EP 64: How To Set & Achieve ATTAINABLE Goals Revisited

Today's episode is another replay and it's all about how to set attainable goals. Okay, so I wanted to re release this episode to get you thinking about your approach to your three New year resolutions. Hopefully, here's something in this episode that inspires you. As you well know if you've been around the Think Happy community for a while, goal setting is one of my all time favorite topics to coach on. In fact, I love it so much that I've included it as one of the areas that we're going to cover inside of the Becoming Your Best You group program that will be launching next month. The waitlist for joining opens on December and waitlisters will get lots of awesome perks, including a one and fifty dollar discount. Yes, awesome perks, I'm telling you, so to get on the on the waitlist, just send me a d M and I'll get you all set up. And one more thing about goal setting before I can't believe I literally almost forgot to tell you this. I'm also going to be hosting a free event the first week of Anuary that's going to be all about setting your intention fore and then how to use that intention to then create your goals and resolutions for the rest of the year. So yeah, lots of good stuff going on in the goal setting thing these days over at think Happy. And with that being said, here's the episode. Hello and welcome back to the Think Happy podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Cuevas, and I am just so happy to be here with you today.

Today's episode is filled with so much good stuff, y'all. This might be one that you end up listening to a few times just so you can soak in all of the information I'm going to share with you. We are going to chat about the fifth and final pillar of Think Happy's five signature pillars, which is setting and achieving attainable goals. I love goal setting, Like, I totally love goal setting. It's hard for me to pick a favorite pillar, but right now, I just like really feel like this is one of my favorites. And the timing is just so perfect, just with it being the beginning of a new year. And I know there are a lot of you out there who have been thinking about goals and resolutions for Actually, just a couple episodes ago, I shared my two resolutions with you guys, So if you haven't tuned into that one yet, just go give it a listen. That is episode sixteen. Today, it's time to dive into episode or two, Pillar five of Think Happys five signature pillars, So if you are new to the podcast, go check out episodes four, six, eight, and twelve to learn about the first four pillars, which are time management, taking care of your body, taking care of your heart, and loving yourself. And the cool thing is is each pillar leading up to this point actually plays a part in today's pillar of setting and achieving attainable goals. So we'll do a quick recap Pillar one. Time management. It's pretty black and white. If you have set any sort of goal for yourself, you're gonna need to put time into it. Optimizing time management is going to set you up for success and help you to find the time and you're already busy day to work on your goal. Additionally, another aspect of time management that I love talking about is regaining and reallocating your wasted time. The time that you regain can be reallocated towards working on your goals Pillars two and three. So taking care of your body and taking care of your heart. Prioritizing the well being of your body and heart is a continuous goal that takes ongoing effort. Life gets in the way, and it's easy to push self care to the back burner. But if you reframe it and look at sell care as a goal you're working toward, it's suddenly more worthy of your time and effort. And then Pillar four, loving yourself. When you are taking steps to truly love yourself, it's easier to see the importance of goal setting. If you're able to see the importance of a goal, you're much more likely to follow through. So all of this leads us to today's pillar again, Pillar five, setting and achieving your attainable goals. So let's start this conversation off by talking about the word attainable, because in my opinion, it's the most important part of this whole pillar. Attainable is defined as possible to achieve. So in order to accomplish your goals, your goal must be one that you can actually achieve. I am all about setting large, huge, enormous goals, but the goal must be something you can actually do and with the necessary effort, have a high likelihood of accomplishing. If it's not, then you have immediately set yourself up for failure. Moving forward, each time you set a goal, I want the first thing you do to be asking yourself, is this goal possible to achieve? If yes, carry on, my friend. If no, halt, do not move forward until you have tweaked the goal to become attainable.

Part one of this pillar is actually setting your attainable goal. So to do that, we're going to talk about defining your goal, and part of that will be checking for attainability. And inside of defining your goal, we're going to touch on considering your personality and creating your goal to be specific yet flexible. Excuse me, So first things first, define your goal. Now, this is the easiest part. So what is your goal? What are you working toward? Is it a promotion at work? Is it losing weight? Is it paying off debt? Is it running a marathon? Whatever it is, define it and while you're at it, write it down. Okay, so before you move forward, remember check it for attainability. Is this goal attainable? Is it something you can actually achieve with necessary effort? So for the sake of this conversation, we're going to assume that it is, because now we're going to move on to the fun stuff. Knowing your personality is an important aspect of knowing how to best set attainable goals for yourself. Are you someone who has a lot of inward accountability i e. To yourself and to your conscience, or maybe outward accountability i e. To a friend, a family member, a boss, or just to other people in your life, or maybe you're a combination of the two. If you're driven by inward accountability, all you need is to make a commitment to yourself and then you will feel the need to follow through. Examples would be someone who successfully accomplishes New Year's resolutions, or someone who trains for a marathon alone. People with inward accountability find it easier to keep promises and commitments they have made to themselves. So on the other hand, if you're driven by outward accountability to follow through on a commitment, it helps to feel like someone is counting on you. Examples of this type of personality are someone who prefers to utilize a running buddy while training for a marathon, or someone who works best with a deadline to get things done. People who have outward accountability find it easier to keep promises and commitments they make to a friend, or to a co worker, or to a family member. For myself, I know I best respond to inward accountability. Now I will say that having a dose of outward accountability helps to but by default, I'm wired as an inward accountability type of gal. Knowing your personality and how you respond to accountability is the first step in setting attainable goals for yourself. So having this foundation will help you to set yourself up for success by defining your approach to your goal.

Next up or so, yeah, next up, We're going to create a goal that is specific yet flexible. That sounds a little contradictory, right, But when you're setting an attainable goal, the goal needs to be very specific. I want to lose weight is not specific. How much weight do you want to lose? What's your timeline? If you set a non specific goal, again, you have taken your goal out of the attainable category and put it into the unattainable category. Therefore, you're inadvertently setting yourself up to fail, which we do not want. Suppose that at the beginning of February you say I want to lose ten pounds by Easter. This is much more specific. You have defined exactly how much weight you want to lose and have given yourself a day you want to achieve your your weight loss by. Before you even start taking steps towards losing weight, you have already set yourself up for a better chance of success by being specific in what you're trying to accomplish. Attainable goals are specific plot twists. Attainable goals are also flexible. It's Easter day and you've been eating healthy, moving your body, and actively taking steps towards losing those darn ten pounds. But you step on the scale and you've only lost eight so far. You have not failed. I'm gonna say that again for our friends who need to hear this loud and clear, you have not failed. Keep on keeping on, and do not even consider stopping. Your goal is flexible. Remember you're making lifestyle changes and loving on yourself and frankly, losing ten pounds is no easy feat to is. Because your timeline is off does not give you the excuse to give up on the final two pounds. Keep eating healthy, keep moving your body, just keep working on reaching that goal of losing all ten pounds. Creating flexibility with your goal allows you to acknowledge that sometimes life happens and things outside of your control are going to get in the way. Be realistic with your expectations and be prepared for the unexpected curve falls that will be thrown your way. Building flexibility into your goals not only allows you grace, but also helps prevent giving into temptations to give up self. Attainable goals are specific and flexible. Got it good? Good? Aaron Conjuran is my go to for planners, stickers, and other organization accessories and can I tell you something cool?

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Okay, guys, Part two of this is achieving your attainable goal. This is where we transition into the doing part, the roll up your sleeves part, the let's get to work part. Let's talk about creating your game plan for your goal execution. My favorite method for this is what I like to call the mini goals approach. I like this approach so much because first it helps you to track your progress along the way, and second, it helps to keep you motivated by easily identifying what you've already achieved. In a nutshell, the mini goals method is taking your one big goal then breaking it down into smaller, more easy to achieve goals, i e. Many goals. We already use weight losses in an example, so I'm gonna use exercise for this example. Okay, so let's take running a marathon, which is twenty six point two miles. So again we're back in February, you set a goal to run a marathon. You research marathons that are scheduled for and pick one that's going to be close to you on October two. So you have set your specific goal to run a marathon on Sunday, October two. Now, to run twenty six point two miles is a big, big goal. You cannot just set out for a morning jog one day and check twenty six point two miles off of your list without proper dedicated training. No, you need a training plan. You need many goals. Your mini goals will be gradually building up mileage until you reach twenty six point two miles on race day. So stay with me here as I break this down. There are about thirty four weeks between February and October, so you have thirty four weeks to build up to twenty six point two miles. You literally have thirty four mini goals to get you to your ultimate goal, starting at just one or two miles as mini goal number one, and building all the way up to the full twenty six point two miles by week thirty four. This will give you plenty of time to build in flexibility and to be realistic with your training. Another way of looking at this could be monthly instead of weekly. There are eight months between February and October, so you could have eight mini goals. Each goal could be a cumulative mile count that increases month after month. Again, this allows for flexibility, but will also help to keep you on track. This approach can be used for any type of goal you might have. Let's say your goal is to pay off your car in six months. To accomplish this goal, let's just say you need to save six thousand dollars. Your many goals might be to save one thousand dollars per month, so in six months you'll have the six thousand dollars you need to pay off your car. Not only have you set yourself up for success by creating a series of mini goals to help you reach your ultimate goal, you've also created a system that allows you to measure your progress along the way. You might have five or a hundred mini goals that need to be accomplished in order to reach your ultimate goal. What matters is that each time you check off a task, you've accomplished a mini goal and have given yourself a moral boost throughout the journey of accomplishing your goals. You will so appreciate this boost and it will help to keep you motivated. It's in our nature to thrive on the feeling of accomplishment, So set yourself up for success by creating stepping stone to guide you along the way all the way to your finish line. So today, guys, we have talked about a lot of good stuff. First, making sure your goal is attainable and considering your personality. We talked about making goals specific yet flexible, and finally we talked about many goals. I want to leave you with a challenge, and that challenge is to challenge yourself when it comes to goal setting. Our existence is not intended to be mediocre and living our happiest lives is not defined by kinda doing our best. We're here to do great things and to be the best versions of ourselves. And guess what, there is not one single person on the face of this earth who has the ability to care about what you do with your life as deeply as you do. Your family, friends, teachers, coaches, none of them can make you awesome. That ball is in your court, my friend, and you've got this. You have so totally got this. So thank you, Thank you.

Thank you for tuning in too today's episode. Please do me a quick favor and share this with a friend, and bonus points if you share on your social media tag me if you do. Word of mouth is the best way to grow a podcast and I need your help to do that. So again, thank you so much for being part of the think Happy community and happy goal setting friends. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Think Happy Podcast. If you just can't get enough, find me on Instagram at think Happy Underscore Co. That's CEO, and online at thinkhappyco.com. See you next week.