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Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited that you are here. This is gonna be the final episode in my series on goal setting. I'll likely do some more videos on goal setting in the future, but this kind of rounds out the last three episodes. So if you haven't listened to those, those ones give you all of the information about what you're doing wrong when you're goal setting, why you should only pick one goal, and really the main benefit of setting goals and kind of the side effects that you get by going after your goal.
So you should check those out. But this one arguably might be the most important topic on goal setting because it's what to do after you've set the goal. And I feel like this is the thing that nobody really talks about. There's a lot about, you know, how to pick the right goal, what kind of goal to pick, and all of that really great stuff. And then there's so much momentum leading up to like picking your goal and then there's nothing. Then it's like, okay, go out and accomplish it. And I think that obviously the hard part doesn't start until you actually go after the goal and, and there's a lot to kind of consider to make sure that you set yourself up for success to make sure you stick with it that doesn't get covered. So that's what I wanna talk to you about today.
So what do you do now? You have this shiny, wonderful goal. You're going into the new year, you're super excited, you're super motivated, you have something that's measurable, you know what you're gonna do. Now what I wanna give you a couple of tips that I think can fundamentally change whether you actually hit that goal or not. The first thing is that you have to break it down into something smaller. So we've sort of been taught, it's all arbitrary by the way, but like we typically in our society, we see a lot of yearly goals, right? New Year's resolutions. You start, you're thinking about something for the whole next year, that's fine, but that's almost too far for your brain to be able to conceptualize. And so you are gonna wanna break it down into something that you can kind of figure out in the short term, what am I focusing on, right?
I typically like to break down my goals into 90 day goals. Again, it's just like a nice breakdown. It's arbitrary, but I typically do four quarters and then within each quarter I break it down each month. So the way I like to do it is like I either decide what I'm gonna work on every quarter for four quarters, like this is the progression that it's gonna take, and then I break it down. Or I'll just decide like, okay, the next quarter, the next 90 days, this is what I have to focus on in order to kind of get myself closer to this goal. And then I think about within that 90 days, what am I gonna work on in the first month? The reason this is so important is a couple of things. One, obviously like it helps you in strategizing and actually having a game plan and actually having steps, which is what will prevent you from spinning in confusion and giving up.
A lot of times we might have a goal, but then like once we get into it, we end up getting really overwhelmed with like, well, what should I work on today and what should I work on now and should I do this or should I do that? And there's so many things you can do and there likely are so many steps you could take that we end up getting really confused and then we give up. And so you really wanna make sure that you have a very clear focus so that even when you don't feel like it, even when things come up, you know, like, this is what I'm supposed to be working on. There's no like ifs, ands or buts. And so that might take the form, like for certain goals it might be the same thing every week, every month it might be, you know, I'm gonna work out three days a week.
So the goal is to work out three days a week. It's not really much to, you know, break down, but I might pick the days that I'm gonna work, I might set up an accountability partner, I might get a trainer, I might, you know, get the workout clothes I need or sign up for the gym that I need to go to or whatever. What, however that's gonna set me up for the next 90 days. Or it might be something like, let's say my goal for the end of the year is to start a business or to launch that podcast or that blog. I might look at like, okay, in the first quarter, what am I gonna work on? Like the first quarter might be, you know, setting up my website and getting the URL and setting up my social media handles and you know, setting up the podcast on the podcast, hosting platforms, that kind of stuff.
I'm gonna break that down to know like, okay, I'm not gonna work on all this other stuff. I'm not gonna work on, you know, how to grow my audience or learning how to grow on social media or you know, even outlining all of my podcast episodes or securing guests, like maybe the first quarter, I'm just focusing on getting the backend set up when I know that it alleviates so much of the overwhelm of when my brain tells me like, I should be doing more. I should be reaching out to guests. I should be lining up a studio to record it. I should be, you know, doing all these things. It's like, no, we're spending the first quarter doing this, then the next quarter we're gonna spend like lining up the guests outlining podcast episodes. You know, once you break it down, it becomes a lot easier to not only know what you are gonna work on, but more importantly what you're not gonna work on so that you don't overwhelm yourself so that you don't stay confused so that you, you're not spinning and that you're actually working on something.
So that's what I would do first is whatever goal you've picked, get very clear on what you're gonna work on in the next 30 days and the next 90 days. Like what is the, the steps that you have to take in order to like move the needle forward? I also think the thing that this helps with is oftentimes in our brain we think we should be doing way more than is actually possible. And so if you write it down, you start realizing how ridiculous it is. Like if you think that you should, you know, have the back end up and have the podcast set up and have guests already agreed and have a schedule and hire a VA and you know, outline a bunch of episodes and all that stuff, if you're doing it on a couple hours a week, you can maybe see that like, okay, I'm biting off more than I can chew and I'm gonna get overwhelmed or it's gonna become too much.
And so you can start gauging like, what's realistic for me in the next month, two months? That's gonna keep me kind of going. Okay. So that's step one is like just have a plan for the near future, not for the whole year. What's going to be for the near future. Step number two is expect it to be hard and expect yourself to be inconsistent for whatever reason. I don't really quite understand why we do this, but we have these delusions that once we set a goal, all of a sudden we're gonna be a different person. All of a sudden we're gonna stick to it, we're not gonna have any problems. We're gonna be so motivated the whole time, we're gonna be able to control how we feel and we're gonna get ourselves to do the thing and there's not gonna be any issue. And I don't have to tell you that's not how it works.
And then that's not how any of us act. And yet what happens is when we end up, you know, doing it, maybe we're motivated for the first two weeks and then the motivation wanes and then you know, you're left with having to do the hard work of going to the gym or you know, starting that podcast and when you don't wanna do it or when you, you know, skip out on doing it one day or whatnot, you give into your, you know, urge to just sit and scroll. We take that as a sign of like, see I'm not meant for this. I knew I would never do this. I should just give up. I'll never stick to this. And then we give up. And it's not the being inconsistent that was the problem. Everyone's inconsistent. It's that you made it mean something about you. You made it mean something about your personality.
You made it mean something about your ability to even stick with the goal and then that got you to give up, right? It's that black and white thinking that all or nothing like either I do it all full out a hundred percent or it's not worth it. That gets you to kind of give up and I want you to just expect that you're not gonna be at a hundred percent, like expect that you're gonna be inconsistent. 'cause here's the thing, if you could already do it a hundred percent correctly, wonderfully without any problems, you wouldn't need to have that as a goal. It wouldn't be a goal that you would set, okay, somebody that is just naturally athletic, that has always been athletic since they were a child, that's always like working out six days a week, doesn't need to set a goal to work out, right?
Doesn't have a goal to like run a marathon probably. 'cause they could just do it. It's just something that they've been able to do. They don't really have a lot of resistance to it. They find a lot of enjoyment from it. They have the energy for it, God bless them. And so they just do it. When you pick a goal, it's usually something that is very difficult for you. So expect it to be difficult. It's usually something that you doesn't come naturally to you so expect that it's going to be hard for you to do it. And a, don't be surprised by that. And b, know that the reason you're picking that goal is to learn how to like make that thing be easy for you. And that's gonna take practice. So one of the things I talk about two episodes ago, I talked about why you should have one goal to, for me every year I only pick one goal for the year is because I know it's going to take me a year to become really consistent at that thing.
So when my goal was to work out three days a week, like yes, I had it set up to work out three days a week, but I knew, and this is different than like letting myself off the hook, but I knew in the beginning it was gonna be such a struggle that there was gonna be weeks that I missed it. You know, life got in the way, I felt sick, my body hurt too much, I just gave up whatever. But I kept coming back because I wanted to become the person that just very easily works out three days a week. And that took almost a year for me to get to that place where it was like wasn't even a question. It was like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, this time, this is when we're working out. And it became more routine if I had given up because in January or February I wasn't at that natural place.
I wasn't just doing it naturally. I would've never gotten to the point where now I do work 3, 4, 5 days a week workout without a lot of trouble because now I'm in year three of that goal for me. Like I've been doing that for about three years now. So it's become a part of my self-concept, right? How I look at myself, my personality, it's just become easier. Same thing like for any of you, for anything that you pick. If you're picking, let's say I always go with the analogy of running a marathon. I just thinks it, it sets a clear example. But like if you are someone that's gonna run a marathon, like it likely is that that the skills that are required to run a marathon are difficult for you both physically but also mentally. Like maybe you are someone that like, you know, having a lot of discipline or sit like doing things for really long periods of time, like running for three hours is something that's very difficult for you to just like even get your mind on board.
It's going to be difficult. There's gonna be times you're not gonna wanna do and there's gonna be times that you give into that. That's okay. The entire name of this game is like, how many times can you bring yourself back? How many times can you like fall off that horse and then bring yourself back with the goal that towards the end it becomes a lot easier, right? It becomes a habit, it becomes something that you can sort of integrate into your life. And so both expecting that it's not gonna feel good, like it's going to be hard. You're not gonna be motivated all the time, you're not gonna wanna do it. So like expect that. 'cause I think sometimes we think like, well it shouldn't feel this way. Like because I hate it too much, it's some signal that I shouldn't do it. No, it's just that you pick something that is outta your comfort zone and by definition it is uncomfortable.
And so I, I should know it's not going to feel great and I'm also gonna know because it doesn't feel great. I'm not gonna be consistent with it. And that's okay. That's what I'm working at. What I'm working at is, you know, I always give the example of like meditation. Like the point isn't to not have any thoughts. It's like how many times can you bring yourself back to center? How many times can you bring yourself back to a place where you're kind of clearing your thoughts and you're building that muscle? You're doing the same thing here. Like you're building the muscle of like how many times can I fall off and bring myself back and like build up the muscle of like doing the thing I said I was gonna do and I don't have to be perfect at it in month one. So I think this is the most important part, is that like when you're going towards doing this, know that if you are not consistent doesn't mean that all is lost, right?
It means that this is the skill that you are working towards. This is why you picked this goal so that you can build this muscle of learning how to do this hard thing. And so you just expect that. I know like when I picked the exercise goal, I remember this like vividly. I had to really get on board with like what I hated about it so much. Like what I hated feeling when I would work out or like what I kind of dreaded what I resisted. And I had to make it conscious, like become aware of like know that you are gonna feel that and nothing has gone wrong. Know that you're not gonna wanna do it, that your brain's gonna try to talk you out of it. Know that it's gonna feel like for me, not for everybody, but for me it did, right?
It was like know that in the middle of the workout you're gonna think I'm dying and you're not actually dying. You're totally fine. But of course that's gonna be there. And I think when I stopped getting surprised by that, when I was like, yeah, of course I'm gonna hate it my whole way through until I did it enough times that I was like, it's not that bad. I'm getting stronger. I felt myself getting stronger. I felt it getting easier. I started seeing the benefits of it. I started getting the endorphin highs, I started realizing the benefits, you know, that come from it. And then that changed how I looked at it, but I just expected it to be hard and I feel like that didn't rock me, you know, to the point where I gave up on the goal. So that's number two. And the last piece of advice that I would give you that I think is the most important that nobody does is you have to constantly evaluate what is working and what is not, and pivoting.
So what a lot of us do is we pick a goal and then we just hope for the best. We like go out. We just think that we're gonna, like I said, be motivated, we're gonna stick to it. And then if we don't, we start beating ourselves up. We don't look at why it didn't work, we don't look at anything. We just look at like, I'm terrible and I'll never stick to things and this is why I can't be successful, which doesn't help anything. It doesn't change anything. All it does is create more shame and it creates these like shame cycles that you put yourself through and then it stops you from hitting other goals. The one thing I want you to do is set a time where you're gonna look back at what worked and what didn't work. Like a really easy way to do it is just at the end of the week, every single week.
Now if that's too much for you, maybe do it at the end of the month. Each month you're gonna like set a time. You don't need that much time. You need 20 minutes, right? To look back and look at like what worked this month or this week, what didn't work. And I'm very strategic in starting with what worked because our brain typically likes to look at everything we do wrong. But you wanna look at what you did, right? You wanna like move your attention to kind of spotlight to see that. Because if you don't see it, you'll constantly think that you are failing at everything. When in reality you might be doing it like 80% wonderfully and there just needs to be a little bit of tweak. So you wanna start with, okay, if I have this exercise goal, what did work? What were the times like?
Maybe it was because I had an accountability partner, like maybe I really need someone waiting for me at the gym. That's the only way I'm gonna go. Or I hired a trainer for once a week, or I, you know, signed up for this class online that's like gamified and I want to kind of get this top status. Like that motivated me to do it right? Or maybe like there's just specific things. Like if I set out my clothes next to my bed and my water is ready and everything is like ready to go, then I tend to get to the gym on time. You get what I mean? Just look at like, when was I actually doing it? What was happening? What was I feeling? Maybe it's like the days that I actually get enough sleep, I'm more likely to work out the next day.
And the days that I am working really late into the night, the next day, I kind of find excuses to not do it. So you wanna look at what's working and then you wanna look at what's not working. So instead of looking at like, okay, I was supposed to go work out three days a week, but I worked out two days a week and I'm just gonna decide that that means I never stick to things and I'm a terrible person. I'm gonna look at like, why did I not go that day? What was going on? You know, instead of getting angry at myself, can I get curious as to like, huh, I wanna do this thing. This thing is important to me. I've chosen this goal, so why am I not doing the thing I want to do? And the more you can get curious about it, the more you can uncover so many things about yourself and you can look at like, yeah, you know, like I said, maybe I didn't sleep well the night before.
Maybe I got in a fight with my significant other. Maybe I worked really late, I had a really late deadline. Maybe it was really cold out. So like I go for runs outside and if the weather's a certain way, it's harder for me to go, okay, once I know what's not working, it's easier for me to then pivot. It's easier to say like maybe in addition to going for walks or runs, I need to get a gym membership. So the days of the weather's not good, I go to the gym or I need to get warmer clothing, or I need to make sure I sleep a certain amount or I need to make sure that I eat a certain amount. Whatever it might be. The more you actually take the time to see why, like what was going on that got me to resist, that got me to fall off, the easier it becomes for you to course correct and rectify so that it becomes easier for you to actually do the thing that you wanna do.
And I think that if people just spent the time doing that, reaching your goal is actually not that hard because it's a lot of little baby steps over time, right? Over the year it's like every week you're just inching towards this. But I think that we just assume that we should do it perfectly and then we assume that we're just gonna stay on course. And then, you know, eight months goes by and we're getting towards the tail end of the next year and we're like, Ugh, I haven't done anything on my goal. That's what I wanna stop. I want you to just like schedule in, put it on your calendar, a meeting with yourself for 15 minutes every Friday at noon or every Sunday night, you're gonna sit back and you're gonna look at like what worked this week, what didn't. Just doing that, just asking those two questions and thinking about like what do I wanna do differently next week can fundamentally shift how easily you get to your goal, right?
You might very quickly realize like, oh, these are the things that stop me from being successful. These are the things I need to put in place. If I do this, I'm much more likely to stick to the thing that I wanna stick to. So that's my advice for you. Break it down into small steps, expect it to be hard and expect yourself to not be consistent and evaluate and pivot and figure out how you can be more consistent. What is getting in your way? Learn more about yourself. The more you do like the easier it actually becomes to apply those things to other goals, right? You don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. Like when you realize, you know, I do better in the mornings, or I do better in the evenings, or I do better with accountability, or I do whatever it is, you can start applying that to the next year and the next year and the next year.
So like slow down, stop beating yourself up. It doesn't do anything except for feel terrible. It doesn't help you get to your goals. And in fact, I would say that it hinders you, it gets you to give up because it feels bad to beat yourself up. So just start getting curious and figure out what it is you need and then give that to yourself. All right, my friends, we're coming up to the end of the year. I hope that you take this time to kind of reflect on what worked and what didn't work in this last year for you and what you wanna do differently next year. And you set those goals and you implement these processes so that you actually hit them. There's so much that is available to you if you just kind of set yourself up in a way to do it that's enjoyable and doesn't have you hating it the whole time.
So hopefully this helps. Uh, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out at any time to me. And in the meantime, I will be back next week with another episode.

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