← The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
840: Forget Traditional Goal Setting: Here’s A Better Way to Crush This Year
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Are you finally ready to start your email list? Goal Digger the New Year is the perfect time to make it happen because small steps today lead to big moves tomorrow. This is your moment to stop stalling and start building. And the best part is, I've got a totally free resource to help you do it. It's my email list building mini course $59 of value yours free right now for a limited time. It is waiting for you@list buildchallenge.com in just five days, you're going to learn easy, actionable strategies to grow your email list from scratch, no matter what type of business you run. You'll also get tech tutorials that break down every single step and you'll know what to do once you've attracted new subscribers who can't wait to hear from you. I started from 02 and now I land in over hundreds of thousands of inboxes every single week. Trust me, this mini course is the shortcut you need to get your email list off the ground. No more excuses. No more overthinking. So, are you in? Jump in for free today@listbuildchallenge.com and step into the New Year with an email list that's ready to take flight. It's entirely free and ready and waiting for you@listbuildchallenge.com if you are someone who really struggles with following through, my question for you would be are you focusing too much on the external rewards? And if you are, what would it look like for you to refocus on internal rewards? I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Goal Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven figure online business that feels even better than it look all from my house in small town Minnesota. With my family here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical no fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged inspired and empowered. This is the Goal Digger podcast. Let me ask you this. How many times have you set a big, audacious goal only to feel overwhelmed or like it was impossible for you to keep up with? Or maybe you've just given up on goal setting altogether because it feels silly and you know you won't follow through. Now, I've been there for many years. I set really giant goals and I felt overwhelmed by trying to figure out even the first step towards achieving them. Or worse, I would set a goal and try to make it happen all at once. And spoiler alert, life doesn't work that way. And goal setting in that way isn't effective. I've learned that that approach, it just doesn't work. Especially when life gets busy. And boy, has life gotten busy. We all know that by February, most resolutions are already out the window, right? And while we all want to make this year our best yet, it is time for a new way of doing things. We need an approach that helps us reach our goals without crushing the life out of them. So today we're adding some fresh takes to the strategies that maybe you've tried in the past and they didn't work. And I'm also throwing in some hot takes on how to approach go setting in a way that actually works for real life. No overwhelm, no burnout. Just sustainable success that feels good and actually works. Let's dive on in. Growing a business isn't for the faint of heart. It's a whole lot of everything. Building an audience, nurturing leads, managing channels, tracking metrics, and juggling all the moving pieces of your strategy. And let's not forget those late nights, long days, and working weekends. Sound familiar? Sometimes it feels like you're wishing for just one thing to make it all a little bit easier. Well, meet Breeze, HubSpot's brand new collection of AI tools built specifically for marketers just like you. With Breeze, attracting the right audience, increasing leads, and turning those leads into loyal customers just got faster and dare I say, easier than ever before. Imagine less stress and more success, more wins, and fewer all nighters. With Breez, you're not just keeping up, you're staying ahead. And pretty soon your business is gonna have a lot to celebrate. Check out breeze@HubSpot.com marketers to learn more. That's HubSpot.com marketers. It's that time of year again. The time of year where we talk about setting goals and maybe even resolutions. And if you're anything like me, you've maybe recognized that the way that you have done goal setting in the past might not have worked. Or if you've ever landed in December of a year and you look back at the goals and resolutions you laid out, you realize that those weren't even the right goals in the first place. So today, I want to take a little bit of a different approach. I want to take us down a path that might lead us into better goal setting strategies that actually align with the lives that we're living and that actually allow us to follow through and finish the year feeling excited, proud, and aligned. So these are kind of hot takes, especially from someone running a podcast called Goal Digger. But stick with me, I think you're actually going to love this approach. So my first idea is this idea of embracing what I want to call goal relinquishment over goal setting. Let me explain how I came to this conclusion. So I am a girl who can figure out how to achieve things, and I love leveraging tools to do that. Now, I used to have smart goals for just about everything in my life. If you don't know what a smart goal is, it's specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I could literally rattle off that acronym in my sleep. And I think that framework is incredible. There's a lot of science that backs it up, and I used it for a very long time. When I was setting goals, I would say exactly what I want the goal to be. I would measure it, I would make sure it was realistic. I'd lay out the timeline like I had it down pat. But when I became a mom, I started having to hold my goals a little looser. I had to get really clear at what I was aiming for. But I also had to understand that the path might not be as straight or timely as I desired. This was a lesson in surrender. I know I've shared this on the show before, but every year I choose a word of the year. And I remember the year I became a mom. My word was surrender. I had to surrender the old way of doing things, the rigid way of doing things, and. And allow more ease and more opportunity and maybe more winding roads into my approach, because that was what life was offering. So here's my question for you is what if we flipped the whole conversation about goal setting and questioned whether setting specific goals is even the best path for us? Studies in psychology suggest that letting go of rigid goals and allowing for this element of spontaneity and fluidity can actually unlock deeper creativity and success. And let me tell you, I have experienced this firsthand. The more that I loosen the grip, the more that I can creatively arrive to where I want to arrive, and the better the success actually feels. And so instead of forcing yourself into this, like, one outcome, like, maybe you have this resolution that you really, really, really want to walk into this year with, what if you could focus on the exploration of the goal? Think of goal relinquishment as allowing yourself the flexibility to follow new paths that naturally align with you as a human and your evolving desires. Why do I love this so much? I feel like I have learned that so much can change in a year, right? Like, I am walking out of this last year and into this new year as an entirely different person. And there were so many things that were never on my bingo card to start out with. And I feel like if I had started this year having that smart approach goal with very rigid timelines and very measurable results, I might have missed some of the places where my path was winding that really unlocked more joy, more fulfillment, more creativity. And so what would that look like for you to leave a little bit more room for alignment and leave a little bit more room for your desires to evolve? What would that look like? Now, here's a hot take. Sometimes the best way to achieve success is to release the pressure of doing it all. And let me tell you, trying to do it all at once. And instead, if we can approach it by creating space for new opportunities that can emerge organically. Like, have you ever had something come into your life, whether it's an opportunity or a passion or a friendship, and you're like, I didn't see this coming in the best way possible. And this is why I think that we need to leave room in our visions for 2025 and visions for future years to rethink how it is that we're approaching, how we're gonna get there, right? Let go and go further. That's what I really believe can happen. So when I first started, you know, setting these really rigid goals in that stage of my life, everything just felt so clear cut. I could see from point A to point Z. But then when I became a mom and I had to face these actually really unpredictable days, I realized that holding my goals too tightly really left me feeling stressed. Like, I would go to bed at night and I'd be disappointed if things didn't go according to plan. And it might not be children for you. It might be that you're juggling a 9 to 5 while you're building your side hustle or you're pivoting into a whole new area or you're taking care of people in your life, whether it's your aging parents or your grandparents, whatever that looks like. And so I have learned that when I allow flexibility in how I reach the goals, when I let go of the idea that the path has to be perfect and on schedule, it actually allows me to be more creative in the pursuit to grow and evolve as a human being. And it allows me to be awake to the success when it hits. The key here is to focus less on the how and more on the why. Why are you doing this in the first place? And then let the journey evolve, let it unfold, let it evolve as you go on it. And this is a shift away from this traditional all or nothing approach, which I did an entire episode about why the all or nothing thinking is holding you back. And it embraces a more adaptable and exploratory way of achieving what we are telling ourselves matters the most. So idea number one is like relinquish some of the structure around your goals and really just be open to how they're gonna unfold and the timing of it all. And trust in the timing. I feel like so often in life when we look back, hindsight is 2020 and we see that everything unfolded as it should and in its own timing. And so what if we approach goal setting from that way, having the goal and seeing it, but allowing curiosity and less structure to give us the opportunity and invitation to evolve as we are in pursuit of that goal. Goal diggers it's 2025 and I have a quick reality check. If your B2B marketing strategy isn't improving your ad targeting, your message just might be getting lost in the noise. 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LinkedIn the place to Be to be. You know that feeling when a new year starts and you are absolutely ready to get organized and crush your goals. Financial wellness is at the top of my list this year and basically every other year, and Rocket Money has been a total game changer for making that happen. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you take control of your money by finding and canceling unwanted subscriptions, monitoring your spending, and even negotiating lower bills for you. They showed me all of my subscriptions in one place, including the ones I didn't even realize I was paying for and definitely not using, and it instantly saved me hundreds of dollars a month. And when they renegotiated my phone bill, that was even more money in my pocket. With zero hassle, Rocket Money doesn't just stop there. It tracks all of your spending across every account so you can see exactly where your money is going and it even keeps an eye on your bills for price increases or unusual charges. With over 5 million users and a total of $500 million saved in canceled subscriptions, Rocket Money members save up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. I am already noticing a difference in my budget just for this year. If you're ready to cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster, head to RocketMoney.com Golddigger to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Golddigger RocketMoney.com Golddigger okay, the second idea that I have is to focus on the process more than the outcome. So I have a ton of friends who have written amazing books and one thing that I had noticed before I ever wrote how are you really? And launched it is that a lot of people hated the process. It was excruciating. They made it sound so painful. They ended being so burnt out. It literally took up time from their families, from their businesses, from serving their clients. And I could not understand why anyone would ever want to write a book until it hit me. And I wanted to write a book. But I decided when I wrote my book that I wanted to enjoy the process. Yeah, I wanted to hit the New York Times Bestseller list. And yeah, it was a crazy achievement when I did. But even if I hadn't hit that list, I wanted to enjoy the process and let me tell you, I'm one of the only people I know that loved every part of the book process, from the writing to the launching to the editing. Like, I loved all of it. It was a very joyful pursuit for me. And so this idea of focusing on the process over the outcome is something that I think we really have to embrace at a deeper level. Because here's the thing, traditional goal setting focuses just on the outcome, right? Even if we look at this smart goal idea, we wanna lose 20 pounds, we wanna hit a hundred thousand in revenue. But research from the Power of Process suggests that focusing exclusively on the end result leads to burnout and frustration. And how many of us have experienced that? Right? Even last year I did an episode of like I am burned out. We get there whether we plan to or not. And so if we can focus on celebrating the process, this can actually help us not only enjoy life more, but enjoy the actual achievement. This isn't just like self help, like toxic positivity, it's actually neuroscience. So dopamine, the motivation chemical, is actually more active when we focus on the journey and not the destination. And how many of us want to just like enjoy our day to day life a little bit more? So my hot take here is what if we shift the narrative from goal completion to the ongoing process by reframing our goals as a series of successful habits rather than this, you know, mountaintop moment of the final achievement. Like, what if the true win is just knowing that we're moving and we're making progress and the outcome is then the byproduct of our consistency. I just feel like so many of us have these mountaintop moments. I tell a story in my book about when I first hit six figures and I took a shower that day, washing my hair with Herbal Essence and thinking I thought this would feel different. And I think that this is where that traditional goal setting really gets us wrong, is because we are going after these goals and we hit them and we're like, this isn't what I thought it was going to be. You're like, is this it? And, and that doesn't feel good. And so if we reframe the way that we set the goals to focus on the process instead of just the outcome, I feel like not only are we going to enjoy it more, but we're going to stay in alignment on the path so that the outcome feels as good as we expect it to. Like, growing up, I was always told that the goal was a finish line. Like, I was a runner, I ran the 800 in track and you know, you just got to get across the finish line. Right. So much in life we're taught that. But over the years I've realized that the end result mentality is often what really burns us out or leaves us really frustrated or unsatisfied. And so over the years I really tried to shift my focus to the process, like enjoying every day, enjoying the work I'm about to do, celebrating every step along the way, really paying attention to like when something is on my calendar and I do not want to do it, what is that? Is there a way to get that off of my plate and how can I not commit to that any further? And I've noticed that in the process of doing this, I get more excited, I'm more motivated, I am actually in alignment with the outcome. And this is just a game changer because it flips this traditional goal setting idea on its head. Instead of chasing the outcome, we celebrate the progress we make each day. Understanding and knowing and believing and seeing that the small actions that we're making are actual wins. Focusing on the journey instead of the destination allows us to see stay motivated longer and enjoy the ride and not hit the achievement in a total state of burnout because that is a place we do not want to go any longer. So again, number two, focus on the process over the outcome. And as you are setting your goals, what does that look like in your day to day life? And I would challenge you to ask yourself, is it worth it? Is what you need to do on a day to day basis to get that outcome worth it to you and in alignment with what you say matters the most? Okay, the third one is something that I have started to love and I think if you are like me and you maybe have adhd, you need a little help staying on task. Number three is gamifying your goals with internal rewards? Okay, so this is super nerdy, but this past year we were figuring out different ways to stay creative in the business. Because when I look at my business model over the last six years, it's been a very rinse and repeat business. And I have been able to reap so many rewards from this model, especially being a mom and getting to see that like I'm not always having to reinvent the wheel, I get to use what I've created and make it better every single year. And so I've had to figure out how do I stay creative in the business without constantly creating. And this past year we almost were figuring out ways to like gamify the business. To just make it really exciting. And one of those projects that we took on that sounds so nerdy and boring to some of you but maybe exciting to others, is that we started looking at like, okay, which freebies of ours are responsible for the most opt ins, meaning the most new email subscribers. And how can we update those, make them beautiful, look at the funnels, strategize, optimize all of these sexy words to me as a marketer, and how can we just make them better? Like, how can we make the entire experience better from a consumer standpoint? How can we make it work better within our business? How can we have these things naturally lead to what makes the most sense? And what was so exciting is that like I enjoyed this process. Like there would be days where I would sit down and I would rewrite like a 12 page guide in one sitting and I would sit down and I would rewrite the email sequence that would flow out once somebody knew was on my email list. And I enjoyed seeing all of these little aspects line up to make some massive change in my business. It was impacting our growth, it was impacting our strategy, it was impacting all of the different pieces of it. And what was really cool about it is that I was able to see just how much we've grown. Like some of these freebies I had created years ago. And I was like, wow, I've learned so much. I am excited to almost gamify the system and track the results and see how it all plays out. And so what do I mean by this idea of gamifying these internal rewards? Like, we all know about external rewards, right? Like money claps on social media recognition. But here's where it gets really cool. Internal rewards like the feeling of competence or autonomy or mastery are actually more powerful for long term motivation. If you are someone who really struggles with following through, my question for you would be, are you focusing too much on the external rewards? And if you are, what would it look like for you to refocus on internal rewards? Research on intrinsic motivation suggests that when you tie your goals to a sense of personal growth and mastery, the pursuit becomes far more sustainable. And I don't know about you, but sustainable and predictable feels really sexy as an entrepreneur right now. And so my hot take here is like, forget about this carrot and stick approach that always leaves us chasing and striving and that always leaves the outcome in the hands of external factors, whether it's new customers or social media engagement. And instead gamify your goals by creating a personal reward system that is tied to your own internal satisfaction. I am talking about that feeling when you go to bed at the end of the day and you're like, dang, I just crushed it. Or the work I did was so impactful or meaningful, or I cannot wait to see the results of what we just achieved today. I want for you to track wins based on how much you've learned or how confident you feel or how far you've grown, not just whether you hit a specific external number or something like that. Because I think that that is where our dissatisfaction is lying. And so instead of relying on external rewards, I found that the most sustainable approach to business comes from within. Comes from feeling motivated and fulfilled within. And it's not our fault that we've struggled with this in the past because we've all been conditioned to chase external validation. But what if the real win was in how we feel when we master a new skill or when we achieve something on our own? Like that is the magic of internal rewards. And how this shifts things is that it shifts goal setting away from these external metrics that might motivate us temporarily but don't always keep us going, and allows us to create this lasting motivation that keeps us consistent and showing up and in the game even if the applause dies down, even if nobody's paying attention, even if we don't have progress that looks sexy on social media. This is a really subtle, but a powerful shift from traditional goal setting. And I will say that a lot of the high achieving women in my life I feel like are shifting to this method because they are noticing that when they are hitting these externally validated goals or these really rigid metrics, it's not feeling like it used to, it doesn't land like it did. And they want to feel more successful to themselves and more in alignment. And this is the way that we do that. You know, I love finding tools that make running a business even easier. And so I'm so excited to share with you a tool that I swear by, which is Gusto. It's an all in one payroll, benefits and HR platform. And I love it so much I recently made my entire team switch to it with gusto. Payroll is fast and super simple, whether you're handling W2s or 1099s. But that's just the beginning. You can offer health benefits, 401k plans and so much more, all tailored to nearly any budget. Their software is super simple. It's all online. You can access it from anywhere. And you can run unlimited payroll for one monthly price with no Hidden fees and taxes. Gusto takes care of those, too, automatically filing and paying them across all 50 states. Businesses save, on average $2,600 and 48 hours a year by switching. No wonder four out of five businesses say Gusto is worth it. Here's the best part. Gusto is giving you gold diggers three months for free. When you run your first payroll, head to gusto.comgolddigger to snag this offer. That's gusto.comgolddigger. don't miss out. Okay, number four. This one's kind of my favorite. Reframing setbacks as creative breaks. Okay, so how many of us landed in this new year, and we maybe were revisiting what we wrote down at the beginning of last year, and we're like, dang, this did not unfold like I thought it would. I don't know about you, but setbacks are prevalent in my life very often. And what's interesting is, is that I think naturally, as achievers and people who want to strive and do more and make an impact, we see failure as something to avoid. We see it as a sign that we are off track or that we are failing. And what if we could instead reframe it and look at it and embrace it as this creative break? Dr. Cheryl Sandberg, in her book Option B, talks about resilience in a way that could absolutely revolutionize the way we set goals. She says setbacks often allow us to pause, reflect, and explore new angles which improve our eventual success. Failure isn't linear. It's iterative. Okay, what do we mean by this? So I think a lot of us have seen that success is not linear, right? We've seen those, like, graphs where it's like, up one day, down the next, up, down, up, down. And that's how success is. Failure is the same way. And a lot of times we're afraid to even experiment within the realms of our own business, within the safety of the thing that we have built, because we look at something as a failure if it doesn't work out exactly how we thought it was. And I would say that this is a grave mistake that so many entrepreneurs are making. We are missing opportunities to change, to stay curious, to experiment, to try new things because we are so afraid of failure. And it's interesting because if you think of this idea of a creative break or a pause, it's actually a theme theme I'm noticing among my friend group, we are talking about how what we really need and what we really desire is time to get quiet with Ourselves in our work time for deep work, time to contemplate, time to ask the bigger questions. And in fact, I had some of that time a few weeks ago when I backed out of a work trip at the last minute. And I remember sitting down and looking at my calendar. I was like, oh, I have a whole wide open day. Why do I have this wide open day? Oh, yeah, because I canceled that work trip. What do I want to do with this day? I want to do deep work. And so when we think about a creative break, I will say that when I look at my business trajectory and the places where my business suddenly, like, went to a whole new level, it was because I got off track somewhere, or a project got halted, or I decided to pause or something didn't quite work out. And all of a sudden, I have this open window of time. And whenever I unlock this open window of time or this idea of a creative break, that is generally where my next best idea comes from, or when I revolutionize the way I'm thinking, or when I get more creative with what I'm doing. And so here's my hot take for this one. Every failure is a sign that your brain is recalibrating for something even greater. Treat setbacks as breaks in the creative process. Whether you're getting new insight, new data, whether you're shifting perspectives, whether you're recharging for a more powerful comeback, setbacks are never the end of the story. They are a part of the plot. And if we embrace it in that way, our story is going to lead us towards more success. Naturally. And so I have had to reframe a lot. Like, in the past, a setback felt like a failure. Something that made me question, like, is this the right career for me? Should I update my resume? Like, am I going to reach these goals that I set? And now I really see, like, wow, this is giving me an opportunity to recalibrate, to reflect, to ensure that whatever I'm going after is truly in alignment. It challenges this traditional view of failure as something to avoid, which I think a lot of people do. They play small, they play it safe, and instead recognize, like, setbacks are a part of the creative process, especially if you are an entrepreneur. They often give us insights, they give us data, they invite us to pause. And when we pause, it often leads us to more innovative and effective solutions. And I just think that as we move through this new year, what if we shift how we think about failure and success and experimentation? What if we take the pressure off and see setbacks as opportunities for true growth rather than something to be ashamed of. Let me tell you and remind you right now, nobody is all over Instagram posting about their failures, okay? What you are seeing is everyone's successes. They're highlight reels. And there are so many failures and flubs happening behind the scenes. And the best entrepreneurs, the most successful ones, are reframing what that means. I was actually talking to my friend the other day and we were talking about goal setting, and she said, you know, I don't know about you, but in the past, we would crush every goal we set. And she said, my business coach the other day said to me, if you are hitting every goal, you are not setting your goals correctly. He said, I want to see you miss about 60% of your goals. That tells me that you are in the right realm of possibility for what those goals even are. I do not want you to knock everything out of the park. That means that you are setting your goals too small, that you are playing too small. I want for you to shoot for the. What is it? That quote, like, shoot for the moon and if you miss, you'll land among the stars. Like, that's how we need to approach this. And it can be really hard for perfectionists and achievers who are used to following, you know, A, B, C and D. And then you're going to get result E. It doesn't work like that. It is not linear. Success is not linear, and failure is not linear. And so we have to approach it and reframe it. And we have to just be open that when we are in those challenging seasons, when we are experiencing the failure or the setback that we are asking ourselves, what is this teaching me? What am I learning? How could I approach this differently? Is this still in alignment? Is this a sign that maybe I need to change, Change my methodology or change the strategy? Maybe it's a sign that I need to step back and rest, whatever that is. Let's all go into this year reframing failure as something that could maybe be described as a creative break. Okay, this next one is taking a business idea that's been around for a million times, and we're just reframing it. So a lot of us have heard of the minimum viable product or the mvp. We've talked about it. It's this concept in business, and I want to reframe it and talk about this other idea that entrepreneurs are talking about, which is the mvg, the minimum viable goal. So a lot of businesses use the concept of the mvp, the minimum viable product, and the idea is that instead of trying to make something perfect, you build a version that works, you put it out into the world, you get feedback and then you iterate. So imagine applying this same idea to goals. Instead of setting massive perfect goals that take months or years to achieve and realize, set a minimum viable goal. Something so small that it's essentially impossible that you're not going to achieve it. But it helps you build momentum and a habit. I am obsessed with this idea because this idea positions us in this place about taking the smallest step towards a bigger goal. And if you are like me, a lot of times, if I see that I have this massive goal that feels entirely out of reach, it's so big that I can't even deconstruct it and figure out what step one is. So that I'm paralyzed. And the analysis paralysis leads me to inaction and inaction puts me on a shame cycle and. And then I don't actually make any progress and I berate myself for not making that progress. If this sounds like anything you've ever experienced, maybe we can all adopt this MVG framework for this year. So here's an example of how I've adopted this in the last few years. So a lot of you know, I've been on a health journey. I've shared about it quite publicly. I've worked on it very privately. And for so many years, I put my health at the very bottom of my list. The idea of feeling well and feeling vibrant, I mean, it just felt impossible. It was such a big goal to be aimed at that I didn't even know where the hell do I begin on this? Do I begin with exercising? Do I start with nutrition? Do I need to go to the doctor? Does it need to be blood work? Like, where do I even begin? There's too many options, there's too many ideas, there's too many contradicting viewpoints out there. And so I just kind of went on with my life having this idea that I can either be successful in business or I can be a healthy person. And I never saw how those two could actually co exist. And my health was just at the bottom of my list. It was like, once I get done with everything else, if there's leftover time or bandwidth, maybe then I'll do something that will help me get healthier. But something click when I realized, like, I just need to fricking start. And honestly, this realization happened for me after I had Quinn. So I had my second baby. When I looked at those years, I had four pregnancies. In four years, I had breastfed for a year and a half. I had challenging pregnancies. I didn't feel great, I didn't look great. And after I had Quinn, it was the year that I was going to launch my book. And my book felt like the most important work I had ever done. And I wanted to get my book into the hands of readers and people just like you. And I knew if I want to do this and run my business and be an amazing moment and breastfeed, I have to have the energy to do it. And I flipped health from what do I look like? To how do I want to feel? And I need to feel energized, and I need to create the energy required to do all the things that I deeply desired to do. And so when I think of this MVG framework in terms of my health, instead of setting these massive goals, like, I need to rigidly work out for one hour every day and work up a sweat, or I need to eat perfectly clean meals, I focused on these really tiny, non negotiable habits, like taking my supplements, drinking water first thing in the morning, walking on the treadmill while I take a call, sitting in front of my red light, taking a sauna. Like, at first these things felt so stupid simple. But then those small wins started to add up. And what's interesting is, and I actually just had a call with a nutritionist about this, is that she was offering just different ideas of, like, how to continue my health journey. And I was like, you know, if I would have talked to you a year ago and you would have recommended all this, I would have been so overwhelmed that I wouldn't have done any of it. But because I have minimally added to my regimen and my routine over the years, and now it has just become so much of a part of the way that I do life and the way that I live, I feel capable of adding on more to it. It was really cool. Drew's parents came to visit and they stayed with us for a long weekend. And while they were here, we. We just maintained our regular routine, which included working out every day, taking a sauna, doing my cold plunge. And every day I would find these windows of time where it felt appropriate to step away. And Drew's parents were super inspired just by seeing how consistent we are with our routines. But I realized, like, this is just a part of my day to day life now. I don't think about it, I don't question it. I don't even really have to plan for it. This is Just naturally integrated into who I am and how I move through life. And it wasn't that way for so long because I set too high of a goal and I didn't even know where to start. And so my hot take here is, set the smallest viable goal to get started. Something that is so achievable, it's almost laughable. Like, what if your goal is so silly to you that you're like, I can't even believe I'm writing this down, but I'm going to write it down. And then what you do is you build off of it. And for me, something really, really miraculous happened that when I started to identify as a person who makes healthy choices and lives a healthy life, and when I started to clothe myself in that identity, those decisions weren't even decisions anymore. They just were things that I did. They were just a part of who I was. And so what is beautiful about this is that as you start to build, you start to get successive wins. And this method works like there's science behind it, because it gives your brain the dopamine hits that come from achieving something every day, leading to larger wins over time. Now, traditionally we've been taught that goals need to be these big, hairy, audacious, perfect goals in order to count. But in my experience, starting with small achievable goals, goals that are laughable, literally actually lead to massive long term results. And so this idea of the minimum viable goal concept is counter to the typical perfectionist mindset that all or nothing mindset that so many of us have had that doesn't actually support us getting and progressing towards what we really want. And so what if we approach this year rather than making these grand, daunting goals that feel overwhelming, that leave us standing at the starting line with analysis, paralysis and inaction, Having these minimum viable goals that allow us to start small, build momentum, shift our beliefs in ourselves, celebrate along the way. This approach doesn't demand perfection from the start. It's about making progress. And that is what I think is what is going to carry us past February when everyone's resolutions have fallen off and allow us to again enjoy the process along the way. Okay, the last notion and idea is leveraging the goal setting paradox, which is focusing on what we can't control. Wait, what? I bet you thought I was going to say the other one. The paradox of goal setting is this the more you focus on goals you cannot control, whether it's growing your business or getting a promotion, the more likely you are to succeed. Research shows that focusing on Controllable inputs like consistent effort, attitude, the habits that you do every day without obsessing over the outcome leads to better results because it shifts your attention to the actions that drive this success. Regardless of the result, control what you can, trust that the outcome will follow. Are you noticing a trend here? Loosening the grip, trusting in the timing, tiny action that is not seen on the Internet or clapped for. This past year we really integrated this into my business and here's how we did it. So I've talked about on the show how we started bringing in a lot more data and forecasting. Again, let me go nerdy with you. And while my business is relatively predictable and we have a really good inclination on how things are going to go, I found myself resting in the fact that we are doing the things that we can and we can let go of the things we cannot control. Like one of our launches, we were coming up against the noise of the election or we had higher ad costs, or our show rates were down because of specific things that were happening in the world. And what was interesting is, is that loosened grip approach of goal setting allowed us to double down on what we can control like our own organic promotion or how we were reaching out to people and then just loosen the grip on the rest. And I had to really find the balance this year in this because with more data and more forecasting, we have more numbers, we have more research backing up. Okay, we should be hitting this today. We should be hitting this today. And I had to really figure out how do I, you know, set my eye on the prize of what the goal actually is while also acknowledging that we are not in control of everything. And so my hot take here is rather than obsessing over achieving the goal, double down on the things you can control, which is your effort, your consistency and your mindset around the whole dang thing. And this approach takes the pressure off and it's sets you up for greater success without the burden of perfectionism. It is an absolute game changer in how you approach goal setting for true and long term results. And I don't want those fast burning results anymore. They don't bring me joy, they aren't in alignment. I want sustainable, predictable, long term results. Like my business. The business that I have today is the result of long term results. It's the result of the work that I did five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, when I was praying for a baby and in a season of loss. The business that I have today allows me the freedom and the life that I Always dreamt of that I couldn't have even dreamt up. And I'm reaping those rewards. And so the work that I'm doing today, I don't want just the result tomorrow, I want the result years from now. Now it is natural that you want to control everything. We want to control our schedules, we want to control our results, we want to control how fast we're moving, we want to control all the ways that we're going to get through and achieve our goals. But over the years, I've realized that letting go of the things we cannot control actually gives us so much more freedom, so much more head space, so much more creativity to focus on. Okay, what actually matters here and what I would say matters the most when it comes to achieving our goals is our effort, our consistency and our mindset. And so what would it look like? Instead of obsessing over external outcomes that are outside of our control, we shift to focusing on the actions we can control. This perspective is a radical shift from traditional goal setting, which often emphasizes the importance of controlling every single variable. Right at the beginning of this episode I talked about how I used to have these rigid smart goals for everything. And so I don't want to just focus on the output, I want to focus on the inputs. How am I showing up? Am I enjoying the work I'm doing? Do I feel fulfilled? Do I go to bed at night resting easy, knowing that I did what I could? Am I showing up consistently in the ways that I say I want to? We get to let go of the pressure of outcome based success and we get to create sustainable paths to long term results. Which I think that most of us listening, that is our deep desire. We got in to entrepreneurship to experience freedom and for a lot of us it feels anything but free. And so if you want to have a more freedom based business and to experience that, the way to get there is to stay consistent, to continue with our effort, and to keep our mindset in a place that allows us to see that the work we're doing today matters. And it's also going to reap us rewards for days, weeks, months and years to come if we do it right. So there you have it. To recap, my six hot takes on goal setting are embracing goal relinquishment over goal setting, focusing on the process over the outcome, gamifying your goals with internal rewards, reframing setbacks as creative breaks the minimum viable goal framework and leveraging it daily, and having the goal setting paradox of focusing on the things that we can control so that we can let go of what we can't. I hope that today's episode just gives you a different approach for this new year. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Gold Digger Podcast. I hope it gives you some fresh perspectives. I hope it inspires you to approach this year's goals and resolutions in a way that actually feels good and in alignment for you, and in a way that will actually work. And here's my ask if you enjoyed this episode. I would love nothing more for you to take a second to rate and review this show. I read every single review. It really helps for us to reach more people and spread the message of sustainable, enjoyable, achievable success. And also just make sure you are subscribed to this show so that you don't miss any of the shows coming up. We have so much good content planned for you this year. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see what we accomplish this year. And of course, until next time, Gold Diggers, keep on digging your biggest goals. And thank you for listening to this episode of the Gold Digger Podcast. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Goal Digger Podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action, and realigned you with your true north in life and business. Business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to gold diggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more. And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time. Gold Diggers.