303: The Trick to Setting Goals That Stick

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast. I’m Dr. Jen Riday and on this episode I’ll be talking about how to become your best self and not what someone else thinks is your best self. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey, there my friends, welcome to Vibrant Happy Women and I hope you are thriving and not just surviving throughout this holiday season. We begin now to look forward to the new year that is ahead. We’ve had an interesting couple of years, and I know many women are ready to be back on track, to figure out what they want and to go after it. To feel that sense of achievement, and accomplishment, and balance again. And if that’s you, you are in the right place. We’ll be talking about becoming your best self in the year ahead throughout this episode.

As we begin the new year many of us have goals or intentions to lose weight, to declutter something, perhaps it’s a new job or a new house that we’re looking for. Or we want to build emotional resilience so people’s words don’t bother us anymore. Perhaps you’re looking to build healthier boundaries to preserve and protect your precious, precious time and energy. Maybe you want to help your kids be more successful and well adjusted.

All of these goals are beautiful because they are taking little bits of chaos that is the human condition of living on this planet, and creating order from them, creating something beautiful from them, like a maestro, like an artist. You get to be an artist in 2022 and create something beautiful and organized from the chaos that is the human condition. Cool way to look at it, right?

Unfortunately 92% of humans give up on their new year’s goals and resolutions halfway into the month of January. And this can be really discouraging. Perhaps you’ve been among the people who have done that a time or two, or three or ten. And that’s okay. I want you to let go of any shame and recognize it’s not your fault because you didn’t know the trick to setting goals and intentions that stick. You didn’t know the trick to making things stick.

There are seven major mistakes that people make when they’re setting their new year’s intentions.

Number one, they don’t recognize what they really want, they have no idea what they want. Let me ask you, do you know what you really want? So many of us follow this path, this prescribed ideal of what life should look like. We should own a nice car, have a nice job with benefits, own a beautiful home, have kids that get A’s and go to Ivy League schools, and you get the idea. Unfortunately, this ideal is manufactured and not real. Nobody has it all. Nobody is happy and successful all the time.

We tend to actually hide our struggles from each other because of this ideal. And set that intention now to let go of that ideal. Set it aside and truly commit to going after what you want.

Number two, another mistake many people make is not figuring out why they want what they want. When you know why you want something you will feel an emotional juice that literally propels you toward that goal. Why do you want to declutter your home? Why do you want to have healthier boundaries? And then feeling what that would feel like, that is very, very motivating. And many people have no idea why they want something.

Another mistake that many people make is forgetting about their basic human needs when setting their goals. So you might think it sounds amazing to set the goal to go to the gym five days a week to work out for an hour on the elliptical. Sounds motivated, sounds intense. But what do you actually need? Like I’ve talked about in some past episodes we have many basic human needs.

Tony Robbins has six basic human needs he likes to talk about. And these are certainty, variety or fun, significance, feeling like we’re important, love and connection, growth, and contribution. How can you set your goals in a way that allows you to meet your basic human needs? When you meet one, or two, or three, or more needs your goals become sticky. You want them, you become addicted to them because you’re actually meeting your needs while you’re working on a goal.

Number four, a fourth mistake many people make when setting their new year’s goals and intentions is not creating a vision of the end result. What does it look like, and feel like, and taste like, and sound like to have this result, to have achieved this goal in your life? Taking time to envision that, and feel that, and let that become a motivator and a source of juice to propel you towards your goal.

Number five, this is a big one. When you set an intention it can feel great in the beginning. But then if you interact with the same old people they will pull you back to wanting what everyone else wants. This means many of us mistakenly set our goals without establishing a community of people who will help us think differently about our goals. We need community.

Number six, this one’s huge, I’ve talked about them before a time or two or 50. And that is your thoughts, primarily your subconscious thoughts. All of us grow up with programming. My friend, Kitt, was just talking about how she grew up with food scarcity, and scarcity of clothing, and the things she needed so that when she came into contact with those things she would kind of grab, and protect, and hoard a little bit. And her husband in contrast, Blake, didn’t grow up like that at all. So they have an entirely different approach toward their things, and their food, and their money.

And Kitt has been learning and doing her work to let go of those limiting beliefs and scarcity around things, and food, and the stuff in her life. Isn’t that fascinating? It’s wired in there from birth. We’re born with not a lot of thoughts, those neurons as when we’re babies are connecting like crazy. We’re watching everything, we’re listening. And we grow up and we kind of take that programming we hear from our parents, what we see them doing, becomes a part of us.

If we don’t dig into this and do the work to understand what’s going on in our subconscious mind and find the thoughts that are limiting us and holding us back, no amount of goal setting is going to help us change if we don’t address the underlying beliefs first. So you have to figure out what you actually believe and start changing those beliefs to get a new result.

And number seven, kind of goes with number six. Another mistake many people make is they set goals, it sounds amazing. I’m going to lose 20 pounds. I’m going to declutter my attic. We set these goals, but we fail to establish a new identity of a person who would achieve that goal. What does this mean? Well, if you have a goal to write every day perhaps you need to establish the new identity of being an author, or a writer. And believe that new identity by practicing it every day so it becomes part of your new programming.

So to recap, those seven mistakes so many people make when setting their goals and intentions can make it really tricky to keep going. You need to identify what you really want. You need to know why you want it. You need to meet your basic human needs through the goal to make it more sticky. You need to create a vision of yourself achieving the goal as if it’s already real, be able to see it, hear it, taste it, touch it. You need a community of people who help you think in new ways rather than dragging you back to that norm of what everyone else wants.

You need to analyze your subconscious beliefs, and the programming you grew up with, and let go of any programming that doesn’t serve the new results you want in your life. And number seven, you need to create an identity of already being a person who has the result you want in your life. These are seven ways you can become your best self in the year ahead.

So let me leave you with a question, what do you really want? If you want help answering this question, if you’re the type of person that likes to be guided through a process to discover what you really want and why you want it, and how you can get that by meeting your needs. How you can create the vision and the community, how you can change your thoughts and identity, I am hosting the New You in 2022 event in the Vibrant Happy Women Club on January 1^st.

It’s a three hour event where I will hold space for you to do this discovery work of identifying what you really want, and the thoughts and identity you need to have to get yourself there. And I’ll teach you how to do that. This is free for all members of the Vibrant Happy Women Club. If you’re not yet a member of the club you’re going to want to be there. You can join us any time before Saturday January 1^st by going to jenriday.com/join.

Now, a little note. You can join for $47 a month, getting access to all the lessons, and the soul circles, and the vault filled with meditations and other content. And that’s amazing. Or you can join us for the entire year and move through all 12 themes in the club that we’ll be covering monthly and get two months free. That’s $470. Plus we will give you a buy one get one free offer for the 2023 Vibrant Happy Women live event. It’s a brand new event. I can’t wait to tell you more about it. Listen to episodes to come when I’ll be describing that in the weeks ahead.

Vibrant Happy Women live, you can get yourself a ticket and get your friend in for free. If you’re going to sign up get the annual so you can get that buy one get one free offer. Again, that’s $470 for the year to be a member of the club for 12 full months. That gives you access to the soul circles, the buy one get one free offer for the Vibrant Happy Women live event and those of you who are annual members also get access to Time Mastery for Women, my award winning time management program.

You’ll get access to the Heal Your Heart program which is 20 lessons all aimed at helping you to increase self-love. And the Heal Your Relationship program which will help you heal your romantic relationship or marriage. Don’t forget, you’ll also get to access to our January 1^st event, the New You in 2022. All of that for being a member of the Vibrant Happy Women Club. You can sign up for the club at jenriday.com/join.

I’m going to leave you with this question and encourage you to let it percolate throughout the days ahead. What do you want? What do you really want in 2022? Not just stuff or accumulation but feelings, how do you want to feel in 2022? What would be the measure of feeling great? How do you know when you’ve arrived? How would you feel with your energy in your relationships, in your friendships? How would you feel about your time management, your environment, your home? How do you want to feel in the year ahead?

You deserve and you can, absolutely can feel amazing. And that is why I’m here to help you get there. So that is your assignment, your food for thought. Give those questions a thought, perhaps journal on them and I hope to see many of you at the New You in 2022 event on January 1^st, coming soon again. Sign up for that by becoming a member of the club. That’s only available to members of the Vibrant Happy Women Club. And you can join us monthly for 47 or annually for 470.

Remember, annual members get two months free. You get a buy one get one free offer for the Vibrant Happy Women live event coming in 2023. And you get access to Time Mastery for Women, Heal Your Heart and Heal your Relationship. So the annual plan is a fantastic deal and I highly recommend you sign up for that. And you can do that at jenriday.com/join.

My friends, I love you, you’ve got this. Let’s do this and create the new you in 2022. I will see you again next time, until then make it a vibrant and happy week. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.