Ep.19 The 4 Phases to Set Goals that DO Work

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[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Hi there Foodiosos.

Welcome to this week's episode of the money solve your problem podcast. This is the second episode on a three part series on goal setting. If you haven't heard the first one, well, go back and listen up. But you don't need to do that. You still can get a lot out of this episode even without the first one. Well, it's just the first one is so good. You need to go back, but you don't need to go back right now. I do give a little recap in the beginning of the episode of what we talked about last week. In this episode number two, we, we will be talking about the four phases of the goal setting process. We're going to be talking about each one of them, giving some examples and showing that by using them in the right order, you increase the chances of success for your goals. So here's episode number two, the four phases of the goal setting process.

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Today our workshop is going to be continuing what we talked about goals last week. Last time we talked about how the importance of having a compelling reason why you want to do a goal. And I gave you guys that exercise where you had to list all the things that you have and the things that you want in your life. And that's going to help you determine what are your upcoming goals. Right? And one important thing is when we set goals is always look to the development of our identity. So what's the identity that you want to have? What is, what is it that you want to become? Right? The Lord loves us no matter what. He loves us just the way it is, the way we are right now. And he knows of the, the unlimited potential that we have. We have a divine essence and we can develop that. And that's what he's hoping for. So those desires of our hearts, things that we like, things that we look for, things that we want to aim for and we want to achieve and who we want to become, that's. That brings us closer to the Lord, that that was given to us because, because he loves us. So developing ourselves doesn't mean that we're bad right now, that we're not worthy enough. Okay? It's just, it's part of life. We want to grow we want. We have this innate in ability to grow and we have this innate desire to grow. So once you decide what you want to become, who you want to become, and what are the things that you want to be known for, for, let's say you want to become good with money, then this is going to help you establish the goals, are going to support your development. Now, the second thing that I talked to you, we did a little exercise, is for you to write down all the decisions, all the things, the habits that you have right now, currently. And you had to decide, do I want this habit? Yes or no? Because those are going to demonstrate, they're going to show what are the areas that you want to grow. Okay, so now that we have this in place, remember a compelling reason is very important because if you don't feel the need to do that goal, you don't have a desire for that goal, you're not going to accomplish, you're not going to work for that goal. Right? So today, before we get started, let's talk about the areas of your life that you that would be helpful to set goals. It's good to have them separately. I know some people that establish many goals and we also talked about how the timing doesn't matter. So as I told you before, I'm working. I have been working on goals that I set in November. So I didn't have that New Year's resolution. Right. I'm having this process, ongoing process. So let's say, for example, that you want to be good with money. So then you're going to set that example and that it's an example that would be in an area of financial area. So that's one of the areas that I invite you that suggests that you set goals. So let's put right here. So one of the areas would be finished. Then another area that you could set goals that's always helpful to set goals would be physical. So it doesn't have to be, I want to lose weight, I want to stop eating this. It doesn't have to be that. It could be something as simple as you don't like to go work out, you don't like to do any exercise. And it could be as simple as I want to start liking to exercise. I want to be a person who exercises, I want to be a person who's active, I want to be a person who takes care of her body. So these are the things that you can look at, so the identity. And then you look at what you can do to be healthier. So you look at what you're doing right now. And then you decide from there what's your goal. So if you need to lose weight, if you need to because of a health issue, you have to stop eating certain things, then that is, I recommended an easy goal for you to set, right? Just to set the goal. I'm not saying that's easy to accomplish, but it will be a much clearer to identify what's that goal. And of course, we always want, when we're setting a goal, we always want to set a goal that we can measure. Because if we don't measure, if it's too vague, it gets, it gets difficult to, to decide if you have accomplished or not. All right, so physical, it's one area. We have financial, we have spiritual. Ultimately, our goal is to go back to live with our heavenly parents and to be closer to Christ. So what are the things that you need to do to be able to feel closer to Christ? It could be something as simple as be consistent with my scripture reading or study. It's consistent being doing my prayers in the morning, right? So you always set something that again, the action is going to be something that you can measure so you can decide if you're doing better or not. This one, you feel the spirit. So if you want to feel the spirit more, what you have to do to feel the spirit more, and then you can pick two or three actions that support that goals, right? Those are going to be your steps. So spiritual is really important. Physical, financial, another one you can do. It could be in terms of your career or your academics. So I'm going to put here. How do we call this? Let's put academics. Actually, let's put personal. Let's put personal. Now from here you can choose. Okay. I want to grow my business. I want to change careers, I want to find a different job, or I want to stop yelling at my kids. I want to, I don't know, be better at following my schedule. I want to be better at taking time for myself. So these could be in this category where it's a little more vague, but you pick an area that you actually really want to focus on. So on my case, I wanted to. One of the goals that I have is to stop interrupting people because I get so excited when I'm talking to someone about their. What are they doing? And I want to participate in that conversation so much that sometimes I don't let the person finish talking, whatever they're saying. So that's one area that in personal goal, that's what I. That I work on, to hold on my excitement, wait for the other person to speak, so then I can participate and talk. Sometimes I even try to answer, finish the sentence for that person, right? Like I know what they're going to say. So I have to step back and stop acting out of the emotion, right? So that's one of my goals. So it could be something as simple like that. And then of course, it could be something major like, okay, I'm going to set a career goal, so what do I have to do to be able to achieve that, to start working in that career? So you have to do little mini goals, right? Several steps. And from those, you're going to work consistently to get to the other career. And then the last one, I would say it's like a social, a relationship goal. Let me put relationship. So if you're a working mom, then sometimes you might feel that you have to give more of yourself at work or that you have been giving yourself more to work and getting things done in your job and not spending a lot of time with your kids. So a relationship goal would be, I'm going to set myself a date, a weekly date with one of my kids. You could set that time, and that time is theirs alone for you guys to increase in, strengthen your relationships. Or you're not going out too much, you stop going to school, you're working, and you work in a cubicle. You work in an area that you're working by yourself. We need connection. So maybe your goal could be, I'm going to go out once a week with a friend. So then it might be uncomfortable that you have to call that friend and invite them to go out with you. Her, him. Right? So that could be a goal that you could set. Or I'm going to enroll myself in a pickleball class, and you could start getting to know people that like pickleball as well. And then you can develop a group of friends. So that could be the relationship.

So these are the five areas that.

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: I recommend that you set goals on. Financial, physical, spiritual, personal growth, and relationships. All right? One important thing is, remember, some of those goals are going to be achievement goals, outcome goals. At the end of the time, boom, you're going to get that result, or you're aiming for that result. And then other ones are going to be habit goals. And then when you have habit goals, then those are things that you want to start doing in your life consistently. So, like when we talked about the scripture study, that would be a habit goal. So I want to read the scriptures or study the Scriptures every morning before I go to work. So you track how many times you read the scriptures that week. Now I'm going to give you the four step plan, and we kind of gonna create a goal just so you can see how that works. And then in. In another workshop, we're going to talk about how to track the goals and how to reflect on the goals and reevaluate. All right, so I'm going to raise right here. So I follow John Acuff. He's a great author, he's funny. And when you read his books, I recommend that you listen on Audible because it's so enjoyable. I read because I mark all the stuff that he's saying because he does a lot of research and he's a go guy. His podcast is all it takes is a go podcast, and I love it. It's on Monday mornings and I love it. I waited every week to listen to it. And because he's a goal guy, I really align with him because I'm a go girl. I love to set goals. Now he has a four step plan, which is nothing new, but he just identified those four steps clearly. So it makes a lot of sense in our brain to have something really simple to follow. So the four steps are, one, you have the dream phase. The second one is going to be your plan phase. The next one is going to be the do phase. And then the fourth one is to reflect that. Reflect that. He used. I think he used revise. No, no, it's not. Review. Review. So let's do review. All right, so these are the four steps for you to set a goal. Remember, one of the important things is for you to have a compelling reason. So we're going to explore that in a little bit. So on the dream phase is a phase that it doesn't have to be realistic. It doesn't have to be just what you think it's possible right now. Okay. Think about what is the possibility of a person who has divinity inside of us. So anything works because once you do the dream part, you're going to write everything that's in your heart, in your mind, things that make sense, things that don't make sense. So make sure you write everything down. So get a piece of paper and write everything down. Do a really big brainstorming on the dream phase. So is there something that's really calling you to do? There's something that maybe you're looking right now at your finances and you think, I'm never going to be out of debt. So. But hopefully one of your goals is to get out of debt. And you're like, my goal, my dream is to be able to go on a vacation where I don't have to worry about how much money I can spend. Right? So that could be your goal. And then your goal would be, I have paid off my debt, so I got out of debt, I want to be debt free and have the money to go on a vacation. So that would be like a two step, two process, right? First you get out of debt and then you would save for that vacation. So let's say you want to be debt free and that's your goal. So that's, that's the dream phase, right? You're just thinking about it and you're like, oh, it's going to be so wonderful. And you need to go there in your mind. You need to go over there and imagine what it would look like, what it would feel like to be debt free. Because most of the time when we're looking for something, it's usually because the way it makes us feel and when we feel something, it's going to motivate us to take action towards whatever we're going to do. So if you're thinking about how wonderful it's going to be to be debt free, then what are you going to do? Right, that's the next step. Now you're going to do the planning part. So the planning part would be the details. So you sit down, you decide on your goal, I want to be debt free. And then you're going to sit down and write down all your plan, what are you going to do? And then you're going to establish a time, a timeline when you're going to be doing that. So if there is a, if you're planning on an outcome based goal, then you might have a deadline, this is the date I'm gonna be done by. If it's a habit goal, then you might create some check ins in the middle to see, to evaluate your progress. And then it's not gonna be like, oh, okay, I'm done. I listen to people now, I don't have to worry about that. Well, there's certain things that we keep doing, right, because our brain is used to doing those things. So it takes a long time for us to actually establish and keep a go an habit, a routine that becomes part of who we are. And that's a good thing because knowing what are some of the things that we already do in our lives will help us establish what are the next steps. So when we set our plan, you write it down. Everything that needs to be done for that, you plan this is going to be done like this, it's going to be done by this date. And then what do I need to do to get that accomplished? So that's your plan. So you're going to list all the things and then you go to the three, right? You're going to list all your things that you need to do. And then third part, you're going to do it. And that's the most likely, the hardest part for all of us is to actually follow through with all the things that we want to. They're supporting our goal. So make sure on a plan you write as many steps as many things that you can think and even anticipate the hardest things, because sometimes we don't anticipate that things will come up or things are going to be in our way. And then when they show up and we're doing something, we're like, oh, I cannot do it anymore. I have this problem now. I can do it anymore. And then you give up on a goal because you feel yourself, you beat yourself up for not following through, but it's because you didn't anticipate that problem, that that problem was going to be there. So let's say you're planning to get out of debt. That was our goal, right? And then you decided that I'm going to do this. Let's say you have, I don't know, $70,000 in debt and you're going to take two years to do that. So then you're going to decide, okay, what's my plan? I'm going to go through, I'm going to do financial Peace University. I am going to work with a financial coach. I'm going to read this book. I am going to evaluate my budget. I'm going to do a budget for the first time. I'm going to to cut as much as I want. I am going to make sure that I have the little emergency fund, the little thousand dollars emergency fund. Then the next thing I'm going to do is make the list of the things, all my debt from smallest to large. Then next I'm going to do my debt snowball. And then next one, I'm going to do this every time. I'm going to try to get a side hustle. I'm going to do this and this. And so you make your plan, your list, and then you think about it, okay? What could be, what could come up in a way for me to do certain things. So one of the things could Be you have kids and you're not able to get a side job. So if you don't have a way to get a side job because you have kids, then that's an obstacle for you to get the side hustle. So I'm thinking I'm going to have to find a babysitter, I'm going to have to trade babysitting with another family so that way I don't have to pay. Because you don't want to spend to make more money. Right. If it's not going to compensate or I'm going to have to drop off the kids at the grandparents. So then you do that planning, then what are you going to do next? When we plan, we don't anticipate that parties are going to come up, that a vacation is going to pop up, someone's going to invite us to do something and you're like, oh, that's not. And my budget, so I cannot do it. But then we're like, but, but, but we always rationalize and then what happens? We end up spending the money going on the thing, even though we knew that we did not want to do that, but we did it anyway because that's the common, the automatic response that we had it before just using a credit card or whatever. And there you go. Then you feel bad, you beat yourself up. And some of those goals we keep doing all the time for us to change. It's takes a while. So don't beat yourself up. Next day, pick yourself up and go again. So anticipate. But if you anticipate those things, you're like, okay, so I know there's going to be a couple birthdays that I don't want to miss. So then when you set your budget, you be realistic and you say, okay, I'm going to want to go out and do this thing. I will going to want to go out and eat a couple times a week. If you've been eating seven days a week, then eating a couple times a week is going to be a big change. But it's something that if you plan, even if you don't move as fast, as super fast as you're planning on your towards your goal, then you're going to be able to stick to it. One thing that I give you also as a suggestion, when you're in the do phase, always try to set up the goal that you try to do with the location or something that you already do using as an anchor. I like the book Tiny Habits. As I already told you guys. So he talks about how you tie that new goal, new habit, with something that you already have in place, that you always do, that you consistently have. So if it's something about having breakfast a certain time in the morning, then what do you do in the morning that supports that? That's in the kitchen. So if you take all the dishes out of the dishwasher in the morning, then you can plan, after I take the dishes out of the dishwasher, then going to have breakfast, you're already in the kitchen and you always take the dishes out of the dishwasher. So it's easier for you to do that. Also, another thing is when you start to be, we talked about when you have a budget and you've been eating out seven days a week and then all of a sudden you're like, I don't want to spend money eating out because I want to pay my debt. Great. That is a great, compelling reason. The problem is we are full of habits. And when you're out again, you might want to eat out and you don't want to. You end up spending the money and then you feel bad and you quit. So what are you going to do? Well, let's start small. So this week I'm not going to eat all seven, six days out. I'm going to eat only five separate. Pretty big, small change. Pretty big, small, a tiny change. Not eating every single day out. You're just eating five out of the seven days. And then you start progressing with that. So you establish your baseline. Just like if you've never been to the gym and you want to start going to the gym, don't sign up for a 5, 6 days workout schedule because you're not going to want to do it. So go ahead and go. This week I'm going to go once to the gym. And what that does is not as fast, but you're teaching your brain that you're able to make changes and they start taking place in your brain, which is really good because not only you went to the gym and you got the dopamine from the exercise, you also get the dopamine from following through something that you said you're gonna do. That means you're building your self confidence, you believe in yourself and you follow through with what you said you were going to do. So important. And I guess, you know, it's easy for us to look at other areas of our lives and see success or think that they're just the way they are. But if you got success in one area, you can transfer those skills into a new Area. You just have to be conscious, paying attention, being aware that's going to be changed because you always been doing something in a certain way in our brain loves automaticity, doesn't like to spend calories thinking or having to be, you know, intentional about that. Thought of what do I have to do now? It just likes to do things. There are certain things. Maybe you, you've had this experience before where you're driving somewhere and you don't even pay attention where you're going. You already know where you're going, so you just follow the way. Or sometimes you go to work when you meaning to go somewhere else or if you purchase a new home, you go to the old home instead of going to the new house. Right. Our brain likes the automaticity. It's, it's efficient, it's quick and it doesn't spend any energy. So once you start, you develop your plan and you have all those steps that you're going to create, then let's say we didn't talk about this. So let's say if someone comes up and say, hey, there's a birthday party. So then you're not going to beat yourself up. You're going to say, oh, okay, I budget for this. So this time I'm going to use that budget to eat out with a friend. And then you go on a birthday and it's not a big deal. It's okay. It was planned and that didn't become a big challenge, an obstacle into your, your goal pathway. And then of course, the last step, usually people think it's the achieve. Well, not necessarily. You have to establish a way of routine of reviewing your goals. Why is that? Well, because one, once we set the goals, we write them on paper, put it on our phones and then we don't revisit them. Then we forget about them. Especially if we mess up, we want to make sure that we forget about them. Or if it's something completely new that you never done before, then you do want to remember why you set it up and what exactly did you write it down. So once you decide that you were going to do certain goals, Certain goals, then sitting down in a routine manner will help you revise and review what your goals are. So they're always in your mind. And then two, you'll help you determine if there are certain things that you had said that you're going to do but you didn't do it and then you reset for the, the next part. So usually what I do, I do that once a week on Sundays. I sit Down. I look at through all my five goals, because I usually have five goals going at the same time. I look at all of them and I see, did I do this this week? I look at all my list of steps and then I set things for the following week. Oh, I also have to do this to accomplish this step, right? So then I write it down. Then I look and sometimes I can tell that if I never got around to do the thing that I said I was going to do, then either I have to reduce the. Reduce my baseline to make it simpler or more doable or guarantee that I will do it anyway. And also I look at the time frame. So sometimes I didn't make as much progress as I thought. So then I might have to extend my deadline. You see, goals, the deadlines and everything else, those that are personal, we set on deadlines just like the budget. We create our own budgets. We tell where the money is going so it's ours. Nobody is. Nothing is going to happen. Hopefully nothing bad is going to happen if you don't achieve that, go back down one day. Now, if you have a work and you have a deadline at work, you have to do it because there are consequences. But certain goals in our lives don't have to be like that. So if you don't get out of that exactly in 24 months, well, it's okay to finish in 26. That's what happened with me when we had our big burden of our debt, because I was, I was willing to cut really drastically, but my husband wasn't. But we both wanted to get out of debt. So then we have to compromise. I had to compromise to his pace. And then we decide together as a family, as a husband and wife, that we're going to go this way. So certain things I did not cut. So then we took longer to get out of debt and that was okay because now I'm out of that. So it doesn't matter, right? In the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter. But we have to be patient with ourselves that those deadlines that we set, it's because we set them, wasn't written stone that they had to be done in 24 minutes. Okay, so I revise that, I review and I see, okay, this is probably not going to work. I'm not going to achieve by this date. So I'm going to have to extend this deadline a little bit. And it's great. You just go ahead and do that. And then once you do that with all the goals, then you have a list of things that you can do for the following week and focus on to achieve that goal. Because the goal, it could be something big and it has so many little steps. So you can say, okay, this week I'm going to focus on this, I'm going to pay off this, I'm going to get paid this week so then I can pay off this little credit card. And then I'm going to cut off the credit card so I don't use anymore. I also have to call the company and cancel the account. So this, these are the things that you're going to plan for the following week. Once you do that once a week, you keep your goals in mind. And then if certain goals you their deadline already has come, then you can change that goal instead of having to change all five goals always at the same time. When I usually start I have, especially if you've never done this before, if you haven't done this for a while. I have one deadline for all of them or a check in date for my habits always on the same day or on like every couple months or so. And then as I review certain goals I'm like I'm gonna have to extend this deadline. Or a big blessing came up and I was able to get something done really sooner than I thought. Then I cross sell that goal achieved and I set another one. That way it's a new one with some other ones I've been working on. So it's not overwhelming. So this is one of the advantages of reviewing your goals. But the major one is to keep them in mind and to determine your progress if you're progressing or not. And then another way you could do another way that I do my, my revision is if it's a habit goal I do probably a month or two months I set and I decide okay, do I need to do I still want to achieve this goal? How am I doing in this goal? Have I achieved any, anything that's good. So I look at this as a um. And overall what was my progress? Do I want to keep doing this goal? And then, and sometimes I have to adjust it. So I do that every couple months if it's a habit goal. And then the outcome goal is easy. If you get to the date and you're like I accomplished, done, there you go. Usually you finish before then you had set so or that deadline that you put on yourself helps you to take action to actually do it. We always hear that people like oh, I work better under stress. No, you, it's not that. It's because when you have a stress. You have a, when you have a deadline, that creates a stress. It creates the urgency for you to complete it. And that motivates your action. So what is motivating your action? If urgency does it, then set deadlines. If urgency makes you stress and overwhelm. So those that strict deadlines. All right, set checking dates because they sound less heavy, right? They sound less heavy than a deadline for a lot of people. So these are the four steps. The four steps for you to set a goal. So first dream, then plan, then do and then review. If you continue doing that, you always going to be making progress because you're going to be following a simple process for you to set goals. Right. So I don't see any hands up to get coached today to get to help anybody answer any questions. So we're going to stop right here today and next time we're going to talk about tracking our goals and how to make them more successful. All right? To guarantee that you're going to get the goals that you want this year, anytime. Doesn't have to be this year, anytime. All right.

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