Goal Update Q2: Permission to Pivot & Follow What Feels Good

Welcome back to So Glad You Asked! In this episode, I'm Jean Madison, your host, Certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co. I'm taking a personal dive into my 2025 goals, sharing how my initial approach of "following what feels good" has unfolded in the first quarter. I'm getting honest about the shifts I'm making, the permission I'm giving myself to change course, and the practical strategies I've been implementing for a more aligned and sustainable way of working and living. If you've ever felt stuck with your goals or wondered if it's okay to change your mind, this episode is for you.

Episode Focus:

• Reflecting, Reviewing, Revising Q1: 
  • Stepping into Q2 - Where I started & Where I am now
  • My Initial Approach: Focusing on Feeling Good
  • The Insight from My Ideal Life Visualization
  • Setting Broad Intentions
  • Revisiting My Direction in April
• What's Evolved in the First Quarter:
  • New Opportunities Emerging
  • Learning to Trust the "Invitation"
  • Saying "No" to Create Space.
  • A Shift in Business Focus
  • Embracing a Longer-Term Vision
  • Shifting My Mindset
• Practices I've Implemented for Greater Alignment:
  • Writing Down My Goals Daily
  • Using Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping)
  • Prioritizing Actions Over Outcomes
  • Activating My Network
  • Trusting My Natural Rhythms
• Practices You Might Find Helpful:
  • Start with What You Truly Want: Release the pressure of needing perfectly structured or number-driven goals.
  • (More practices were shared in the episode - tune in to hear them!)

Mentioned in this Episode:

• My previous episode on goal setting - Click here to listen

Let's Connect:

• I'd love to hear your thoughts on revisiting your own goals! Share your insights in the comments.
• Do you have a question or topic you'd like me to discuss on the podcast? Send it my way via Instagram DM (@JeanMadison_) or email (link in show notes).
• If you're curious about intentional coaching for your career, life, or relationships, or about organizational and team development, you can find more information at WholeHuman.Co.

Hashtags: #goalsetting #careergoals #leadershipdevelopment #intentionality #personaldevelopment #entrepreneurship #businesscoaching #humandesign #EFT #tapping #networking #trusttheprocess #wholehumanco #jeanmadison

Jean Madison Offers Complimentary Discovery calls - If you're curious to learn more about 1:1 coaching, Strengths, Team Work, Leadership Development or Hiring and Onboarding Consulting, click here to schedule your conversation and get started on the road to Whole Human Change.

Find me on Instagram: @JeanMadison_

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Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:10 Follow What Feels Good Philosophy
• 6:32 Changing Approaches to Goal Setting
• 10:40 Opening Up to New Opportunities
• 14:39 Practices I've Implemented
• 21:33 Goal Setting Practices You Can Try
• 37:12 Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome back to so Glad. You Asked a podcast where we have conversations on career leadership and living an intentional life and conversations with me, jean Madison, certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co, where I'm focused on intentional career life and relationship coaching, as well as organizational and team development and well-being. Join me as I answer questions I'm asked by my clients and audience, as well as personal experiences and growth opportunities that I feel we could all learn from. If you have a question or topic suggestion you'd love to hear discussed here on the podcast, visit my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore, comment your questions here on the podcast or tap the link in the show notes that says send questions here to email me directly. Now let's dive into today's episode. All right, everyone. Happy spring, happy Q2. It is April. It's actually tax day today. As I'm recording this, and that has nothing to do with today's episode, I just looked at the calendar and realized what day it was. So happy April everyone. It was so happy April everyone.

Speaker 1: 1:10

We are a quarter of the way through the year and as we've entered this new quarter, I felt like it would be a good time to do a goals update episode. So, way back in the beginning of January, I talked about my goal setting for this year, how it was looking a little bit different. You know some different approaches I was going to take and I want to share kind of where I am with that now. Um, especially if it is helpful to any of you who have been struggling in the goal setting and achieving department, um, this will just be a little bit of honesty about where I started the year, where I am now, what has changed since then? And part of the reason that I wanted to share this episode is because I think a lot of times we get really caught up in okay, I've made the plan, I've chosen the path and it doesn't matter if that path isn't working. I chose it, so I have to keep going and I want this episode to be full permission to change, full permission to recognize that the path you're on is not working or that it needs to be tweaked, and to go with that. So a lot of the things I decided to do in January have been working and I do really like the process, but I've added on to it and I've tweaked some things as we've gone along. So that's what we're going to talk about today tweaked some things as we've gone along. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Diving in, I want to just kind of do a little recap on what I decided in January when it came to my goals. If you haven't listened to that episode, I will link it in the show notes and you can go back and listen to that so you can kind of have a comparison. But the biggest thing, the biggest difference in the way that I set goals this year was that I set a focus rather than a goal, and the focus was follow what feels good After a year of being postpartum, basically being a stay-at-home mom for 10 months while trying to do my work and run my business and not sleeping for nine months and all of that fun stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:07

2024 was not a hallmark year for my business. It was not, you know, the best, the best year ever. I worked with some amazing clients, don't get me wrong but in terms of like financials, in terms of like number of clients and just in terms of like knowing what I was doing and what I wanted to do, it just wasn't. It just wasn't it, and that's okay. So you know, I intended to take a three month maternity leave. It turned into a six month maternity leave, which then kind of turned into six months of trying to figure it out on the backend of 2024. So, going into 2025, on the back end of 2024.

Speaker 1: 3:49

So going into 2025, it felt really hard to set concrete business goals because I just didn't know where I was going, I didn't know what I was capable of, based on the fact that I haven't really run my business as a parent. And so it felt weird to be like oh, I want X amount of clients, or I want to make X amount of dollars, because I didn't know if I could handle X amount of clients time-wise. You know, I didn't know exactly how I would get to a certain number. And so what felt really aligned for me in the moment that I was in in January was follow what feels good. I had this.

Speaker 1: 4:24

I did my ideal life visualization at the beginning of the year. I talk about this all the time. I did it myself. I don't do it as frequently as I should and as I recommend clients do it, um, which is a good reminder to me right now that I am going to do it today Again. Um, I'm going to try to do it on a quarterly basis this year, but I did my ideal life visualization and the thing that my future self said to me which, if you haven't done the visualization yet, you meet your future self it's super fun the thing that my future self said to me was follow what feels good. Like. When I asked her what do I need to do in order to be successful, it was follow what feels good, and that felt really poignant to me. So that is the goal that I set for myself this year. Poignant to me, so that is the goal that I set for myself this year.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Any quote unquote goal that I set has to fall under the umbrella of follow what feels good. So I set that overarching intention of follow what feels good. And then, as I was laying out when I say goals also throughout this episode, just know that that is a very loose term. So when I sat down to set goals, I wrote out sentences like spend more time with solopreneurs helping them build their businesses and their confidence in their work. Spend more time working with leaders helping them improve their leadership and management skills and build stronger cultures in their companies. Everything about those two goals that I just shared would make very traditional type A goal setting.

Speaker 1: 5:52

People cringe. It's not specific, it's not measurable. It's a little bit measurable, but not really. You know, all the things that go into like a SMART goal. Those are not.

Speaker 1: 6:03

But that was the point. The point was I didn't know exactly what direction I wanted to go. I just knew that I wanted to spend more time doing certain things with certain groups of people, because that's what felt good and I had a certain amount of trust that by doing that, the right things were going to show up and the right opportunities were going to be presented to me. That the right things were going to show up and the right opportunities were going to be presented to me and I was going to see a much clearer path ahead by following what felt good. So, all of my goals that I set out for the year which, if we were on video right now, you would see them on a whiteboard behind me If you are one of my clients yes, that whiteboard directly behind me is all of my goals for the year, um, but it they're very general. They're very much follow what feels good and these are the things that in January felt good. Now, my plan right now in April, is to really revisit those and see, do those things still feel good to me and if not, what ones can we release, sort of with this intention of whittling things down so that I only have a couple like really big bucket goals for the year, because right now there's like a lot. There's like 10 in the career aspect and then probably another eight in the personal. So you know, for me, in this space of entrepreneurship, it's really about focusing on the parts of the goals that I have control over, and the thing that I have control over is following what feels good, saying yes to what feels good. There are also, like actions I can take, which we're going to talk about later on in this episode, but at a very high level I'm focusing on the things I have control over, which is deciding what feels good to me.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Prior to pregnancy and, you know, baby and all of that, I used to have really specific number goals number of clients, number of dollars, number of speaking events, number of whatever it was and I think I would be lying if I said that that felt good. Even at the time it did feel kind of motivating. But by setting those types of really specific goals and number related goals, now that I'm looking back, I realized that it really narrowed the creativity for me. It narrowed the ways in which those things could come about and really made it like I'm only successful if I get this many clients and they sign up for this specific package. And it never happened and it was always disappointing and it was always defeating. And so I really needed to find a new way to go about setting goals that felt energizing, felt motivating and where I could track the wins and that the ultimate goal was not the only space where I won right. So by setting these more like vague, follow what feels good type goals, it makes it actually a lot easier for me to go through and be like, ooh, this was a win. Ooh, you know, this thing I accomplished toward that following what feels good goal, and so that's really been the intention for me over the last three months.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Um, in March I started to be able to see a bit more of a path forward for my work, um, a little bit more of the how of things, if you will, and so I did start to get a little bit more specific about my goals. But the biggest difference around these sorts of like money and client number goals that I've set as of March, beginning of March, and what I used to set years ago is that I'm doing them on a much longer timeline and we're going to talk about that. But honestly, by giving myself the space to follow what feels good, I've actually landed in what works for me, what works for my business, what's actually going to be financially sustainable for my business, and I'm going from there. So any alterations I make to my goals in April for quarter two is really coming from this experimentation of quarter one of following what feels good and seeing what happens with that. So that's kind of the recap on where we started the year and where I am now.

Speaker 1: 10:24

I'm going to talk through a couple of things in this episode. So number one is kind of what I've done and what I've changed over the last couple of months, and then the next part is going to be some practices that I've implemented and then some practices that you can try if that feels good for you. So let's go ahead and dive in, Okay. So, diving into part two, I'll be answering the question. You know, what have I done over the last three months and what have I changed over the last three months when it comes to my goal setting and the actions that I take toward those goals, that in writing out the follow what feels good goals, I really, intentionally or unintentionally opened myself up to new opportunities.

Speaker 1: 11:14

You know, I learned in the fall a lot about my human design, which is projector, and one of the biggest things about the projector that stood out to me was this whole like wait for the invitation thing. I am successful when someone kind of invites me to do something and I say yes. Now, as an entrepreneur, this is extremely frustrating information because it is not fun to sit around and wait for the invitation and, for the record, like waiting for the invitation does not mean like sitting on your hands and literally waiting for the invitation. There's a lot of ways to work around that, especially as an entrepreneur, and that's really what I've been learning. But I've been learning how to put myself out there and wait for the invitation. So I've been learning how to better share my work and have more patience and trust that the people who would benefit most from my work are going to show up. I've opened myself up to more opportunities to speak, more opportunities to, you know, work with organizations and leaders, more opportunities to do strengths work.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Part of the opening up my opportunities was actually shutting down a lot of my offers, which I did. As of April 1st, I started to realize that there were a lot of my offers that didn't feel good to me anymore and that they weren't really in alignment with the work that I want to do, the impact I want to have on clients, and so by shutting those down and no longer offering those and really narrowing my offers, I feel like I've actually opened myself up to more opportunities. Part of writing out the follow what feels good goals is that it left things really open and broad, which might be very stressful to some of you, but in this moment in time that I'm in, it made a lot of sense where you know, saying I'm going to work with this kind of person and this many of this kind of person and this many in this quarter and, like, being so specific about things just narrowed it so much that I wasn't really having anybody coming in, and so by opening it up to like people who want to do this or working with teams like this, it really helped to bolster my creativity and my like strategic thinking around my work, because it just opened up so many more possibilities of where I could find people, what types of people I wanted to work with, and I was also really opening myself up to like what types of people I wanted to work with. And I was also really opening myself up to like, hey, anyone that wants to come, come, and from that I will gain information about whether that's the kind of client that I really want to work with or not. Full disclosure all of my clients that have come in I really enjoy working with. So so far we have not kicked anybody out of that description. But that has been really helpful to me of just like having this open thought process of I don't know where these clients are necessarily going to come from. I have some ideas and I have some experiments to run, but, like I'm opening it up, I'm open to opportunities, and that has been a big kind of mantra of mine for the last three months. In changing the way that I wrote my goals and the way that I thought about things. I also it's really caused me to pivot. It's caused me to do a big pivot in the focus of my business. I am now leaning much more into working with leaders and teams as a pathway to then working with folks one-on-one.

Speaker 1: 14:47

I love my one-on-one work. That is obviously what my business is built on. Working with clients one-on-one is how I started. It's like the thing that I love the most when it comes to following what feels good. That is it. But there is this piece within the follow what feels good mentality, which is also what is sustainable. And as much as I love one-on-one clients, like seeking out a full roster of one-on-one clients in order to be financially sustainable is just it's not it currently I don't have the capacity for that currently. So, by being able to kind of pivot and shift my focus toward leaders and teams, it's a much smaller number of clients that I'm looking for, which then creates this financial stability for me, so that I can work one-on-one with individual clients who are investing in themselves with their own money, in a way that feels really good, really aligned, and not like I'm having to take on people that are not necessarily the right fit for Whole Human Co just because I need to meet numbers. So this is a little vulnerable and a little look inside my business. So if you're listening, here you have it. My focus this year, a big part of the follow what feels good is follow what is sustainable, and so in doing this I've been able to really create this mental pivot. You know that makes my business more sustainable and makes me better able to show up for my one-on-one clients who are investing their own personal dollars in personal and professional development. That's been a big change. The other big change, which I think you're all going to be like what the hell is that I'm focusing on a two to five year goal? Who am I Truly? Who am I? Someone, someone? Check on me.

Speaker 1: 16:43

If you've listened to other episodes, if you've worked with me, if you've come to my workshops, you know that I do not push like a five and 10 year life goal. You know life vision on people. I don't think that necessarily having a 10 year plan, a five year plan, is helpful in a lot of ways. However, one of the things that I have realized is that I have a very high need for instant gratification. So I may set a goal for a quarter of a certain number of clients or a certain amount of money or like whatever it is, and I start to lose my cool after like three weeks when I haven't met the goal, like three weeks when I haven't met the goal. So part of me focusing on this two to five year goal in terms of, like finances and like team and leader clients, et cetera, is that I'm doing this to help fight my instant gratification addiction.

Speaker 1: 17:41

I say that I want to work with four teams or leaders per year, and that's that is. My goal right now is to build, you know, retainer clients with four teams and leaders. But I found myself feeling like I had failed when I didn't have all four of them by the end of quarter one. And that's so silly, like when I say that out loud, that's so silly, right, like four in a year. How great is that? That means I only really need one per quarter in order to meet my goal. Or, if it's a little bit slower than that, it's okay because I have plenty of time. I have more than enough time to make this happen. But in my brain I was very much like you have failed. It's the end of quarter one and you only have one teams and leaders strengths for teams and leaders client. Instead of being like, yes, I have one corporate client, like this is so exciting Q1, check met on. What is it like on target here to meet my goal. So that's why I'm focusing on a two to five-year goal because I'm really trying to break this habit around and this addiction to instant gratification, and by setting a five-year financial goal, by setting a five-year kind of client goal, I'm forcing myself to celebrate the wins along the way. I'm forcing myself to be okay with one client per quarter, you know, or slower. Okay with one client per quarter, you know, or slower.

Speaker 1: 19:12

What is so wild to me about this whole like instant gratification thing is that I am a massive procrastinator. I work best under pressure, and so part of the reason I avoided the two to five year goal thing is because I was like I'm a procrastinator, like I'm going to push to get all of that done at the last minute. So why am I going to set such a far out goal, which is fair and something I keep in mind when I'm setting, like the smaller goals? But what I found the procrastinator piece of me was doing is that when I set these goals of like four corporate clients in a year, when I didn't have all four of them in quarter one, I wanted to give up. I wanted to shift my goals. You know, I wanted to be like oh, I failed, okay, I got to go do something else. And so by setting the two to five year big intentions, overarching goals, I'm actively practicing celebrating the process and focusing on the process over the completion of the goal, and I'm going to talk much more in depth about this piece, about celebrating the wins and that longer term mentality on next week's episode. But this is just a little taster of a big shift that happened for me when it came to goal setting, really just in the last couple of weeks. All right, so that's kind of what I've done, what has changed over the last three months since the beginning of January.

Speaker 1: 20:38

Now I want to dive into some practices that I've implemented, and this is really building off of March's conversations around money mindset, just money in general. A lot of these practices that I've implemented are really related to that, but also play into the whole goal thing. This is going to be like wow, this is a wild departure from what you said you were going to do. And guess what it is Great Permission to evolve, permission to change, permission to recognize where you are in the moment and also recognize when you need something different.

Speaker 1: 21:17

So the number one practice that I implemented in the beginning of March was writing down my goals every day. This comes from the money mindset mentor that I talk about a lot, denise Duffield Thomas. She always says the quote she shares and I don't know who this is attributed to, but it's the only difference between millionaires and billionaires is that billionaires write their goals down twice a day, and my goal here is not to be a billionaire by any means. But it did really stick with me, this idea of writing down my goals every day as a means of reminding myself, like where I'm trying to go, and honestly, it became an energizing thing for me of like, ooh, okay, what am I going to do today? That's going to move me closer to that. Now I will say in the very beginning I had a really hard time writing out the goals, and this is something she talks about.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Beginning, I had a really hard time writing out the goals and this is something she talks about too is like the perfectionism around I have to write it out exactly the right way, or if I don't write it out the right way, then I'm not going to get what I want. I hear you, that was me, but um, what I have written out every day has also evolved over the last six weeks. So what I wrote down on March 1st is different than what I'm writing down right now. As things start to feel not as good for me, or aligned, I'll drop that or I'll rewrite it or I'll, you know, figure out like what doesn't feel good about it and let's shift. And so my goals right now that I've written out are both personal and professional. So I have some around like what my business looks like at the end of 2026. So again, kind of this two-year thing in terms of number of clients and revenue and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 22:58

I've written out a goal around speaking engagements. I want to be invited to and accept 10 speaking engagements this year. So that can be presentations to groups, presentations at conferences, workshops for, you know, organizations or teams like whatever it is. So that's a goal that I have. I also have some like personal, you know, like exercise related goals. I want to be able to hike with my daughter this summer. So that's something I have written out is like I'm strong and I'm ready for the summer and I'm able to hike X number of miles with carrying Isla.

Speaker 1: 23:34

So writing down my goals every day, it's been really interesting. I can't really tell you right now like, oh yes, all of my goals have come true in one month. But, again, we're not on the instant gratification train, so I keep writing the goals as things, and then I also have a tracker, a little bit of a tracker of like, have I actually met some of these goals or have I made progress toward them? Because I'm still writing the same like future tense goal over and over and over again, even if I've like made progress toward it. So, again, we'll talk more about that next week, but I really have enjoyed this practice. It's been really grounding for me, um, a good way to remind me of, like, where I'm trying to go. Uh, a good way of getting me to think about the progress that I've made and just to like continue to say the things out loud that I want and be, like, do I still want that? Okay, maybe not.

Speaker 1: 24:27

So that's practice number one that I've implemented, and I've done that. I've written my goals almost every single day since the beginning of March. The second practice that I've implemented is really getting back into the beginning of March. The second practice that I've implemented, um, is really getting back into the practice of emotional freedom technique, which is tapping. Uh, I don't think I've talked about that on this podcast yet. But meditation is challenging for me. Sitting quietly for a certain number of minutes I can do like breath work and breathing exercises, but I really like tapping because I feel like when I'm having a certain anxiety or I have a certain goal, it's really nice to be able to like talk through it and like move the energy in my body. So I've been doing EFT every day for whatever anxiety is coming up at the time or whatever goal I want to focus on, whether that be like money or clients or opportunities or whatever it is whether that be like money or clients or opportunities or whatever it is and I'm happy to share some of the YouTube videos that I've been using if anyone is interested in that.

Speaker 1: 25:27

The third thing that I've really been implementing in terms of practices is focusing on inputs, actions, outreach, sharing my work and leaning on my network, as opposed to the actual goal. So like yes, I sit down and I write my goals every day, but like that's pretty much all I that's. The only time I really think about my goals is when I sit and write them down, which is part of the reason for writing them down, because oftentimes we all set goals and then we don't think about them. So I get kind of my thinking about the actual goals done when I'm writing and then I really, when it comes to the work, I'm focusing on the things I have control over, the actions that I can take, the inputs that come from me that I have control over, not so much the goal. So you know, one of the big things around like leaning on my network and this is something I talk about a lot and I have an episode on but I know can be uncomfortable for people and can be uncomfortable for me too, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1: 26:20

98% of my clients are in my network or are referrals from my network. So all of the time that I spend on like social media and posts and even this podcast, to be honest, it's not really moving the needle. I love this podcast and it's a good way for me to be able to share who I am and my information and all of that, but it's not a funnel for clients. For me, it's not really a way that I like connect with people, new people and, honestly, my clients are not new people to me. They are referrals or they are already in my network and so I'm really focused right now on leaning into this instead of ignoring it and focusing on new, new, new, more, more, more, more followers, more random people signing up for discovery calls, like that's just not it. If I look at the data on my business, that's not a thing that happens. I've maybe had one person total who has come from social media, um, or two. There's two people that have come from social media, and one of them came from social media because someone I worked with posted on social media, so I consider that to be a referral.

Speaker 1: 27:31

So I'm I'm trying to focus my energy on the areas that are going to have the most impact on my work, which I know maybe sounds like duh, but it's hard. It's hard as an entrepreneur to not get caught up in. Oh well, I should do this or I should do this, or, you know, this is what everyone else says I should do, so I'm going to do that, and it just ends up being a big energy suck and waste of time. So that's a big shift I've made in a practice that I'm implementing and like being boundaried about it, like really not letting myself do some of the other things because I feel uncomfortable doing the thing I know is actually going to move the needle. And then the last thing that I've done and this isn't really a practice per se, as much as it's just a mindset thing that I'm trying to embrace which is trust, trust, trust, trust. Trust in my work cycles and my personal flow, which really just means trusting that and this is something one of my wonderful clients, megan, and I have talked about a lot trusting that when the creativity is here, it's here and we can use it. And then trusting, when the creativity and the motivation goes, that it will come back.

Speaker 1: 28:43

And I'm trying to really practice what I preach on this one. So you know, for example, this week, as I'm recording this, I'm a lot more low energy. I'm a lot more like low in the motivation category, and so I'm spending my time doing podcasts, I'm doing back end work on my website no-transcript. In the beginning of March, I created a whole bunch of stuff. In February, I eliminated a whole bunch of stuff in March, like it's okay. At the beginning of April it's just like we're just, we're kind of we're seeing what seeds are going to germinate. Whatever seeds I've planted, we are seeing what's going to germinate, what's going to sprout and go from there.

Speaker 1: 29:46

The last two weeks, like I said, I've really been in outreach and network mode and so it's okay that I'm not this week, it's okay that I don't have the energy for that and I'm not going to make it mean anything about myself or my work, because I trust that that energy is going to come back and, especially if you are a female, you have a very specific cycle of energy related to your actual cycle, and so I'm going to try and start tracking that and see if there's a correlation. I assume that there is. I just have not spent that much time with that. But either way, I'm just trusting. I'm trusting where I'm at, I'm trusting the energy I have and that the things that have been in the past will come back if they're not here right now, and that there is really this seasonal aspect of this type of work.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Again, going back to that two to five year goal situation of like I am planting seeds right now. I'm planting so many seeds. Eventually some of them are going to germinate and sprout, and that's going to be a lot of information for me about what works in my business and what doesn't. The seeds that I plant that don't sprout, that's fine, and so that's really one of the biggest things I've been working on for the last six weeks is just well. Really, the last three months is like trust, trust, trust, trust the process, trust my process, and observe and see what happens and observe where things aren't working, because trust does not. It's not blind trust, right, it's not like I'm just going to do all of these things and not look at whether they work or not, like I'm still looking at if things are working. I'm just going to do all of these things and not look at whether they work or not. I'm still looking at if things are working. I'm just not setting a strict timeline on it. So, yeah, maybe that thing I did is not turning into anything in three weeks. Maybe it's not turning into anything in six weeks, but maybe, oh, in three months. Someone follows back up, right? So I'm trusting that, as long as I keep doing, as long as I keep focusing on the inputs and the things that I have control over, that I will start to see the patterns and I will start to see what things work in my business and what things don't. So that's me. Those are the practices I've implemented over the last three months or so.

Speaker 1: 31:52

Now I want to share a little bit about some practices that you can try if you're feeling kind of stuck or anxious about your goals. And if you have any like really specific questions, I'd love to have those in the comments of this episode, or feel free to email them to me and I can touch on them in a future episode. Or, you know, if you want to do like a discovery call, we can talk about those things there as well. So the first thing, first practice thing I would recommend is just knowing that your goal just needs to be something that you want. It doesn't have to be smart, it doesn't have to be, you know, numbers oriented and I gave this example earlier in the um podcast.

Speaker 1: 32:32

But like I want to be able to do a seven mile hike with Isla, my daughter, this summer and like be able to carry her, and I am not there in terms of stamina and strength right now. So that is, you know, a goal that I have. It's a goal that I write down. It isn't any. I mean there's a little bit of measurable in there the seven mile but honestly I just added that in right before this podcast Like I have not given a specific like amount of miles I want to be able to go. I just say I want to be able to have fun this summer and hike again. So that's something I want to do. That's my goal. As I go along, as you can see, it will get a little bit more specific. As I go along, I'll be a little bit more clear on, like, what I need to do in order to get there. But, like in the beginning, when I set that goal, I didn't know how out of shape I was. I didn't know, you know, what kind of stamina I was going to need. I don't know how much my daughter's going to weigh this summer in three months, you know.

Speaker 1: 33:26

So if you're having trouble with the smart goal thing, just try and like really reel it back in and just think, like, what is it that I want? And let that be the goal, kind of like my follow, what feels good, that's what I want. I want to feel good, great, how am I going to do that? Then you kind of dig in a little bit. Once you've kind of decided what is this thing that you want, you know what are all the actions that you can take to help make that possible. And this is an area where I really thrive. So if you are someone who does not have ideation high in their strengths, who does not have ideation high in their strengths, who does not love brainstorming, let me know, hit me up. I'm happy to help in this area. I love to come up with all of the potential actions that you could take, all of the ideas. You don't have to do all of them by any means, but it's so interesting to see like what is every tiny little thing that I could do that would move me closer to this way that I want to feel.

Speaker 1: 34:22

The other thing would be can you write that goal down every day? Can you commit to two weeks or 30 days or whatever it is of writing that goal down every single day? And as you go along seeing how it evolves? So it might start off with I want to be able to have fun and feel good and hike this summer. And it might end with I want to be able to hike a certain amount carrying a certain weight and, you know, not do it two days in a row, I don't know something like that. And so, as you go, that goal is going to evolve and it's really interesting to see what the evolution of that goal is, how it feels for you. If it doesn't feel good anymore, how you change it. So consider committing to writing your goals down every day and then, as you're going through this process of like what are the actions? And writing the goal down every day, where's the resistance, where do your strengths support this goal and where do you really need support? Because the intention behind setting goals is not in my world, is not to do everything by ourselves.

Speaker 1: 35:15

When I set the intention of like wanting to be able to hike this summer, um, uh, my P, one of my PTs offices, um converge, they posted that they were doing a get ready for the trail series, a 12 week, twice a week, um workout series, essentially. And I read nothing about it and I was just like, yep, that's it, I want to get ready for the trails this summer. And so I signed up. I have not done a formal fitness class in like two years. It's a bunch of trail runners and climbers and mountain bikers and I'm just over here like I just want to be able to walk and not die, and that's fine, right, but that's an action that I was able to take because I knew that that's a thing that I wanted to do this summer and there will be other things between now and June that I implement to help me with that. But, knowing myself, I know that I need that accountability, I know that I need that support. I know that I am not going to do an exercise like regimen on my own and therefore I'm going to get to June and be really bummed because I'm going to be really out of shape. I know this about my strengths. I know if I sign up for something, my responsibility is going to make me show up every single time, it's going to make me be excited about it, and so that's what I did for that particular goal, and I recommend you do the same thing or ask the same questions anyway.

Speaker 1: 36:30

The second practice that I will encourage you to consider, after I've told you not to worry about long-term goals, is getting comfortable with a long game. You know what factors can you control over the next year, two years, five years, whatever, whatever the length of time is. You want to look at um, where can you be flexible on the how? So opening yourself up to different pathways, different opportunities, et cetera, of how that goal can come to fruition in your life. And then how are you celebrating the process and the progress and again, we're going to talk more about this in the next episode. But this is a really big part of that. Longer term thinking is like celebrating the milestones along the way, and again, I know this is not new information to anybody, but I've reframed it in my own mind because I didn't like the way that it was done outside of myself. I didn't like smart goals, I didn't like those kinds of things. So I'm talking about this because I'm reframing it for myself and I'm hoping that that's helpful if you're someone that struggles with the long-term thinking as well, so that those are some of the practices I recommend you try if you're feeling stuck or anxious about your goals. I'm going to leave that, leave this episode here because we have a lot more to talk about, but we'll talk about it in the next episode. So if you want more tools on how to stay present, patient, aligned to purpose, et cetera, check back for next, next week's episode.

Speaker 1: 37:52

I'm going to have a couple of like physical resources that I share, but if you're feeling like I don't even know how to get started here, then I would encourage you to schedule a discovery call. My discovery calls are free. They're a great way to see like what I offer, um, and if it might be the right fit for you. Just to be really explicit here and I was talking about how I eliminated some of my offers I have two one-on-one offerings. One is a one-off strengths session. The other are my containers a 12 and 24 session container. Those are the two options of working with me one-on-one in a discovery call. In a discovery call we can talk about, like, what you need, what you have the capacity for, and you can decide from there if coaching is something that would be worthwhile to you. If not, you get a nice 45-minute conversation with me and you hopefully walk away with some nuggets that you can take with you. But I highly recommend scheduling a discovery call If you're feeling like I don't even know how to get started on this.

Speaker 1: 38:51

That's where I really thrive the ideation, the activator, getting started. I'm really good at helping people with that. So if that's, you book your call. Um my calendar I have four spots open for three spots open now, sorry, three spots open now for quarter two, um, and once those fill up I will reopen spots in July. So if you are interested, tap the link in the bio. If you enjoyed this episode. I would love to hear what stuck out to you most in the comments. Share it with a friend. If you want to be on the email list to get some updates on what's going on at Whole Human Co and different workshops and resources and things like that, you can join my email list at the link in the show notes and with that I will leave you. I hope you have a great week and I will see you back here next time, for so Glad you Asked.