The Truth About Goal Setting

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 49. Today I'm talking all about the truth about goal setting, why it doesn't work and what does. Are you ready? Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up, coach?

Thank you so much for pushing play on the podcast today. Welcome back. Happy New Year. If it's your first time joining me, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson. And today we're diving into the truth about goal setting and some of the things that we can do to combat some of the similar struggles that many people face. So if you've been following me over on Instagram at all, then you probably already know that this week happens to be one of my favorite weeks of the year because I fall into the category of feeling super pumped for the new year because I personally love resets. It's an awesome time to just check in with yourself and really say thank you to all the awesome things that happened the year before. Even if it feels like it was a hard year, it's a perfect opportunity to just check in with all of that and it is a perfect opportunity for you to assess things that worked and maybe look for the areas of opportunities and always going forward and creating, creating goals that are going to work for you. I personally love it. But you might fall into the other category where people say, oh, New Year's resolutions are banned, waggy, everybody does them, then everyone falls off. And there can be a little bit of feeling, like sometimes there's feelings of I just can't, I can't stick to it no matter what I do and that doesn't. Or goals. Like, I just always want to make 100k and then I never do and I just keep running in, you know, the round room, looking for the corner in the round room. And so for me, I personally love the New Year's resolution, which is why I wanted to put this episode in to the show now before I put into the content, the content resonating one. But I promise we're going to get to that next week. But I wanted to make sure that I get this one out because this week, the first week of January and the last week of December are very powerful weeks for people. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm recognizing right now that I keep saying, oh, the podcast, the show, it's coming back and then I'll fall, I'll teeter off on recording and I'll fall off. Right. It's not a coincidence that it's happening during this time because it certainly for me is one of those things that I am looking at when I am setting my goals and when I am looking to the future of the new year. But here is the main truth about goals and why so many people tend to set these goals and then they just either can't achieve them, don't achieve them, or fall off the wagon. And then, and this is true if it's business and in fitness. And it's because we're pretty much taught that we're not disciplined enough, that we're not working hard enough, that we need to work until our eyeballs bleed from some of our famous, you know, famous people out there sharing that, or you have, or we're taught that we need to do all these rigid, unrealistic, unsustainable goals in order to get weight loss, in order to stay and get fit. And we're taught all these things that just simply aren't true. And so I wrote a post about this on Instagram, but I, you know, get so passionate about it so I could recognize and realize that it's actually a really long post. And so, and it's a long piece of content. So I wanted to bring it to the podcast because there are lots of reasons why people's goals typically fail before we've even started. And the first is that we typically treat symptoms and not the root causes. Now we are 100% habitual creatures. This is why I was such an advocate for an habit based program. Because anytime your brain sees you doing something that is outside of your comfort zone, something that you don't do, something that is going to take effort, you're going, it's going to require a change. Your brain is going to send you urges that tries to sabotage you on purpose. And it sounds so evil, but it's not. It's survival based. It's your brain sending you a fear signal, saying, hey, this is scary. Not recognizing that times have changed, setting up these arbitrary rules around your fitness or about, around your business, around your fitness, around your business, really around any types of goals that you have set for yourself. If you are not in the habit or you are not practicing the discipline of creating the habit, then you're not going to get the result that you want. And so I talked about this on my Instagram today because there is a paradox here. And there is a fine line between making sure that you are setting yourself up for success and building a habit in a disciplined way, but not at the expense of your wellbeing or your wellness. So I posted about that today, and I got a lot of DMS from moms, specifically because I have a lot of moms in my audience that were saying, yeah, Beverly, I get this. But. And then explaining a whole bunch of really deep life stuff that's happening in their life right now. And I get that. So to me, that's an example of making sure that you're giving yourself grace. So it's not create the discipline and the habit at all costs. Right. So the example that I used on Instagram was I'm personally, right now I'm following Drew Manning's lead in terms of how he is priming his brain and priming his body for his journey back to fit. If you don't follow it, it's really interesting. And he's done it twice now. And it's been really captivating to watch his journey fit to fat to 40. But I've been taking his lean and creating really small, most important tasks, which is comes from a book called Dead Habits, so that you can start disciplining your brain to lay down the foundation of this habit and stay consistent. Okay, so one of the things that I did set for myself was walking. And I'm not going to do that if I'm going to put my. My children's lives in jeopardy. I'm not going to do that if I'm going to. If I had flu, and it would actually be worse for me to walk than it would be to take the flow. But there is a difference between giving yourself grace when you need it and letting yourself off the hook. So when you are committed to your goal, to your habit, whether it's a business goal or fitness goal, you're going to look for the ways to make it happen. So even in my brain, as I was thinking, even as I was saying out loud, yeah, but what if I don't have childcare? Or, you know, yeah, what if I have the flu right in my mind, since I am already committed to making sure I get this walk in, I started looking for the counterexamples and looking for the ways to make it happen. Oh, maybe I can wake up 20 minutes early, or maybe I could not scroll, or maybe this one get to do on my get to do list task can just wait 20 minutes. So I'm looking for that. But if I was really up against the wall and dealing with some of the things that some of the women shared with me inside of my DMs, that would be an example of giving myself grace. That's one thing I would do. Or the second thing that I would do is make sure that the MIT task that I'm doing is so simple that I could do it if I was in my worst case circumstances. Because creating that type of habit and creating that type of discipline will create the hablet which will ultimately lead to the success. So you hear a lot about habit training when it comes to your nutrition or it comes to your exercise, and you maybe even talk about your habit training with your clients. But let me ask you, have you stopped and really thought and taken a hard look at the habits that you're doing inside of your business? So for me, one of the things that I'm recognizing and that I'm taking a hard look at when I am looking at my business is that I was being, I was getting inconsistent with my podcast towards the end of the year. And now for me, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing now notice that I'm just, that's a fact that I was getting ins, I was getting inconsistent. Now for me, I'm going to look at that analytically with no emotion. It has nothing to do with, with anything. It has nothing to do with who I am, won't make me a bad person, Nothing. But I'm going to ask myself what's preventing me from getting those podcasts recorded so that I can stay consistent. So one of the biggest reasons why people fail is in their goal setting is that we treat symptoms and not root causes. So if you look down into the diet industry and this is why I was so intense about having a habit based program. Because the truth of the matter is that we get our habits, period. It's brain based. Anytime you're trying to make a change, even if it's for the better, if it makes you uncomfortable, that brain is going to send you that fear urgency and say, nope, that's not who we are. That's not what we're a part of, that is based on a need to survive, it comes from our reptilian brain, the oldest part of our brain that says, hey, this is not what we're a part of, this is not what we're about, and sends you that urge to not do It. So that self sabotage thing, that is real. And it's real for a whole lot of different reasons. That is a way overstabulous, simplified way to explain it. And if you're listening to this podcast, you might even have a way clearer, more sophisticated understanding of the brain and the process and the importance of making habit. But I'll leave you with making sure that you are creating habits inside of your business that are going to help you stay consistent, discipline with grace. But the problem is that so many people out there when it comes to goal setting is that they are treating symptoms. The fitness industry especially will be treating and creating goals that are all around symptoms and not going after root causes. And so when you're looking at goal setting, you really want to go deeper, look at your habits and get clearer on the habits that you want to change. Now, the second main reason, or one of the reasons why goal setting and why achieving goals are hard is because we like to over complicate things. Now it's funny because I said in my Instagram post that complexity and I'm looking at that now with a critical eye. And I don't necessarily think that's true. It's not that it sells, but it's that we tend as human beings and especially, especially high achievers who tend to overthink and overthink and overthink. We turn things that are simple and make them complex. And now that comes from overthinking. But sometimes it comes from evidence, right? Evidence is a double edged sword. And what I mean by that is you might have done all the things that your coach said, you might have done all the things that I said, and then you didn't get the outcome that you wanted. That is evidence. That is an experience. And you're going to hold on to that experience and it's going to teach you something. This is why letting go is so important, it is so powerful. Because if you hold on to that experience, listen, even if it is good or if it is bad, that is going to create an expectation. I wish we could all have beginner's luck all the time. Because there's no evidence, there's no experience to measure yourself up against, whether it's good or bad. And so what that does in addition to our overthinking is it just creates overthink, overthink, overthink, and then we end up making these really simple concepts complex. And then also because of number one and because of our brain and because of our habits, just because it's simple doesn't mean that it's easy. I alluded to it a little bit in an earlier point, which is that we take on a strategy, we try it on, we test it out, and then we don't get the outcome that we wanted. And so then we then have to overthink it again. And then do we try something different? And then there are just things that we can't control. We can't. We can do our best to write persuasive copy, come up with a very powerful offer, but at the end of the day, we cannot control what the market, with the customer, what the consumer is going to do. Just like when people, we set out these incredible fitness plans. We cannot control what our clients are going to do. We can't control their adherence. We can't control what we can't control or see at least right off the bat, what's going on inside of their body. We can take our best guesses, and then we can do what we're going to do in marketing with your business, which is guest test and assess. You know, and in addition to that type of complexity, in terms of, you know, us navigating our own experience and evidence, there's also, you know, the industry puts out a lot of complex information. For better, for worse, we are inundated with information, and when we get into that information overload, it can be very difficult to sift through the noise and implement. And if you're anything like me, then you might be hungry and okay with working to the bone and implementing system sales system, implementing strategy after strategy after strategy after strategy. Now, I'm so grateful that I did that because it has led me to serve you. Because now, literally, in terms of strategy, that's already at the marketplace. I think I've done most, most of them. I can't. I mean, I'm really racking my brain right now. But typically when a client comes to me and says, hey, I'm thinking about doing this, I've done it. I haven't. Doesn't necessarily mean I mastered it or what or whatnot, but I have experience messing with that platform. Chances are, I'd say nine times out of 10, and as new stuff comes to the play or as new stuff comes to the table, you better believe that I'm on that forefront of there. I'm getting my hands dirty. I'm taking a look and seeing what is going on because I. I love it. That's what I love. That's what makes me tick. Looking back on it now, I can recognize that all of it works. All of that is just complex. All of it works. At the end of the day, business is simple. Uncover the problem, attract the people with the problem, and sell them the solution. We want to make the simple really complex and start thinking about complicated funnels or focusing on about Me pages, or focusing on things that aren't really moving the, the business forward, which tend to be the tasks that make you feel busy, but they're not the tasks that move the business forward. And so ultimately people will ask, and I've asked the same question too. Well, what are the tasks that move the business forward? Well, if you know that business is discovering a problem and then selling them the solution, typically this means that we need to get our connecting with our ideal clients. That needs to be on the forefront. Whether you're doing it on YouTube, on Instagram, on podcasts, on Facebook, wherever they're hanging out, you want to connect with these people. And the last reason is that people tend to rely on motivation. But motivation doesn't work. Motivation is a great Kickstarter. It's a great. It's great when you feel inspired and you have an influx of, of content to come. Like right now, I'm super energized and I am super motivated and both on my fitness goals and on my business goals. So I have been. I got sick. I don't. I didn't share this on Instagram because I didn't want anyone to panic because it was a right, you know, it's right around Covid times. So if you're, you know, listening to this later. So I didn't want to panic or put anyone on alarm, but I really wasn't feeling good. So that caused me to not work out for three weeks. But also when I really look back on my year of 2020, I really did let my mental stress and get the better of me and let go of a lot of the physical, the physical health that I had been prioritizing in 2019, I really let that go. And that was because I let the mental stress get the better of me. And so now, right now, I'm super motivated. And so I don't want to say that motivation is bad, and that's not what I'm alluding to. But what happens is that we're taught to rely on motivation because people get really excited, then they fall trapped to the complex and think that they have to live on these big overhauls and they have to do these big six days a week working out and rigidity, and then what ends up happening is that motivation, it's going to fade. There is. It will fade. It will not sustain for long periods of time. And if you don't have those habits or the discipline underneath it to support you, to help you get up in the morning when you really just don't feel like it, then you're going to tend to give in to your urges and give in to what the. What your brain is sending you and saying, no, no, no, this is. Go back to what you're used to because this, because you're not about that. And now I have seen so many different statistics on how long it takes to. To create a habit and how long it takes for it to stay and whatnot. And, you know, I don't know the answer. I'm. You guys might know the answer. So feel free to, you know, text me on Instagram, let me know, show me the research. But for me, all I know is that the neural pathway, once it's created in the brain, it's not going to go away. So if I fall into a. A longer period of time where I don't work out, I have to really start over because I spent most of my life not working out. And so for me, when I'm super pumped during this week, I want to go all in. I have to actually fight that urge. Like, I could have walked for an hour and I wanted to do, you know, more. And while more can be awesome, sometimes less is more. And so for me, it's more important to stay consistent and to do the MIT than to just go all out. I want to just layer in that. That habit, create that discipline. I want it to feel so easy that it almost doesn't feel real. Those are kinds of things that I used to do for my clients, too, when we were working on their fitness goals. And so right now, one of the reasons, One of the main reasons. So now we can start getting into, like, okay, well, how I do, do we start to goal set and you know what, how do we maximize on this motivation? And so one of the things that I want to say that's really important and I'm hoping that you really take this to heart, is that one of the main reasons why I feel motivated is not just because it's the end of the year and it's a typical time. It's also because I took time off. The work is in the rest. Just like with working out, when you're going really hard, you have to have a deload week. Getting a full night's rest is so important. And so for me, I needed to take a Break so that I could pour into myself because I love to serve. Honestly, I really do. Like, what keeps me up at night is how can I help my people? And so you cannot pour from an empty cup. So I needed to just, you know, press a reset on me so that I could really refresh. And I love it. That's how I stay motivated. I get inundated, like, going on these walks. I get so inspired with content. I really take this time to be active, listening and hearing some of the things that you guys are asking me and saying to me so that I could come back and teach, help provide clarity. These are moments that are so important to me. And so I want to encourage you to really also take the time to rest and reset. Okay. And so now I'm going to take you through a very powerful exercise that I did take my PT Profit plus members through when we were setting their goals. Because when we first start together, we always. We work with the end in mind, which is that concept from even Connie. So we determine what the goal is going to be in the next 90 days or within the next year, and then we reverse engineer it. But in order to do that, the first thing that we have to do is release any and all of the things and evidence that's holding us back from 2020. So the first thing I want you to do, and really 2020, and before any, just everything, if I could do anything for you, I would press that reset button for you. But the first thing I really want you to do is I want you to write out all of the areas of opportunity in 2020, things that went wrong, things that are, like, awful, all the things that you just wish didn't happen. I want you to spend as much time as possible here, and I want you to get it all, all, all of it. I want you to get it out. And then I want you to ceremoniously, however you want, you know, whatever you want to do, throw it out, rip it up, tear it apart, let it go, give it to God, whatever. Give it to the universe. What. However this works, I want you to, as you are writing it out, know that you're getting it off of you, no longer holding it, this, holding on to this. And then I want you to write out, once this is. That's gone, I want you to write out all of the things that went well in 2020. I want you to start really like, and even I want you to dig deep. If you're really like Beverly, nothing went well. Well, then I want you to think about you're listening to this on, on an Internet, on, on a podcast, on a phone. You were breathing, you had access to water, did you get to shower? Did you work out? Did you get to see the sun? I want you to just. Every single thing that was good, I want you to write about. I want you to feel really amazing as we go into the next exercise, which is what I carried my people in PT Profit plus through, which is let's define what the goal is going to be in the next 90 days or a year. And I want you to really, you know, people will hopefully at this time feel super excited and like really want to go after it. But just pick three domino ones. Pick. And I got pick three domino goals that like, if you achieve this, you will feel awesome. And just for right now, I want you to like, not worry about the how. I want you to dream big and dream into it and give yourself a date, say by when, and not to be rigid, but to just give yourself a little bit of, of a deadline. Our brain needs a deadline now. If you shoot for 250k in 90 days and you get 100, cool, we can celebrate that. That's how I operate. I'm going to shoot for the moon and then we'll celebrate. And then question number three. How will you know when you have it now, if you've picked a goal that's not revenue based or, you know, I just want to get fit, I just want to be healthy, I just want to be less stressed. I just want to survive, pay my bills. I want you to get specific and really ask yourself, how will you know when you have it? And then number four, why do you want this? What becomes possible for you? These are your values. And when you know this, you'll be able to get up in the morning, you'll be able to stay disciplined when it gets hard, when motivation leaves you. And then question number five. Is there any part of you that doesn't want this? And really sit with that and ask yourself, what are the yeah buts that are coming up when you dream into. When you dream into your goal, into your vision, what do you believe it's going to take that feels impossible. And really look at that, because those are the things that are going to prevent you, that are going to hold you back from building the discipline and staying consistent. Because that's the work. Overcoming all those feelings, sabotaging yourself and feeling like you're not good enough. All of those imposter syndrome urges that come up because we've just spent so much time thinking we're not ready, thinking we're not good enough, that'll be the work. Because once you get that converting offer and you've got, you know, you've got something that people will buy and that people will want from you as their coach, it'll become a numbers game. And how many people can we get in front of and serve and help? And if you've got a fitness goal for yourself, I'm going to encourage you to look at that. Question number four. Why? What's that going to give you? Not to say that it's bad, that it's bad, by the way, but you just want to really take a closer look at those, at those answers to those questions. That's the deeper work. When you know those answers, you're going to be able to stay consistent. And I think the biggest takeaway, too, that I'll share with you for this episode, we've been going for a while now, is that make sure that you do your best to feel the feelings of whatever's coming up for you and then really just letting it go and doing your best to detach from the outcomes. Because it's just data. Whether you get the success that you want or the lessons that you need, it's just data. Okay, friends, so we went over a lot today, so make sure you go back and listen to this episode. Grab those questions. I encourage you to just really start thinking about it as you're setting your goals. Answer those questions to yourself as you are setting your goals for the ultimate, prosperous, healthiest year 2021. Thanks so much for pushing Play today and I will catch you on the next episode.

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