Get The Most Out Of 2024!

Welcome to A New Life Podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean. Hello, my friends, and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I'm Pamela Jean, your host. Thank you so much for being here and happy New Year. Happy New year to you. 2024. This is the first podcast of the year and I don't know about you, but I am so excited and ready to be back on a regular schedule. Love Christmas and I love the holiday season, but I've had way too many Saturdays in a row. I had to ask myself multiple times, what day is it? What do I have to do today? As much as I love the holidays, I'm grateful and excited to be back with you today and ready to take on 2024. I had an amazing year in 2023. There was very little that I would change. It was such a fantastic year. Every year you're going to have your highs and your lows, your bumps and your bruises. But you know, when you really stop and think about it, it was a good year. There were so many good things that happened, and I hope lean into those good things and really appreciate them. But also, more than anything else, lean in to what didn't go well in 2023. Look at those hard times, the failures, the things that you might consider in quotes, failures. Because, friends, growth comes from the failures. The setbacks that you experienced are setups. You're not going to take the time to grow in any area of your life unless times get hard. That's where growth comes from. Growing pains are called that for a reason. Because growth is hard. Growth is difficult. And you will suffer growing pains to get your life or your business or your relationships where you want them to be. So expect the hard times, expect the failures. And honestly, this is going to sound just a teeny bit on the crazy side, but look forward to the hard times. Because you know that if you're experiencing a hard time right now, you're growing and there's something huge that you are meant to learn. Some big lesson, some wisdom, A turning point will come from those hard times. So if you can actually look forward to the hard times, then the better they will serve you, I promise. I know that sounds a little bit on the crazy side, but that's okay. But I'm all about the hard times because that's where the biggest moments of growth and the biggest lessons are learned. I heard a saying a long time ago that the message is in the message. So if you think about the messiest times in your life, the Messiest moments of 2023, what message did you learn? What did you learn during those messy times? So a lot can be gleaned from reflecting back and digging through some of the back bad times and just sift through the rubble, if you will. So on today's episode, I want to help you build a successful 2024. That includes setting very clear achievable goals and developing a strategy around each of them to reach the goals. So I'm going to go through a little bit of a step by step guide to help you get started with that. I am a big time journal person. I'm a write it down person. You may want to do all of this electronically, that's up to you. But there is something very valuable about getting out a notebook and a pen and writing this information information down. In fact, if you haven't Already, get your 2024 journal out and just start writing your goals down in one spot. Not everywhere. On your phone, in your phone or in different notebooks or on pieces of paper. Keep them all together in one journal. So if you haven't already done that, grab your journal, get your pen ready and let's go. The first step is you need to reflect on your past in order to know where you want to go in 2024, you have to know where you've been. Review Your year of 2023, what went well, what worked well, what could have gone better. Identify achievements and write them down. And then also areas for improvement. Learn from the past in order to form your goals for 2024. So my rec recommendation is start. Go back to your January Calendar, January of 2023. Go through it month by month. Don't just try to sit and think about what happened. Look at your calendar. Look at the events on your calendar that will help jog your memory of what happened during that month. Now if you're someone who started out January with all of these New Year's resolutions, like many people do, and you found yourself by January 10th already aborting and abandone abandoning all of your resolutions. This goal setting is nothing like setting resolutions resolutions. I kind of feel like set you up to fail. You're not going to really follow through in a resolution. But a strategic goal will have some follow through. So write down month by month what went well and what did not go well. And you might look at different areas of your life, not just work or friendships or relationships, but all areas the eight pillars that I like you to focus on are financial, spiritual, physical, wellness, emotional, environmental, intellectual, emotional, which is kind of wrapped around relationships and financial. I don't know if I said all eight, but there we go. I don't have any notes. I kind of wing this, so if I missed one, my apologies. So, number one, reflect on your past. You don't know where you want to go until you know where you've been. Number two, after you have done your reflection, define your vision. Envision where you want to be by the end of 2024. Where do you want to be in your business or your career? Where do you want to be in your relationships? Do you have that relationship that is just off kilter and just not going well? That something needs to change? Where do you want that change? How do you want that to look differently by the end of the year? Your health and your wellness, your leisure. Create a vivid picture of what your ideal future is. What do you want December 31st of 2024 to look like? Now, I've never done a vision board, but I've heard that that's very effective for some people. Start a vision board if that's something that speaks to you, if that's a way for you to create your vision. Like I told I'm a writer, I'm a write things down kind of a person. I get a journal going and I just write things down. But write down your vision of what you want 2024 to look like and set smart goals. Be very specific and clearly define what you want to achieve. These goals need to be measurable. You have to establish criteria to track the progress. That's where your journal is going to come in really, really handy to track your progress and have them be realistic and attainable. You know, here is just a thought. Some people might say, I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. I want to lose weight. Okay, well, how much weight do you want to lose? Do you want to lose 20 pounds? Do you want to lose 50 pounds? What does that look like for you? And then you break it down even further. First of all, you want to lose weight. Establish how much weight, and then look at how much weight do you want to lose per month? And then break it down even further. And look at, okay, what can I do each week to pour into that goal of losing weight by the end of the year? Then break it down even further. Look at what can I do every single day to reach my goal of losing weight by the end of the year? It's really Important that you take baby steps to reach these goals that's very realistic and attainable. You know, the little thing each day could be cutting out soda. Instead of having two sodas every day, I'm going to cut back to one. I'm not one that believes in going cold turkey and diving right in, because that's not realistic. You're not going to follow through. But if you make tiny, subtle changes every single day, by the end of the year, 360, what, three days from now, you will have some attainable and measurable goals. And make sure that your goals align with your overall vision. Because if you have one goal going in one direction and another goal going into another direction, you're not going to succeed in either goal. Make sure that every single goal that you create aligns with your overall vision, which is why step number two of defining your vision is very, very important. And set some deadlines to create a little sense of urgency. For instance, if you're wanting to lose, you know, let's say 50 pounds, well, divide 50 by 12 months in the year and see how much weight that is per month that you want to lose. And then take it the monthly amount, divide by four, because there's four weeks in the month, and that will give you a weekly goal. Those are easy, attainable. They're setting some deadlines, and it's going to help you monitor your progress. Now, another thing I would consider is, especially if it's a weight type of goal or an exercise type of goal, an accountability partner is really, really important when it comes to exercise, healthy eating, healthy living. Accountability is really key because if we're honest, we are lazy people. We fall back into old habits really, really easily, and you have to fight your way through that. You can create and develop new habits, but that will take time. And if you don't give yourself 90 days to establish new habits, you're going to continue this vicious cycle of falling back into old habits. So you definitely want to have some accountability in reaching that as well. Now, categorize your goals. We talked about that a little bit before, and here are those different pillars. The physical pillar. So physical wellness. Now, that doesn't mean you have to go join a gym and spend all of this money doing that. I, I don't. I'm not an advocate for that. I want you to meet yourself where you're at. You know, first of all, before starting any physical type of goal, consult your doctor. Make sure that you are a healthy human being. That should be starting some cardio or starting some exercise make sure that your doctor gives you that approval. But you should have a goal in your physical area, your career, your business, spiritual, environmental, social, financial, emotional, and relationship. And then intellectual. You know, the intellectual component I think we neglect so often because we just get so busy doing what we're doing. We're not stretching our brains. We're not thinking about things that we've never done before. We don't explore new. We just kind of rely on the old. But what's a new hobby? What's a new challenge? What's something new that you want to stretch your brain with and keep your intellectual brain exercised and working well. And prioritize each of these categories based on importance and impact. Now, if you're someone whose career and business is going absolute gangbusters and it could not be going any better, do you need to set and focus big goals in that area? That's a question. I don't know. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But if your career is going crazy, but financially you're struggling, what that tells me is your career and business is making a lot of money, but financially you're blowing it all. You're not saving it. You're not a good steward with your money, you are wasting your money. That would tell me that you need to focus on bigger goals and more stringent goals in the financial area. Or if financially you're doing really, really well and, and the money is coming in and you're living really well, but your relationships are struggling. Well, okay, pull. Take the gas off of the pedal for your financial wellness and focus a little bit more energy into the relationships. But reality and human nature is the things that are hard are the things that we're going to avoid. So if you're having a hard time financially, you're probably avoiding that area. But that's the area that requires the biggest goals being set. And if you're really struggling in relationship, your marriage is not well, your friendships are not in a good way well, don't avoid the relationships. Pour into those relationships. The areas that are the hardest are usually the areas that are kind of gone a little bit crazy, a little wonky in your life. That's where the majority of your energy needs to be shifted. Number five is break down your goals into tasks. Divide each goal into smaller manageable tasks. I always say, how do you eat an elephant? It's one tiny bite at a time. You're not going to attack the big giant goal and have that be success. It's little tiny bites, tiny steps, a little step every Single day. And over time. Over time, that's when that momentum really, really gets going. And create a timeline with a deadline for each of those tasks. My next tip is to develop an action plan. Outline the specific steps that you're going to take to achieve each task. Don't just say it and breathe it into the universe. You have to have legs behind it. You have to have some weight behind it. So outline the specific steps. For instance, going back to weight loss, what is the one thing you can do every single day that will help you reach that goal of losing weight over the years? Time. Drink an extra glass of water. Everybody can do that. Cut back your portion size. Everybody can do that every single day. That's not hard. When you look at the big goal of losing the 50 pounds or whatever the weight is for you by losing the weight, that's where it gets overwhelming. But drinking an extra glass of water a day, that's not difficult. You can do that. I know that you can. So just break them down into little tiny bite sizes and anticipate the potential challenges and plan how to overcome them. So if we're looking at the weight loss again, it's such a good topic because everyone seems to go through that at one point in their life or other. But if we're looking, looking at that again, anticipate potential challenges. A potential challenge of losing weight and staying on track would be going out to dinner. If you have dinner with friends, how do you plan for that? How do you make sure you stay on track with your goals and anticipate that potential challenge? There are ways. Before you go to a restaurant, look through the menu. Find something on the menu that would serve your goal. Look at the portion sizes for the restaurant. When you order your entree, ask them to put half of it to go so you don't risk the chance of overeating if you're at home. Here is such a good, easy, easy hack. Use a smaller plate. If you take a smaller plate and get your serving on a smaller plate, visually it'll look full to you and it'll help you not overeat. Now, after you've finished and if you're still not satisfied after waiting 15, 20 minutes, then go back for a little bit more. But just get a smaller plate. That's a tiny little hack, if you will, that will help you stay on track for your weight loss goals for the year. The next tip is to stay organized again. Get out your planner. Get out that journal. Staying organized is, is such a great tool to help you stay on Track. There are many, many different apps that you can download to your phone. And if that works for you, great. If you're someone who likes to write things down, great. Then get your journal, get your planner and let go. Let's do it. Review your progress. Every single day you're writing in this journal, you're writing into this planner and update your plan as needed. Now, you may start off with a goal and it's going well, but then all of a sudden it's not. That happens. Maybe you need to make some adjustments. That's the time to do that. And when you have it all journaled out, you can look back at what you've done, you can see the roadmap of what got you to where you are. And then you can make the proper adjustments and cultivate a growth mindset. You know, we've all been around those people that even if the sun is bright and beautiful, there's still something wrong with the weather that day. Maybe the sun. Oh, it's too bright today. It hurts my eyes. Okay, well yesterday and the week before it was all cloudy, so the clouds were a problem. And now the sun's too bright, it hurts your eyes. There's always going to be that negative person that you're going to encounter. Don't let that negative person become you. Cultivate a growth mindset. Embrace the challenges and the opportunities for the growth and learn from those failures and setbacks because they're coming. Anticipate your failures and your setbacks rather than seeing them as an obstacle. You know, when I learn to embrace the hard times, when I learn to look at a circumstance and say, okay God, what is happening here? What's happening here? What do you want me to learn? You know, one time I prayed for patience and anyone who is a Jesus follower, if you know what happens when you pray for patience, oh God's gonna teach you patience in a way that you cannot ever imagine and anticipate. But learn from those setbacks and failures and stop seeing them as obstacles because growth is coming through those obstacles. Prioritize your self care is my next tip for you. Ensure that your goals align with your overall well being. Now that it's the beginning of the year, my friends, if you haven't already done this, get out your calendar and plan a vacation. Plan a vacation now. Vacation doesn't matter. Mean that you have to pack your bags and go on a week long trip. Maybe it's a staycation, maybe financially you're not able to do that. That's okay. But schedule time off with the people you love most. Why is it that the people that we love the most and that love us the most don't get the best of us? They get what they get the left leftovers. Instead of getting the best part of us, they get what's left of us. After a long, hard, tiring day, they get the leftovers. But the people that you've met through your work and worked with all day long, they get the best of you. Schedule time off. You've got plenty of time from now until summer to figure out what that looks like for you. Maybe you don't have paid vacation from your job. Maybe you just simply do not have PTO that you're able to then plan some extra fun activities on the weekends, on your days off. Maybe you're not going out of town. Maybe you're just going to find locally places that you can go hiking or biking or listen to music outdoors. There's always free activities if you find them and if you choose to do them. But you have to have some self care. Schedule regular breaks, exercise and time for relaxation. The prioritizing self care is really, really important. Seek accountability. Share your goals with family and friends or mentors. Join a small group or find an account accountability partner. Excuse me. Now I want to give you a little bit of caution of sharing your goals with family and friends. Your family and friends may not get you. They may not understand the goal that you have set for yourself. Don't go into sharing a goal with family and friends with an expectation because they may not support your goal. They may not understand your goal. Oftentimes when someone has something bad to say about your goal or doesn't understand it, it is speaking from their own area of insecurity. So if you shared with a family member that I want to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year, they might look at you and say, why would you want to lose £50? You don't need to lose £50. I think you look great just the way you are. That might be a response from someone. That response response may be coming from a place of their insecurity because if you lose 50 pounds and get healthy and start looking great, they might have to do the same thing and they don't want to do it. So if you choose to share your goals with family and friends, and I'm kind of on the fence with that, it depends on who you're sharing it with, go into that with no expectation because some will get you and support you and some will not and that is okay. But it's your response to them is your responsibility. So if you're not getting the feedback that you want or you hoped for, then don't talk to that person about that goal anymore because you're never going to get it from them. You'll never convince them that this is the right goal for you if they don't think it's the right goal because they might be accountable for something themselves. So I just give you a little bit of caution on that. Don't forget to celebrate your achievements. Oh my gosh. Now if you're doing a weight loss and healthy type of goal setting, celebrate the wins no matter how small they are. Use some positive reinforcements to stay motivated and that is going to look differently from every person that sets the goals. Regularly review and adjust. Do regular check ins to assess your progress with your goals. Don't just set your goals in January and not take a look at them until December 1st of this year. That's too much time. You've gone off track. You obviously have gone off track. So mark on your calendar at least once a month. I would recommend twice a month to assess your goals. So Maybe it's the 15th and the 30th of each month or the 1st, 1st and the 15th, whatever that is to you. Schedule time to assess your progress, just to do a check in with yourself to see where you're doing, how you're doing on the goals and learn continuously. Stay informed about personal development, development opportunities. Learn new skills. Invest time in learning and acquiring knowledge that align with your goals. I want to learn this year. My challenge for me is I want to learn more about search engine optimization. I know what you're thinking. I could hire someone and they could do it for me. But I want to understand it. I want to know more information. I want to have more knowledge on that because I can serve my business better and I can help serve other businesses that I work with and mentor and coach if they I know more about that particular topic. So SEO that's on my radar this year of learning more information. That's my intellectual challenge for myself is to learn more and understand SEO. That's only one. I have so many things that I want to learn and do this year, but that's one that came to my mind. First of all, network and build relationships. Cultivate a network of supportive individuals. They're not always going to be your family and friends. Sometimes in fact your family and friends will feel like the least supportive people in your life. So cultivate a network of supportive individuals. Attend events, conferences, online communities related to your goals. So if you're trying to get better with your nutrition, then take some classes on proper nutrition to help you reach the goal that you want to reach. If you're looking to get more lean and add more muscle, how do you do that? What do you need to eat? How much protein do you need? Learn more about what it's going to take for you to accomplish your goals and stay flexible. Friends, life is insanely flexible and unpredictable, so be open to adjusting your goals and plans as needed. You know you have to be adaptable. It is an absolute key for success is to be adaptable. I will admit that was an area that I wasn't always very good at, was staying flexible because it didn't fit or align with my schedule. And I didn't like it when my schedule went off track because I am innately involved in my own schedule. But I had to learn that flexibility is key. I can't control what's happening outside, outside of me. And sometimes what's happening outside of me affects me. It may not be my fault, but it becomes my problem and I need to learn to be flexible and deal with things and ebb and flow with what life has. For me, that is one of those things that I had to learn over the years. Okay, so let's wrap it up. Remember, building a successful year is an ongoing process. You're not just going to establish your goals right now in January or resolutions. However you've chosen to do that and expect that it just works for the rest of the year. You have to check your progress and adjust. You have to adjust because a goal that you may have set out to accomplish just simply isn't going to happen. Maybe it's things outside of your control that it's just not going to work well. Be prepared to adjust and adapt and shift those goals as you need to revisit your goals. Stay adaptable and celebrate. Celebrate your progress along the way. My friends. Oh my gosh. Happy New Year again. Good luck with your journey to a successful 2024. I'm so excited for this year. I can't even tell you why there's so many great things things happening. I have the most amazing women scheduled on my podcast as guests coming up. I can't even tell you how excited I am about these women that I've been interviewing over the last couple of weeks. I have several more weeks of interviews that I'm working on. If you know of someone that you think should be on my podcast, my gosh, reach out to me Pamela Jean I would love to know who that is because I have several that are just going to be inspirational and they're going to knock your socks off. I'm so excited. And again, if you have anyone in your life that really needs a podcast that is uplifting and motivates you, share this podcast please. I'm on Apple and Spotify primarily and on my website, Pamela Jean A New Life. I would love for you to subscribe, Leave a review if you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Okay friends with that, I will let you go. Have a wonderful week and I will see you next week right here. Thank you for joining us today on A New Life podcast. We will see you next time.