IN THIS ISSUE:
Finding Your Why
Goal Setting for Serious People
Q and A with Peyton Bowen and Ashlyn Neveau
Monthly Challenge: Create Microgoals
Ask me about goals in my 20s and I would have laughed. You see, I have a true love hate relationship with the idea. I love lists, accomplishing tasks, and seeing things I’ve wished for become a reality because of my willingness to put in the hard work. Setting a classic SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goal made sense in theory, yet I wasn’t connecting with the method. On the flip side, I hated the way I felt confined by the idea of a goal and traditional goal setting. What if something changes? What if my goal is completely off base? What if it is destined to become yet another thing not accomplished on my long list of good things to do? Perfectly curated lists can easily enslave.
Now in my 30s, I have no hesitation in saying that I love goal setting. It is no longer a list that hems me in, highlights what I didn’t accomplish, or reflects my capacity to be, do, and give. My goals are guides that keep me focused on the important things: people I love, activities that energize me, and characteristics I want to develop. What changed my on again off again relationship with goal setting? I realized I cannot set goals if I cannot articulate my priorities. I have to know my why.
Before tackling personal motivation, it’s good to consider why goals matter. Why is it worth the time when there is already so much to accomplish? The reality is you can do a lot of things, but you can’t do everything. This means we have choices to make, and taking no action is not the absence of choice, but a choice all its own. Picking a direction is unavoidable. For some this is thrilling, and for others it is crippling. But how can you make decisions if you don’t know what matters most? This consideration requires honesty with ourselves, sometimes honesty with others, and bravery to proclaim personally or publicly what matters and where you’re headed. But beautiful things can grow in uncomfortable places. There is a quote I love in my goal setting planner and often revisit. “Life is too short and too meaningful to coast through. The good you do today has the potential to change generations. That’s why uncovering cultivated goals and having a clear focus is so important. Otherwise, you may spend your time lost in distractions. Lost in Instagram. Lost in the chase for perfect, or significance, or approval, or whatever has been holding you back from living.” Asking yourself why, providing time to reflect on those answers, and channeling the answers into meaningful goals matters immensely. Setting a goal has a powerful ability to help us set rhythms of reflection in our lives.
My goals are guides that keep me focused on the important things: people I love, activities that energize me, and characteristics I want to develop.
Now to that tricky question of finding your why. First, start dreaming. I’m a dreamer at my core so this is my favorite part. I keep a bucket list, which I highly recommend keeping in tandem with a set of goals. It is a simple (and sometimes exotic!) way of moving forward even if little else is changing in life. Pull out a sheet of paper and start writing. Who are the people in your life that matter? What activities fire you up? What are your favorite things? What dreams do you have (big and small, realistic or extravagant)? What qualities and character traits do you want to cultivate in yourself? Then ask yourself what will really matter to you 50 years from now? That last question can be both simple and complex to answer, but it’s the key to designing goals that line up with what matters most. Annie Dillard says it well, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
How do you want to spend your life? The answer might surprise you and be obvious at the same time. Because as you begin the process of reflecting and questioning, you’ll find threads that were so small you couldn’t see them from a distance. It takes close inspection, so try not to get overwhelmed. Work question by question. These lists are the root system of your goals.
Once the roots are established, start to narrow in on where you are, right now. What can you be doing currently or in the next year to accomplish a long-term goal? Who should you be pouring your time into, and on what activities do you want to focus? What should you be cultivating in your life? Often the challenge is in narrowing your options; remember, you don’t have to work on everything at once. It’s important to consider your season of life, responsibilities, and time. If you're unsure, talk it out with someone who knows you. Sharing your goals and ideas with a trusted friend or family member can be a great source of feedback as you shape and establish achievable targets. These action steps are your SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) way of executing the goal.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the biggest influencers in my personal goal journey, author and business owner, Lara Casey, and her Powersheets Goal Setting method. If you’re curious to learn a bit more, check out her four part Powersheet prep series! I’ll leave you with these six things to consider when setting a goal:
Know what motivates you to finish what you’ve started. Do you struggle with making lists and sticking to a goal, but love quality time with friends? Place a regular “date” on your calendar to connect and share your progress.
Surround yourself with visual reminders. Scribble your goal on a white board, place a sticky note (or notes!) in a visible place, or create a vision board.
Review your goals on a regular basis. Decide if weekly, monthly, or quarterly is best for you, but reviewing and adjusting is key. You are allowed to change your mind! Changing a goal does not equal failure.
Just because you want to do it doesn’t mean it has to be done now. Keep a running list of goal ideas.
All goals don’t need to be worked on at the same time or at the same rate. It's ok to prioritize and switch focus depending on the day, week, or season.
“Comparison isn’t the thief of joy, it is the thief of everything.” -Lara Casey
Warning: This is not an essay about how to set and achieve long-term goals. Feel free to “unfollow” and scroll up or down for advice from other capable women contributing to this newsletter. Okay, it is sort of about long-term goals, but I can’t look at goal setting in that way exclusively. (If you know anything about enneagrams, I’m a 3w2 so there’s lots of goal crushing happening in my world) For me, it’s all about manageable short-term goals. Please refer to any professional athlete’s testimony about their journey to the top and know I echo all of their sentiments about “the little things”.
Long-term Goals: Mission statements that guide my behaviors and choices
Short-term Goals: Tasks aligned with my mission that I write down and check-off when they are completed
Begin long-term goal setting with one question and one question only, “But how hard is it really?”. This will hit some of you incorrectly and that’s why you need to hear it. If you don’t have the confidence to look your goals (short or long-term) in the face and say, “Look out here I come”, then you probably have no business claiming them as your goals in the first place. You don’t need anything more than your Father in heaven and the brain in your head to make things happen. Make a list of manageable tasks that fit your mission and get moving.
I won’t insult you by forcing you to endure an embellished paragraph riddled with compounding similes and metaphors about how short-term goals are like footholds that get you up the hazardous and exhilarating “rock wall of life”. Instead, I’ll just tell you they are, in fact, exactly like that. I mean, I assume… I’ve never climbed a rock wall. Short-term goals are not only essential for making long-term goals manageable, but also for tracking your progress. (Anyone ever see a person jump from the bottom of a rock wall to the top? Actually, is that an option? Maybe I will try climbing a rock wall if the person at the bottom just launches me to the top.)
But in all seriousness, and this is the only point I’m making, if things are remaining on your to do list for longer than you’d like, you may ask yourself another question, “Does this long-term goal really matter to me?”. It may be hard to accept, but it all comes down to your honest answer. If you (wonderful, amazing YOU) with all of your efforts, resourcefulness, brains, and talents have not managed to move one single inch up that wall (sorry – had to), then it is entirely possible you have engaged in some self-deception. I don’t mean that your life is a lie and you need to re-evaluate all of your life choices… you’re 20… it’s not that serious. What I do mean is you’ve changed your mind, didn’t realize it until this exact moment, and it’s time to climb a new wall. It’s time to write a new mission statement. It’s totally okay to do that!
After all, isn’t that what you’re doing here - curating your life?
Q: What daily actions can you take you reach your goals?
Peyton | Here are my three tips:
Set multiple types of goals – daily, monthly and annual. In my experience, setting multiple types of goals will allow you to stretch your mindset in a few different directions. You’ll give yourself more opportunities to succeed, which will naturally launch you towards the big goals.
Form the habits. By eliminating the bad habits and forming the good ones, you’ll make little steps towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Sometimes in the beginning, it’s not about the end result, but forming the intentional habits that will point you in the right direction to not only achieve your goals in the short term, but stick to them in the long term.
Put your goals in the right place! Perhaps this is personal preference, but something that has always helped me keep my goals at the forefront of my mind is not only writing them down, but posting them somewhere where I’ll snag a glance every day. Writing them down on a small piece of paper and taping them on the mirror gives you the chance to do a little thinking at the beginning of each and every day.
Ashlyn | Give yourself grace. I know it seems counterintuitive to start my advice with what to do when you don't reach your goals...but if you're anything like me, you'll avoid even starting if you're too afraid to fail. Instead, start with the mindset that any growth is good. Start by finding what's truly important to you in the long run, set goals to reflect this, and then celebrate your progress along the way.
On a more practical note - reflection is a great way to stay on track with your goals - whether that's daily, weekly, or monthly. Pausing to reflect and see the ways in which you grew, were challenged, or succeeded allows you to reassess what's working and what changes you can make moving forward.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you face when setting goals?
Peyton | There are many challenges when it comes to tackling the goals you set for yourselves, so I'm going to focus on one major challenge I seem to face. Failing to measure progress as you trek towards your goals is something I often forget to do. It's so easy to get caught up in the end result, you forget to cheer yourself on as you move forward. You'll likely reach your goal much more effectively if you act as your own cheerleader, so as you move towards your goals, be sure to check in with yourself, reset your strategy if need be, pay yourself a compliment and continue moving forward.
Ashlyn | What isn't a challenge to goal setting? I could list 100 things here, but I've found these to be my biggest road blocks:
Staying accountable - I am someone who will always need an accountabil-a-buddy. I can write my goals all around my office and home, but if I don't invite others into my process, I will s t r u g g l e. It's way easier to ignore reminders or encouragement from myself than from my husband or close friends.
Setting goals that actually matter - I can't tell you how many times I've set workout related goals, but never follow through with them. Why? Because if I'm honest with myself, I actually don't care about working out 5x per week. What I am learning is I do care about feeling good. For me this looks more like doing yoga, walking my dog, and cooking decent food for myself. So I set goals based on that now, and so far, it's going better than before!
Being realistic with myself - Often, the pieces of my life that need the most work are ones I pretend don't exist. Deep down, I know my faults and weaknesses, but I hate confronting them, so I choose to ignore them instead. For example, I can be known to push the boundaries of a healthy work/life balance - but I tend to internally justify the good parts of work and don't recognize the harm that it's doing to me. If I don't accept the areas of my life needing the most attention, goal setting is futile.
Q: How has goal setting impacted your life?
Peyton | As a lifelong athlete, goals have always been a major part of my life. I remember my first coach sending us home with the assignment to come back to the pool with a list of times you want to achieve and five actions you have to take to get there. This taught me not only how to set goals from a young age, but how to set the right ones. Something that is so significant in the conversation of goal-setting, is the mindset you adopt when you set your goals. It's crucial to think thoroughly through each goal and not haphazardly scribble a few things that sound nice down on a piece of paper. Reset your focus and intentionally set the right goal. As a swimmer, sometimes it wasn't about setting the exact time as the goal. It was about setting the goals that would make me form the habits to then be able to achieve the time I wanted.
Ashlyn | It's taught me the importance of self-assessment; of being honest with yourself about how you are actually doing - in your relationships, your health, your spiritual life, your passions, I could go on. I used to set goals mainly on comparison or what I thought others wanted from me - whether that be my parents, coaches, or peers. Friends, let me tell ya, this is a recipe for heartbreak and confusion. The only goals that matter are the one YOU set based on YOUR life.
You may have heard the old adage, “Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.” However, when it comes to setting goals, anyone can feel overwhelmed in the face of the process. So, for this monthly challenge, let’s break things down and take a step-by-step approach to tackling goal setting.
You may have heard of microsteps, which was the buzz word for 2020’s New Year’s resolutions. The concept is simple—you take a big goal and break it down into manageable chunks until you accomplish the task. Oftentimes, our biggest mistake comes from deciding to make a change all at once and then becoming disappointed when we we either give up after a few days or do not remain consistent in our endeavors for a long period of time.
This month, I encourage you to set two to four macro goals for yourself and then break each one down into week-by-week microsteps. Another adage for you, “The first step starts with the first step.” Ok, that one might be just from me, but it is still true. Until you begin, you will never know what you might be capable of accomplishing.
P.S. If you visit icreatedaily.com, you will find a great example of a monthly goal setting sheet.