Ep 211 Happy New Year
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Sara Mayer: Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, bold goal crushers! Happy New Year. I'm super excited about the beginning of the year. As this is one of my favorite times of the year. I think it's a natural time for people to start thinking about goals and to really reflect on the past year. And if you haven't started thinking about [00:01:00] reflection of 2023.
Sara Mayer: I encourage you to do that today. I really want you to come at it from a place of positivity, not a place of what you didn't get done. Many people have already expressed that they were overwhelmed in 2023. They still feel like they're not caught up. Or they had a really great year, but they're not sure how to bring that into 2024.
Sara Mayer: So I encourage you to take some time today on this new year as I wish you a happy new year to think about what really worked last year. What are the things that you need? To continue doing because they work so well in the past year. And remember to give yourself some grace. Many times people look at the last three months of the year, rather than the entire year, because there were many wins that you may have had early on last year that you might [00:02:00] forget about if you don't think about the entire year.
Sara Mayer: And be specific, make sure that you are truly being specific about what you, what worked really well. And don't let yourself get into the habit of saying, Oh, that worked well, but this really didn't. Stay focused on the question at hand. What really worked well? And then it's time to think about what you will keep doing that worked well, because this is the time of the year where you can plan for your success.
Sara Mayer: Now, I do want to give you a little caveat. This isn't the only time of year that you can do this. You can do this at any time throughout the year, but naturally the new year. That is the time of new beginnings. And because of that, it's a natural time for people to really think about their goals. Now when you think about [00:03:00] what you will keep doing, you also want to be specific on that.
Sara Mayer: So I will keep doing my weekly reflection on Sunday. I will keep doing this, even if you missed a few times, even if didn't do every single day, it's important to use language that you will keep doing something. And then it's important to think about who you are. Many of our big, bold goals require us.
Sara Mayer: To become somebody different, to step into a new version of ourselves. And it's important to think about who you are becoming. So imagining what you want to be in the future is a critical part of the next part of planning. So how would you describe the person? And what are the daily activities that person does the person that you want to become?
Sara Mayer: And this will help you step [00:04:00] into this, the future self that you need to be in order to truly achieve your bold goals. And now it's really time to dream big. What? Is your focus next? What are you going to do in this new year in 2024 that will become your focus? And we've talked about this a couple times, the book, the 12 week year, it's really critical to you.
Sara Mayer: Break the year down because what happens is many times people think about when I get this, I'll do that. Or when this happens, when I have time, when I have money, when I get a little more breaks at work, when I get a new job, I will do this. And unfortunately, those things. Just quite simply if waiting for those things to happen before you take [00:05:00] action on your goals only prolongs the procrastination on those and the ability to actually achieve them.
Sara Mayer: So it's important to pick your priorities. And what I like to do for this is I like to jot down all the big, bold goals that I have. And once I jot them down. Then I can truly decide what I'm going to focus on. What projects are top of mind? What are things that I've thought about doing that I maybe haven't taken action on?
Sara Mayer: There's a book, Big Magic, that the universe gives you certain ideas and then if you don't act on them, it gives them to somebody else is the premise of that. And I think it's really important to capture all those dreams, ideas and things, but realize that you can't focus on everything all of the time.
Sara Mayer: So some of those things, maybe ideas. That you put on your someday maybe list so that someday maybe [00:06:00] I'll do this, but you've captured them so that they are on paper and you can put your ideas down. Or for me, I have them in my Asana board, which is like a task tracker and it allows me to see what I'm working on, but also what my thoughts are for someday maybe.
Sara Mayer: And once you jot all these. Big, bold ideas that you have down. This is the critical point to really think about why do you want these? Why are these your goals? Because when you don't know why, or they're just goals, get a promotion at work, get a raise, get a new car. They're just things on a list. They don't come alive and they don't really inspire you to take action.
Sara Mayer: So now that you've done this whole process and you may have picked one, two, three things that you're going to focus on, then you want to break those up into quarters and decide which quarter [00:07:00] you're going to focus on what. And we've talked about this process before. And it's really time to stop and actually do the process.
Sara Mayer: We can talk all day long about our goals and what we want to accomplish and all the things. But if we don't actually do the work, we don't actually put it on paper. We don't actually make the decision to step forward into our goals. That's a critical step. We will fail. And so let's talk about the goal journey.
Sara Mayer: So the goal journey truly does start with starting well, planning. First you gotta plan, and then you actually have to start. And many times people think that the starting point is the most difficult and it is difficult to get started. Many of our big, bold goals. They're not easy. We don't know exactly how to do them.
Sara Mayer: And so [00:08:00] because of that starting feels big and hard and difficult and challenging and all the words and it may give you some excitement about the goal. So you may be, Eager to start, but getting started on some goals is is a big challenge. Now, other goals are really exciting and you can't wait to jump in and get started.
Sara Mayer: And that is great and exciting. Like you, I have started a lot of things and probably also you have started a lot of things. That you just haven't finished and it's not because they weren't important. It's not because they weren't exciting. It was because something got in the way. And so starting the goal is great.
Sara Mayer: It's a great first step. But as we all know, what happens around new years [00:09:00] is people start a lot of things. They may set a resolution. They may start a new goal. They may download little shameless plug. If you're on YouTube, you can see it. I have a habit tracker, so they may start some new habits. You can purchase this in the Amazon store as well.
Sara Mayer: So people will start new things in January. And we all know that by February. Those are over for a lot of people. In fact, only 8 percent of people actually achieve their resolutions and resolutions get a bad rap. People will say resolutions, they don't work. False. What happens is when we start our goals, when we start our resolutions or we start moving to becoming somebody different or to.
Sara Mayer: Being a different version of ourselves, there are obstacles. And so we may start and we say, we're going to be this type of person and we're [00:10:00] going to do this year. And these are our big goals. And we start working on that and we have a little streak and then somebody gets sick in our family or we have a bad day or our car breaks down or we get bombarded at work with large projects.
Sara Mayer: And so we have this streak of working on this and then we miss a day. And when we miss that day, we have entered what I like to call quitter's valley. This is like the green grass and then you enter this little dip and there's boulders and rocks and thorns and all these things. And when we enter quitter's valley, what happens is we start to justify things.
Sara Mayer: So we might say I didn't work on my goal today because I was really busy. So it's okay. And I won't do that today. And then the next day I didn't work on it yesterday, so it's okay. And then eventually we get to I didn't [00:11:00] really want that, or I didn't really know how to do that, or it's not really my priority, or this isn't a good time or all these things.
Sara Mayer: And it's simply because we had that initial rush of endorphins, that excitement when we started this thing and we're very excited and then we're working on it and then we failed. Or something got in the way that caused us to not move forward, and it's a lot harder to get back on. So that's the critical point.
Sara Mayer: Once you truly hit that very first obstacle, it's the time. It takes you from hitting that obstacle to getting back on track that is, will determine whether or not you will even get back on track. So it's that rebound. And so we need to train ourselves to, first of all, anticipate [00:12:00] those obstacles. So what will happen when, if I have a goal of becoming more healthy for the year?
Sara Mayer: What will happen when I travel and I'm simply not able to exercise or eat healthy now, you might say I'll just exercise or eat healthy, but the reality is, you probably won't. So what will happen when, what will you do once you. Broken that streak. Once you've had a minor setback, what will you do to quickly recover?
Sara Mayer: How will you course correct? And it's important to anticipate some of these boulders that you're going to experience in Quitter's Valley. What will you do when you simply just don't feel like doing anything? All you want to do is binge Netflix. What will you do to get back on track? What will you do when you don't know?
Sara Mayer: What to do, what will you [00:13:00] do, who will you call and really thinking about this helps you to recover more quickly because you have a plan, who will you call to provide you motivation, what will you do to reward yourself when you do get back on track so many times we reward ourselves when we're back on track.
Sara Mayer: on A track, like for example, I always think about Peloton. It's like you're on a however many weeks streak and yay. That's great. I think about that all the time, but what I don't think about or what I haven't planned for is what will I do when I do get off track with Peloton? What will I do? And those are the critical conversations to have with yourself now before you get into Quitters Valley.
Sara Mayer: How will you motivate yourself to keep going? And many times the [00:14:00] starting of goals is really celebrated as the big first step. But in reality, we should be celebrating the navigating of those boulders. So I had a setback. And I'm back on track. That's the real celebration because it teaches you that you can get back on track with your goals and you can accomplish big things, even when they're a little difficult.
Sara Mayer: You're going to hit critters Valley, but it's important to get. To ship the thing it needs, you need to land the plane on a lot of your goals. Many of us leave our goals open ended and hanging out and it causes our brains not to really understand what is important. We say this one thing is important, but if we don't actually take steps forward to it, [00:15:00] we will justify, Oh, maybe it wasn't that important or maybe this wasn't the year.
Sara Mayer: Or we might even say, maybe I'm not capable, maybe I can't do this when in reality you can with a proper plan and consistently moving forward past the boulders. So I encourage you, this is the new year. I encourage you to really think about your goals and why you want them. And then what you're going to do to recover quickly, to rebound quickly when you do enter Quitter's Valley.
Sara Mayer: And then how you're going to celebrate when you finish this goal. I encourage you to only pick one to three goals per quarter. I even have a client who picks one big, bold goal for the year. And it's a lot more effective and satisfying when you [00:16:00] truly can accomplish that goal. And get it from start to finish in the timeframe that it should take to achieve that goal.
Sara Mayer: Now we've talked about this. Many big, bold goals are not one year goals. They are year long goals. two years long goals, five year long goals, six year long goals, big legacy dreams. And that's great. So just know that at the end of the quarter, you want to measure that by saying, did I move forward on this goal at the end of the year?
Sara Mayer: Did I move forward on this goal? Have I taken one more step? And if you haven't checked out the habit tracker, let me get it again. Where did it go? Oh, it's right here. iF you haven't checked out the habit tracker, this is a great journal or habit book where you can track your habits. You can actually decide what you want your habits [00:17:00] to be in the morning, the afternoon and the evening.
Sara Mayer: And then you can check those off. This is a great reflection tool for your year at the end of the year. And then I also have the. Goal oriented journal for high achievers. So if you haven't checked out that there's some great prompts in here that allows you to reflect on how you're moving forward to your goals.
Sara Mayer: So those are both in the Amazon store. I'll link this in the show notes so that you can grab them. Those are a great way of actually tracking your goals. And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you about the New Year party. So we are currently in the middle of our New Year party. It starts today and it's all about setting and achieving goals for the year in a supportive community.
Sara Mayer: We have, if your goal is. to do a certain thing this year. We have wonderful speakers that will talk about [00:18:00] how they were able to achieve those goals and help you achieve your goal. So if you're thinking about launching a podcast, becoming a public speaker, there are different speakers as well as a five day guided goal setting video series.
Sara Mayer: So it will help you really guide your goals throughout the year. And I think that's, what's really cool now. If you're listening to this and it is not January 1st, don't worry. You're not too late to the party. If you're on YouTube, you can see my wonderful background. You're not too late to the party. So you can still join, go to sarahmayer.
Sara Mayer: com slash new year party 2024, and you can sign up. It is free. We'd love to have you. And many of the speakers have free gifts. So just know. You can join the party at any time, and then you can also upgrade to get some of the bonus items. All right, everyone, it's time to really dive in to your goals and [00:19:00] set the right goals this year that you can achieve and you can feel proud about.
Sara Mayer: I'm so excited. Happy new year. Everyone have a great day.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
Sara Mayer: I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
