Episode 45: Don’t Forget This Part When Setting Goals
Setting clear goals and specific actions is important. But most people forget a critical step in goal setting that will ensure you will be happy and satisfied with achieving your goals.
In this episode, I share how setting intentions on how you want to feel and the pace you want to make progress on your goals for sustainable success in the new year.
Full Transcript:
Welcome to the Upgraded Leader Podcast, where we talk about all things managing up, building relationships, leading our team's personal branding, setting goals, setting boundaries, and succeeding in our careers on our terms. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we're talking about the part people forget to do when setting goals.
[00:00:17] Which is how you want to feel while working towards those goals. So you might be setting goals for the new year right now, or anytime, really. And when we think about setting goals, we typically think about the end result or the outcome. And of course, that part is really important. We need to understand what that end goal is, that clear vision, and this is certainly important for your team.
[00:00:39] So if you're a leader, you're leading teams. One of your main jobs is for you to set that clear vision so that everybody knows what's expected of them. Right? So goals can be really, really powerful motivators, especially if you're like me and have a hard time staying focused, and I definitely get distracted easily.
[00:00:58] So clearly defining goals can ground, you can really serve as that true north. Whenever you're feeling overwhelmed or distracted, you can come back to those clear goals that you set. And clear goals are also helpful when making decisions. If the outcome of that decision doesn't align with that goal, then it's a very clear no.
[00:01:19] But alignment isn't just about the goal itself. Most people just stop at setting clear goals in the specific action plan to make it happen. They just, they do those two things and then off they off they go. Right? Then you're off hustling and grinding, and you might actually end up achieving those goals, which is great, but
[00:01:39] You don't feel accomplished or as satisfied as you thought you would, just achieving the goal didn't make you happy. , does this sound familiar? I had a client not too long ago who we were, we were working together for a while. Um, 'cause she was really focused on getting that director promotion and she did.
[00:01:57] And then afterwards she was just like, . Uh, that was a very anti, like, anti climactic, you know, she thought that that was like, yay. It was gonna be like the pinnacle and it, it just wasn't. Um, I find that, I find that actually happens really often. And I also think this is why we don't often celebrate our successes because the goal didn't make you feel the way you thought it would, so you end up brushing off to the next goal, hoping that it's the one that will finally make you feel whatever emotion or whatever feeling that you're chasing.
[00:02:26] I was at a yoga class yesterday and my instructor told us all to stop rushing through our chaturangas. She said, no rushing. No rushing. Anytime we feel like we need to be rushing, that means we are out of alignment. And that rang so true for me. I like to move fast. I always have, which is probably why I like to do.
[00:02:47] You know, flow yoga instead of, instead of some of the other, other yogas where you like, hold a pose for like 10 minutes. Like, I don't do those classes. I'm always in, in the flow classes, right? So, you know, I like to get things done. I like to move quick. That's my natural pace. That that's, that's what's normal for me and what feels good to me.
[00:03:06] So I, I've been leaning into that, which is great. But there's a difference between rushing and moving swiftly. So one of the big lies that I tell myself often is that I'm behind, or that I don't have enough time to accomplish all the things that I want, which is total bullshit because who says I'm behind?
[00:03:25] Behind on what exactly? And I know that that feeling is coming from a place of lack. Anytime I'm feeling. . Like, I need to rush, or I'm having this energy inside of me that feels a little bit more chaotic or just, I don't know, anticipatory or like that, like I'm grasping at straws or something like that. I know it's coming from a place of lack and usually it's a place, it's like a lack of confidence in myself or a lack of abundance.
[00:03:52] Um, like I feel like I don't have enough, or I myself am not enough. And let me know if that resonates with you. And I'm, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way because I know most of my clients come to me, um, come to me feeling this way initially. And when setting goals. I definitely think that setting a timeline is useful, but at the end of the day, it's arbitrary.
[00:04:16] Some goals take longer than others. Not all goals can be accomplished in one year, no matter how nice and neat that would feel. Just . Tie up your ear with a little bow. I know that would feel great, but that's just not always how it happens. And you end up missing a huge part of the process if we're only focusing on the where on how fast and the specific goals.
[00:04:39] So let's break this down. So if the goal is the destination, the where. The action plan are the specific steps or the what, then the intention is the how. This is about you. This is about how you're showing up about the behaviors, the beliefs that are gonna determine how sustainable and satisfied you're gonna be along the way.
[00:05:02] So let's think about taking a road trip somewhere, or running an errand or something like that. There are several ways for me to get to my favorite coffee shop. That's about 12 miles from my house. The fastest and easiest way is to take the highway and it's about 14 minutes door to door. It's pretty simple.
[00:05:21] I live like a mile from the highway and the coffee shop is like half a mile off of the highway, so it's pretty, pretty quick and easy and pretty simple, but it comes at a cost because it's a toll road. So if I want to avoid that toll, I can take local roads, but it would take me 25 minutes to get there.
[00:05:40] There's gonna be more traffic, more stoplights, but it would be a more interesting drive. You know, there's some really pretty houses along that route that I could see some really pretty greenery and landscaping. I could stop off at TJ Maxx if I wanted to, um, which I often do on my way home from that coffee shop a lot of times.
[00:05:59] Um, . Where, you know, just taking the highway, I mean, that's pretty boring. It's not very aesthetically pleasing. Right. Have you ever talked to anybody about like, visiting, oh, have you ever been to this town before? Ever been to this city before? And they're like, yeah, it didn't look really nice. I, you know, I passed through it on the highway.
[00:06:12] And it's like, well, you gotta get off the highway to see how, to see how act, how the town actually is. You can't, you can't judge the, can't judge the area by, by just what you see off the highway, right? 'cause again, it's just, it's not that nice to look at. Um, so it really depends on the experience that I wanna have.
[00:06:28] On which route that I'm gonna take that day to the coffee shop. Heck, the type of music or the podcast that I'm listening to in the car can also make a huge difference in my experience. So sometimes a shorter, faster, no feel, no frills, experience is the right way. It's simpler. But it can also feel more frantic, right?
[00:06:47] Going that fast, you know? 'cause I'm usually going, don't tell my husband about it. I'm usually going about 80 miles an hour on that highway. Um, my dad's a race car driver. What are you gonna do? I get it, honestly. But going that fast, it, you know, if you need to come to a quick stop for whatever reason, it can take you longer to do that.
[00:07:04] There's a higher risk of crashing in a really bad accident. And again, the, the toll, the, the toll costs money. So. That's just kind of the, the pros and cons of taking the highway, right? Sometimes you wanna take the leisurely route or the scenic route, or at least the slower route, right? Where it, it's easier for you to stop if you need to.
[00:07:27] You can get off of that route. If it's not working, you can, you know, kind of get off really quickly on a different, onto a different road. But the local roads can also feel a little more chaotic with . All the other cars that are on the road and the traffic where it's all like again, like stop and go. That doesn't feel good to me.
[00:07:44] And. You know, that's can be distracting sometimes if you are, you know, looking at all of the different sites that are going by. Again, I get really distracted easily, but we have to just ask ourselves, what is the experience that you want to have along this journey to achieving your goals? What's that pace that you wanna set your set for yourself?
[00:08:05] What's that energy that, that you want? And every goal might be different, right? You might . You might decide, well, this is in general how I wanna feel throughout the year, and you set your pace or you set the energy that way. Or it might depend on the goal itself, right? You might have some goals that you're like, I wanna go super fast on this one.
[00:08:27] I see no reason to take the leisurely route. Actually, by taking the leisurely route, I'm gonna be more distracted and I might not end up getting there. That's certainly true for me sometimes too, that like sometimes, um, I'll set a goal and I like . Really like take my time. Like this podcast for instance, I had said that I wanted to start a podcast like five years ago and I like did start and stop, start and stop on my way to actually getting here and until I said I'm gonna launch this podcast in three months.
[00:08:56] Get your shit together, , right? Sometimes we just have to, we have to do that, right? You have to set, you know, a little bit of a faster pace. Set a just a deadline. Just pick something and just go, just so you can get going and get started. Sometimes that's the right thing to do. Sometimes the right thing to do is to set a slower pace, to have some more starts and stops, because that makes sense for that particular goal.
[00:09:18] So when you are setting your goals, don't forget to think about how you want to feel and be while you are working towards those goals, because I'm sure it's not frantic or chaotic, right? I'm sure it's probably not one of those emotions when actually when I first start working with clients, I send them
[00:09:37] A bunch of journal prompts to really get them thinking before our first, our first session together. And one of the questions is, what does a successful leader in your role look like? Or what is the successful leader? What are they, what are they doing with their day? You know, how is their day set up? What are, how are they speaking?
[00:09:54] How are they showing up? Kind of like those things, kind of getting, getting the, the client kind of in that mindset and. I can tell you that every time these answers come back, they are, well, you know, a leader, a successful leader in this role is, you know, polished and professional and poised. And again, running around like a chicken with their head cut off is not one of those things.
[00:10:18] That's not one of the things that come to mind when you think of a really successful, you know, leader in, in your space. It's no matter what industry, no matter what level, you know, chaotic, frantic, running around. Like a chicken with your head cut off is not one of the things that you are, that you are thinking about.
[00:10:36] SO last year for me, one of my intentions was to have more fun, just in general, to have more fun. . In all areas of my life. So there were a couple of ways that I did that. One, I took some dance classes, which was a ton of fun. So, and I'm continuing that, um, into, into this year. So I've actually added a second dance class, um, to my week, which I'm really, really excited about.
[00:11:02] And I actually didn't read a ton of business or professional development books in the last year. I actually. Very purposely read mostly fiction. I read a lot of fantasy. I'm a huge fantasy nerd. If you haven't noticed already, if you've listened to any other podcast episodes with Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter references in them.
[00:11:24] So I spent, I. All year, all, almost every single book that I read last year was a fantasy book, and that was just a really nice way to turn my brain off from, you know, the my day-to-Day work and things like that. Just to really, again, have lean into having fun and just finding joy in something so small like that.
[00:11:46] And actually, one of my core values is joy, is . Bringing, having joy in my own life and bringing joy to other people's lives out of all of the other emotions or other things that I could feel. Or bring to others Joy is, is top of that list for me. So what I did find though is that I, while I found a lot of fun in lots of areas of my life and in my business, there were still still some things that I'd like to tweak for next year.
[00:12:13] So I am taking this goal into next year, taking this intention into next year as well. To continue to find more places to have fun because again, it's something that's really important to me. And also to reduce the frantic chaoticness, um, feeling as well. I think, I think for me, I think last year it was less little less frantic.
[00:12:35] It, um, I think I, I think the fun that I was having really counteracted that what, where I did feel like . Um, I'm gonna work on going into the next year is this, this idea of feeling like I was walking through mud or slogging through mud a little bit last year. So that was, um, that was kind of a feeling or an or emotion that was coming up for me in this last year, and that's something that I'm gonna work on to kind of increase the pace.
[00:13:02] Increase the ease, that's the intentions that I'm looking for and the feeling and the experience that I want to have next year. So. Again, I want you as you are thinking through your goals, the, in the for this next year, to also think through the intentions or how you wanna feel while you are working on these goals so you can feel more just satisfied at the end of the day.
[00:13:25] I. By, by actually achieving these goals in a way that feels good to you, whatever that, whatever that looks like for you. So if you are interested in more information about my upgraded goal setting process, head over to the upgraded leader.com/goal setting where I put all of my other goal setting episodes in one place, plus the goal setting workbook that goes along with it so that you can have a little bit of structure or have, um, some additional ideas.
[00:13:50] On setting goals in the new year. So happy New Year, happy goal setting, and I will see you in the next episode. But in the meantime, remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
