How to SET GOALS to ACHIEVE Your DREAMS | Tanya Dalton

It's so important from the start to set goals that are really for you. I think so many times when we're not hitting our goals, it's because they weren't really the goals for us in the first place.

Female entrepreneurs have, like, this big, big love button in my heart. Right. Because, one, I feel like they've had to, in many cases, struggle a lot more than many of their competitors in the marketplace. They've got a lot more on their mind. The good news is they're able to multitask a whole lot better than myself. For example, I don't multitask with a flip, but with over 12 million women entrepreneurs on the planet, I wanted to focus the show on really the things that are ultimately holding them back. And I know you work with a ton, I mean, a ton of female entrepreneurs consistently. What do you see with your clients that is traditionally holding them back more than anything else?

Yeah, well, I think honestly, for women, a lot of times it is this idea of permission. We're waiting for permission. We're waiting for knowledge. We're waiting for the acceptance that it's okay. We deal with a lot of guilt. And I think that's one of the things that's really unique for us female entrepreneurs is there's a lot of guilt. There's a lot of this questioning, like, is this selfish to do the things I want to do? Is it selfish to go after my dreams? You know, we are oftentimes the CEO of the office, but also the CEO of the home. So here we are during the day with our CEO, CEO of the office hat, running around doing all the things, you know, the marketing and the financial planning and the maybe the manufacturing and operations and all those things, and we're exhausted. And then we go home and we take off that hat, and we put on the CEO of the home hat, and we're running the show a lot of times at home. Even when we have amazing partners at home, we are still looked at as the one who's running things. You know, I have an incredible husband. My husband is my cmo, so technically, he works for me in my company, and he runs carpool, he makes lunches. He does all of those things. And yet who does the teacher want to talk to? They want to talk to me, right? Who do they expect to.

The chief everything officer has to solve it again.

Yeah. I mean, that's the truth. And so it is hard, and we do feel that really big weight of having to do it all. And when you feel like you have to give to Everyone. So sometimes we feel guilty getting in return, right? And so we wear ourselves out. I say, you know, one of the things I hear from so many women is we're running around chasing busy. We're checking a thousand things off our to do list, which is far too long, right? But we're checking a lot of things off of it. We fall into bed at night, our head hits the pillow and we are exhausted, we are worn out. And we think to ourselves, why didn't I get more done? Why didn't I get this done? I didn't do that, I didn't do this. And this is one of the things that I'm really on a mission for, is that I want women to go to bed and feel satisfied, feel successful. To go today felt amazing. But we're wearing ourselves out chasing our tail, because that's what we're supposed to do. That's what we're expected to do, or that's at least what we tell ourselves.

Well, let me ask you this. I mean, is it on the guilt concept? Is it just because you feel like you should be investing your time here, but you're really investing it over here? So if you're at work, you're thinking about home, if you're at home, you're thinking about work?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, there's this whole myth of balance that's out there, right, that we want to be balanced. And I think to be perfectly balanced is a mistake. You know, if you're perfectly balanced, it's like, it's like riding a bike. If you're perfectly balanced, it's great because you can go straight ahead if that's the path you really want to stay on. And you don't want to turn left or right. If you want to turn left, you got to lean to the left. You have to go out of balance. You have to give more attention, more energy, more focus, more time to whatever needs it at that moment. Now, if you're turning left, you can't stay leaned over too long. You'll fall over your skin, your knee. You have to counterbalance, right? And write yourself back up. And then you want to turn right and so you lean over to a different area. And so this is really what we want. We want to be able to lean into work for a season and then counterbalance and come back and then lean into family. But what we do is we set this expectation of ourselves, of perfect balance within a 24 hour period. There's 168 hours in a week, and yet we expect every single Day to be perfectly balanced. And so the truth is, we need to give ourselves more grace because life happens. Sometimes we have long weeks, sometimes we're traveling. Sometimes we're not going to be able to be home in the evenings with our kids because things are happening at work. We're in the middle of a launch or something's going on. And instead of saying, well, I'm the worst mom because I'm not at dinner tonight, focus in on, okay, maybe I wasn't home for dinner a lot this week, but last week I was. Or next week I'm going to be home for dinner more often. It's this idea of harmony, of the leaning and the counterbalancing, and then the leaning again and the counterbalancing. That's really when we give ourselves the grace to be ourselves and to actually do the things that we want to do.

Yeah. I mean, it seems like permission is in the expectation, right? So if I expect to, you know, and I've had this conversation with my wife, um, who's amazing. Um, one of the things we've talked about before is like, you know, if I have to travel for three days to go speak or do it, a conference or an event or something, then when I come home is three days of vacation time. And we. And I've had to do that intentionally because I have a tendency to. Because I love what I do. Right? Because I love what I do. I just want to do it.

Right.

Just have a good time. Right. Um, and, you know, I kind of felt like that, that concept of balance. Um, and obviously I'm not a female entrepreneur, but I work with a ton of them who are amazing.

I think we all kind of struggle with that to a degree. Right? This. This concept of blissful balance where it's perfect. I think your bicycle analogy is. Is perfect. Right. Because there is like, okay, I'm going to lean into the work for a little bit. Let's rock and roll with that. Okay. I'm leaning in the family a little bit, but it seems like the core attribute of that is going to be the expectation. Right. So if. If I. If I'm communicating my expectation to my family, to my team, et cetera. Right. Does that sound about right?

Okay. Yes. Let's talk about expectations. Because I think this is so big, honestly, because I think that we're so busy trying to live up to everyone else's expectations of us, and they're not even necessarily their expectations. We tend to push our expectations or what we think people expect of us. Right. I can't tell you the number of times I have conversations with women where I'm like, you know, how are things going? And they're like, oh, my husband wants me to do this, and my kids are, you know, I'm running all these, you know, after school activities and I'm doing all these things. And I'll say, well, have you talked to them? Is this really what they expect? Is this really? And they'll say, well, well, no, they don't have that conversation. And then I say, okay, go back. I want you to talk to your spouse. I want you to see is this really a problem for them that you're spending this much time at work. And then they go and have the conversation with their spouse and they're like, hold on. That just changed everything, right? A lot of what we want, a lot of what we desire is on the other side of a difficult two minute conversation. It gets that first two minutes, right, which feels uncomfortable because you're like, oh, I don't want to have this conversation. I don't know if I want to talk about this. You have that conversation and suddenly communication happens. Suddenly your spouse is saying, no, I think it's amazing you're doing these things. Or your kids are saying, mom, I don't want to do these 17 after school activities. I'd be happy if we didn't do them.

Let's take a nap.

Happen, right? Can I just sit on the couch for a few minutes? But we're living up to the expectations that we think has for us. We're living up to the expectations we think our family has for us. We're living up to expectations that everyone else has for us. And they're not even necessarily their expectations. So I really, truly believe it all begins with conversation. Having open, honest conversations, Setting your boundaries, setting those expectations and communicating them very, very, very clearly.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, a good friend of mine, Anthony Trucks, taught me something recently. I was going through something, so he texts me and I would say, hey, what this, you know, this is going on, dude. You know, I got a live event coming up and we were excited about it and all kinds of stuff. And putting on a massive live event is obviously challenging, and it's only worth it. Worth it. But, you know, but it's, it's, it's challenging. And he, he actually calls me to flip, flip the switch a little bit. And he said, look, he said, dude, most times the family is okay with you being gone or doing things for extended periods of time, as long as that when you come home, you are Home. In other words, there is no business, there is no this, there is no that. And he said, you would be surprised at how little of a time requirement your family actually needs as long as that time requirement is intentional. And that has hung with me, and I hear that throughout. What you are sharing is be intentional.

Yes. Well, there is actually this great study from, I think it was Boston College, their graduate program, where they did this study about. About parents and how their work affected their children. And what they found was the children's level of happiness, their foundational feeling of security and joy in their family didn't come from their parents spending more time at home. It was how their parents came home, what kind of mood they were in, how their parents felt about their work. So a lot of times we feel guilty because we're not quote, unquote, spending enough time when really, if we came home and we felt good about the work we're doing, close that compartment behind us, Focus in fully, completely and thoroughly on our family at home during our home lifetime. Our kids be so much happier. And honestly, we would be so much happier. I think we. Again, this goes back to that whole idea of expectations of what our kids expect of us. You know, I started my first business in 2008 when my kids were really little, playing at my feet, literally when they were in preschool. And now my son is 6 foot 3 and off at college and everything else. And so, yeah, he's no longer playing at my feet, thank goodness. But, you know, even from a young age, when they were really, really little, I made them feel like they were a part of what I do at work. I think a lot of people really have this idea that we are super compartmentalized in work and home and that there's no crossover whatsoever. And I get that with. I want my mind to be focused fully on family when I'm in family time, but focused on work when I'm at work time. But it's really beautiful to bring your children, to bring your family into your world. So when my kids were really little, like, you know, four years old, three or four years old, I would say things like, oh, my gosh, look at the stack of papers. They all need a sticker on them. Every one of these needs a Snoopy sticker. And they would be like, oh, well, I can do that. Which clearly nothing needed Snoopy stickers, Right? But they would sit next to me while I worked, and they would put the Snoopy stickers on, and I would say, oh, my goodness, that was so helpful. You're so Good at helping us with this business. And then when they got older, they would do different jobs. No more snoopy stickers for my son. He eventually worked in my warehouse because I have a fulfillment center within my company. You know, they've done different things, they've built boxes and done different activities. For me, they've always felt like they were apart, that it was our company, that it was our job, our work that we do together. So even when I have a book that comes out or we have a launch, that happens when we celebrate as a family because we talk about how important it is that we all work together. So when they're in elementary school, part of their job is to make sure that they're self sufficient so that I can work on my launch. I love that we're all doing this together. So we would have team meetings. I call it your team at work and your team at home. So my family, my team at work, we would have, you know, team meetings on Mondays, my team at home, we have Sunday meetings where we meet as a team and we talk about what's going on, what are we all working on. So it might be a week where I have a launch or it might be a week where, you know, my son Jack has, you know, a play practice or, or Kay has a volleyball tournament or something like that. And we will say together, okay, this person in the family, Jack, has a lot going on. How can we support him this week? Well, normally Jack empties the trash and he does this for the dishwasher and he does. So how can we all work together as a team to support him? And that works too with. They support me when I have a busy launch or I'm traveling and I'm out of town at a speaking event or doing those types of things. So it becomes more of a team instead of it just being me holding everybody up. And that is an expectation that we a lot of times as mothers place on ourselves, that we have to hold everybody else up, that we can't ask for support. And really, when you allow your team in, when you allow your kids and your spouse to be an active member of whatever it is you're doing, they feel like they're part of the team. And that really deepens those connections and those relationships. I think that is really important.

Yeah, And I love that because I feel like, all right, so I'm going to flip the script from my perspective. One of the things that I've struggled with in my own business, because owning several companies myself, one of the things I've constantly struggled with is making sure that my fan that the family unit feels like that they're part of the initiative now. My boys, no problem, they're working in one of the businesses. My daughter working in one of the businesses, you know, but my wife for the most part was, you know, basically a stay at home and didn't see anybody through the course of the day. And that was okay for a while until she realized that I come home and I'm fried. And I know that there's female entrepreneurs out there that are basically the person who's out in the marketplace and they may have a stay at home spouse. And that stay at home spouse may also feel at times, for lack of a better word, and this is a word that my wife and I had to talk about, abandoned, right. I leave at 5am I come home super late and I got two really specific female entrepreneurs that I'm thinking about in my mind who have very successful businesses, but also have a tremendous amount of time, demanding of time on their shoulders because of the size of their organizations. So are you able to talk a little bit about maybe how we can help our spouses even like kind of avoid kind of like abandonment or feeling like they're not engaged themselves?

Well, because it is, you know, earlier we kind of alluded to that idea of the CEO of the home. It is, your home is a nonprofit. It essentially is a nonprofit in that what you're producing are, you know, well adjusted kids, a happy home life, right? A place that feels like a sanctuary and that takes your team. So really making sure that if your spouse is a stay at home parent or a stay at home, just spouse because you don't have kids, both of those are absolutely fabulous because it allows life to happen smoothly. And I think this is the thing is, you know, we can bring home the bacon, we can fry it up in a pan, but it does us no good if the kitchen is burning down around us. We need that stable foundation of home feeling amazing so that when we go to work, we can focus fully on work. So again, it's about having those conversations about what I'm doing at work and how incredibly helpful it is for your spouse or your kids to be doing what they're doing at home because that allows you to really focus stress free and then come home. So really connecting those dots because a lot of times they feel abandoned because they're not a part of that world. So bringing them into it in little ways where you talk about, you know, like, I'm so grateful that I can come home and there's a meal ready to go or that the kids, you know, have their lunches made. That's not a stress for me. And that frees my mind up to do the things I do at work. We have to draw those connections for people. And I think especially for female entrepreneurs with husbands who are the supporter that is. That's sometimes a tough thing because we have again, we as women have these expectations placed upon us. Men have expectations placed upon them. I can't tell you the number of times where I have gone to an event. I do a lot of philanthropy through my business and I'll go to these events and there's bankers and, you know, financial planners and all these people there. And I walk in and they assume I'm there as somebody's employee and they'll say, oh, what do you know? I'll walk up to a group and they'll say, what do you do? And they're all a bunch of men. And I'm like, well, I own my own business. And they're like, oh, what is your husband? How cute.

You're like, oh, yeah, it's a seven figure plus, by the way.

And you're like, yeah, I make seven figures. So.

And nobody gets, so nobody gets accidentally.

So, you know, and then they, they'll say to him sometimes, oh, so you're not the CEO because he's my cmo. They'll say, you're not the CEO. And he'll say, no, she's the CEO. And they'll say, oh man, she's putting you in your place, isn't she? And he's like, such horse crap, right? Not really. He'll say, you know, she's better suited to be a CEO. And I love, you know, doing this and I love supporting her in her mission and. But nobody would question it if I was working for my husband. And so there's these other expectations that are placed upon our men that you have to be the breadwinner, you have to be the one who's running the show. And so that can be a harder thing for a lot of men. And it's hard for them to find other men in that sphere as well. That I think is really important. So it's so important to acknowledge those people in our home life who allow life to run smoothly, whether that's our family members, which I call your team, or you know, even the people on your staff who help you out, your housekeeping staff, your, if you have a chef or a cook or any of those things, really acknowledging how they Allow your business to run smoothly. Helping connect those dots makes a huge difference.

Yeah. I'm a super big believer in just putting people in their sweet spot. Right. So my new cfo, phenomenal female, like high income earner, but she's phenomenal. My director of operations, same thing. My VP of construction, Male does a great job at it. Evp, male does a great job at it. But I would never take my EVP and put him in the CFO suite. I wouldn't take the CFO person and put him in his seat. Right. Because their strengths are better utilized where they're at. I know I'm not gifted at details. Right. I'm an entrepreneur. I literally have an idea about every 10 seconds. Look, a new idea. Right.

Every 10, not every five.

Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, and I, and I've realized a long time ago that I think this is entrepreneur DNA. So there's something cool about an entrepreneur when they actually engage with another entrepreneur. It takes them all of about five seconds to know, oh yeah, that's an entrepreneur. Yeah, those are my people. Right?

Yeah.

And as I'm thinking through this, one of the trickier parts that I've seen out of all entrepreneurs, male, female, all acquirer, because this is an entrepreneur trait, is this idea of maximizing full blooded productivity. And I know you have a unique perspective on what is ultimate productivity versus what the world teaches as productivity. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on productivity.

Yeah, well, the world likes to talk about productivity is like get things done. Like keep muscling through, do more, do more. And I like to say I'm redefining productivity, that productivity isn't about doing more, it's doing what's most important. And the truth is we feel compelled to do a lot because we live in a society that, that gets excited about quantity. So we think, I got to do 50 things. If I haven't done 50 things today, then I haven't done enough. I haven't earned whatever reward, whatever rest. Right. That I'm trying to earn. And the truth is, if I told you to take 50 steps in 50 different directions, where would you end up? Maybe in the same spot, maybe right next to where you are, maybe further behind. But if instead I said take five intentional steps, even if they were small steps, five steps in one forward direction, where are you going to end up? Closer to where you want to go.

Yeah.

So it's not about the quantity, it's the quality of the work we do. And I think this is so incredibly important as entrepreneurs to really Understand, we often get caught in this trap of feeling like we need to have more. Whether it's more things on our to do list, more offerings, more SKUs. Right. More team members, more customers, more clients, More, more, more, more, more. When in effect, really, if we focus in on what matters most, what's really truly moving the needle, we could do less with a greater impact. This goes all the way back to the Pareto principle. Right. Which a lot of people know as the 8020 rule.

Yeah.

Where it's 20% of your efforts results in 80% of your results. So it's the vital few that creates the biggest impact. And this principle has been around since like the 1700s. It's been proven in all areas of life. About 20% of your closet is what you wear 80% of the time. 20% of your carpet in your house gets 80% of the wear. 20% of your clients result in about 80% of your revenue. 20% of your SKUs bring in about 80% of your revenue. So if we stopped feeling like we have to do all the things and do more and we focused in on the vital few, if you will. One of the activities I have entrepreneurs do a lot of times I'll say list out all your skus or your customers or your clients if you're service based. Right. List all of them out. And I want you to rank them, which is usually pretty easy to do because you can pull up those reports whether it's on Shopify or, you know, QuickBooks. And you can rank and you can see and you're usually like, oh my gosh, these are my top clients. So if this vital few are your top clients or your top sellers or your top whatever it is, why are you wasting all that time on all that trivial mini. Right. So we focus in on the fewer. We're actually going to make more money and we're going to work less. Yeah, that's the magic right there. Right. So we got to get rid of the things that are just dead weight. The, the, this is, it's funny is a lot of times when I do this with entrepreneurs, they'll have, you know, they'll have, you know, programs or offerings or things like that. And they're like, man, I spend like 50% of my time selling this offering and it's only attributed like, and it doesn't deliver tiny percentage. Yes. And it's like, okay, so what do we do with that? We get rid of it and we focus in on the vital few. So productivity isn't doing more. It's not trying to have 5,000 offerings. It's having like one or two that do amazingly well. So you can do fewer launches where you make a lot more money, you bring in more clientele. That's your soulmate clients. And I think that's really what matters.

Yeah, it's crazy. You know, it took me probably 15 years of being in business with my business forever, figured out it was a good idea to fire a customer.

I was like, yes.

And it was funny. I used to spend all my time, like, all of my time chasing around the customers that paid me the least amount of money because they were the most difficult to deal with. Meanwhile, I would, I'd make quite a bit more on customers that were. They had their stuff together, they were streamlined. You know, if a challenge arose, it was a community. It was like a conversation rather than a beat down, like a verbal beat down. You know, it makes me want to. It makes me want to maybe hit you with an off colored question that I haven't. That I didn't have on my list today, but which is how. What is the best way to properly fire a customer? Because you and I both know you got to do that. You got it. We got to do that from time to time.

Oh, without question. And it's one of those things where once you do it, like, the first time is the hardest, right? Where you're like, oh, gosh, is this going to be okay? Like, what are they going to think? And then you do it and you're like, oh my God, why didn't I do that before? Right? I think there's a lot of ways to very gently do that. You know, one of the quotes in my first book is being kind and being assertive are not mutually exclusive. You can be exclusive and really set those boundaries while still being very kind. So a lot of times I'll just present it to them as this is not in your best interest. Like, I. I really feel like you deserve something different than me. You deserve something better. Like, I'm not well suited for you and I'm not able to really give you the things that you need. But I think there's somebody else out there and if you are continuing to work with me, that's doing a disservice to you. So I really want to feel good about the impact I'm making. I want to feel good about what you're getting from me. And if that's not working out, then I really want you. I want you to succeed. And I do. Even if they're not my Soulmate client. I want them to succeed with someone else, not with me. And so it really is this very gentle, like, it's not you, it's me. It's okay, right?

You basically pull out a high school trick.

Basically, yes. It works.

Here's the cool thing is everybody should, like, stop right now. Pause, rewind about 60 seconds to 80 seconds. Turn on the otter app or whatever your. Whatever your voice note taking thing that transcribes it for you. She literally just gave you. Literally just gave you a script, like, to fire a bad customer, which I think is pretty amazing. You know, in the subject of actually firing customers, here's one of the. Here's the interesting thing. I'm sure you found this too. There have been multiple occasions where I went to fire the customer and the customer's like, well, I don't get fired. Like, you know, essentially.

Oh, yeah, I've had that.

And then. And then I was like, well, here's this, this and this. Oh, I didn't mean to treat you bad. I'll change that immediately. And by the way, you're also paying me too little. Yeah. Let me talk to back office. Hey, guys. 5%. 10%. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

10% more.

Suddenly I have more. Suddenly I have more money. Yeah.

Yeah. I think people want to play our insecurities.

Oh, that's true. I think that's absolutely true. And this is the thing, it's really easy to do because we'll question, you know, whether we're worth what we're charging, especially if you're offering services, because those are really abstract. How much is your time worth? And then a lot of times when you're diving into it, it's kind of like what you were saying about you're chasing after these customers that are a complete pain in the behind. Right. They're not your soulmate client. They're exactly the opposite.

You're actually your bad ex is what they are.

Like breaking up with an old boyfriend or an old girlfriend where you're like, oh, my gosh, why didn't I see that before? Right? But they. And they do. And I think it's up to you. It's really within your power too, if they want to come back and you think they're going to change, but don't get caught in that trap of, oh, he's going to leave his wife kind of a thing. Right. Or they're going to suddenly become.

See how we're merging relationships and business together?

I love it. But it's true. So the thing is, is when we establish really clear boundaries. We're better able to play within those boundaries and we're better able to expand into the business owner, the entrepreneur, the wife, the mother, the husband, the father, whatever it is you're wanting to do. And so setting really clear boundaries with our clients, with our customers is incredibly important. And I think what happens a lot of times is it goes back to that conversation that we talked about where everything you want is on the other side of a difficult two minute conversation. Having that conversation with your clients where you're like, these are my boundaries. And really making them clear in your email footer, in your voicemail, in your contracts, and all of these things of when you're available versus when you're not, that allows those clients to really understand their boundaries too. So they don't expect emails to be responded to at 11 o' clock at night because you tell them, these are the hours that I respond to emails. These are the hours where I'm available on Voxer or you know, Voxer is one of the things you're using or if you really communicate those things, people will respect them. And the people who don't, well, that's your bottom 80%. So let's just get rid of them anyways, right?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. We, you know, it's crazy. We talk, you know, as both in the, in the life space as well as the business space, we talk about setting healthy boundaries as a concept or principle, best practice, if you will. Not many of us have taken the time to actually define what a healthy boundary would be. So I like the time example. What are a couple other examples of setting a healthy boundary?

Well, let's talk about first about the fact that we have hours of business and hours of availability and they're not the same thing. Just because you're working on your business doesn't mean you're necessarily available. Right. I think that's a really important distinction to make even for ourselves. That just because I'm working on my business at 11 o' clock at night, because I'm excited about it and that's a peak productivity time for me, doesn't mean that I need to be answering emails during that time. So really to just internally making that distinction, but setting boundaries with our time, setting boundaries with our money, setting boundaries with our energy, setting, you know, setting boundaries of what we will and will not do. I think this is why it is so important to really be clear on your North Star, your mission, your vision, your core values for your company that becomes the filter. And that becomes a boundary starter for you. You know, for me, one of my, one of my big core values is family. And that means that family is first, not just for me, but also for my team. Which means we don't do a Black Friday sale because Black Friday for me is a family day. Thanksgiving. Right. So setting those boundaries and expectations, we'll get customers who are like, what do you mean you're not having a Black Friday sale? I'm like, listen, we have a purple Thursday, we have a sale afterwards. This is not, this is a boundary for me. Right. I'm not going to do a sale because that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort behind the scenes on the day after Thanksgiving. And I'm not willing to give that up for my team. So using your North Star, your mission, your vision, your core values for your company as a filter for what your boundaries are, that really helps, I think. Really being clear on that.

No, I love that. Well, let's assume we're doing all this right, right. So we, we've, we're, we're, we've got better boundaries. We've got a better healthier sense of identity of purpose. We've got a better sense of identity of what we're doing to the marketplace, how we're going to the market, what we're selling, how we're selling. You know, we're, we're being intentional with our families, we're being intentional with our team.

Okay, I'm really happy with you at this point if you're doing all these things. So that sounds great, right?

Which does happen in business, but it's typically after a decade of doing it wrong the first time, for the record, it's true. But as you're, let's assume that, let's assume that that person is in that, in that zone of, of life. However, they're not necessarily meeting their five year expectations or their five year goals as it relates to their business.

How do we help them give themselves grace for what they're doing well, but also help them get over the hurdle of what needs to take place to help them get to their five year objectives?

Yeah, well, I think there's a couple of things at play here. I think first of all, a lot of times the reason why it feels that way is because we're not setting the right goals. So we can talk about that. But I also think there is a lot of, you know, there's a lot of brain research that shows that we will glom onto the negative five times more Than we see the positive for sure. I truly believe, for those of you who are parents, you're probably familiar with the marble jar, like in your kids classroom, where every time the kid does something, well, you pop a marble in the jar, right? Kids do a good job lining up for the library. They get a marble in the jar. They go to lunch quietly, they get a marble in the jar. They do well on their spelling test to get a marble in the jar, and the marble jar fills up, and then you get a reward like extra recess or pizza day or something. I believe as adults, we have a marble jar in our own head. Got up, worked out, marble in the jar, Made a breakfast. Marble in the jar. Ooh, healthy breakfast. Two marbles in the jar, right? Got the kids to school on time. All right, Marble in the jar. So all day long, we're putting all these marbles in the jar, and the marbles are adding up. And then one thing goes wrong. One thing happens. We forget the ingredients for dinner, or, you know, we screw something up, right? We just forget something small. All of a sudden, we lose our grip on that marble jar, and it just shatters. It falls to the ground. And instead of picking up all the marbles and saying, oh, I did all these things right, all we can see is the broken glass everywhere. All we can see is marble scatter all over the place. We forget all the good we've done. And this is why I think it's so important to stop and reflect. I think reflection as a business owner is one of the most important things you can do. That's actually where the first section of my newest book is about reflection. Because it's so important to stop and acknowledge, to really see how far you've come, to see the things you've done well, because what we tend to do is we tend to think of all the things we haven't done well. And so stop. Even if you are off track with a goal, you know, and we get off track with a goal, Sometimes when we are stopping and we are taking a look, we have to ask the question, is that goal really even still? My goal? Is that goal right for me, or have I changed? Have I evolved? And, you know, this is the thing is, you know, we can think of our goals as being this highway, right? We're on the highway, and we're going a hundred miles an hour down the highway, and all of a sudden we look up, we're like, hold on, I'm not on the highway anymore, But I'm on this, like, scenic route. And this is actually kind of nice. And suddenly there's all these different things I didn't even know existed, these opportunities I didn't know were there until I got off the highway. So sometimes we need to just stop and say, oh, that goal is no longer for me. I used to say, make your plans in pencil and write your goals in ink. I think that's the dumbest thing I could have said. Because your goals should be erased from time to time. They need to be adjusted. And really this is why it's so important from the start to set goals that are really for you. I think so many times when we're not hitting our goals, it's because they weren't really the goals for us in the first place.

Yeah.

Which we, I can dive into with how you kind of figure that out if you'd like.

Yeah, we can jump in a bit.

Yeah, I think that's a big stumbling block for a lot of people. You know, when I'm talking to people about purpose and what that looks like, the first thing is, is that we think that goals are like the end all, be all that. When I achieve this revenue mark, when I get this many team members, when I land this client, then I'm going to be happy. And then we wonder why we're not. It's because goals are not the goal. Goals are the vehicle to get us to where we want to go. And so if we start by looking out into our future, I call it cathedral thinking. Because it's thinking much bigger than today. Right. Looking out on the horizon of tomorrow and thinking about what it is I want 10 years down the road for your business. And really looking at that as that's my potential. All right. Where you are today and this potential 10 years down the road are pretty far apart. Right. So it's like, well, how do I know what to do there? Well, let's back it up a little bit. Instead of just thinking about what's your potential, what's possible in three years, five years that will get me to that beautiful landmark out in the future, that 10 year mark. Okay, if this is what's possible, let's back it up a little bit more. What's practical, what's practical that I could actually do in 12 to 18 months? OK, so that is still 12 to 18 months out. Well, let's back it up a little bit more. What do I need to prioritize in order to get there? These things that we're prioritizing, those are our goals. So our goals need to be tied to that much bigger purpose that we have far off in the future. That's when we feel more motivation, we feel more excited, we feel more ignited for our goals. And that's when we achieve a goal and are ready and fired up to do the next big thing, because they're all connected to that bigger purpose. In my book, I draw it almost like a little timeline, right, where it just backs up, and that's how we figure out what our goals should be, because they're goals for us, I think. So often we look around and we're like, oh, this guy over here, he's doing amazing things. I should set goals like what he's doing. Or this woman over here, she's doing incredible things with her company. I need to do more of that. And we lose sight of our own magic. We lose sight of our own gifts and the things that make us and our company unique and special. And if we set goals that really play to what we want, that's where we're going to have success beyond measure, truly. Because we're doing things that matter most. Because back to that idea of productivity. Right?

Yeah. Well, you got to. I mean, you got an emotional tie to it. You got a little intellectual tie to it. I actually want to pivot real fast because, I mean, you do have a brand new book coming out on purpose. Actually, it's out now.

Yes.

By the time we actually did this particular podcast. And it's the Busy Woman's Guide to Purpose, to Extraordinary Life of Meaning Success. And we all want meaning, we all want success, but we all want to be present and blissful in the moment. Why was now the right time to write the book?

Well, I like that question because, you know, honestly, I had. My first book came out, the Joy of Missing Out. It was named one of the top 10 business books of the year by Fortune magazine.

Congratulations, by the way.

Thank you. Thank you. But HarperCollins was like, all right, let's write another book. Right? Of course they were. So I said, great, let's write another book. So they said, what do you want to write about? And I thought, oh, I'll write a book on goal setting. Because I've taught thousands of women how to set and achieve their goals. So I thought, that'll be a cakewalk. I can totally do that. Sat down in February, mapped out this whole outline of what it was going to look like and my writing schedule and everything else. February of 2020. And then March 2020 happened, and all of a sudden I am dealing with kids that need to be homeschooled you know, filing PPP paperwork for my business, trying to deal with how my team is going to navigate. We, we ship out packages all around the world, how we're going to navigate that. So the writing plan went out the window. And what was amazing is this. And you have to imagine I'm. I'm kind of a type A person. I'm a productivity expert for goodness sake. Right. To take really well, well laid out plans and throw them away felt a little bit painful. But what was amazing is this. That very intentional pause, that reset that we had allowed me to really pay attention. And I was noticing there were a lot of questions that I was asking. There were a lot of questions that people in my world were asking. These, you know, entrepreneurs that I work with were asking, why am I here? What is it I'm doing? What are my days? How do my days even matter? Why am I doing the things I'm doing? And so I went back to HarperCollins and I was like, okay, this is no longer a goal setting book. This is a book about purpose. It's really about that whole idea that goals are not the goal that we really want to lean into who we want to be. It's about living bigger than your to do list.

Yeah.

I think we've. I think we see so much of our own value and our worth in how many things we get done, and then we still feel that feeling, that nagging feeling of dissatisfaction. Why didn't I do more? Right. So let's tie it to a bigger purpose and let me help you uncover. First of all, if you don't know what you think your purpose is, let's dive into that and then let's talk about how you can make it so that every day you're doing small, intentional steps to get you closer to that big, beautiful vision you have for your future.

That purpose hints. Hints on purpose. Intentionality. Like.

Yes.

I mean, it's, it's. The thing is, my mind will spend more time planning a Christmas play, planning a soccer outing, planning a date night, or even planning a family vacation. Then we will actually planning out where it is we want to go and why we want to go there in the first place. And it boggles my mind. And.

In many ways I feel like it's one of the unique things that tends to separate people who ultimately find a life of significance, meaning, and call it success. Because success can mean lots of different things to lots of different people rather than folks that don't. Because it seems like the folks that don't, those that profess to be stuck. That is the show's called stuck. The unstoppable. Right. All tend to focus in the zone of, well, the world's happening to me, not I'm happening to the world.

Right? Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think that's the thing is. And I love what you said there about success, because there's no true. Have you taken time to define success? What is success? And a lot of times we define success by how we look to everybody else.

Yeah.

How am I doing compared to what everybody else is doing? Right. One of the activities I love doing with entrepreneurs is redefining success. What does success look like to you? And it's really about the fact that as. Not just as an entrepreneur, but as just a person in this world, you are more than who you are at work. Right. You have all these aspects to you, Your relationships, your spirituality, your, Your, you know, physical body, taking care of yourself emotionally. All of those things are really important. So one of the activities that I do a lot of times with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs is I say, okay, let's look 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years down the road. So we write down how old they're going to be. All right? Who are the people in your world? How are. How old are they? Especially like your kids, because it gives you an idea of where they are. And then let's start off by talking about where do you want to live? What does that look like? What kind of activities are you doing? What kinds of things are you doing for yourself spiritually at that point in your life? We don't start with the finances. Finances, just like goals, are the vehicle to get you the life you want. So we figure out, what does that lifestyle look like? Then it becomes a question of now, how much money do you need to make? How much money do you need to have that lifestyle if you want 10 years from now to be able to give your kids a down payment for their houses? Great. How much money do you need in 10 years? How much money do you need in five years? And really break that down, because when we define success on our own terms, that's when we start to feel more satisfied and successful. Right? Because success is not just determined by the numbers in your bank account or the numbers of your paycheck or the number of followers that followers that you have online. It's defined by so many other things. It's the little moments, it's the relationships. It's those things when we dive into it, we start to see that, oh, there's so much More, right? Yeah, for me. Yeah, for me. I say, you know, people come in the door because I hear productivity and it's like the shiny object. They're like, ooh, productivity, let's go. I'm like, it's really intentional living. That's what it is.

Oops. Yeah.

Did I forget to mention this? Yeah, yeah.

I've had. I don't. Dude, there's been so many young entrepreneurs that have come to me and they're like, well, when I make it, and I'm. Every time I'm like, stop. I'm like, what does make it mean? Yeah, what. What is. What does that mean? Like, what does make it mean?

I'll have to get back to you. Like, they have zero idea. They can't define it.

They can't define it. And then the problem is that finish line keeps moving back. Because maybe the first make it is I quit my full time job and take my side hustle to full time. And then maybe the next make it becomes, you know, getting to six figures, then it's, you know, maybe the next make it is having a six figure launch, then the next make it. So this make it keeps changing. And then we wonder why we're exhausted because we're never crossing the finish line. We're continually racing this, like, never ending marathon. So taking time to define what success looks like for you really empowers you to be more in charge and more in control of what your world looks like. And I think that's really important.

Well, before we hop onto the final question, where can everybody actually go pick up on purpose? Because I know it's. I know it's traditionally written for women, but I think I'm gonna pick it up myself and read it myself because I love how this conversation has gone the entire time.

Oh, thank you. Well, I do have a lot of men who read it too. I like to.

Well, in that case, I feel much better. Yeah, I'm going to hurt my master.

For thousands of years, books were written for men, and we as women, we just kind of twisted them and made them work for us. And it's the same thing. This is a book where I call out women, but it works for men just as well. I have some amazing men who, who follow me and use a lot of my tools. So the best place to find the book is really anywhere books are sold. Barnes and Noble right now with. Because of global shipping issues, a lot of times it's easier to buy it online than go to traditional like Barnes and Noble or Target store or things like that. So Amazon.combookshop.org is a great place to support local bookshops and they will ship it to you target.com barnes and noble.com youm can also go to my website Tanya dalton.com you can find links to both on purpose and my first book, the Joy of Missing out there as well.

Awesome. Awesome sauce. Well, I want to close up the show with with a question I've been asking recently of all my my favorite guests and that is what is your definition of unstoppable?

My definition of unstoppable is when you are truly, completely aligned with what you want in the world. I think that when you start to understand and discover who you are and what you're capable of and you step into that fully and completely with absolute abandon without worrying about what anyone else says or thinks or believes about you, that's when you become unstoppable.

Love it. I love it. Well, Tanya, thank you so much for stopping by. Stuck to unstoppable. I can't wait to do this again. Anytime you're ready. Yeah, yeah. It's one of my favorite.

Yeah, I'm here for it.

Rock all. Well, take care. See you.

Thank you.

If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one right here. Because of the experience of feeling super stuck at certain points in my life and living inside of funks in a certain point in my life, identify now, looking backwards, that those periods of being down were connected to times when I was not growing.