Get Out of the Rut - Episode # 6
Setting Goals
Hey guys, welcome back to one more episode. And I am pretty excited with the topic that I want to talk about today and my excitement. It's because I haven't been someone that likes to be very goal focused. Growing up, I never really set up any goals and something that I would like to get in my mind. You know, maybe I want to move to the United States.
It wasn't a goal that I set and it was very measurable and I knew the plan and right, how I would achieve it. It was, it has always been day by day. And I've noticed that this is how I have achieved a lot of the things I wanted. It's day by day. Let's just see how it goes. This is what I want. What is the next step?
So what is a great way? I have achieved quite a bit in my whole life, but never deliberately, never really trying, focused and working towards something. The first time that I tried something, it was, I have mentioned a few times in the podcast. If you have been my client, you probably heard this story before, but it was, I started running.
I went to the cemetery during COVID with my children and they were playing around and I was like, let me see if I can run. I just wanted to, I live in Boston. Every single person here, it feels like they all run, right? Marathons, 5Ks. And I just wanted to try it. And I got my phone. I set a timer and I wanted to see how it goes.
And I ran for about seven or eight seconds and I was half dead. It's like, holy cow. So much harder than I thought, and so embarrassing. I was looking around, seeing if my kids could see me, and no one could see me. Thank goodness. But then I was like, okay, my goal. And that was most likely one of the first times I set an actual goal.
It was like, okay, my goal is that I really want to do 30 seconds today. And I kept trying. I kept trying. I kept trying. And that is how I started to apply the coaching that I had learned before. I'm just on podcasts and books. And I was like, if my thoughts create my results, and I keep thinking that this is too hard and almost impossible, I would never be able to do this.
It makes so much sense. So I start thinking differently. And it was really like for me to try to see if the coaching worked. And just right there, I was thinking, huh, I wonder if it's possible for me to run. For 30 seconds, and that sounded quite silly. Of course, it's possible that I would run 30 seconds.
So I kept trying and it got up to 15 seconds and then 20 seconds. Like it was very, you know the small progress. But I was just trying, it was quite fun for me to keep trying and I was like changing my thoughts as, you know, from it's too hard to, Oh my goodness, I'm getting so much closer. I can actually do this and bring up all the excitement for me to achieve that one thing.
And that was seriously what has changed everything for me. Because since that day, I start noticing that if I start thinking in a certain way. My emotions, right, the feelings in my body changes. Therefore, the way I act is very different. So not even what I'm doing is different because I could keep on trying to run 30 seconds with that, you know, I'm such a loser.
I can't even do this. I can't believe I got so out of shape. Right. And yes, I could probably achieve that 30 seconds. But it wouldn't be enjoyable. Instead, it was this joy of, wow, this is unbelievable that I can actually do this. And from there on, I kept on practicing. I fell in love with running. I kept on going back, you know, every single day, sometimes twice a day where I was running for 5k and that's over three miles.
What is very exciting to me. It doesn't mean that it wasn't hard. It doesn't mean that I didn't have pain, right? But what it did mean is that I was falling in love with the process because I could see the potential that I really desire and want.
And this is kind of what I wanted to talk about today. It's how we set goals. This is the first week in March, is the last month and a quarter, and Most likely you have already given up on most of your goals, right? All of those amazing things that you set in the beginning of the year, all those things that you were like, Oh, it would be so wonderful for me to create by the end of 2024.
If you were like I was a few years ago, I couldn't even remember what it was, or I would remember that the goal was to lose weight because that was the same goal every single year. And I had never really done anything to lose that weight. So. If that's you, I want to listen up. And see how this might change your perspective of how you achieve goals and how you want to, you know, set your goals from now on.
If you don't know this, I do have my private clients that I absolutely adore. And I also am the mindset coach inside of the building business boutique that is this business coaching program with Debbie Shadid. And let me just tell you, Debbie is probably the brightest business coach I've ever seen.
She drove my business in a way that I am in awe what I was able to create in one year since I started working with her. So if you're building your business. I need to just give this little, you know, ad break here. She's not paying me anything to say this, but go look into this building business boutique.
Okay. Back to my point here. I was teaching a class for this 12 week program that I set up for her that's called Assessing Plan.
This program has blown my mind. It is so unbelievable and I have tons of more ideas of what we will do together. But this one, it's something that like we would look at our past. Past week for this women that are building their business, right? We look the past week and see what they created. And then I taught them how to reframe in a way where, just like I said about me running the 30 seconds to refer me from this place of.
Oh my goodness, I couldn't even achieve those small goals that I wanted to a place where all that is so exciting. Look what I have created and look how much more I can do from this place of excitement. So that is the work that we have been doing to reframe our mindset in business. But one thing that I said in class was this.
There is a difference between achieving your goals, enriching your future self. One of the concepts that I teach my clients is the future self. The idea of the type of person or that that person, the identity that you want to possess in the future. And we work towards that. But even more importantly than working towards the future self is that I teach you this through an exercise and even through a meditation, how to bring the future self to you right now.
So you have a better connection and a better understanding of who that person really is, because it's you. And you would be surprised how many people don't even know themselves, right? So, it's that I'm teaching you how to see yourself in a better way, but also seeing yourself in the future, the way that you want it to be.
So when I said this, there's a difference between achieving a goal. Enriching your future self, I had tons of hands raised by a lot of people asking me to explain a little bit more what that even meant. So I thought it was interesting to bring this up here because this is the secret that got me to lose over 40 pounds in less than six months in a healthy and sustainable way.
That is the way that I learned how to run every single day and not You know, too tired or too hurt or, you know, none of those things. So just in a very enjoyable way, this is the process that helped me really understand how to fall in love with the process instead of just having that heaviness of, I have to do this.
And truthfully, most times we set goals from this energy of I'm not good enough, I have to change. So when you talk about. Achieving a goal and reaching the future self, that is the key of falling in love with the process. Let me tell you how I came to this.
When I was losing weight, when I start running, and again, I'm not here to talk about go run and you lose weight, that is so not a point, but. When I was running on a daily basis and I start to really care for my body because I was falling in love with the physical body, right? I was falling in love with how I looked, falling in love of how I felt physically.
I'm not even talking about the emotionally self love, it's physically. And I could see what my body was capable of doing. I start, you know, weighing myself every single day to see the results on the scale. And When I first looked at the scale, I was a little surprised. I didn't know how much overweight I was.
I was about 20 pounds overweight and they scared me because I wasn't, I couldn't see it before. From a place of discernment, I was able to see why I got to that place in the first place. Why did I gain that weight? And I had a lot of compassion towards myself. I had just moved from pretty good sized house with my three little kids.
My twins were two years old. My son was three and a half. And we moved to a one bedroom apartment to live here in Boston until my house was built. That added a lot of stress. And it was a brand new place that I didn't know anyone and my husband was working crazy hours. It added a lot of stress. And then we moved in and then COVID hit and we had no friends.
We have no community. Yes, I put some weight. And just having that compassion instead of what I would say before, it was like, Oh my gosh, what a loser, you know, eat like a pig that that was the kind of things that I was saying to myself before. Now I was able to see it with this very. You know, nice, loving, compassionate way towards myself.
And that is what I teach my clients. That is the first sign that we know you are ready to set some goals. When you're able to see the situation, to see why you want to change from a loving place. From this place and looking at the number on the scale, I was like, Oh. I think it would be very nice for me to lose 30 pounds.
It wasn't any scientific method. It was just something that like, wouldn't it be nice if I lost 30 pounds. Interesting. So I had that number in my mind and I said on my little app, I think it was like my fitness pal and I, I added, you know, that goal weight and I kept on running. I kept eating really healthy and I was exercising even more because I start to enjoy going to the gym and start enjoying going for longer walks with my family and lifting weights.
And my husband joined me on the gym. So it was just this extra excitement. And I saw the number going down on a scale, it's like, wow, this is fascinating. My husband too. That was kind of like our idea of falling in love with the process because it was so much fun. It doesn't mean that we didn't, you know, some days we just didn't want to go exercise or some days we felt like it was a waste of time.
It wouldn't matter anyways. We had all of those things, but we were able to keep the consistency because it was so much fun, right? Seeing the results was so much fun and so exciting. And one day I noticed the number on the scale because I was, you know, journaling this and looking at numbers and seeing how many steps I took in a day because it's so much fun to do it.
And one time I looked at my scale and I looked at my journal and I said, wait a minute. I think I. Achieved my goal, like two weeks ago. So I looked through the past, you know, journaling entries, and I saw that it had to be about two or three weeks prior that I had achieved that 30 pounds. And I was mind blown because it didn't matter at all.
And again, that was the first time I realized that the goal doesn't really matter. It's the person that you're becoming. It's the journeys, the process that you have. That was what was very excited to me. And. You know, that is something that as a coach, I'm constantly teaching people the concepts, but it's very different when you understand for yourself and you can feel that.
So from then on, I had that very, you know, specific conviction that the goal is just a number. That drives you to achieve something, but when we're really focused on the type of person that you will become from achieving the goal, now you get to enjoy the whole process. And that's how you worked, right? I had this vision of my future self, very fit and she had muscles and she was accustomed to running quite a bit and she had a really good relationship with herself and she had a successful business.
That is the type of person I became. Because I was able to see it and work, not only work towards that goal, but also incorporating that person. When I was able to eat like my future self, when I was able to run like my future self, when I was able to talk to myself in a mirror like my future self, then I became her and I didn't even notice the number.
It was just a little plus. Of course I was excited. Of course I celebrated. But it wasn't a huge deal that I thought it would be. It didn't change my whole life. Now, I have another example about this that just happened last week. I did my taxes and you know, I do all of my business taxes and I send it to my husband and he's the one that deals with it.
Everybody else, the accountant and everything that gives him headaches, right? That's on him. So I sent it to him and he came back. I sent this spreadsheet and it had everything that I earned and what I spent. Right. And I just gave it to him and he wrote back and said, Oh, Thais, I'm really sorry, but the formula you use doesn't work.
We need to go through again. So pick it up, all the receipts, everything that you have done because you need to redo it all. And I was like, Oh, I was so annoyed. I was. So happy that I kept all the numbers in the right place and I had this beautiful spreadsheet that, okay, truth be told, I'm terrible with this.
I don't know how to use spreadsheets. It doesn't work in my brain. It's just not something that I enjoy very much. So even for me to have done that, I was like, Oh, I can't believe I need to redo. And it's taxes for crying out loud. No one wants to do it, let alone redo it. So I sat with him on Saturday morning and we went through the whole thing again.
And as he looked through, he was like, Oh my goodness. I think you made a lot more than you thought you did. And I was like, no way. And he's like, I think you did. Let's calculate it again. So he went through. Now, let me tell you this before, in this assessing plan classes that I teach with Debbie Shadid.
We had a class talking about goals, and one of the things that I said is that when you really become that person that you want to be, when you have that goal achieved, right, and you become that person, the goal just doesn't matter. So I gave them my example. Okay, I grew quite a bit this year, but I didn't achieve my goal.
I made about $10,000 less than what I wanted. And I was like, I'm not upset. I'm not ashamed. I'm so proud of myself because that was an impossible goal. I didn't think I was going to achieve it anyways, but I worked hard and I was able to earn so much more than I have earned in my whole life. But that's how I was explaining to the clients, right? The goal didn't matter that I didn't achieve. But what really mattered is that the person I became. And I'm so happy with my results. Fast forward two weeks and I'm talking to my husband and turns out that I made like over $20,000 more than my actual goal.
And that blew my mind. I start crying and I was so proud of myself, but not surprised. I was not surprised that that actually happened because of the person that I became. And this is, again, what I wanted to share with you today is that the first step for you to set a goal, it's not from a place of, I am not good enough and I have to change.
Remember how I teach here. You are already perfect. You already have everything that you need. What do you really need right now? It's for you to understand what is it that you want to be? What is the type of person that you want to become? And as you become her today, as you go through this exercises that I have been teaching you here and talking about this, when you start to really notice who the future self is and what you need to do.
To become her today, the goal just flows to you. You just achieve the things you desire because that's the type of person you are. So I am right now. Today. I am the type of person that can run and not feel too tired, right?
That's the type of person that I became from many months ago, thinking that. I think it'd be exciting to try running for 30 seconds. That's the beauty of this work. And again, for my business, earning as much money as I did earn, it wasn't enjoyable. It wasn't hard. I mean, it's hard to say this because it was hard. It had a lot of crying. It had a lot of, right? Like fear. But even that, because I was so connected with my future and because I was so certain that I could achieve this.
I was able to go through the hardships in a way that today, looking back, I'm so proud of myself. It feels very enjoyable. The story that I have for myself in business for 2023, it's that, holy cow, I did work quite a bit. And it was amazing. I could prove to myself how capable I am. So right now I'm setting up this new goal for my health, and I'm starting to notice the difference.
I'm starting to see again when I start to go to this place of I have to do things. And when I go to a place where I get to do things because of this is the type of person that I am. I am the type of person that eats more protein than, you know, carbs, and I am this type of person that likes to eat salad.
I am this type of person that loves to walk and loves to go outside and loves to exercise. You see, it's the type of person that I am is the identity that I possess that will drive the actions that I want to take to eventually achieve the goal. So I hope this is good for you. I hope this helped and I can't wait to hear your goals.
And if you don't have a goal, I would love to help you set up one. And more than anything is really for you to tap into your potential. Who is that person that you can become and how you can be that person today? You don't have to wait three years from now to have that. So I absolutely love you. Thank you so much for listening and I can't wait to talk to you again next week.
You have a phenomenal week. I will see you soon. Bye.
