Do you love January energy like I do? I love the newness, the fresh start, and the clean slate. As this episode airs, you may have already set your goals for the year. You may have even already abandoned them. No matter where you are in the process of achieving your current goals, I’m here to encourage you with 4 shifts to make in order to keep the new year energy going and find success in all that you set out to accomplish this year. It’s time to reach your goals.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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Review the Show Notes:
Have a ‘why’ attached to your goal (2:45)
You have to make space to do the work (3:39)
Less is more (5:28)
Take small steps (7:17)
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host Sabrina Gephardt here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business motherhood and life myself along with my guests will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight
Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast my friend. Have I mentioned on the podcast yet how much I love January energy. Maybe I have but just in case I haven’t. I freaking love January energy, the newness, the Fresh Start the clean slate. There truly aren’t many things that I love more than January energy. So by the time this episode airs, it will be late January. Some of you may have already set your goals for the year. Some of you haven’t said any. And some of you may have set them and already abandoned them. No matter which camp you fall into. There is something here for you today. This episode isn’t about the how of goal setting. There are already a million episodes, books and blogs about that.
Instead, I want to encourage you with a few things to consider when you look at your goals. These are things that I think make the difference between meeting them and giving up. They make a difference in how you view your goals. And between the process of actually reaching your goals. And even if you’re like Sabrina, I already set goals and I’m starting to make progress. No worries. These are all things that you can take with you and use the next time you set goals. Or maybe you use them to tweak your current goals. Just trust me, there are good lessons, no matter where you’re at. The heart of this episode really is more about how you can keep that New Year energy going into February and beyond. I know there are tons of statistics on how quickly people give up on their goals. But I read one particular study that was shared in Forbes magazine that said 80% of people have given up on their resolutions by February. That seems so crazy to me.
80% of people got less than 10% into the year before giving up on change. Wow. So why is it a struggle to keep going? What are we doing wrong? And how can we do it better. I’m hoping to touch on this a bit in today’s episode with four shifts to successfully reach your goals. And these are in no particular order. So first, I want you to consider when you set a goal, you have to have a y attached to it. Okay, I know that you’ve probably heard this before. And that’s because it is very true. To accomplish a big goal, whether it’s making millions of dollars or getting in shape or starting a podcast, the first thing you have to have is to get motivated. And you do that by tapping into the why? Why do you want this so badly? Your y is your motivation. And motivation is your fuel to keep going when things are hard and slow and spoiler alert, reaching goals is always hard and slow. So whether you’re setting new goals, or reviewing the goals, you’ve already set, knowing the Y is a huge factor in your success. And the deeper your y the better. So the second thing is remembering that you have to make space to do the work.
This one might seem super obvious, but I know I have been guilty of this in the past, I set a goal. And I think I will just work in the margins of my schedule to make progress. And maybe that happens when I only give myself the margins of my schedule to do the work. The goal only gets marginal progress, like the Have you heard the quote, what we value we do. I can’t remember where I heard it. But just think about it, what we value we do. That quote is basically calling us out on the things that we say we want versus the things that really matter. Because if it really mattered, we would find the time to do it. And not just in the margins of our day but real time. So if you’re struggling to meet a goal or if you’re wondering how you will meet a new goal, one piece of the puzzle is carving out intentional time to do the work. And that probably means taking time away from something else. That’s the kicker. You’re already busy. You already have a full schedule and a full life. But if this goal really matters to you something else is going to have to go for a little bit so that you have intentional time to do the work. If you value this goal goal. If you are passionate about the why behind the goal, you will make the time to move the needle Period, end of story. In order to prioritize the things that you want to change that you’re passionate about, you have to make space for them. First, rearrange your calendar, cut out something else, whatever you need to do so that you have intentional blocks of time to work on this goal that is so important to you. Okay, so the third thing to remember when you were looking at your goals or thinking about setting new goals, less is more. Listen, I know knew your energy is a whole vibe.
And it can be really easy to commit to changing your entire life. But if you do that, you’re setting yourself up for failure, you cannot change everything at once. It’s too much to stay consistent with instead, I encourage you to pick one. What are you the most passionate about? What are you the most excited about what will make the biggest difference? Start with that one. When you go all in on one goal at a time, you’re able to be laser focused, all your thoughts and energy are going into one thing instead of being super diluted over 10 goals. When you focus on one goal at a time, you will meet those goals faster, and then be able to tackle the next goal. Let’s look at a really really simplified example of this. If you are tempted to set five big goals for yourself this year, you could either try and work on them all at once, your efforts and energies are diluted over five different things. And so your progress is slow, naturally, maybe you reach a couple of them by the end of the year. Or maybe you get discouraged by the slow progress. You abandon them all by the summer, right? On the flip side, if you take those five goals and decide to focus on them one at a time, put all of your energy into one at a time, you could meet the first one in like two and a half months, and then start the second one. And then two and a half months later, start the third and so on.
And if you’re going at that rate, you can totally meet those goals in a year by doing them one at a time. The fourth thing I want you to consider and this one is a really, really big one. Take small steps. So as a business coach, one common thing I hear over and over again is okay, Sabrina, I have my goal. But how do I actually get there? They look at their goal and then say now what? The answer is simple. Break your goal into as many small steps as possible. And when I say small, I mean really itty bitty tiny steps. The smaller your steps, the more motivation you have, the faster your progress. Setting goals and not breaking them down into small steps is the easiest way to set yourself up for failure. If you’re feeling stuck, and you’re not making any progress towards your goals, I really encourage you to look and see if it’s possible. To break the steps down even farther. I’m sure you may have seen this common goal setting graphic that’s going around that’s an image of a mountain with a standard ladder in front of it.
There’s a man standing at the bottom of the ladder looking up the mountain and he starts climbing one rung at a time. On the other side of that image is another mountain, another man and another ladder. But this time, only about a third of the rungs on the ladder are in place. The gaps to climb up the ladder are huge, almost unattainable. Which guy is going to get to the top of the mountain, the one with the small, seemingly easy steps, or the one with huge steps where every single one is a physical strain. It’s obvious small steps always win, always. So to recap, the next time you’re setting goals or taking the time to reassess a goal that isn’t working, go through these four things and see if you can find the leak in order to find more success. Number one truly know your why. And the deeper the why the better. Number two, make space to do the work be intentional with your calendar and if things have to go in order to make that space. That’s okay. Number three, remember that less is more focused on one goal at a time. And number four, make sure you are taking small steps. That’s it for today, my friend as usual, I hope that this episode was an encouragement to you. I’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina gebhart.com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you Hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight
