248: 5 Keys To Achieving Your Goals

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because of the hustle grind, repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It had it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure entrepreneur bestselling author speaker, mom, and rule-breaker I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about. The Intentional advantage is doing life on our own terms.

 

Define the status quo and seeing ourselves outside of the tie-dye definition. Society’s name for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your every day and choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world. And it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted because we were told they were truths. Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

 

Let’s choose to be extraordinary. Hello? Hello everyone. Welcome to the Intentional advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 248. I have a lot of fun planned for today’s episode. I have my very favorite person in the whole world here, John Dalton. I know how much you guys really enjoy the podcast episodes that we do together.

 

Hello, Everybody. Glad to be back. It Was very official. Thank you. Before we dive into today’s show, we’re going to be talking about the five keys to unlock your goals, to unlock your dreams, right? That’s what we’re gonna be talking about. I think before we do that, we first have to start off by talking about one of my big dreams, which is getting off of social media that I just announced and already I am astounded. I mean, how do you feel about the reaction people have given? I mean, it’s crazy, right? It’s been great. I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten that many emails, DMS, whatever, for any episode or anything you’ve ever done.

 

I mean, we’re working on five years almost to the podcast. More emails for that episode on taking a stand. If you haven’t listened to it yet. It’s episode 246. And we’re not even like that far past it, because obviously we’re needing to record this, but people are overwhelmingly emailing saying, oh, how are you going to do this?

 

I want to do it too. Or, you know, tell me, tell me the secret. What can I do? I’m just floored because I honestly was imagining a lot of pushback. I was imagining a lot of people being irritated, feeling like I wasn’t sharing a lot behind the scenes. So I was a little, I mean, it was nerve wracking.

 

Clearly. It was something we talked about for weeks. Absolutely. My personal favorites are the ones that say, I feel like you gave me permission. I just deleted my Facebook account. Yes. The number of people who said, I feel like you’ve given me permission. The truth is you don’t need anyone’s permission. But the fact that this has been like the green light that people need,

 

I’m like, okay, why didn’t I do this sooner? That’s how I feel right now. Why didn’t I do this sooner? I’ve been feeling this way about social media for a long, long time, long time John can attest, Oh my God. John has to put up with me complaining about it all the time. But you know, I’m glad I’m doing it because clearly this is what a lot of people are resonating with.

 

So here’s the deal. Cause I don’t want to spend all of today talking about it because we have a different show planned for today. But I know I’m getting a lot of questions from a lot of you. So what I’m thinking that maybe we should do is have a round table discussion, not like a plan to training, but just a conversation where we can come together.

 

Talk about if you’re a business owner, what that could look like for you or what if you’re not, even if you’re not a business owner, what you think that might look like for you and your relationships or what you’d like to see from us on my end, seeing how we’re doing this. I truly believe this is going to get me thinking outside of the box.

 

This is going to help me in a thousand different ways to deepen my relationships with my customers, my clients, and even my friends and family, because I feel like it’s going to free up so much time. One of my good friends, who’s prolific on social media said, oh my God, you’re going to feel so much peace. And I was like,

 

oh, how many other people are feeling that way? Yeah, I think a lot of people are feeling that way. And I think these conversations, it’s a great idea because we need help to kind of break that cycle of dependence that we all have on social media, not just for business, but you know, just as a human being, you know,

 

cause we want to stay connected with people, but there’s gotta be a better way. And I think coming together and talking about it is a, is a great idea. So yeah, I think we should definitely do that. I need some time to, cause we’re still fresh in the middle of Thanksgiving, still in our Turkey coma. And so we need to plan out a day.

 

And like I said, I think we just do like a round table discussion. If you are interested in doing something like that, it will be very informal. Just kind of gathering together, having a conversation with me and other people send us an email. hello@Tanyadalton.com. Let’s make this happen in December. Let’s figure out a time to do it. And I’ll send out an email if we have enough people who are interested,

 

let me know if you’re interested and if so, I’ll figure something out. I’ll do it. Yeah. All right. Well, let’s get into today’s show cause I’m excited about this. All right, let’s go. Let’s do it. Okay. So what I thought would be good is, you know, I really want us to be in this like block of shows where we’re talking about goals,

 

dreams, it’s that time of year where everybody’s thinking about what goals do I need to set? How do I set my goals, all of that stuff. So I was thinking about this in terms of what do you need to do to unlock your goals and dreams? And I was thinking about a lot of the questions that I get as someone who’s written a book,

 

we get a lot of questions. We get a lot of emails and there’s been some questions that occur again and again and again, and as I was thinking about doing a show on answering, you know, what it’s like behind the scenes of writing a book, I was like, well, that’s really behind the scenes of any goal, any dream you’re trying to accomplish.

 

That’s what writing a book is. It’s setting a goal for yourself and making it happen. Right. And I was thinking about the questions people send to me. And I was like, these are the things you need to do in order to make the goals happen. Right. Exactly. Was that convoluted enough? Okay. Yes. It wasn’t. It was sufficiently convoluted,

 

but clear at this time. Okay. So here’s the thing. One of the things I hear from people all the time is they’re like, oh, I don’t know how you could write a book. Like I’ve always wanted to write a book. Here’s the truth. Honestly, I am no different than anybody else, except for the fact that I’ve got,

 

you know, a business that I run and a family and right, all these other things, I have a life outside of, of writing books. So if I can write a book, you can write a book or run a marathon or start your business or whatever it is you dream of doing. I am not, I don’t have some sort of special magic other than the fact that I create a framework for myself,

 

which is what I’m going to be going through over the next several weeks on the podcast, which is what I go into in the book on purpose, which is what we have the goal set or setting goal setter planner, the goal setting planner to help people do. It really is not difficult. I think we tend to over-complicate it. So let’s just dive into what the questions are and what we think the keys are for accomplishing any goal,

 

any dream with a behind the scenes kind of peek at how it works with writing a book. Okay. All right. So the first question that I get all the time is how did you know the timing was right? So this one, yeah. Right. People ask this all the time. How did you know it was time to write a book?

 

I mean like, did I get a post-it note from God who was like, Hey, you should totally write a book. Yeah. That didn’t happen. So the first key is there’s never a perfect time. There’s never a perfect time. There’s not a moment where the clouds part and the rainbow shoot out of the sky and unicorns fly overhead with confetti.

 

And it’s like, the time is right. The time is never perfect. In fact, you know, writing a book for me was one of those dreams that I had since the sixth grade, since I was in Mr. Carlisle’s writing workshop in, I living at the time in Ventura, California. I have no idea. I Didn’t know why you would ask me That.

 

That’s true. I’ve moved 11 times before I turned 18. So I always think of how old I was in terms of where I was living. I was Ventura, California in sixth grade and I knew I wanted to write books one day. So every year I would think about is this the year I’m going to write the book and no, don’t have the time I’m having kids.

 

I’m starting a business. This is happening with the business. Right. And so, you know, I guess that was in 2017, October, 2017, I believe it was. I had done my year long reflection, which I normally do in October, November. I did it in October of that year. And I was like, is this the year? Why am I going to write a book?

 

And I was like, no, not going to write a book. This is not the year. Right. That purposely decided no we’re putting that on the shelf for now. And the reason was, do you remember this? The reason was because we were going to be shifting over. And we were doing all that planning to move into the disc planners from the bound planners.

 

And we were like, that’s so much work. And there’s a lot of, you know, that goes into that. So I made the decision, Nope. Not going to happen. And then I came back from my retreat. I did like a couple day retreat where I was doing this. I came back and two weeks later we got an email in the inbox from a publisher.

 

Hi, we love your podcast. We’d love for you to write a book. We’d love to write a book with you. And I was like, I had just made the decision that I was not going to write a book. So I was a little floored by it. We were surprised. And I was like, okay, I need to think about this because I was fully shocked about a week and a half later,

 

I got a second email from another publishing house. Hey, we love your podcast. We’d love to write a book with you. And I was like, okay, hold on. I know how this thing works. I know how God works. It’s like the first note is like a nice gentle nudge. Second one’s a push. Third one is like pushing me off a cliff.

 

Right. I’ve been there before. So I’m like, okay, hold on. Clearly I’m paying attention to the signs are showing themselves that maybe this is the time to write a book. So here I have two offers from two different publishing houses to write a book. And they were like, this is what we want you to write about. And I remember you and I went away and we talked about it.

 

We’re like, is this the year? Are we going to do it? Is this the, was this when it’s going to happen? And we were like, we have these two offers. I should totally take this. And then we decided, no again, no, no, not going to do it. I decided, okay, clearly I’m getting assigned that I need to write a book,

 

but I want to write a book on my terms. I don’t want to write a book that somebody else wants me to write. So I made the decision to say no to those two publishing houses. And I said, I want to go through the whole process. I want to do a proposal. I want to get an agent. And then I’m going to shop the proposal around because I want the book to be on my terms.

 

So that’s what we ended up saying no to those two publishing houses. And I went and I started doing the work of writing a proposal, found an agent and did all those things, took the proposal that I created, sent it out to publishing. And didn’t end up with two offers. Ended up with seven, seven offers from publishing houses, seven different publishing houses.

 

So the book ends up going to auction. And I ended up writing the books. I want to write. I wrote the joy of missing out. Then I wrote on purpose on my terms. And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about telling people like, just because opportunity knocks, it doesn’t mean you have to answer the door. It just means maybe you need to pay attention.

 

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think this question, how do I know what time is the right time? It’s never the right time, right? There’s always something else going on. You always can find an excuse to put it off or not to do with them. But the only time you have is now, you know, and it makes me think of,

 

oh, I’ll throw the random sports analogy in here, but they were talking to a football coach about when it’s time to retire and you may have heard of bill Parcells. And he said this, as soon as you start thinking about it, that’s when it’s time to retire. So that’s the way I look at some of these decisions. Like if you start thinking about something and wondering,

 

oh, is now the right time. That’s the time that you need to either take that first step or just start planning for action because there’s never a perfect time. I like that. I hadn’t heard that. That’s really good. You’re pretty smart. I want to try to add something to the conversation. Look at you. Well, you know, it really kind of reminds me too,

 

of closing up our first business, making that decision to close up. Katori our first business. It was like, once that seed had been planted, it was like, yeah, we need to do this. And the signs kept showing up to us to the point where I was like, got it, God like, please stop sending the signs. Like clearly we need to close up that business and move into what we ended up opening up inkWELL Press because of that.

 

So the time is never, right. It’s never going to be the perfect moment. There’s always going to be kids who need things. You know, people in your life who are telling you, it’s not right. There’s always going to be something. I love that whole idea if you’re thinking about it it’s time. So if there’s something you’re thinking about it’s time.

 

All right, let’s get to the second one. The second key. Cause of the second question we get a lot is how do you figure out what one topic to write about, how do you figure out which one thing you want to do? Yeah. You know what I’m laughing about this one, and this is, this is probably something, maybe the thing that Tanya struggles with the most is trying to narrow in on an idea,

 

right? Because how many, how many ideas do you usually have when we’re trying to come up with, I have 75 ideas and every single one of those ideas has about 32 variations. That’s it? That’s not that many. It’s only like 3 billion. I do. I have a lot of ideas. I often tell people John’s one big job is just to go off to the side of me and go narrow in because I have a lot of ideas.

 

I have a lot of things. I have a lot of ideas of what we can do and what we can talk about. So narrowing is definitely the hardest thing for me, but it’s one of the keys to your goals is you have to narrow in, and there’s a quote I say in on purpose where it’s really about focus and choosing that’s the commitment,

 

right? It’s the failing to commit that keeps you from your goals and committing means choosing fewer things. It means choosing to focus. I think that’s really important. And that, that is definitely a challenge for me, which is why it really helps to have somebody in my corner. Who’s telling me all your ideas are ideas. They’re not all great ideas.

 

I love you, but not all your ideas are going to work. And I have to be really conscious because you can, you can firehose people. If you put everything that, you know, in a book, first of all, it’s going to be bigger than the old telephone books that used to have. Right? And then second of all, people are going to be just overwhelmed by it.

 

So what I start to do, and this is true, even going back to the idea of we, you know, when we closed our old business, deciding what to do for inkWELL Press, this is how I do it in my book. And in my book writing, I start gathering ideas. I start squirreling things away. So my process is I gather stories.

 

I gather anecdotes, I gather facts and I start kind of putting them together and I write them out on pieces of paper and I just kind of scattered them around me. And then I start looking at them and seeing the patterns, looking for what keeps showing up to me again and again and again. So when I’m writing a book and I have an idea,

 

you know, with on purpose, I thought I was going to be writing a goal-setting book. So I started gathering things for goal-setting book. We would be watching a TV show and I’d be like, hold on, pause it. And I would write down, you know, an idea I’d gotten or, you know, a certain way that somebody had phrased something or,

 

I mean the Madam CJ Walker story that we start off chapter two with, that came from watching mysteries at the museum years ago, like years and years ago, I wrote down, I need to tell the story of Madam CJ Walker, because I had never heard of her. And I felt like that was such a travesty, like this amazing woman who does all this incredible stuff in her life.

 

I never even heard of her. So I was like, I knew I was going to include Madam CJ Walker. So I just started gathering. And then I literally, I have pictures and maybe I’ll, I’ll share a picture of me. I, I type them all out. And then I take scissors and I cut them up. And then I start putting them into piles and gathering them together into different little nests.

 

And then I’m like, Ooh, okay, I’m seeing a theme for this group of ideas. I’m seeing a theme over here. And that’s how I start to kind of get this idea shaped up. Right. And I have to throw away some of the pieces of paper and by throw away, I just mean putting it back in my files. Right.

 

And I think that’s the thing. If that’s what one of the things is like, oh, I don’t want to get rid of these ideas. You don’t have to get rid of them. You just put them away for another project, another activity, another time in your life where you can come back to it. But this is the thing is this is using your runway.

 

That’s one of the things that I talk a lot about when I’m doing coaching with people is this idea of we have these runways. It’s not that you make a decision, you’re going to do something and you start on it like day one and you have to hit the road running. I start, I have a runway where, you know, like a plane taking off,

 

I start gathering my ideas on the front end and I gather too many ideas. And I know I’m gathering too many ideas. I know I’m going to have to edit. I know I’m going to have to like scale it back. I know I’m going to have to narrow, but I don’t want to limit myself from the start. So that’s really one of the first things to start doing is start gathering your ideas of maybe how this dream can happen or how this goal needs to happen or what could this could look like.

 

Yeah. And I think you can do that in lots of different ways. Like for me, I’m much more of a visual person. So while Tanya’s writing things down, sometimes I’ll be taking pictures of a designer, a font or something that I think is really interesting. And I want to remember that because that’s really all you’re doing is you’re creating either,

 

you know, some sort of filing system for your ideas, even if it’s just kind of a jumble, at least they’re there and you know where to find them and that’s going to serve you well later. And then going all the way back to the beginning of this, you know, talking about narrowing in, if you can find yourself a sounding board or some sort of a person that you can convert might fight into use as a,

 

almost a mini focus group to kind of run some of those things past them. That’ll give you the opportunity to get some, some objective feedback on some of those ideas when you’re really starting to get a little further down the road. So you know that this is going to make sense or appeal to other people. Cause I know I do that for Tanya a lot,

 

and I know that that’s a big part of how we work together and it’s definitely, you know, a big part of, of, of your success and our success as well. Yeah. I’m the idea generator and I’m always generating ideas. And then John is the one who comes and he pushes back and he says, I don’t think that’s going to work.

 

Or I don’t know about this idea or I don’t, and it’s not him. Nay-saying it’s I have to be really open to it and listening to it. But that’s one of my biggest secrets is John, you know, you need a John in your life who will tell you that’s too many ideas, like walk away or I’ll help you call through some of that.

 

But really choosing to focus is what’s going to get you the success choosing to narrow in, I mean, that’s the cost of greatness, right? Exactly. Yeah. It really is. All right, let’s get to the third key, which is people ask me like, well, how do I do this? Like now I have these ideas and it’s like,

 

what do I do next? So I say, the third key is you have to get in the right mindset. You have to get in the right mindset. You have to create a framework. You have to create a plan for yourself. And really this is no different than how we talk about boundaries in the joy of missing out. We talk about this idea that people think that frameworks or boundaries,

 

they constrain you and they, they keep you small boundaries, let you expand and go into all directions. There’s this old story that I share in the joy of missing out where a, you know, if you have kids on a playground in a school and there’s no fence, there’s no boundaries. The kids have to play close to the school house because they can’t kick the ball for kickball.

 

Because what if it goes into the road or what if one of the kids runs into the street it’s not safe. So the teachers will keep them close. And so they have a small area to play in, instead of playing on all the corners. If you put up a fence, if you put up a boundary, the kids can run and chase and play kickball and softball and do all the things because now they know where the edges of the boundary are and they can stay safe.

 

And that’s what creating a framework does for you. It allows you to do all the things you want to do within these constraints. So it keeps you focused going back to that second key, but allows you to really expand all the way to the edges to be able to explore. Yeah. And for me, that’s, you know, a lot of times always about creating a routine to make sure that you’re,

 

you’re staying in the process and you’re keeping yourself in the right mindset to be creative. So you’re, you’re almost recreating that scenario on a daily or weekly basis or whatever makes sense to you. That’s pivotal for me to, you know, be in that kind of a mindset is to have that routine and to schedule things in to make sure that I’m not letting that time kind of slip away,

 

It’s creating containers. Right? You hear me talk about containers a lot. And in my mind’s eye, when I picture the container, it looks like Tupperware, which I think is really weird, but it looks like a piece of Tupperware with like high sides on the edges. It’s got a start time. You’re in the container, doing the things, having a great time,

 

really being in the moment. And then there’s an edge where you stop and you get out of the container. And I think that’s the beauty of the containers. I think one of the big things is people think they can’t create a framework or they can’t create a plan because they don’t know how to do everything. And let me go ahead and just give you permission.

 

That’s okay. You don’t have to know every step of the way, you know, in the book when we’re talking about creating an action roadmap, which is something we’ll definitely talk about too, in a later episode, you don’t have to know why the plan doesn’t have to be perfect. There is no perfect. So the plan doesn’t have to be perfect.

 

You don’t have to know everything, just giving yourself an overview, giving yourself that container. You know, I think back to when I started, Katori my first business and w you know, it was a jewelry business, and there were parts of the, of what we were doing that nobody else had really done before. Right. We were putting a coating on the jewelry,

 

over pieces of like photography, right. We were creating heirloom quality jewelry, and we didn’t know anything about how to do this coding. We called scientists and got on the phone with scientists and talk to science, talk Science, Talk, science doc. Yeah. I mean, that’s how much science I know we talked about, you know, we talked to all different kinds of coding,

 

creators, a guy who remembered the guy who did surf boards. We talked to him, we talked to people who do coatings for dentist, for teeth. We did people who did coatings for, I mean, we talked to people in all these different industries. It was fascinating. And we learned a ton and people were so happy to share their knowledge with us.

 

Yeah. And sometimes that journey of not knowing how to do something is actually part of the fun. And, you know, too, it makes me think about last week’s episode with Chris Norton, how many goals did he set that he didn’t know how he was going to achieve it? You know, that people told them were impossible. And yet he did it anyway and found a way.

 

And a lot of times that is, that is part of what makes the goal and achieving that goal feel so much better is that you didn’t know how to do it, but you figured it out and you, and you did it in. Yeah. That’s so true. Even a week before his graduation, he, wasn’t sure he’s going to walk across stage.

 

Right. Which I thought was astounding and amazing. So really it’s okay. But creating that framework, getting yourself in the right mindset is absolutely key, which means you need to invest in yourself, giving yourself the space, giving yourself the bandwidth, clearing the calendar, which actually leads me to the fourth key. Let’s talk about the fourth key in just a minute,

 

because first I want to take a quick mid episode break. You know, today we’re going through these five keys for setting and achieving your goals or your dreams. This is the kind of thing that I love doing. I love working with women, helping them map out, plan out, create ideas and brainstorm and create these frameworks for their businesses, for their personal lives.

 

This is one of the things that I do behind the scenes that I haven’t talked a lot about in the past, but I do VIP days with people where you come and meet with me in person, we spend the day together, mapping out, working on whatever aspect of your life you’re wanting to work on. If you’re wanting to write a book, we work on mapping out what that book looks like,

 

creating a framework for the book and creating a writing plan. If it’s for your business, it might be something with the marketing, or it might be something with the operations or creating productivity strategies for yourself. If it’s in your personal life, sometimes I meet with people and we talk about how to create that kind of structure in their personal lives with their families.

 

This is something that I get so much joy out of, and I’m starting to do more of it in 2022. So I wanted to let you know, I do have a few VIP sessions spots available for the first quarter of 2022 that are open and are available. So if that’s something you’re interested in coming to Asheville, North Carolina, spending the day with me,

 

I do them remotely, but I really like doing them in person because I love hugging people. I love eating lunch with you. I love chatting with you and getting to know you. It really helps me really dive into whatever it is you’re wanting to accomplish even more. So if that’s something you’re interested in, go to Tanya, dalton.com/v I P, and there’s all the information you need about the VIP sessions.

 

I would love to do one with you, but I do a limited number of these because I have a lot of other things that I do, but this is truly one of the things that brings me a lot of joy. So Tanya dalton.com/vip. All right, let’s get back to our fourth key. So the first one was, there’s never a perfect time.

 

Second key narrowing in is really important. The third key, creating a framework, a plan, getting yourself in the right mindset. And the fourth key is you have to make the time. This is probably one of the biggest questions I get. How do you make the time to write a book? How do you actually people say, how do you find the time?

 

And I can tell you right now, I don’t find it. I don’t fight. It’s not like in my pocket, like a $20 bill, although I do enjoy that. That Is funny. You put on your old winter coat from last year and like, oh, there’s Money. There’s money in here. That’s not how time works. I’m sorry,

 

but you’re not going to just suddenly like stumble and find the time you have to make the time. And I think that is so important. I know for me, with the joy of missing out, we really set a strong like rule of like no new TV shows, no way was I going to binge watch a TV show? No way was I going to get sucked into the drama of a television show?

 

Because I needed to give that time to writing the book with on purpose. It was a very different kind of set of circumstances. I was writing the book during a pandemic. Kids were at home. It was kind of a hot mess express to say the least That’s definitely true, But it did help. Cause the kids were a little bit older and we’d already been through writing one book.

 

So they knew that when I was in writing mode that mom’s in writing mode and they didn’t really bother me, which was great. But it wasn’t one of those things where suddenly I found that I had time to write the book. It’s funny because I was at a speaking event one time and I was with my, my dad was there too, which was kind of fun.

 

And this older gentlemen, I was standing with my dad, this older gentleman was talking to us. My dad’s like, oh, my daughter’s written a book because that’s how my dad is. He has to make sure that everybody knows, right. It’s definitely how your dad works. I love it Though. And the guy says to my dad, he says,

 

oh, I’d love to write a book. I just don’t have the time. And I said, oh, well, what do you do? Well, I’m retired. I was like, wait a minute, you’re retired. You don’t have any kids at home. I’m running a business. I have kids at home and I’m writing a book. I’ve got the book at that point.

 

I think the book was like 95% of the way written. It was joy of missing out. And this is the thing is even when you’re retired, you don’t feel like you have the time. So what does that tell you? You’re never going to feel like you have the time, unless you actively choose to carve it out so you can get up early.

 

You can choose to say no to certain things, very intentionally, and then bank that time and use it for writing the book or whatever it is you’re wanting to do. But you have to be really intentional with it. You have to carve it out of your schedule. So for me, with on purpose, what I would do is part of my planning at the start of the week,

 

I get out my weekly kickstart, right? I do it on Sundays for my family to do that team planning and on Mondays for work. So on Mondays, I would sit down and I would go ahead and I would block out time. This is my writing time on Monday. This is my writing time on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And sometimes it would be one big block with a break in the middle.

 

Sometimes it would be like a small block in the morning and a small block in the afternoon. Sometimes it was in the evening. It doesn’t have to always be the same time. What’s important is the intentionality of carving out that time before you give your time away. Yeah. And this is, it makes a huge difference. And for me, I’m struggling with this actually right now with exercising,

 

because what I’m, what I’m doing to myself right now is saying, I want to work out three times a week, but I’m not planning it. I’m just trying to fit it in. You know, like we all do a lot. How’s that working out for you? It’s not working out very well. And then averaging like one and a half times a week.

 

But if, I think back to two years ago in 2019, when I ran my third marathon, somehow I was able to work out for an hour, six days a week. And the difference is I intentionally planned a schedule ahead of time and I was still able to do everything else. I was still able to take the kids to school, make their lunches,

 

you know, hang out with you in the evenings, do all of that because I created and carved out that time before I just tried to fit it in because that doesn’t work. And honestly, when you were doing that, you were feeling better about yourself. You were feeling better about the work you were doing because you were filling up your own cup,

 

right? You were doing the exercise, which I know makes you really happy. And now when you’re grumpy, I’m like, Hey, have you exercise? You’re like, no, She knows me Too. Well, I do. I know you a little bit. This is the thing. I love that example because I think it’s true. I mean,

 

you were going on, you know, sometimes you’d go do like a 20 mile run certain days, right. Which is hours. And you had the time to do it. And there’s no difference in what we’re doing now versus what you were doing then. Right. If anything, we had more going on then days weren’t longer in 2019 than they are now.

 

Now they weren’t. So I love that example because I think that’s the truth. If you’re not mapping it out and planning out on the front end, you’re just never going to just find the time. So you have to choose to give yourself the time, think of it as a gift for yourself. This is why it’s so important to say no to other things,

 

because you need to say yes to whatever this goal of the stream is. Because every time you’re saying yes, you’re saying no to something else, you’ve heard me say that maybe a million times. Right? So making sure that you’re saying yes to the right things with your time, don’t say yes to anything and everything that comes knocking say yes to the things that are truly your yeses.

 

That’s, what’s going to allow you to have that time. All right. Let’s get to the fifth key because this is one of the big questions we got. I was really, I talked quite a bit about this, like on social media, with the number of edits that we do. Like I think for on purpose, we had not eight, nine rounds of edits.

 

People are usually shocked by that. They’re like, whoa, why do you need so many edits? Why do you need so many edits? Like as you’re writing that good, I’m like, no, it’s not that the writing’s not good. It’s just that every time we do the edits, it gets that much better. So really the key here is creating intentional reflection.

 

That’s what editing is. It’s creating an intentional time to reflect back. I write in the book, right? I write the chapters. I do those things. I walk away from it. I give myself space. So I’m not in that emotional kind of like, this is my baby kind of a thing. I get the edits back. And then I go through them.

 

And then every time I do the edits, the book gets that much better. This is no different than with Michael Angelo, chipping away from the marble to make David right. Getting rid of whatever. Isn’t your masterpiece. That’s what I love about the editing process. And having said that, let me tell you what I hate about the editing process. I hate the edits.

 

I mean, you get them back. I equate it to this. It’s like, you write this book and it’s this beautiful baby you’ve written. And you’re like, oh, I love this book. It’s, I’m so proud of it. You give it to your editor. My first editor is John. You went to John first. He gives me edits.

 

I do my editing. Then I give them to my editor over at Harper Collins. Then she gives me her edits. And then I read the edits and I get angry. I get really irritated. It’s like, somebody has just said to you, oh, this is your baby. Not very cute. Kind of needs a bow. Maybe. I don’t know.

 

But here’s the thing is my editor is reading the book as my reader. Who’s Jen, she’s saying things like, I don’t know if this makes sense or I don’t like the way this story is written or is this what you wanted me to get from this story? And I’m like, no, that’s not what I wanted you to get. Right. But sometimes I’m in so much in my own head.

 

I need somebody outside information on how they’re reading it. Right? Yeah. So what it’s doing is it stopping and intentionally choosing where you want to go. That’s what edits do when you’re writing a book, that’s what stopping and doing reflection does when you’re going after a goal or a dream or whatever it is it’s stopping and saying, am I on track with where I want to go?

 

Do I like this? Do I need to get rid of some of this? Do I need to chip away from the Marvel? Yeah. I look at this a little bit differently because to me as a creative person and somebody who edits videos, edits Tanya’s book does a lot of, you know, design and everything like that. Editing to me is one of the most important parts of the whole creative process.

 

That’s what makes everything better. I mean, you think about all of the movies that you watch or the TV shows that you watch on Netflix. They spend more time editing those than they do producing them. That’s how all of that stuff works. It’s just tightening it up, getting other people’s input and it, every time it makes it better and better and better and better.

 

So I would encourage you not to look at the editing processes like this ugly thing that you have to force yourself through. That is the best part of the creative process and generating something that is really powerful. You know, getting that down to a very concise message that really resonates with people is extremely important. And editing is really how you get it there.

 

Yeah. And this is true for any goal that you’re doing. It’s the editing it’s stopping, checking in, maybe getting some feedback. And the truth is I don’t always accept all the edits. I do accept a large number of them, but sometimes I push back and say, no, I feel really strongly about this. There’s a couple of stories in the book that my editor was like,

 

I don’t want this in. And I said, I do. And I’m willing to follow my sword for it. And I did. I said, no, this is staying. I think it’s really important. And then the funny thing is, is that people have said, that’s what resonates with me, or this is what I really like because I know my people.

 

So, so just because somebody gives you edits, just because somebody gives you feedback doesn’t mean you have to take it, but we should be listening to it. It doesn’t mean we have to move on it, but we should listen to it. And I think that’s truly that fifth key is doing some intentional reflection and then writing that’s the editing process. Exactly.

 

And sometimes, you know, the only editor you’re going to be able to have is yourself. And that’s okay. But you know, when you do that, take that step back, like Tanya said, walk away from it and then come back, you know, a little refreshed, look at it with some fresh eyes and see are there things in there that you can change or get rid of that would make it better.

 

It really is. A lot of times taking the emotions out of it. Sometimes I will do a meditation where I kind of take my emotions out of myself so that I can read the edits or I can take the feedback without getting emotional with it. And then I’ll do a meditation to kind of close it out, to bring the motions back in. Because honestly the intentional reflection process isn’t about you beating yourself up or you telling yourself that you’re the worst or that you never do anything.

 

Right. The intentional reflection is really about where am I do? I like where I am. Do I want to stay on this path? Do I need to change anything? Do I want to shift altogether? All of those things are important. I love that. That’s Great. Yeah. So there you have it, the five keys to really any goal,

 

any dream that you have first one was, there’s never a perfect time. No, one’s going to give you the perfect time. It’s not going to happen. Okay. Second key is narrowing in choosing to commit narrowing in on the topic or whatever it is. Key. Number three was getting in the right mindset, creating that framework or that plan, not to worry if you’re one of those people who doesn’t know how to do that,

 

because we’re going to go over that in the podcast. And I go over it in the book. Fourth key, you got to make the time, give to yourself the time, not give gift yourself the time. And that fifth key is doing intentional reflection for me with the book writing that means doing editing. So there you have it, five keys that apply to any goal,

 

any dream with a little bit of behind the scenes, on what it’s like to write a book and be married to Tanya Dalton. Yeah. There’s, there’s lots of behind the scenes on that, but we’ll save that stuff for the rest of that for later. Okay. Everybody John, I love when you come on the show, I can’t believe I can only talk you into doing it once a season.

 

We might be able to do it more often than that. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy being here. All right. Well, we are going to be diving into more into the goal-setting process over the next couple of weeks. And again, you can always pick up a copy of on-purpose busy, woman’s guide to an extraordinary life of meaning and success.

 

I go much more in-depth in the book than I can do in any podcast episode. So you can get that anywhere books are sold and plan to tune in for the next couple of weeks, because we’re going to be diving into what it looks like to really set some goals and to achieve them because it’s not just about setting the goals. It’s also making them happen.

 

All right, because when we get in the right mindset, when we choose to believe in ourselves and what we are capable of, that’s when we’ve got the Intentional advantage. Thanks so much for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go, do you like prizes? When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional advantage podcast, you’ll be entered to win my life changing course,

 

multiplying your time. Simply leave the review and then send me an email@helloatTanyadalton.com with a screenshot. I choose one winner at the end of every month. So go ahead. Do it right now. Just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not going to lie by stars is my favorite,

 

but I’d love to hear what you think of the show. And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course, I have to tell you the reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast. And me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it.

 

So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now. So go ahead and do it, send that screenshot my way, because I want to give you a free course. And thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday and I’ll plan to see you then.

 

 

**This transcript was made using AI, so there may be mistakes and typos.

Tanya Dalton is the author of 2 productivity books, she is a top female keynote speaker whose talks are inspirational and motivational. She speaks to corporate audiences and entrepreneurs about time management, habits, finding balance and more.