Episode 7: 5 Things More Important Than Achieving Your Goals
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There are things more important than setting and achieving your goals.
As driven and ambitious women, we can get really caught up in the setting and achieving our goals. And then, when we don’t achieve them, we feel like giant failures. But there are more important things to this whole thing than just checking a box in our goals journal.
In this episode you’ll learn:
-5 things more important than achieving your goals
-How to recognize what is in your control and what isn’t
-How to work through your feelings of failure and disappointment
-What to keep in mind as you are working towards your goals
Full Transcript:
[00:01:05] Welcome back to the Upgraded Career Podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are talking about five things more important than goal setting and achieving your goals. Now, I know I just spent the last six episodes talking about my whole goal and intention setting process, but hang in here with me.
[00:01:23] As ambitious and driven women, we can really get caught up in the setting and achieving of our goals. And then when we don't achieve them, we feel like giant failures. But there are more important things to this whole thing than just checking a box in our goals journal.
[00:01:40] I love a good vision board. I personally like creating them in a secret Pinterest board best, but I also do a physical board as well with the group that I volunteer coach with. And this year, as I'm adding pins to my Pinterest board, I'm realizing that there are a lot of pins that are repeats from last year, which means I didn't achieve that goal.
[00:02:01] For example, I had a very specific goal to be able to do three unassisted pull-ups. I worked with my trainer last year. We got a plan together. I bought two pull-up bars for the house because my husband also decided he needed one after, after he saw that I got one. And on my vision board, I had all these photos of strong women doing pull-ups,
[00:02:21] and because I didn't achieve that goal, I'm moving all of those photos to this year's board. And at first this really annoyed me because what this was telling me was that I didn't follow through with what I set, set out to do and didn't achieve my goal.
[00:02:35] And so all of those familiar feelings of shame and guilt and failure started to creep in. But then I reminded myself that my thoughts are. , but they aren't necessarily reality. It's okay to feel like a failure, and I've explored that idea with my therapist and my own coach multiple times. Our thoughts are just signals that we need to look into something a little bit more, and the goal is not to not feel failure ever again, but to recognize when I'm feeling that way and just see what's going on li what's going on there.
[00:03:09] I became a stronger person last year, both physically and mentally, and no, I'm still not able to do an unassisted pull-up, but I am physically stronger. I'm lifting heavier than I ever have before at the gym. My measurements show that, and I'm not staying in that same shame spiral for nearly as long as I had before.
[00:03:30] I'm recognizing when I'm in that space faster and that I'm letting those thoughts pass by.
[00:03:36] Your goals are not the end all, be all. It's who you've grown to become over the last year. That is the most important part of this whole journey that we call life. We may have set goals that are actually outside of our control and, and that's okay.
[00:03:53] Wanting a promotion is outside of your control. Getting a new job is actually outside of your control in recognizing what goals are out of your control. and then ensuring that the actions that you've planned are within your control. And if you don't achieve the things that you want on your timeline, now it's just time to decide if you need to make a change in the goal, make a change in the timeline, change up the actions.
[00:04:19] Or maybe it's the environment that you're in. So again, it's kind of going back through that whole upgraded goal setting process. Kind of through those four different sections just to kind of see, do I need to adjust something or again, is it just the timeline that I've set? You know, I said 12 months, right?
[00:04:39] We, we tend to set goals on like quarterly, six months, 12 month kind of cycles. But maybe this is a goal that's gonna take me 18 months, maybe it's gonna take me 18 months to be able to do a pull up, and that's okay.
[00:04:53] So here are the top five things more important than achieving your goals. Number one, gaining clarity on what you actually want and don't want. Remember, action creates clarity, which creates. Confidence. So just you getting out there and trying things and experimenting with things that is gonna let you know what you like and what you don't like.
[00:05:17] What do you want more of? What do you want less of? I was talking with an old colleague of mine over lunch a few days ago and she was sharing about her son who just graduated from college and he doesn't have a job yet and he's just, he doesn't know what he wants to do and so that's kind of paralyzing him from going out there and getting a job.
[00:05:35] Cause he just doesn't quite know what he wants to do and I can so relate to that. I can so appreciate that. Because we put so much pressure on these young kids to basically choose a major and you know, basically pick their career path at the age of 17, which is absolutely bananas. But what I shared with her is just that he just needs to go get something.
[00:05:57] Just do something, because that action will help him really figure out what that clarity is. It's okay if this first job is not the end all, be all job, right? How many of us are still in. , our first jobs that we got right outta college, probably not many of us. And even if you are still at the same company, it's probably likely that you have had several different roles over that time.
[00:06:20] So again, you just gaining clarity because you've got into action is valuable and is really, really great.
[00:06:28] Second, being open to opportunities that you hadn't considered before is actually more important than achieving a goal, because what happens if you're kind of going down this path to achieving this goal, and then an opportunity kind of comes outta left field or kind of gets presented to you?
[00:06:47] that maybe deviates you from that goal or kind of takes you a little bit away from that and you kind of close yourself off to it. But what happens if that goal or that opportunity was actually better for you? Which brings me to my third point, which is moving into action in a directionally correct way.
[00:07:08] Basically showing up in this way that you want to be showing up for. Is the, IS is high, more highly valuable than actually achieving a goal. I was talking with a client that I had been working with early last year. They got a new job and so they were seemingly satisfied and okay with how things were going, but there was something a little bit off.
[00:07:34] They couldn't quite put their finger on it, but they were, you know, doing okay and they were, they. Reasonably happy, where they were definitely happier than where they were before. And they were talking to me just a couple weeks ago and, and, and they were sharing about how they had two different job opportunities kind of.
[00:07:54] Given to them or kind of presented to them that they had not anticipated whatsoever. One was from a person they met at the gym and another was someone that they were just out kind of networking with, and this person is in sales. My client, they're, they're in in sales and. What they value. Something that my clients and I work on, um, at, right at the beginning of our, of our engagement is, is our value.
[00:08:18] Was their values. What is it that you, that you value? And this particular person really valued security, stability and time with their family. And so that's what they were kind of looking for. That was kind of the vision that they had been, they had set for themselves and this new job that they were in.
[00:08:34] Was doing an okay job of that, they suppose, but they were somewhat intrigued by these other two opportunities in two different industries. Again, sales leadership positions in either, um, a SaaS software environment or in, um, a kind of pharmaceutical sales environment, which again, nothing that they had ever done before.
[00:08:59] They were like, well, I, I don't think I should, you know, go after those things cuz I'm already in a job. I just, you know, it's okay. And I, and I don't really know what to do. They were just so paralyzed by making a decision that they just weren't sure what to do. And I was like, well, This might not be a decision where there's a right or a wrong.
[00:09:20] It might just be, is this directionally correct? Is this moving me towards the vision that I have for myself, which is one where I am, you know, in a role that's a little bit more financially stable and we're kind of getting rid of these feaster fam. Sort of situations. And of course you're gonna have to look into each company and each organization and the sales structure and the compensation structure in order to figure that out.
[00:09:48] But is it getting you in that direction more so than where you are right now? And is it helping you have more time with your family? Is this, is this job gonna require, are these jobs gonna require a lot of travel or late nights or last minute meetings? Those, those types of things. So again, it's not necessarily that it's a right or a wrong decision.
[00:10:11] are you moving directionally correct? Are you moving in a way that's getting you closer to those goals? So again, you might not achieve the exact goal that you are looking to achieve, but are you moving in a directionally correct way? Are you still moving forward along these guidelines? Because our goals, remember, our goals are just guidelines.
[00:10:34] So, you know, and I kind of like when I vision goals, like whenever. Create a vision of goals in my head, I think of like, like a path in the forest and there's like these guide rails along the side and it's just kind of like, am I staying within that and still moving forward Then, Making the, the, the fear of making the wrong decision is not really there anymore.
[00:11:00] So again, if you have not necessarily achieved your goal, you being open to opportunities and you continuing to move into a direction that's still correct, is gonna be way more valuable than you just checking a box off of a random list. The fourth thing that's more important than. You actually achieving your goals is letting go of the things that you can't control.
[00:11:28] And this is something that I'm telling you I am still working through today and probably will continue to be working through, but let's think about a lot of the goals that we set end up being outside of our control. So again, getting a job, getting a promotion, those kinds of things, they, that's all outside of your control, right?
[00:11:50] So you've. Budgets that you have to contend with. You've got processes that are not processes and systems that are systemically not set up to support women and people of color that can be holding us back from, from, from getting the job or the promotion that we want.
[00:12:06] So I've been working with a client over those last several months who is in marketing and she's been really frustrated that she hasn't been getting the jobs that she's been applying for and that she's been interviewing for. And I tell her all the time, like, listen, like. , even though you check all the boxes on all of the requirements for this job, that doesn't mean that you're going to get the job right?
[00:12:31] So many things in the job search process is outta your control, right? Sometimes we are at the mercy of human beings and their mood on a particular day, like even just getting past the recruiter screen. Can be just an element of luck sometimes, just right place at at the right time. Because the recruiters out there, they are recruiting for multiple jobs at one time.
[00:12:58] They're getting hundreds of applicants for every single job. So they are only looking at your resume for six to seven seconds before they decide if they want to call you for a phone screen, what if they were in a bad mood? What if they had a fight with their spouse that morning? What if they were late up, late last night with their crying baby?
[00:13:15] Or, you know, they've just, they just had a really frustrating conversation with their boss or something like that. And so sometimes that goes into it, right? And, and that's just life, that's just how things kind of shake out sometimes. We might also be up against, you know, budgets that aren't, You know, that aren't as full as we want them to be.
[00:13:37] We might be up against, you know, a company that's lost some clients or lost some customers, and so they're pulling back on different positions. Or who knows, maybe that job that you applied to, they ended up hiring their next door neighbor's nephew or something random. You know, just so much of this process.
[00:13:55] isn't within our control, and frankly, the universe doesn't care about your arbitrary timeline. Right. I had a client that, I have a client that I've been working with for several months now. , she, uh, she had this really big goal this year of getting a promotion at her company and we were talking in one of our last sessions about what happens if she doesn't get the promotion this cycle.
[00:14:18] Cause she was getting ready to go into this conversation with her boss and she was gonna find out that day if she got the promotion or not. And I, and I said, you know, what is gonna be your reaction or how do you want to react? should the answer be, you know, you didn't get the promotion this time, just so you're prepared to, you know, give, um, give a response there cuz they're gonna expect for you to respond in some way.
[00:14:45] Live and per, you know, over the phone. And um, and we just kind of talked, we talked through that and, and I just reminded her that she has grown so much and she's done such amazing things over these last. Several months that we've been working together, that even if she doesn't get the promotion, that doesn't negate all of the amazing work that she's done that doesn't negate all of the growth that she's had around her communication, around her visibility.
[00:15:14] Again, all of these things that we've been working towards. . And the great news is she did get the promotion, which is awesome, but once again, if she hadn't got the promotion this round, now it's just a matter of, okay, what's the next step? So is there something that I'm still lacking? Is there something that I'm still missing that I'm, that I need in order to get the promotion?
[00:15:33] Or is it just a systems thing? Is it just, we only have enough budget to go around for so many people to get a promotion this year, and unfortunately, You weren't at the top of the list. And still, once again, you ask, how can I be at the top of the list next time? Right. But sometimes, or just, you know, promotions are cut and they're like, Hey, we didn't, we're not promoting anybody this year because our, our promotion bus budget has been cut.
[00:15:57] Or there's just, again, so many other things that are just not inside of your control here. And so it's really important for you to, to still set those goals cuz it's important to still have those goals. But it's just to, it's important to recognize that there's a lot of this that you don't control. So it's important to ensure that the actions that you're taking in order to reach these goals are those things you control the actions.
[00:16:25] You take, you control your response, how you're showing up, that's all within your control versus, you know, just completely throwing yourself at the mercy of a system or a process again, that frankly, is probably not set up for women or a person of color or somebody in a, in another historically marginalized community, um, is, is just not set up for us to succeed There.
[00:16:49] And finally, the fifth thing that's more important than you achieving your goal is just enjoying the journey as much as achieving the goal, right? If you are trying to run a marathon, if your goal is to run a marathon, your vision is likely to be. a runner, or to be someone who moves their body every day.
[00:17:13] And if you've done that, if you. Ran every day, or you've moved your body every day or, or maybe you ran the marathon but you didn't finish, or maybe you ran the marathon and you didn't finish in the time that you wanted because what, it might have been raining that day and you might have slipped and fallen and hurt yourself or.
[00:17:32] Your flight might have been canceled to the marathon and you missed it or whatever. Again, there's, there's some things in there, like we said before, that might be out of your control, but that doesn't negate all of the amazing work that you've done in order to get to that goal of. Of running a marathon, and once again, the universe doesn't care about your arbitrary timeline.
[00:17:54] So maybe that's a goal that was meant for you to achieve in 24 months instead of just 12 months. But if you don't enjoy the act of running every day, or moving your body every day, and then, then what is the point? Achieving that goal of finishing a marathon, right? So enjoy this journey just as much as you enjoy actually achieving that goal, because it is, it is not going to be fun or satisfying or as.
[00:18:29] Pleasant as you think it's going to be, or as life changing as you think it's going to be when you do actually achieve that goal. And I would love for you to talk to every single one of my clients who has ever gotten a promotion or have ever gotten a new job, and they come out on the other side of it and they're like, yeah, like I don't really feel all that different or, It's not as climactic as I thought it was going to be.
[00:18:50] And the reason is because you've done all of this work leading up to it. Like you've, you're already there. Even if you're not there in title or on paper or whatever, you are already there because you have really grown through this journey. And, and honestly, that is what is way more important than these random, arbitrary goals that we are setting for our.
[00:19:15] So here are some things I want you to keep in mind this year as you are setting these goals and driving towards these goals. So again, so much of this is outside of your control, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't still set big scary goals.
[00:19:30] Goals are just guidelines to show us the way down the path to our desired vision. and your timeline is arbitrary, right? I mean, we can try as much as we can to figure out what's the perfect timeline, what's the most realistic timeline, or maybe we are shortening the timeline in order to push ourselves harder and and that's fine, right?
[00:19:52] Still do all of that. All of that, but let go. This idea that we are in control of everything. And again, our timeline is arch. Jump before you are ready. This is where the real growth happens. You have to act like you're already at that level and then figure out the rest once you actually get there. And this is specifically really true when we're talking about getting a promotion or getting a new job that.
[00:20:21] You are likely not ready whenever you are trying to get that promotion or trying to get that new job and on. Again, this is where the growth really happens, cuz if you were already, if you were ready, then that goal is not. That much of a stretch or you're not gonna grow as much because you're already there.
[00:20:41] Right? So I, I hear so often from women that again, they're not ready to apply to that job. They're not ready to put themselves forward for that promotion because of this, that, and the other thing, ensure there's definitely some things that you need to make sure that you've got a, of a foundation at foundation around,
[00:20:56] but you have to act like and become that person at that new level because then you'll figure out the rest. Once you get there, the actions and the actual tangible things of actually doing that job that'll come, you'll figure that out. You have everything inside of you to figure that out, but you have to become that person first before you can actually get to that next level.
[00:21:19] Rest is part of the success formula, and I cannot stress this enough that if you have not baked in time for rest and relaxation and to be restored, then you are likely not going to achieve your goals. Again, either on this, on a timeline that you've set or just in a way that feels really good and satisfying to you because you're just so caught up in the chaos and of just the energy of the action part of things.
[00:21:52] We need both energies. We need the energy of action, and we need the energy of rest together in order to actually succeed in a way that's sustainable and frankly satisfy.
[00:22:05] Rest is not a reward for achieving your goals. Rest is part of that success formula.
[00:22:11] Your worth is not tied to your productivity. So we get so many messages, especially in the, in this western capitalistic society, that we are only useful in this world if we are producing, if we are achieving, if we are doing something to add to our economy. That otherwise we are not, we are not valuable, and that is not true at all.
[00:22:36] Your worth is not tied to your pro productivity. It is not tied to your job title. It is not tied to your salary or how many times you go to the gym. That doesn't mean, once again, that you shouldn't still set big scary goals and, and try to achieve them.
[00:22:51] We have to decouple our worth as a human being from our jobs and from productivity and from all of these other other things. And finally, any progress that you've made is valuable and valid. So again, even though I didn't achieve my goal last year of. Doing pull-ups, I'm still stronger. I'm still stronger than I have been.
[00:23:16] It doesn't negate all of that work that I've done. I'm now able to continue to build upon that and achieve that goal in the timeline that I'm supposed to achieve that achieve that timeline. So any progress that you have made or you are making is valued, is valuable and valid. So don't.
[00:23:35] So as we are wrapping this up, I want you to leave with these last few things, which is focus more on the person that you're becoming and less on the tangible goal achievement. Are you a better human being? Are you helping others? Are you more and more satisfied with your life and career? Recognize when your goals are outside of your control and be okay with that or change them if you're not okay with.
[00:24:01] Go back to those reflection questions we talked about in ES episodes two and three. Who did you help? Who did you, what did you learn about yourself? Who is that person that you're trying to become and how have you started to show up as her right now? Even if it's just a little bit. So thank you for so much for listening in.
[00:24:20] Please send me a DM on LinkedIn or on Instagram at Nicole k Speaks, and let me know what you think of the podcast so far and what are some other topics that you'd like for for me to cover. That's all for today, and I'll see you back here next week with another brand new episode. But in the meantime, remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
