The secrets to setting and smashing those lofty life goals. revealing how to harness the power of envisioning your grandest dreams while grounding them in reality through actionable steps. Picture yourself turning the "I wish" into "I am," starting with those modest yet mighty actions like a 15-second jog, and watch as it unfolds into a story of triumph. I'll be right there with you, sharing my personal journey and the incremental victories that lead to the confidence needed to conquer the most audacious of aspirations.
Craft motivation, to catalyze your quest for achievement. As I guide you through the process of curating a social media feed that fuels your fire and the art of choosing the ultimate accountability partner, you'll discover how critical a supportive environment is for sustaining momentum.
Celebrate every milestone with us, both big and small, as we track progress and create a supportive community that thrives on shared success. Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, seeking personal development, or aiming for fitness peaks, remember: the path to greatness is paved with the steps you take today. So let's step forward together, and transform those dreams into your new reality.
The secrets to setting and smashing those lofty life goals. revealing how to harness the power of envisioning your grandest dreams while grounding them in reality through actionable steps. Picture yourself turning the "I wish" into "I am," starting with those modest yet mighty actions like a 15-second jog, and watch as it unfolds into a story of triumph. I'll be right there with you, sharing my personal journey and the incremental victories that lead to the confidence needed to conquer the most audacious of aspirations.
Craft motivation, to catalyze your quest for achievement. As I guide you through the process of curating a social media feed that fuels your fire and the art of choosing the ultimate accountability partner, you'll discover how critical a supportive environment is for sustaining momentum.
Celebrate every milestone with us, both big and small, as we track progress and create a supportive community that thrives on shared success. Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, seeking personal development, or aiming for fitness peaks, remember: the path to greatness is paved with the steps you take today. So let's step forward together, and transform those dreams into your new reality.
Setting your goals is like setting the destination on a GPS. Now, I know that's really cheesy, but it helps you paint a picture because it's giving us a direction and a purpose of our journey of life and, just like on any journey, reaching our goals requires planning, determination and a sprinkle of motivation to keep us going. Welcome to Denny Talks, where we're understanding that, why following through with your goals builds confidence in yourself and belief in yourself. So I'm your host, lauren Denny, and today we're going to be talking about achieving your goals and the roadmap to planning and setting up yourself for success. Let's get started. Welcome to Denny Talks, a guiding conversation to living life to the fullest. Join us for inspiring discussions on entrepreneurship, small business tips and seizing the opportunities. Subscribe now for concise, motivating episodes that encourage you to chase your dreams, where we believe that life, dreams and opportunities collide.
Speaker 1:
The first step in goal planning is to dream really big. Remember, really really big, audacious goals, the massive goals that you seem to think are unattainable. But remember you're going to have a lot of smaller goals that are being met along the way. So if you set achievable goals right off the bat, you're putting a hard cap on yourself. You never know what your full potential is even going to be. So make these massive dreams. Let's visualize what you want to achieve and who you are going to be when you get there, what it will look like, what it will feel like along the way. Your brain is really actually quite dumb. You can trick it into believing something, whatever you seem to tell it. So tell it that you're lucky, that good things are coming your way, and your brain starts to look for these things, all these good fortunes that are coming your way, and your brain starts to look for these things, all these good fortunes that are coming into your direction. You're tricking your brain into seeing these goals as being achievable by telling yourself that. You could even tell yourself you've already done it. You can even say like I am a homesteader, I am a champion, instead of somebody saying like I wish I could or I want to be. Then you're already telling yourself I don't really believe it yet, but I'm going to get there.
Speaker 1:
Once you have a clear vision of your goals, it's time to break them down into smaller, actionable steps. So remember the words from Laotius, I think his name is the journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step. I know it's really cheesy, but each step that you take brings you closer to your destination. So focus on the progress, not necessarily the total end goal. This is where you can be achieving all of your smaller goals and that's something that you can be really proud of. Every single step that you're taking, you are making the belief in yourself that you can achieve the really big, audacious goal. You are setting the foundation for who you need to become to achieve these really big, audacious goals. These small steps is where the magic happens. You are starting to keep your word to yourself by doing these actionable steps. I mean, for instance, I could not run a mile, but ask me to jog for 15 seconds and then 30 seconds, and then making my way up to a minute and then half a mile and gradually working my way up to a mile. I'm choosing those small steps towards my goal and I'm starting to build the confidence in myself that I really am worthy and capable of these really big things.
Speaker 1:
But if you're like me, I tend to revert back to my old habits when things get tough, I take a day off and then a second day off and then the next thing. I know it's been a week and a month and I feel like I failed and I'm too far gone. And you know, and it's just spirals away. So I know what it's, I know it's a week and a month and then it feels like I failed and I'm too far gone. So, when it comes down to it, I broke a promise to myself. I told myself that I would do something and then I didn't follow through and maybe that's because I just really wasn't honest with myself, with my true starting point, or the step was too large. I was thinking like, oh, I can run a mile, and then, when I don't run a mile, then I just beat myself up.
Speaker 1:
So make these really small, actionable steps that, okay, today I'm just going to jog for 15 seconds and then next week I'm going to do 30 seconds and then I'm just building up that momentum that I can start to believe in myself and I've just been able to keep my goals much more sooner when I'm just being honest with myself, of being like you know what I am, let's be honest, I'm not running a mile. I might not even be running a mile for quite some time. I'm going to start with 15 seconds and then, once that feels really good, then gradually work my way up. Another thing is that I do is that I acknowledge that this is going to be a really busy season of my life and I might not be able to commit to the same maybe five days a week of workout sessions that I usually do. So hey, you know, I'm going to be more honest with myself by saying I'm going to only do two days a week, and I don't say this is going to be the last time that I overload myself with food. Now I say I'm going to give myself a once a once a week or once a month or whatever it is to snack during that specific time. And so then that way, it's never an all or nothing approach when it comes. When it is an all or nothing approach, I want it even more, and then I break my own code of conduct with myself, and then that is just where it's a spiral downhill. So this is the goal setting when it comes to fitness, but it's also a mindset shift for myself, and so hopefully you'll be able to kind of see yourself within these realms that I'm kind of referring to as well. So now let's talk about staying motivated along the way.
Speaker 1:
It's really natural to encounter obstacles and setbacks, but it's how you're going to deal with them that really defines your success. So, as Thomas Edison famously said, I have not failed, but I found 10,000 ways that it won't work. So I really want you to challenge yourself in embracing these challenges as more as opportunities for growth and continue to move forward. So you're not failing, it's not a failure. I'm definitely using those words for myself. I say that often to myself. I'm often afraid of what others would think or letting them down. I'm like if I fail, then I feel like I'm failing them as well. So I've been working on changing my own perspective of that and so then that way, if I don't do it, then it's a failure. That's where I'm trying to change my perspective, where if I don't do something, then that becomes the failure. So now I'm changing it into being a motivator, where it's just like an attempt and even if I fail, I still have made so many milestones along the way to that goal and now I know what I need to do in order to adjust and make that goal next time.
Speaker 1:
So if we look at it more of like a power lifting mindset, this is something that I just recently kind of getting into and I had a couple of power lifting meets under my belt. So when you're at a meet you get three attempts at a certain lift and when they become white lights you get three white lights. It counts as a good lift. And if you don't get those three white lights, then you can go to a judge and you can ask for feedback and usually it's like a small tweak and then go back on your next attempt and retry, so to try to make that lift again. So missing one time does not mean that it's the end and now you failed and you don't get to compete anymore. It's just adjust and move on. So I really like that kind of mentality is that your failure is not that you missed it missed that opportunity and you never get that opportunity again. It's just an attempt.
Speaker 1:
So surround yourself with that kind of energy. That way, when you're scrolling online and you're seeing all these people who are trying, all these things that they're doing and it feels like they're winning all the time and you might not be you feel like you're failing all the time I want you to try to remember that they have had so many attempts under their belt and maybe they're just choosing not to show those online. And then that's also something that I've been kind of just really mindful about of. When I am surrounding myself with you things around my phone, I am choosing to only follow the people that are doing the things that I want to accomplish or that are the positive side of things, and trying to stay in towards that type of energy. I want to surround myself that when I'm scrolling online or I'm looking around my office, I'm only seeing what I need to see. So if it's something that everyone else is doing, now that becomes like a new norm.
Speaker 1:
So a lot of times, if I tend to think about talking myself out of going to the gym, I hop onto my phone and, oh well, this person's going to the gym. Oh, and the next person's at the gym, and the next person's at the gym. It almost feels like weird that you're not at the gym, like, oh my gosh, all these people are at the gym Like I'm not. So everybody else is chasing these dreams Like I should also be up there too, and that's my motivation. So surrounding myself with the things that you see and hear, and it helps you find your meaning and remember your meaning. So I want you to kind of think about filling your social pages and other accounts with things that are going to be filling your bucket up, and so when you continue to scroll and there's boom, there's an account of someone doing some pull-ups and another one running and everyone's working out. Then that's another reason to get out there and continue on with your own journey.
Speaker 1:
Another idea is to go and find a group, a Facebook group. There's lots of mom groups out there. There is business groups out there, people who are sharing the same type of mentality, and when you are joining in on a group and finding someone who is accountable, it is a lot easier to do with somebody else to keep you going, even on the days that you don't want to. It's really hard to do it alone. So find someone that you can continue to rely on as a sort of accountability, and that's where we're going to go into next. So another key aspect of goal setting is accountability. So share your goals with others who are going to be able to support you and encourage you on your journey.
Speaker 1:
Zig Ziglar once said you don't have to be great to start, you just have to start to be great, and I often think about this, even in business and growing like your social media account. See, we're bouncing all over these places. Sometimes we're talking about business, sometimes we're talking about fitness, motivation, just you know. That's why we're here. We're multifaceted here at this Denny Talks. So everyone has to start from zero followers. I try to remember that these people who have 250,000 followers, they had to grow it. But if you don't take the first step, then nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 1:
These are really common challenges in goal setting is your procrastination, your lack of motivation, your fear of failure, and it's really important to just surround yourself with things that are positive and let those support of others propel you towards those success. For me, my biggest support is my husband. We monitor each other, we talk to each other going into the gym, even if we don't want to, and it just really helps he and I to stay accountable towards each other. But I try to remember that is that you know all these people. They are on social media and they're showing us their highlights. But if they wanted to start over, if they just started, if they lost everything on their social media accounts, they would have to start from zero again. And if they can make their way from zero all the way up to their 100,. So, finally, I want you to celebrate your achievements along the way. Each milestone that you reach is a testament of your hard work and your dedication. So take pride in how far you've come. Let it fuel your determination to keep moving forward.
Speaker 1:
Definitely, review periodically, check in and make sure that you're looking through your list of your dedications or your ideas of what you want to accomplish. I check my way through a quarter every quarter, half a year. I have a little note on my phone and I even have the little checklist button. So when I've accomplished that, I like to check the boxes. So that could be something that can help you just remember on your goals.
Speaker 1:
Different types of measurements are also really helpful Quantitative and qualitative. Personally, I absolutely hate the scale. It's my nemesis. If you're jumping on back into fitness, I hate the scale and I wonder if you do as well. It's both a good thing and a bad thing, because it's a term of measurement, that's true, but also knowing that, like my pants fit better is also a form of measurement. The scale doesn't always represent, so remember that. Use them as a guide and the things that get monitored get changed. So I love that saying things that get monitored get changed. So this could be tracking your calories, knowing how much food is going into your body, how much protein is going into your body. If you are monitoring that, you can go ahead and take a look at what is a trend for you, what's normal for you, and then you can adjust and change for that. If you are writing down your goals on a whiteboard, maybe you're making your lifts of your weight and you're saying I'm going to start with dumbbells of 5 pounds and 10 pounds and then 15 and then 20, you can monitor and look at the dates of when you started at 5 and when you started at 20 and just making your body and your brain aware of what you are doing. I hope that's helpful.
Speaker 1:
As we come to an end of today's podcast, I wanted to leave you with one last quote from Ralph Waldo. Oh my gosh, I can't even speak. Ralph Waldo, oh, wow, okay. Waldo. Oh my gosh, I can't even speak. Ralph Waldo, oh, wow, okay. Ralph Waldo Emerson, there we go is the only person that you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Speaker 1:
So take charge of your destiny, set your goals and make your dreams a reality. Build your confidence and your belief in yourself by doing what you say you're going to do. I think that's just where mostly boils down to Do what you say you're going to do. I think that's just where it mostly boils down to Do what you say you're going to do. This is where you are building that confidence within yourself, your belief in yourself that you are going to stick with something. Remember to start those goals small and well, you want a really big, audacious goals, but set your steps small so that you can believe in yourself that you can achieve these really big ones. So thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. Remember that no dream is too small and no goal is too small. Until next time, let's keep striving for greatness. I encourage you to reach out to me on social media. I'm at SimplyLaurenDenny. You can email me at SimplyLaurenDenny at gmailcom if you want to tell me what your goal is. I'd love to connect.