Ep.20 Unveiling the Vital yet Underutilized Aspect of Achieving Our Goals

Hi there Foodie Ozz. Welcome to the money's not your problem podcast where every week we talk about how you can become good with money in your pocket and in your mind by using practical life coaching tools and simple and efficient ways to do money math. Are you ready to invest in yourself? Let's dive into this episode. Hi there. Welcome to this week's episode.

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Today is the last episode on a three part series on goal setting. On the first episode we talked about how framing our goals as a becoming a different person, becoming someone that knows how to manage their money, for example. It's the best way for you to stay committed to your goal. Just setting a goal just for the achievement. It has less weight for you to continue work towards it. Last week on episode number two, we talked about the four phases of the goal setting process and how using them in the right order will help you achieve the goals that you have set.

If you haven't heard any of those.

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Two episodes, go back and listen to them. They give you a really good foundation for this third one, but you don't need to listen to them for you to get a lot out of this one. Guess what? I do another recap of the past two episodes so then you can jump right in. Of course the other two have more on those topics, but you still can learn a lot. And to be honest, since I start implementing this one step into the process with more consistency and really being dedicated to this part of the process, I noticed that made all the difference for me to accomplish my goals and I think it's something that's very overlooked and people don't pay attention to when they set a goal. And if you do it, you are going to improve the rates of your goal achievement. And what is more important, you are going to build the life that you want intentionally, on purpose, one step at a time, one goal at a time. Here's episode three, the most overlooked part of accomplishing goals.

Hey there. Welcome to the Call Today. Today we're going to be focusing in one of the parts of the goal that I think setting up a goal that I think it's the most important, the most overlooked one to help you achieve more goals. And once you start establishing that one and being consistent in doing that part, then you're going to have more success in completing your goals. So let's do a quick recap of what we talked about the best few calls. First one we talked about why you set your goals and how to be successful. So we always looking for a goal in a way for us to become something, to develop an identity. So when we want to develop an identity, that's that goal is going to become more compelling. And when we have a compelling reason to complete that goal, then it's more likely that we're going to follow through with our plan and then achieve that goal. So finding a compelling reason for your goal is really important. And focusing on having an identity related to that goal, it's really, really important. Now then we had, we talked about two different types of goals. We talked about achievement goals, so an outcome base. And we talked about having habits, goals, things that are going to support the person and the life that we want to keep so that we want to have. So one of the books, and I want to point this out, one of the books I really love about goals is by Michael Hyatt Is your best year ever. One of the most, my most favorite books on goals. Also we have John Auff that I also listen to all the time talking about goals and the little plan that I'm that we talked about the other day. It's not little, it's actually pretty big, but it's very simple. I got from listening to his podcast, he summarized the process of achieving or setting and achieving a goal very easily. So I'm going to point that out to you guys here. And that was our next call. Then we talked about how there are four steps for us to that involve a goal. So the first one, so let's put it over here. So goals. The first phase of our goal is the dreaming phase. He talks about answering a question of what, so what do you want to do? Who do you want to become? So that's the dream phase. So then you just brainstorm and I analyze what do you want to do? Remember on our call, if you want to focus more on this part, go to the call that we talked about. What we want. I gave you two exercises. What we want. Write all the things that you want, about 25 things for you to write it down or who do you want to become. And then we also put in the redeciding worksheet which is analyzing everything that you have in your life right now. All the habits, the decisions, the, the things that you have and deciding if you want to keep it or if you don't want it anymore. And that helps you identify what you want to achieve and what do you want to have instead. And then you can set your goals. So the next step then today I'm going to focus on the, the one of the parts of our plan. So our plan the first one is the dream. The second one, the second phase would be planned and I'm a big planner and so I like to stay on this area in this part. And I love to make the details tell me what, figure out what the steps I need to take, what are the simple details. So don't get too caught up on this, okay? Pick a few things. And also always pick things that are gonna be in the way of you achieving that goal. Because right now you're feeling a certain way, right? I want to achieve a goal. So you have that feeling. But what we face when we actually gonna do the goal is we're not feeling like doing that step anymore. We're feeling like not facing the problem anymore. We're feeling like we don't want to take that challenge. So what do you do when you face, when you're feeling that way, but you still want to achieve your goals, so you have to anticipate those. So let's say for example, you're trying to get out of debt and you decide, I am not going out to eat this whole week. And then someone comes and invites you out for dinner. And then at that moment you want to spend time with that person, you want to go out for dinner, you're feeling hungry. So then it's much easier for you to override what you decided. That's why on a planning phase, it's very important that you anticipate those. So instead of making your plan so tight that you don't go out to eat the entire week, maybe you can do twice a week. And then that's one of your types, right? So then you plan a strategy to deal with that obstacle. Because a lot of times when we don't plan for the obstacle, the obstacle comes, we fall for it, we don't follow through with our plan what we had planned, and then we feel bad and then we beat ourselves up and we just have all that self loathing. And then what we do, we give up on the go altogether. We go all or nothing. So you have to anticipate that those things are going to happen. So that's a plan phase. Then the third step would be do. This is the part where you actually follow through, you actually take the action, you actually go to the gym, you actually don't spend the money, you actually do an action or in action, right? So if you're feeling like you want to eat the whole pantry, then that's the moment that you process your emotion and try to figure out why do you want to eat. And if you're tired instead of eating because you're tired, then you go and take a nap. If you're feeling discouraged, don't go eat. Go talk to a friend. You know, you do other things if you have to process the emotions. So that's an inaction that you are not going to go eat because you decided that you're not going to eat a certain thing or that you want to lose some weight. So that's the part that you actually go and do the thing. If you want to get out of debt, you get the bill of one of your credit cards and you pay. You squeeze your budget and then you pay extra. So when you're getting out of debt and you start paying off those things and making progress that way, little, no matter how little it is, it gives you that hit of dopamine to keep you going to the next one. If you write a check, I don't know, write a check. We don't even write checks anymore that much. But if you get an extra money on your paycheck or you sold something, you need to go and sell it. But if you get that money and you're like, okay, I got $10, I'm going to put towards that credit card, even if it's $10, and it doesn't seem, you know, nothing compared to the $3,000 you own a credit card, it doesn't matter. You take an action one little step at a time, you're going to get there. So that's the do part. And then we have the fourth part, which is the review. So the review part is one of the things that we often overlook. We don't pay attention to revising our goals, reviewing and making sure that we are on track. And we don't do this consistently. Sometimes we set the deadline, and then when we get to the deadline we didn't accomplish, and you're like, why? That's too late for you to review. What are the things that did not work? Of course it can help you to prepare for doing one more try. But if you set yourself with a consistent way to review your goals consistently, right? Often, as often as you want, then you can improve the chances of you achieving your goals. Sometimes one of the things that one of the reasons why we don't accomplish our goals because we forget about the goals. So especially if something different, something that you don't have in your routine, then what do you do? You forget about them. And then when it's time or like something jogs you up and you're like, oh, yeah, that's Right, I had that goal. And then you never follow through because you didn't remember that you even set that goal. And another thing is you have to make some corrections along the way. And when you don't review, you don't know which corrections you need to make. So it's either sometimes you have to correct the amount of time you gave for that goal to be accomplished or the amount of the. The goal was too strict, so you didn't give yourself some realistic baseline for you to accomplish or, I don't know, there's certain things or something came up and you're not able to do, like an emergency, a family emergency or something that disrupt it, your plan. So then maybe you just put that. That goal on hold. So there are certain things that you have to do when you. And sometimes that goal is not relevant anymore. So you're like, well, when you set the goal, you're excited because your friend was setting that goal, but really you don't need to do it. I remember one time when I was, I don't know, 12, 13, and my sister and a friend of ours went to the beach and for some reason she said she decided that she had to lose some weight. So, like, okay, I don't need to lose weight, but I'll go along with it. So we decided to make that. The diet, that soup diet, that all you eat is that soup and that's it, the cabbage soup. I think that's what it's called here in the United States. So we went down to the beach and we're like, okay, we're going to do the soup diet. So we went to the grocery store, bought all the ingredients, made the soup. First meal was delicious, right? Because that soup was pretty good. Then after the third, the third time that we had to eat that soup, I was like, forget it. I don't need to lose weight. I'm not doing this anymore. And then my friend and my sister still stay, you know, true to the diet because my sister wanted to support her friend, our friend. I. She didn't need weight either. So then we went out to. To the downtown of the little city and we went over there and then we walk by the place where we sell pastel and something that. It's a Brazilian fried appetizer. And we're like, oh, we want pastel. So we went in and all three of us just ate all the pastel that we could, like two or three so much. Because that wasn't a goal that I wanted to accomplish. I didn't care for that goal at that moment. So then the first time that it got hard, that was the soup didn't taste as good as the first time. Then I gave up. Right. Because it wasn't compelling to me. I didn't want to do that, but I wouldn't know that if I would have to. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer for us to decide that that goal is not relevant anymore or that that version of that goal is not relevant anymore. So we can do that. We, when we set ourselves with a review system, it's much easier for us to identify those things and identify where the goal is not working and what we can do instead. We can identify what's the mindset behind it, what, what we have been thinking about it, and if we need extra help. All right, so I'm gonna encourage three ways for you to do your goal review. So the best way for you to determine if the goal is working or not is to track every time you track something you do better. It's proven by research that when we track our goals, we accomplish them. Everything that if you want to see a result, you have to track it. That's why in our jobs or at, you know, at work or something that you're trying to. To do it at home, it's better if you track it. Just like if you have chore charts for your kids, they would do the chores if you are tracking consistently. If you don't track consistently, they see, oh, this doesn't matter. So they don't do it, and then we don't track it, and then it doesn't work. I pay my kids. I always paid my kids on commission. So I had a little charts for them. And instead of doing a weekly chart or something that was. I had to remember every week to renew the chart or whatever, so add an extra layer. I did a whole month chart and I just track it. And then every week I would sit down, grab the chart, mark how many chores they had completed, and then I would pay them. So then they got their commission. I kept myself accountable. And it wasn't that weekly extra burden for me. It was just counting how many times I had checked their work or whatever they did and then pay them. It was easier for me. It was a way that I set myself up to. To get that done, to be accountable to something that I was trying to teach them. So one way that again, these tracking mechanisms I developed over the years, this book with Michael Hyatt, several checkings and review dates. I think it's a little too much, but I did add One, after I read this book. So I have three ways to track this. One, I do a daily check and it's simple as just checking some boxes. Two, I do a weekly goal review. So that's when I look at the written goal exactly. And I look at, I see if I'm on track with the date, what did I do this past week so I can recognize what the things that were related to my, to my goal. And I did and then I set things for the following week. And the last one would be if you have a habit goal then you have your check in date and if it's an outcome goal then you have your deadline. So if you have a habit goal then I do a check in dates. So I check those dates and see what is the progress and how much longer. Sometimes when you develop the habit or you start it becomes more part of your routine then, then you don't need to keep that goal for another round. So if that's the case, then you can determine how much longer you're going to keep doing like tracking, conscientiously tracking or if it's an outcome based then you're going to look at the deadline. So that's the deadline right here. Right. So these are the three tracking or review strategies that I recommend you to do. All right, so I'm going to show you the three types. Those three types, what do they look like for me? So the first one is the daily habit tracker. So when I do just dropped everything. Okay, so I'm going to show you the three ways that I do how I do those reviews. All right, so the first one is a daily tracker to complete the daily track. To start the daily tracker I have something that looks like a calendar. So it looks something like this. Let me open my February calendar. See so this is what it looks like. All right, so it has all the days and it has my goals, has a month and on the top I put a few other things on the top. Usually what I do is I put the outcome base. So outcome based goals. So let's say I have a goal that is to go to the temple twice in a month because it's only twice a month. I don't put it on a daily thing because I don't need to track that daily. I just go twice a month. So I have two little stars. So when I go to the temple once I color in one of the stars. When I go to temple the second time then I color in the other one. Then another one that I have, I have number of books that I want to read. So I want to read three books per month. Then I have my little boxes right there. Once I finish the book, I check, then I have time that is spending with my my family. And then I keep track of my weight or family, home, evenings. So things that are just once. So my fasting, so I have a little apple there for fasting. I want to fast once a month. So then after I fast I color that in. So these are my outcome based goals because you're just going to have an outcome and those are things that not necessarily are goals that I already have current, but those are things that are part of my life and I want to keep it. So they are part of my life and I want to make sure that I keep track of them because they so much easier to not do them if you're not, you know, being conscious and paying attention and intentional about going and doing so that's a way to keep me accountable. Now then that list that I write for the daily habits, the daily goals right here, these are the steps for my goals. So one of my goals is a spiritual growth. So to do that daily. One of the steps is to do scripture study. Not just scripture reading, but it's scripture study. So I do the come follow me manual. I listen to podcast that explains about the the section that we're working on. And I also track because it's so much easier just to focus on the come follow me. I also track the book Mormon reading. So I always want to read the Book of Mormon. So and it's so much easier to fall out of habit because you're studying the New Testament this year. So I have a little line there that says Book of Mormon and I want to read a chapter every night. So that's what I do. So I get all the not all because that's too much. It gets too overwhelming. I get the key steps from my goals that I already set for the outcome and for the daily habit. Go for me and I write them over here or I put it on the top of my chart. And then every morning when I plan my day, when I'm going to start my day, I go over them from the day before. So then today I checked today was what? The 20th, right? Today's the 20th. So the 19th you'll look, did I go on a walk or to the gym? No, Sunday I didn't go, but I didn't even go on a walk. So then I don't mark that yet. Then a script your study. Did I do my scripture study? And then I go one by one and then I marked. Now I suffer from migraines. So because I suffer from migraines then I track the level of my migraine throughout the day to see what made a difference. Now I probably because my migraines have been worse lately, I probably should write down what I ate and track to see if it got worse or better after what I ate. And I've done this over the years, so I already know. So then I have one of the goals that I have that's a daily habit is to follow a headache reducing protocol. So you know, people say the no sugar, no flour to lose weight. But that's for me it helps me with my migraine. So I track that and I track when I take a medication, some medication that I take. One is once a month and one is when the migraine is really bad. And those I track when I take those. And I track the level of my migraines every day. So that way I know if I'm getting better, if I'm getting to the point where I'm at. Not only we forget and sometimes we just say, oh, this been hurting for forever. And I was like, no, look, it got lower. My level of pain got lower. So then I keep track over here, I write it down. Sometimes there are goals that are kind of difficult for you to track. So when you have goals or habits, they're difficult for you to track because they're kind of subjective. Then what I do, just like with a migraine, I give it a level or I give it a score. So a score between 0 and 10. So let's say for example, you're trying to stop buying stuff on Amazon. No, I don't think this one not going to work because either you're going to buy on Amazon or not. So you would track that. You know, did I buy something on Amazon today? Then you would check if your plan is to stop spending Amazon every day or then you can track that how many times you purchase over the week. That's much easier just to draw an X. But let's say for example, you're trying to drive without using your phone. And it's not when you're using your phone all the time when you're driving, and I know we all know that this is very dangerous, unfortunately the facility of the easiness of using a phone to do a quick transfer, whatever, we do that when we're driving. So if you're trying to cut down and eliminate this habit from you, then I would put it on my list. And I've done that several times. But instead of putting yes, I did not use the phone at all today while I'm driving. What I did then I do a score. So let's say I went all the way to lunch with not touching my phone, just the. Just it was playing the podcast or something. And then when I was waiting for something on the light, then I checked my email real quick or I was waiting for an answer for something, or someone sent me a text that I needed to one of my kids send me a text or my husband and I wanted to look, so I used there. So then the rest of the afternoon I did very good. I did not use it. And then the end of the day, I use it again. So I would give myself a score. And that comes from a different book, a book called Triggers. And, and that book was really good actually. But he was talking about, you know, creating this habit. I think that's that book. It's a different one. I'll link in the show notes or something. But that book, that strategy gave me to see progress. But it's not black and white. It's not. You did. You did not. So I would say, okay, so that day I would give myself a score of seven. And then I was trying to get better at it. Once you get to a point where you're 10, that means you're accomplished the goal. So then you can just move on from that habit. But if there's something that you want to giving yourself a score, you can tell, okay, why did I give myself this score and how can I get a better score tomorrow? Right? You rate your effort. Because we know the Lord loves effort and we have to keep always trying. There are certain things are not that black and white for you to decide. So a few of those I have as a score from, from 0 to 10 and then I score myself daily. And then as you get better, you start getting a little more picky about your score because you know that you are in a better level than when you first started. So let's say now you use your phone three times while you're driving then. And you've been doing that for a long time, then it's time for you to kick up a notch and say, no, I'm going to not going to use the phone at all. So then you can transform into a yes or no, right? Or a check the box or did not check the box. All right. Another thing is sometimes I have one of my goals here is three hours of work on something, right? So if you have three hours working on a project, then if that's your goal, that you want to work every day. So if someone's going to school and you want to spend three hours doing homework, then you can write the number of hours that you actually did. If you did not complete your three. So then you can write the number of how many hours you did. I did that with sleep. So I want to have seven hours of sleep. So then I look at in the morning, the phone or I calculate how many hours I had of sleep. And then if I did get my seven hours of sleep, I make an X and then move on. If I didn't, then I write how many hours of sleep I'm having. And then I look at my phone. Phone tells you that you have like how many hours. So then I write that down because then it's clear right there. I can see and I can look at my wellness and see, okay, I'm not feeling good today. It's because I didn't not have enough sleep. It's easier for you to see those correlations. All right, so this is my daily habit tracker. The next thing I do is the weekly tracker, which is the one that I do once a week. It's weekly, right? So we do once a week. And then we look through all the goals and the steps which consist just kind of go over the whole goal again and decide, is there something that I need to cross out? Is there anything that I need to add instead? What did I do? And do I need to extend the time so that weekly tells you where we're going? So I have just a notebook. And if you see me doing this in church, please don't, don't rattle on me. I have, for example, right here I have the goal of. Okay, so I have, for example, an outcome goal. This was a goal that I already accomplished, but it's still my notebook and I'm going to create a template for that. So I have this here. I have the goal written. So it's a regular notebook, whatever, just keep that with you. And then I wrote the goal on the top. On this case was a lose weight goal. Then I had a start date, I had the domain. So physical, spiritual, emotional, career, academic, family, relationships, or money. Right? We always do the financial goals. And then this was an outcome base. So then I put a deadline. Then I wrote my key motivations. So what are the reasons why I was doing that goal? So that's three step, three reasons at least. And then I put the next step. So on the next steps, I Wrote all the things that I think I needed to do to be able to accomplish that goal. So make a plan. My food plan for the day. I'm going to use the daily tracker. I'm going to sit down and process my urges to eat something that's not on my protocol. So I'll give like at least 10 minutes before I go and actually have that thing if I still want it. Do models every night and then go to the gym and what else I put here. So I made this whole list of things and what I'm going to do like in certain strategies when I didn't feel like doing those things or when I set a process for 10 minutes and I just went and ate it anyway. So what am I going to do next? Or how can I avoid that? Or you know, things that are there for the goal. And then at the end I would have Michael Hyde we recommends do a celebration of reward to pat yourself on the back that you did it. And so sometimes the motivation or the price will help you feel that reason, that compelling reason to get something done. Or you put yourself. After I lose this much, I'm going to spend a hundred dollars in clothes. So if you're doing that, then you could save every time you get paid or every week you could spend, you could save, I don't know, $10, put it in a jar. So then by the time you finish and you achieve to achieve your goal or get that deadline, then you have a certain amount of money there that you can just go and spend on clothes. So you can do that too. The celebration reward doesn't work for me. I, that doesn't. I don't even usually remember what is the reward or the celebration. I do celebrate weekly when I do my review. So that's the goal. I read my goal again. I see if I need to change any next steps. And then I would do a weekly review. I get another piece of paper right here and I write what is the domain? So what's the goal that I'm analyzing? And then I, I write it down like if it was a journal. I just write it. I put this, this much on towards the credit card. I went and I wanted to buy something but I didn't. I made my plan for how much I was going to spend that day and I follow my plan. I needed money for this thing that came up that it was on my budget. So next month I have to remember to add that to my budget. So I do a little review what I did during the week and what are the Things I need to do to accomplish that better next week or if it's a project, what part of the project needs to be done next week and what are the steps for that? So that's what I do. This helps me realize what I've done so far and which is really good for our brain and then what are the next step forward? So then I go through again and I underline, I underline certain things that there are next steps that I need to do. So actions that I need to do. And then when I do my planning for the week, then I make sure that I put those in to remember that I have to do them, that I want to do that. All right, so this is, this is the key. This is the most, one of the most helpful tools. These two things that I just showed you, I. They help me so much to achieve a goal, you might think, but I'm not organized. I don't do this every day. I don't. Well, a weekly. Again, just like we talked about before, always type this to something that you already doing. So find something that you're already doing and then sit down, do this. So in the morning I'm going to do my script, your study. So then I do my daily tracker with my day, my script, your study. Because I'm already going to sit down the desk. Then I just open my planner and I mark. Now if you don't have a paper planner, that's okay. You can just put this chart up on a board and just mark it down or put it by something that you do in the morning. Maybe you do your scripture study with your phone. So put that close to your phone so you remember to do that in the morning. And then the weekly review, I like to write. So having the notebook really helps. So let's say in the afternoon, on a Sunday, you always do a certain thing. So put that review with that. I take it to church and I do it during. Sometimes I do it during class when I'm paying attention, but also I'm writing it down. Those things, these are the two most helpful. And then of course the check in dates or deadlines. So if it's a habit, then you get to the date that you put in your first check in. Let's see, have you accomplished that? Do you need to extend that goal? I don't know. Maybe that goal is not compelling anymore and you're not going to do it. So then you can just be done with that goal and move on and set another one. So on those dates, that's when I Set new goals and then new habits or new outcome goals. That's when I set my new set of goals, my new set of five. Sometimes as I told you before, the one of the dates does not coincide with the other goals and it's okay. Then I just have to do one goal. I just add one more goal to stay always with the five and then I keep going and then the other ones are expired. They have deadlines and different dates. So then I do I change the goals as those deadlines approach. But first time you're going to do this usually just set all or if you forgot to do this for a while and you're coming back to it, then usually I just set the same deadline and then I put it up on my board as well. So I know that that deadline is coming because it helps me like, oh, I have some kind of urgency to get that one done right. So again, these four, this the four phases of a goal setting is dream plan, do and review reviews, the most overlooked one. So make sure you include that in your routine in your goal setting process because that's going to make sure that you accomplish the goals that you truly want. All right. And remember, daily tracking, weekly tracking and a check in dates or a deadline dates. I'm going to add to the call attached to the side of the call. You can have the worksheet for the daily tracker. I already have that on the site. I'm going to post. Also the template for that is adapted from Michael Hyatt's to set your goals where you have what is the goal deadline. Write about the goal and then the reasons why you choose in that goal and the next steps. And I'll add on the bottom the celebration reward. If that works for you, I'm going to have that worksheet also there for you now, the weekly report, the weekly review. I don't have a template for that. You just grab a piece of paper and just write it down. Every your goals, just go over them and write it down. All right. It is so fun to get these notebooks and look back and see the different things and how did I progress? Sometimes we tend to look at our future and that person that already accomplished that goal and we compare ourselves with that image of what we think is the, the person that accomplished that goal. And we feel bad and every time we compare ourselves forward doesn't work. We always have. Let's look back where we were and where we are right now. Okay, so that's the gain. Dan Sullivan, Benjamin Harden. Talk about the gain and the gap. So the gap is looking at just what you haven't accomplished and from here to the perfection or to the perfect person that's doing that goal that you want. But that doesn't help us. We have to look at where we were in the beginning and where we are right now. Seeing progress that way, it's going to keep you motivated. Not motivated, but you see your progress. You're going to keep going, doing things, because when you discourage, that's not going to help you accomplish what you want. All right, so our next workshop is going to be exploring our mindset and why we keep doing the same things over and over, setting the same goals and ever accomplishing any of them. All right, so I'll see you guys next time.

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