things that I care if I'm mute or not. It's just more like the journey along the way of actually getting to the goals. So, if anyone is familiar with the book the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, that's kind of how I describe my process with setting goals, and so in this episode I am going to take you through my process of setting goals and how I actually reach that place and why I do it and the intentions behind it and what it's kind of led to and the experiences that I've had in my life and how it has become something that I really look forward to every few months, because it is less about the goals, there's no pressure. It's basically like this playground that I have created for myself that I get to play and experiment in, and there's absolutely no pressure, no expectations of actually meeting the goals. It's just more, like I said, the journey of making my way towards that goal and the experiences that I have and the people that I meet and the growth and the learning that occurs along the way and the actual person that I become on the way to that goal.

Speaker 1: 1:49

So, as I am sharing this right now, it is about mid-October and the way that I actually work with recording my podcasts, I do them in bulk, so I tend to record a bunch of episodes back to back and then I schedule them two weeks out. So, as of right now, I have episodes scheduled out through mid-December. So this is actually very perfect timing. I did not plan this at all, but I will most likely be posting this in December, I think on Christmas actually. So Merry Christmas if you guys are listening to this, and I feel like this will be perfect for anyone who is really into setting goals for the new year.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Some people set them on the new year, some people set them whatever the heck they want. I don't think that there's any exact timing, but I think, from like a social perspective or the way society has done it. January tends to be the day or the time of the year that goals are set and we get to reflect on the previous year and say I like this or I didn't like this. What I want to do different, how can I make changes in my life to make me feel healthier, happier or whatever that may be. And so I'm excited to release this episode in December.

Speaker 1: 2:56

So basically, the way that I want to approach this is I want to give you a little bit of a background so you can understand how I got to this place of setting this quarterly goals retreat. So basically I lock myself in my house for two days and I review previous goals from the last few months and kind of look at my journey and what I've accomplished over the last few months and really acknowledge that, and then, based on that, I say what did I learn and how do I want to move forward? What goals do I want to continue working towards? What do I want to change? Maybe I can just completely drop this goal, and so it becomes this really fun process of just kind of playing around with like what kind of reality do I want to create for myself. So it's become like this really fun thing that I do with myself. That's really actually deepened my connection with myself and provided a little bit more meaning to my life and a little bit more well, a lot more play into my life, because I really love to have new experiences and this is one thing that really helps me in like accomplish that in this journey of life.

Speaker 1: 4:03

So just to give you guys a little bit of a background, about a year or so ago I basically like hit rock bottom, like went through what I would call like a spiritual awakening or just basically where everything that I thought was important to me basically left my life, whether it was a relationship or a job or just like just anything that I had really big attachments to essentially and it was incredibly disabilizing. And at the same time, it was all of my shadows and all of my old belief systems and patterns and destructive behaviors like came up for me to look at. Like, basically, it was like someone was shining a mirror on me in this moment and I got to a place where, basically, I was living with my dad for a couple of months and I didn't have a job. All of my belongings that I owned fit in the back of my Jeep. I was basically living out of my car and staying at my dad's for a couple of months while I got on my feet, and it was probably like the lowest point or moment of my entire life.

Speaker 1: 5:03

And it was one of those moments where I was like I need to change, like it is me, like I created my reality, I created these relationships, I created these scenarios that happened in my life and I need to take responsibility for how I was showing up in these different ways and be really really radically honest with myself about what kind of life I was creating and who I was actually being in that process. And so, while it was, you know, incredibly devastating and really painful to go through because it was basically like going through this really big death of this old life and this old version of myself it was really beautiful because I knew that it had to happen, like all of us had to be looked at in order for me to really begin to get clear about what is it that I really really want in life, like who am I Like? Who? Who do I want to choose? Or who am I deciding to show up as every single day? What kind of person do I want to be, what kind of boundaries do I want to set, what kind of experiences do I want to have?

Speaker 1: 6:03

And while I do believe that there is an underlying current of just going with the flow of life and there are things that are completely out of our control, there are things like our mindset and our intentions and our emotions and our thoughts that we do have control over, and so this is where the goal setting kind of comes in. So, after about like I would say, six months or so of me kind of clearing through all of these emotions and really sitting with them and like being really honest with myself, I kind of came to this blank slate and I had no idea what I wanted or who I was or like what I was going to do in my life. You know, in a previous life I thought I knew what I wanted, but it was basically based on a lot of attachments and I put a lot of people and things on pedestals, like nothing was ever good enough. And when I reached this point of like this blank slate, it was like this moment of me realizing that it was my job or like my responsibility, to create my life and I could do that based on what I was intentionally putting my energy and my attention on every single day. So the best way I could describe it is like it was like being in a white room and I was just there alone and it was like there was a switchboard that was in front of me and all of the like flips and knobs and whatever represented different things.

Speaker 1: 7:27

So, for example, if I turned one knob one way, then, like, my life would go down one route. So, for example, if I'm like oh, I decided to be a lawyer, or I decided to be a chef or you know whatever, if I decided to pursue something, I would change a couple of knobs or flip a switch or something on that board and I could create this life based on that. And basically, to me, that meant that there were so many, like an infinite amount of possibilities, the way that I could live my life and the different timelines that I could go down. And at first it was incredibly overwhelming, because you're like there's an infinite amount of possibilities, like what life do I want to create? It's my choice and there's absolutely no right or wrong. And so when I arrived at that place, it was just like, okay, what do I choose, and because I had gone so deep into fears and insecurities and like peeled back all these layers and I was at this blank slate, there were like a handful of things that were left where I was like, okay, like I know that I love the ocean, I know that I love experiencing new things, I know that I love playing the guitar and singing, so these were like a handful of things where I was like, okay, let's just start here.

Speaker 1: 8:46

So I started with things that, like I naturally love, like these were things that didn't fall away when I hit rock bottom. They just stayed with me because I personally enjoyed them. It wasn't something that could be taken from me. And so what was really helpful, the way that I started my goal setting was reading, thinking I'm pretty sure everyone's familiar with this book but basically I created a definite statement that became this like overarching statement of like my purpose, my why and I use keywords from my human design profile and my incarnation costs and then also my top values in order to create this definite statement. And basically what I did was, like I wrote that out. I became very clear.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I did a couple of iterations over the course of like a couple of months, quite honestly, until I felt like, okay, this is it, like this is going to be like my guiding light throughout my life, what I base my decisions on and how I choose things, because this is who I'm choosing to be. And so it was really helpful for me to have that overarching statement for myself, and I reported it on an audio and I would listen to it like five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times a day, I kid you not. And I did that for months and months and I had, I had it memorized and it just became like very ingrained in my mind and like who I was. And so, basically, when it came time to set my goals, it was like, okay, is this an alignment with my definite purpose and my values? What is my intention behind doing something?

Speaker 1: 10:11

So, just to get into the actual quarterly retreat, it became like this weekend event where, basically, I start out by writing out all the things I want to accomplish or enjoy, or learn, or like what I want to grow in, like things that interest me, and then from there I decide on top categories that these goals will fall under, and I typically choose two to four categories because, honestly, when I first started doing this, I had four categories, and I was trying to do so many things at once and trying to accomplish all these things that I didn't feel like I could truly master or be fully present in all of the goals, and so what ended up happening was I ended up setting smaller goals or setting less goals every single quarter. So just something to keep in mind, like, for example, I was trying to learn Spanish and be a part of all these organizations and just all these different things, and my energy was being pulled in so many different directions. And so this is where, like, some people really enjoy that, but for me, I needed something more slow paced, where I wasn't like trying to do a million different things at once. I needed rest, I needed to be present and really enjoy something and like, really be in the moment and be present with whatever I was doing. And it was hard to do that when I was like running from thing to thing or being like, okay, I need to schedule this time to study and I need to do this, and I need to read this book, and then I need to record this podcast and I need to do this. So, again, just keep that in the back of your mind, like if you're sending goals, making sure that you set maybe like one or two goals up to like four goals, depending on how you work and making it so that it's not so overwhelming for you.

Speaker 1: 11:48

And so my categories, just to share, typically surrounding, like business and money, and that's the first one. The second one is philanthropy and service Like how am I getting back, how am I working in the community? And the third one is growth and play Like how can I grow? What are things that I'm really interested in and where can I do certain things a few times a week, just to continue to grow, whether it's playing the guitar or taking voice lessons or learning Spanish or things like that. And then my fourth one is community and relationship. So how am I integrating with the community? Like, how am I interacting with them? How am I building it? How am I building relationships with friends and new people? Because connection and intimacy is very, very important for me.

Speaker 1: 12:34

So what I typically do is I pick one main thing or a few small things under each category. So, again, nothing overwhelming and what's really helpful, especially when you have that definite statement of, like your life statement or whatever you want to call it. It helps me to have all of my my different things connected because all the goals that I typically set they are typically connected and overlap. So, for example, volunteering under service, it satisfies my goal under community and relationships, because I get to connect deeper with the community and meet new people. So when you're aligned with your overarching goal and you start to set these goals, you'll most likely notice that some of your goals start to overlap and so again, it kind of reduces that pressure from being like, oh, I need to do all of these different things in order to meet all of my goals. So After this, once I get clear on my top goals, I start writing potential house.

Speaker 1: 13:26

So, for example, if I set my goal to become a chef and I don't know why I keep using that example, but it keeps popping into my head then I would say, okay, if I wanted to be a chef, what would I do? So then I would go and follow a bunch of chefs on social media and I would see their journey and I would see maybe they sell courses, or I would look online for different courses and I would go and watch YouTube videos and kind of see what the journey is to become a chef and I would kind of like take that in. And then I would say, okay, the house of becoming a chef, okay, I'm going to take an online course or an in-person course, so I'll find something local and I'll say, okay, I'm going to take a course over the course of the next few months for this quarter's goals. And another small thing that I can do is maybe like committing to cooking one brand new meal and experimenting with it every single week, and so those can be like two really small hows that help push me towards meeting that goal of becoming a chef. And, quite honestly, it doesn't even matter like what these small goals are or what the hows are, because life will always bring things to you and it will always surprise you. So it's the actual act of setting an intention and then taking an action, no matter how small or silly it may seem.

Speaker 1: 14:46

So just to give you guys another example, something my personal example, like when I first started doing these quarterly retreats, so I wanted to give back to the community outside of my job as a nonprofit consultant and I love the ocean, so I found a few local nonprofits to check out that support the environment and that was my goal choose a nonprofit I want to commit to. So the hows for me were attending a few meetups and meetings over the course of the next few months and seeing, like, how I fit, like, did I really love these nonprofits? Did I connect with them? Did I connect with the people? And another how underneath that was watching videos on YouTube before I would go to bed every single night about the environment, about the wildlife in the ocean, and learning about the ecosystem and different things in the actual area, so that I could deepen my understanding of how to take care of the actual ecosystem in the area and what that really entails. So it was like I was upping my knowledge and my understanding of what that really means and how I can actually contribute to that, whether it's doing beach cleanups or recycling a certain way or learning different things about recycling. So these are actually really small things that I did over the course of a few months where I was able to see what I really connected to. And, honestly, I had chosen one nonprofit that I went to and it just didn't feel super right, but I actually met somebody there who told me about another nonprofit I wasn't aware of. Then I'm actually much more engaged and have chosen that as my nonprofit.

Speaker 1: 16:14

So for me there's no like failure in any of this. It's literally just this experimentation. You're saying I'm going to choose this and I'm going to go here, and then life will just kind of like take it from there and it will always guide you to the next thing or to the thing that is like most in alignment to you. And so what's been really helpful for me is, under each goal I write an underlying intention for why I'm choosing to give my time and energy towards these goals, and it gives me meaning and purpose, and my intentions normally fall under keywords like growth and connection, and I think when you have an intention towards something, it just helps guide you a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 16:52

So after all of this, I cut all of this out. I write it out all my whiteboard or an oversized sheet of paper, and I hang this up so I can revisit from time to time, so I might look on it and say, okay, you know, I said I was going to take voice lessons. Okay, I have some time to schedule and start working with somebody. Or I want to volunteer once a month? Okay, what is that one thing that I can do, and then I go and look and then I set that up and have that set for the month, and so it's just kind of like this reminder and it's not something I have to look at every single day because, honestly, when you set your goals and you have your intentions, it's in your unconscious You're being intentional about what is that you want to give your time and your energy to, and it's just kind of like a way to check in when you see it hanging up in your house, or, for me personally, when it's hanging in my house.

Speaker 1: 17:37

So setting these goals for me it is such a fun exercise and, like I said, there's no such thing as failing because it's my goal system that has no expectations. It's purely for my enjoyment and growth. It is not dependent on anyone else or anything. It is rooted on a foundation of things that bring me joy that no one can take from me at all, and so it's not dependent on anything external. Basically, and another thing that I really want to talk about is that there are things that may fall over the course of the months and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 18:14

So when I say, this is, like you know, a fun exercise for my own personal enjoyment and growth in previous quarterly goals. It just means that as I go through the month, maybe I wasn't invested or maybe there were no-transcript, that I thought I wanted to do something, but when I actually went and did it I was like, oh, maybe this isn't what I wanted to do. So after a few months, when I have my quarterly retreat, basically what I do is I revisit my goals and I say I did this or I didn't do this, and why did I do this or not do this? What worked and did it work? And maybe realizing like, oh, I was doing this because I thought I wanted to or was coming from an egoic place and I wanted to prove myself or whatever, and just being honest with myself about it, because it's just honestly funny at the end of the day, because we all have our own blind spots, but just like being honest with it, about like, maybe I'm not passionate about this and maybe I thought I was and I just wanted to have this experience. So it's easier for me to just set that aside and let it go. And then, when I do that, without any shame or blame or expectation, I'm able to let it go and create space for something new to come up for me, to experience or work towards.

Speaker 1: 19:23

And I think the biggest thing when I do my quarterly retreats is I also celebrate the wins and all of the things that I've done, because it highlights my growth and how I've changed as a person over the previous few months and, honestly, I'm the only person who will truly know the inner transformation that I have gone through, and so it's so important for me to make a list and acknowledge all of those things, not just the external things that I have done, but the inner shifts like, oh, I learned how to manage my emotions better, or when I was angry, or the times that I got angry, I was able to manage that and I was able to clearly communicate and react in a different way. And so when you're acknowledging this within yourself, it's much more motivating for you to continue on and also like, if you're not your own cheerleader, who will be? And so that's always been like a huge thing for me is I'm always gonna celebrate myself and I'm always going to really just pump myself up and be like wow, you're doing a really incredible job, nina, because not everyone else is going to see that, not everyone is going to see your internal process and how you have shifted and changed and the things that you've done and the work that you have put in as you've worked towards these goals, or the things that you've experimented with.

Speaker 1: 20:34

One additional thing that I do want to mention that is like a super fun exercise to do, that I started doing last year. It's a wild mind notebook. So basically what I do is and this kind of goes along the goals because it helps to expand, like, what is possible that you can experience. So what I do is I write down these seemingly outrageous goals like being on Oprah or writing a New York Times bestselling book and I don't really care about these things, but just the act of thinking about it and writing it down and just considering that it could even be a possibility, it like stretches my mind to what is possible and in turn, it expands what is possible in my external reality, because there's a part of me that now believes like, oh well, I wrote it down and what if this is possible? What if this is an actual thing that could happen? So it's a fun exercise to play and use your imagination.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So I think I have something like play acres of sunflowers on a farm, or sing on a stage in front of thousands of people and own my own private jet, and again, like I'm not attached to any of this but it's fun to play around with and be like, oh, that'd be cool to experience, and not just that. But it gets me thinking, well, what if, like, I never considered it before, and so to me it pointed out a lot of like limiting beliefs that I had about myself. I'm like, well, why? Why do I think that I can't do this? Like it is possible, like anybody could do this, if I really like put my mind to it and I like set my goals. And this is something that I wanted to experience and I could totally do it.

Speaker 1: 22:09

And so I think it's just a fun exercise to kind of just expand your consciousness, expand potential limitations that you have in your mind about whether you can do something or not. And so these are like really outlandish goals that I write down. So it's in the small notebook that I have and I just jot down fun ideas from time to time just to kind of like give me some creative ideas or kind of just have some fun and start to stretch my imagination a little bit, because you know, when you think about when you're kids, you're just like, yeah, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna be an astronaut on the moon and whatever. And it's like you had all this belief in yourself that you could do anything and we kind of just stopped that. And so this is just a really incredible exercise to do that really allows us to kind of awaken that and our child within us and start to believe like, wait, anything can really be possible if we really put our mind to it and we do something like set these goals, where we take small, bite-sized goals and start working towards them.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Because, like I said, it's not like you set this goal and you're like, oh, this is so overwhelming, how am I gonna get there? It's like you literally just take one step at a time and you start with these small things. That's literally like, oh okay, today I'm going to research something about being a chef talking about being a chef again, but just to kind of go off what I said before, like I'm gonna research potential chef schools in the area this week and then the next week I'm actually going to decide what chef school that I may want to go to and then, like the week after that I'm gonna actually pay for that course and I'm gonna sign up for it. And so it's like you just take these small steps and the universe will reward you, because when you set your intention, it's gonna start like the snowball effect, where things will really start to align with that, because you are intentionally deciding that this is the path that you're going on. And so this is where the fun comes in, because a lot of things will come up that surprise you and you're like, oh, I put on my goal sheet that this was how I was gonna get there, but this other thing showed up and it actually brought me here in this completely different way that I didn't even think about before.

Speaker 1: 24:09

And I think that is where, like, the juiciness of life is and where you can have so much fun, because there's no way that we could totally control everything in our lives. Like it's just foolish to really think that we could do that. I truly believe that we come here to experience and learn and grow different lessons, and there is this underlying current that just takes us and if we are more intentional with our thoughts in our mind and like what's going on in our mind and like our emotions, we're able to react to life differently and we can kind of steer a little bit as we're being taken on that river, and so I just wanted to share that aspect of it, because I think that some people can get overwhelmed or there's like comparison to what's going on. But having these goal setting quarterly retreats with myself, it's very much like this is me, this is just my relationship with me, and creating this intimate connection with myself that no one else can really like be a part of or, like you know, have a say in, because I'm doing this for myself and it's a fun exercise and I get to tap into my inner child and I get to imagine and I get to expand what I thought was possible. So I believe that is all that I have to say about setting goals and this quarterly retreat that I do for myself.

Speaker 1: 25:28

It's such a fun thing that I do every few months. Like I said, I do it over the course of one or two days, and typically those days I turn off my phone, I do things like I'll do like a workout in the morning or I'll juice and just kind of like get myself in a state where I feel really, really good, and then I go through that whole process of setting my goals and sometimes I'll do it over the course of two days. I'll take pauses in between so I'm not just like sitting down for 10 hours straight and like doing this and then I'll make sure that I do some fun things, like taking a walk on the beach or like I'll go out and like I think one time I like took myself out for ice cream for dinner one night, like I was just like having fun with it and it was like I'm gonna do whatever I want this weekend and it was just me and me setting my goals and I got to do whatever I wanted and it was just like I was kind of dating myself and creating this beautiful relationship and connection with myself. And so I really hope that you guys enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1: 26:21

This is a very intimate process that I do with myself and I don't know how everyone else sets their goals or how they do it, but this has been a very long drawn-up process that I have shifted and changed over time and kind of created into this new process of like how I can actually have fun with my reality and play around with it and I will say so many things have come true, like the things that I worked towards with my goals, and it has actually blown my mind about the things that have shown up in my reality and the most unexpected ways from what the goals that I was actually setting. So, again, this stuff kind of takes time too, because there were things that I was doing and I was like, why is this not happening? Why is this not happening? And I was just kind of being impatient about it and then, like four or five months later, something happened that I was like, oh my gosh, this is what I have been working for and it is finally here, and it was in a completely different way than I expected. And so to me, there's proof, because I've gone through this process quite a few times over the past year or so and there are things that are showing up in my reality based on being consistent and like having fun and playing with this. So that is all.

Speaker 1: 27:24

So thank you all for tuning in.

Speaker 1: 27:26

So remember to share with anyone who may be interested in setting goals or may not be sure where to start, if you go through your own process and you maybe follow what I shared or took bits and parts of what I shared with you and integrated that into your goal setting process.

Speaker 1: 27:41

I would absolutely love to hear how you have done that and what your process is, because when you break down something like this in small steps, it just makes it way less intimidating and so much more fun, which was my intention with sharing all of this to not take life so seriously, to not take goal setting so seriously, and because life is all about adventure and learning and growing and doing things differently and removing any expectations or shame. That may be what we have been conditioned to do, and so when you approach life from the perspective of no expectations and just playing everything in life will be such a pleasant surprise and be so, so enjoyable. So thanks you guys, so much Again for listening. I love you guys and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye, elinehollandmonetalycom.