251: Setting Goals with IMPACT

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, and welcome to the Intentional advantage. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 251. We are in the middle of our season of on-purpose really diving into a lot of those concepts. We talk about in the book. And one of those is goals, right? We talk about goals in the book on purpose.

We talk about how goals are not the goal. They’re the vehicle to get you to the life you want. And so over the course of the last few episodes, we’ve been diving a little deeper into that process of what it looks like to set and achieve your goals. Now, I have set some pretty big goals in my lifetime. I have set goals like,

you know, growing a company to absorb my husband’s MBA income. So he could come work alongside of me. I set goals like running a seven figure company goals, like writing a bestselling book, all goals, which are pretty big, right? That I’ve accomplished. But I’m really proud right now of a goal that I’m working on today. This is a goal I’m working on for a while.

And that is to get John Dalton on this podcast more than once a season. And guess what I’m doing here, guys? I’m here was it like three weeks ago? Something like that, two weeks together, he’s go. Something like that. We brought him back. So I really feel like I’m making some progress on this school. I’m really pleased with myself.

Not gonna lie. I have a good time doing it. So I’m glad to be here. I’ve been secretly like subliminally while he’s sleeping at night saying you love being on the podcast. You love being on the podcast. That explains a lot. It explains a lot. No, I’ve really been chatting with John about trying to get him to come more on the show because I think it’s a lot of fun.

We have a great time together and I think the episodes are even better when you’re on John. Everybody loves him. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, you’re welcome. Okay, well, let’s dive into today’s because we have been talking quite a bit about setting your goals and achieving your goals. As I said, when we first started, the podcast goals are not the goal.

They’re the vehicle to get you to the life you want. And when we talk about this idea of living on purpose, it’s really this concept and this idea of living bigger than your to-do list. I think so often we’re so busy with our heads down, looking at that damn to do list, which is far too long, taken us in a thousand different directions that we’re not really living the life we want.

So living on purpose is about looking out on the horizon, looking out to this brighter, beautiful tomorrow, this vision of what we have in our minds of what we really want, and then working each and every day to get closer to that. And that’s what goals help you do. So in episode 2 49, we talked about that process of really uncovering the right goals for you.

That’s a process that I call wayfinding in the book and we delve into that, this idea of how do you figure out what are the right goals for you? And then last week we chatted with Cathy Heller about not doing the same thing you’ve always done, which is why I love that. It’s, you know, don’t keep your day job because I think so often we’re just doing the same things over and over again on repeat.

I knew that would inspire you and get you really thinking about your goals. And that’s really what I want to use. Those are our stepping stones to get us to today. I want to talk about setting goals with impact. Now, if you’ve heard me talk about goals in the past, and I’ve talked about goals quite a bit on this podcast once or twice,

once or twice, you’ve heard me talk about smart goals and smart goals is one of those things that has been around since 1981. So while this kills me to say some of you listening right now, we’re like, wow, that was before I was born, which makes me feel slightly sick. I’m not gonna lie. I wish that was before I was born,

but it is not, It’s not, it’s not for us, but that’s a long time. Well, that makes us sound really old now, doesn’t it. Did you have to put it that way? I probably shouldn’t have, but I was finding that while I love the smart goals framework. I love how simple it is to use and how, how easy it is because each letter of smart represents a concept in that smart framework.

I found that I was really having to twist and turn and bend it in order to really make it work for today’s world. Especially for the modern woman. I feel like there’s so many aspects of the smart goals that apply. And yet every time I was teaching it, I was like, well, we need to change this here. And we need to adjust that.

And so I sat down to write on purpose. I had planned to talk about smart goals. I had a whole chapter plan to talk about smart goals. You just say something about not doing things the way you’ve always done them. Oh, that’s a really good, yeah, I did. I did. I just thought I’d point that out. Yeah.

I, well, I think that’s a really good point. You know, it’s one thing, if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right. But in this case it wasn’t that it was broken. It’s just that it needed some adjusting. It needed some updating and it was actually you, John, that convinced me, you said, why don’t you come up with your own framework,

kind of an homage to the smart goals framework, but with more of a twist so that it works for today. Yeah. Kind of a refresh, a refresh. Yeah. And so I love that you and I sat down and I kind of hammered out what that would look like. That was really, really helpful. We talked a couple of weeks ago about this idea of having a sounding board.

John is often my sounding board. And so this is a perfect example of that. These changing the smart goals into the impact framework and what I’m loving is I’ve gone on, I think it’s 80, 80 other podcasts, something crazy. It’s insane number and on a good number of those. I’ve talked about the impact framework. And almost every time I’m getting messages from people.

Who’ve heard those podcast episodes and they’re like, ah, this speaks so much more to me. I love this impact framework. So I figured it would probably be a good idea to go through it on my own podcast. For those of you who haven’t read the book yet, or you’ve read the book, but you want to go a little bit more in-depth than it.

Obviously in the book, I go much deeper into all of this, but I wanted to talk about what that looks like to set goals with impact using this impact framework. So before we do that though, I want to back up for a second, because since we started talking about goals and diving into this whole idea, I have gotten a good number of messages.

For many of you. Who’ve asked me this question again and again, what do I do if I don’t have buy-in? What if the people in my world don’t believe in whatever it is I’m doing? I think this is probably the biggest holdup for most people. Yeah. I think it is too. And I know you’re about to say the same thing,

but the secret is you’re never going to get it Right? No, you never going to get everyone’s buy-in you’ll get some people’s buy-in you may get nobody’s buy-in right, but you don’t need everybody’s buy-in in order to move forward. So I wanted to just really quickly throw that out there because I think, I think we need to hear this multiple times that just because you believe something is possible or something that you want in your world and other people don’t doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. You and I, John watched this great documentary on Joan Jett, not that long ago. What was the name of it? A bad reputation. Yeah. That’s right. Bad reputation. And so in this documentary, and by the way, this is a great documentary to listen to. If you want to get fired up about being a woman and doing things your own way.

And if you like Joan Jett music, bad ass, she’s a total badass. I was like totally listening to her music for like weeks afterwards. Just like on repeat, because it was getting me kind fired up. But this is what, one of the takeaways I got from that documentary, Joan Jett started off in the runaways. Right. They sang the cherry bomb and right.

So, I mean, they’d gone on like global tours and everything else after she, after the runaways broke up, Joan Jett went out on our own. Here. She is a woman who’s totally going against the status quo. She’s not dressed in a way that’s like pretty or sexy. She’s dressed up in a way that’s like rocker punk, because that’s who she is.

And even though she’d had all that success with the runaways, she couldn’t get any record label to take her on 23 record labels turned her down after the runaways. Yeah. Even after she had some pretty big hits as a single artist. Yeah. She couldn’t get a record deal because she was a woman and she wasn’t doing things like the other women were doing.

So, you know what Joan Jett did. She was like, well, I’m not getting people’s buy in. So I’ll just pack things up and just become a housewife in New Jersey. No, that’s not what she did. She was like, you know what? I don’t need you guys. I don’t need a bunch of guys in suits and cash to start my own label.

She started selling records out of her, the backseat of her car, like the trunk of her car. Right. Nobody was doing anything like that. This was so against everything else that anybody else was doing. This is when she had like videos on MTV. She wasn’t a nobody when she had to do this. So that’s the thing is it doesn’t matter who you are or what success you’ve gotten.

You’re not always going to get buy in. And this is the thing is often the naysayers, our own friends or our family members. And that’s when I feel like it’s the hardest when they don’t buy in. And we’ve talked about this in the past, your friends and your family, they’re not buying in. Not because they don’t love you or they don’t believe in you.

It’s actually the opposite. It’s because they love you. That they feel scared for you to step out. They feel nervous to have you step out of your little circle of comfort and step into something different and new, Right. It’s almost to me, I was thinking about this the other day. They’re kind of like your subconscious mind, your friends and family are there.

And their primary job is to keep you safe and secure just like your subconscious. And so that’s what they do. They don’t want you to step out of the box and do things differently because that’s scary. Right. But let’s be honest. Nobody who’s done anything truly great or innovative. Did it the same way other people did. They had the courage to step out and do things their own way and forge a new path.

Even when there wasn’t one there. And that’s, that’s what really made them who they were. Yeah. And, and the truth is your friends and your family have a certain identity that they attached to you, that you are, whoever it is. You have been in the past. So for me, for people, I was like Tanya with the perm hair and who liked to wear a lot of purple?

Oh boy, oh gosh, my proposed some pictures of that. So that, that was me right for awhile. And then when I was like, no, I don’t want to have permed hair anymore. Thank goodness. And I don’t want to do things the way I used to do them. I don’t, I no longer want to be a stay-at-home mom or I no longer want to be a teacher and you want to change.

It meant changing my identity. And that’s hard for the people around you to change your identity. You’re going to change your identity several times in your lifetime. Yes, You should. For Sure. Yeah. I mean, as we evolve and change and grow, grow, being the key word there, our identity is going to change. And when we step into a new identity,

it means we’re stepping into a little uncertainty, a little bit of fear, you know, birthing a new identity is like childbirth. Not an easy process can be painful, but you know, and we talk about this in this, in the book. I mean, it’s, it’s choosing the creative pain because creative pain, which is what childbirth is, it’s creating and birthing something new into the world that is a pain that we believe is worth doing again,

which is why many of us have more than one kids, right? Because it’s a creative pain. We’re choosing creation. And funny enough, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I talked about that moment before Jack was born. How there’s like this intense look of fear on my face. I will never forget That look. No, I think we might have to pull that image out.

We might have to email that to people, that little clip, because I think it’s so telling, because I don’t know how amazing it’s going to be on the other side. All I can think about is the pain of literally childbirth, right? So it’s the same thing here. As we step into something new, something fresh, something different choosing to take on a new identity.

And that’s part of the reason why chapter two is called choose your identity of the book because it’s up to us to choose it. We don’t have to wait for somebody else to call us whatever it is we’re looking for. We don’t have to wait for anyone else’s buy-in. We can choose it for ourselves. It’s kind of like a lot of other things.

If you don’t choose your identity or tell people who you are, what you stand for, they’re going to do it for you. Right. And that is most, most times that’s worse. You don’t want to let people, other, other people define you. You want to define yourself. Absolutely. So I want you to think about that as we do a quick little mid episode break.

And then when we come back, we’re going to dive into the impact framework because I want to dive into each of those letters, inspiring, measurable, purpose, driven, adaptable, but challenging, and then timed the impact framework. We’re gonna dive into that in just a second. You’ve probably noticed that in this podcast and in, well, a lot of the podcasts that we’ve had this season,

I’m referencing parts of the book, parts of on-purpose because truly this book has already impacted so many thousands of women. I mean, it’s incredible how, when you put something out into the world, like a book, how you start to get these messages and these notes from people about how these things you talk about really effected them. So we’ve been diving further into the book throughout this season of the podcast.

And we’ll continue to do that throughout this season and probably many seasons to come today. We’re talking about that impact framework, which is something we dive into really deeply into the book. So I want to encourage you. If you haven’t picked up your copy of on purpose, go and get it. Now you can go to Tanya dalton.com/on purpose, or you can go anywhere.

Books are sold. The book is available in hardcover. It’s available on Kendall. And if you’re one of those people, who’s like, I just don’t know about reading. I love listening to Tanya’s podcasts, but I’m not really much of a reader. You can get the audio book because I read the audio book myself. So it’s like listening to the best extended,

deeper level podcasts I’ve ever done. So I want to encourage you to go ahead and pick up your copy of the book, because it’s going to show you how to create a map to your ideal future. We talk about these actionable strategies to move forward with confidence. I give you activities and different little ways that you can dive into who you are and what you want and what it is you dream about in the future.

I dive into these simple shifts that can turn your obstacles into opportunities and the steps you can take each and every day to get to that more fulfilling life. So if you haven’t picked up your copy of on-purpose, I want to encourage you to stop what you’re doing right now, pause the podcast and go and order your copy. If you get the audio book,

you’ll get it right away. Same with the Kendall. The hardcover is shipping. I think in like one or two days, if you order it off Amazon, or even Barnes and noble it’s available, anywhere books are sold. So go and do that right now. Go ahead and pause and order the book. If you haven’t done that, or you know what order for friends,

that’s what good friends do we help? And we share resources and ideas. So go ahead order a copy of on-purpose today. All right. Let’s dive in to the impact framework because this was so pivotal. I felt like in the book, Yes. This definitely was one of those moments. I remember when you were writing it where it was like, yes,

this is exactly what we’ve been looking for. We have great conversations about it. And I was so happy when I actually had a chance to read these pages in the book. Yeah, that’s true. I really was. I felt like we were on fire at that point, just writing and giving you pages to read and you give me feedback and it was pretty incredible.

So let’s dive into it. The impact framework, each letter, just like smart goals. Each letter stands for a concept or a way to create the framework. So before we dive into it, I want to keep in mind, this is not how you accomplish your goals. This is how you write your goals. What’s your goals are. And I think this is the thing that most people miss,

they think it’s enough just to say them out loud, or they kind of just, maybe they write them, but they don’t really give them a good framework, which is one of the biggest reasons why people fail when it comes to the Right. It’s one of those, you know, you talk about new year’s resolutions, where you just kind of throw something out there and almost ensures that you’re not going to actually follow through.

But when you use a framework to make sure that you’re hitting all of these points and making it so that it is an actual achievable goal, that’s when you’re going to have success. It makes the biggest difference. I’m not exaggerating to you. When I tell you this, using a framework was the total game changer for me, from going from a person who a didn’t know what goals to set for myself,

didn’t know how to set my goals. Wasn’t accomplishing my goals because yes, that’s who I used to be. Years ago, years and years ago, I was just like, I don’t know. Right? And then when I started creating this framework for myself and really making it so that this was something that I was working on regularly and not a difficult,

I say working, but it wasn’t even working. It was like, you know, making progress, having the framework is what made the hugest difference. Yup. So let’s talk about it. Here we go. Impact stands for inspiring measurable. Purpose-driven adaptable and challenging and timed. Now, if you have the book it’s on, it starts on page 92 of on-purpose.

So you can always go into the book and go even further because we’re going to go kind of fast here. It’s a podcast. So we go quick and light and easy. But in the book, we go much more in depth, right? So page 92 avant purpose, let’s start with, I inspirational. You can say inspiring inspirational. Either one works,

right? But inspirational. Your goals need to be exciting. They need to get you fired up. There’s nothing worse than setting a goal and being like, I guess is what I’m going to do. I don’t know. I like that voice. I liked that voice. Yeah. That was my favorite part. Yeah. And this is when I think about this one,

then some of the questions that we get, it’s not, is it inspiring to others? That’s great. But I think the key for this one here is, is it inspiring to you? Is this going to get you out of bed in the morning because that’s, what’s important to keep you motivated. Absolutely. It needs to be inspirational to you. I think that’s a really good point.

So when we are writing our goals, we want to write them as a positive statement. Not like, Ooh, I sure would like to have this happen. Or maybe this will happen. I want you to write your goals as if they are inevitable and focusing in on the positive aspect, the part that’s going to, like John said, get you out of bed.

It’s not the pain of getting up and running every morning. It’s the excitement of how you’re going to feel. Crossing that finish line of the marathon. It’s not about quitting smoking. It’s about identifying yourself as a it’s ordering from the universe, the things that you want, not telling the universe, what you don’t want. We want, we want to really focus in on the joy of feeling healthy,

not the pain of skipping dessert. So when we write out our goals, we want to make sure we’re writing them so that they are inspiring to us. And they’re written as a positive statement. I want you to absolutely believe that this goal is possible. Even if it feels far away from where you are today. I think that’s really, really important to understand because the truth is setting and achieving goals is a lot of fun,

but there’s, there’s a messy middle, right? There’s times where it’s difficult to get a bed for the 5:00 AM yoga class or it’s, it’s hard because you really want the cookie. And you’re trying to try to have a healthier lifestyle. So you need to write your goals. So they’re inspirational to help encourage you to help motivate you. I don’t focus on what you’re giving up,

focused on what you’re going to get at the end of it. I think that is really, really important. So that’s I inspirational and is measurable. Now measurable is probably one of the most important things. We need to be able to see our progress. You’ve heard me talk about the idea and the concept of breadcrumbs, you know, looking behind you to see those breadcrumbs behind you.

That’s what making a goal measurable does it creates those breadcrumbs so we can see our progress. It was a while back. I talked about this idea that, you know, it’s like watching your kids grow up, right? All of a sudden you look and your kids are really towering over you. Like they have a deep voice or something, you know,

all of a sudden you look at them, you’re like, wait, when did that happen? Because you were there all along, but you, you missed it because it was this very slow progress. That happened day after day after day, every day, they were getting bigger. They were changing. They were growing up and like all of a sudden you’re like,

whoa, what just happened? Right? It’s the same thing when we’re working towards a goal or the finish line on anything, if we’re not constantly checking in, we miss it. And again, this builds into that idea of motivation. We want to have that measurement there so that we can see how we’re moving forward. Now the catch here is this.

I think a lot of times people really get fixated on numbers when it comes to measuring, right? They look at the numbers on the scale. They look at the number of followers. They look at the number on their paycheck. Those are numbers that are quantity numbers, things that add up over time and we get really caught up in them. And there’s this thing that I say in the book,

I say, what I’ve noticed is we seem to have a bad habit of using those numbers to decide our value and worth. Remember this, you are more than a number, whether it’s numbers on a scale number of followers on social media number, you bring home in your paycheck. Numbers do not define you and they do not determine your worth. So yes,

we want our goals to be measurable, but we don’t want to be so tied to them that we see our identity in those numbers. So what we want to do is instead of like zeroing in and looking at just those numbers on the scale, or just the numbers on the paycheck, what is the action that we want to do on a regular basis?

Can we track how often we are using healthy habits to get closer to our goals? So for example, instead of zeroing in on the numbers, on the scale, you could zero in on how often you’re eating healthy. You know, you want to eat healthy four days a week. That’s a fabulous goal to set for yourself. It’s not tied to the 10 pounds,

but now if you’re eating healthy four times a week, guess what’s going to happen. Little side bonus there. That weight is going to come off, right? But again, it’s living bigger than our to-do list. We want to live bigger than our to-do list. We want to look out to that big, bright, beautiful future and tie what we’re doing today to that.

So if you want to be healthy, when you’re 90 years old, it’s not the 10 pounds that’s going to get you there. It’s setting up yourself with this habit of eating healthy several times a week, right? Yeah. I love that this time of year, especially people’s resolutions are always, I’m going to lose weight, right. And yeah, it’s easy to put a number behind that and make it measurable,

but there’s a lot more that goes into that. I don’t want to jump ahead and talk about adaptable, but things do change. You know, you want to build in some flexibility from the very beginning, so you don’t lose yourself and get lost in being unmotivated or feeling like you’ve already failed before you got started. So having too rigid of a scale like that is going to cause you some problems.

Now you’re jumping ahead, sir. So I need you to pull back the reigns just to touch. Just get excited. I know, I know, but he’s right. And we’re going to touch on that. This idea of measurable. It’s really important to make sure what are you measuring? What’s most important here. It’s not the 10 pounds. It’s setting yourself up for success with establishing these fabulous habits that you want to do.

Long-term that are tied to that big, bright, beautiful future. And yes, we’ll make them adaptable, but we’ll get there in just a minute. Hold your horses. Goodness. All right. So we had inspirational. We had measurable. Let’s talk about P purpose driven. So obviously I wrote a book called on purpose. Good Lord. If you didn’t think they needed to be tied to purpose,

I don’t know what you’re doing here. Have you been listening? I mean, it is again, it’s, it’s tying these things that we’re, we’re looking forward to doing to what it is we want in the future. There’s a very real, very measurable drop in our happiness. That happens after we accomplish a goal. If it’s not tied to something bigger,

that drop is called the goal setting paradox. And we see it time and time again with anyone who’s accomplished something really big. In fact, Eric wine Mayer, who we had on the show, gosh, years ago, I have to look at what episode that is. We’ll put it in the show notes, but Eric wine Mayer was on the show who is he’s blind,

absolutely. A hundred percent blind. And he summited Everest. And he tells the story of coming down from just being at the summit, coming down from the summit of Everest and someone looks at him and goes, well, what are you gonna do now? What’s next? He’s like, can I just enjoy the fact that I just summited Everest? Good Lord.

That’s a pretty sizable goal, especially for someone who’s blind, right? I mean, that’s for somebody who has sight, that’s an incredible goal, but this is the thing is we want to make sure that whatever we’re doing is tied to something bigger, which for Eric, it definitely is for sure. But it’s that whole idea of we crossed the finish line or we come out from somebody’s Everest and it’s like,

well, now what now? What am I going to do? And there’s this sense of what do I do now? If you want to know more about the goal setting paradox, I don’t think there’s a better documentary to watch than the Michael Phelps documentary called the, is it the heavy weight of gold or just the weight of gold? I’m not 100% sure.

We’ll put that in the notes too. It’s on Netflix. And it talks about the very real depression that so many Olympic athletes go through after going to the left. Right? Yeah. It’s a big issue, especially in form of athletics. When you think about kids, that’s their entire life for, until they’re 20 years old and then they achieve their goal.

They still have most of their life left 24 years old. They’ve never done anything else. So it’s a big problem, obviously for those. So it’s a very good example of what this goal setting paradox is all about. Yes. So we want to make sure whatever we’re doing gets us closer to that big, bright, beautiful cathedral that we talked about back in episode 2 49,

we talked about that timeline. When we accomplish a goal, we want to know that the next goal we’re working on is getting us closer. Right? Each one is a stepping stone, getting us towards that life. We want, that’s what living on purpose is really about. So we want to make sure our goals are purpose-driven, they’re tied to something bigger than just today,

right? So that goes back into that idea. Again, not losing 10 pounds, but eating Healthy, right? It’s about a lifestyle, not a number. Yes. Eating healthy is a lifestyle, not just a number. So then we get to where you jumped ahead to a and C, which I’m going to do together because I think they go hand in hand adaptable,

but challenging. Right? So we want our goals to be challenging. We want to be truly pushed out of our comfort zone because that is actually, when we are happiest is when we are trying new things. That’s when we have more excitement and lust for life, for lack of a better term. But here’s the thing. What happens is a lot of times people love accomplishing their goals.

And so you’ll hear people say, well, I achieve every one of my goals. The truth is if you’re accomplishing every single one, your goals, and you’re doing it all on time, you’re sandbagging. If you don’t know what sandbagging means, it’s a term where you’re setting the bar so low that you’re guaranteed to achieve it. Yeah. And a lot of people probably do this,

you know, just small ways on a daily basis. Like if you’ve ever written something down on your to-do list that you’ve already done, just so you can cross it off. That’s kind of what we’re talking About. Although it does feel pretty good. Yeah. I did it this morning, so it’s totally fine. Judgment-free but this is the thing is when I’m talking to people,

I’m like, tell me about your last few goals. And I’m like, oh, I’ve accomplished every one. They are not putting their neck out. If you aren’t failing from time to time, you are failing. You want to try to achieve a failure rate. In fact, the Disney Imagineers who are some of the most innovative creative people on the planet,

right? Because they come up with all these ideas and concepts for Disney, not just the movies and the scripts, but how things are done and animatronics and all of that technology wise, they ha they shoot for a failure rate. I think it’s like 40%. It’s high. If they aren’t getting a failure rate of 40%, they stop and they go,

okay, we’re not challenging ourselves enough. So you got to stick your neck out there. What if we started shooting for a failure rate of 40%? What would that feel like if you were like, I want to fail several times this year, because that would be a sign that I’m growing because truly failure is a sign that you are growing. Because if you’re accomplishing every single thing,

you’re staying small, you’re staying tiny. You’re staying in that small little comfort zone where it’s like, I can do this right. It’s fear that keeps us from wanting to do the failure. Yeah. I love that. Absolutely. It reminds me of something I was watching recently and you, you have to be a really big Beatles fan to watch the whole thing,

but that get back documentary that was on it’s on Disney plus talk about setting audacious goals. I mean, those guys did it over and over again. And the whole thing is about an audacious goal that they failed to reach, but then ended up doing something completely different. That was equally as amazing. Yeah. And that’s part of what we’re talking about is,

you know, having the guts to set something that is very lofty, you know, knowing that things are going to change along the way, being okay with that and seeing what comes out on the other side, you know, that was a great example of it. It’s eight hours long. So Once you tell them what the audacious goal was just in case,

they might want to watch eight hours of beetles And I’ll try to do it in less than eight hours to their goal was to in two weeks, come up with 14 brand new songs to record during a live TV special. So an entire album in two weeks to record all at one time in front of a studio audience, I mean, that’s insane. It really is.

And they didn’t achieve it. No, they didn’t, they didn’t achieve it. And yet that album is probably, I think, one of their best. Yes, absolutely. The album that they came up with in the end was let it be. And there’s tons of iconic songs on there. So didn’t happen the way they wanted it to, but mean Amazing results.

Absolutely. So we want to be challenging, but we also want to have that adaptability built in which you touched on earlier, when we talked about measurable, we want to make sure that we’re not setting things so that so challenging, so rigid that as soon as something doesn’t go quite right, we go, oh, a failed didn’t work off the, I fallen off the horse.

And so I’m not getting back on, right. We build in that adaptability in order to keep the motivation going. And I, I want to stop here for a second and I want to say, what word have you heard us say about 10,000 times in this episode, motivation, right? It’s all about building that motivation. That’s, what’s going to get you to accomplish your goals.

Not some sort of magical outside force, but you being motivated, you wanting this, you desiring it and going after it. Right? So a couple of ways, I’m just going to talk about one of the ways that you can make things adaptable. I go into two different ways in the book. So you can dive deeper into that. It’s actually on page 98 of on purpose,

but making your goals adaptable is really, really simple. It’s as simple as using the word average. So going back to that idea of healthy eating that you want to eat healthy four days a week, that’s a fabulous goal to set for yourself. And that’s a great way to measure staying on track with being healthy. But for four days a week might be hard some weeks when you’re traveling or you have sick kids,

or it’s just, you know, one of those weeks where it’s just like one of those weeks, you may not get to four. And what happens is if you only do it twice that week, you think I’m done. Okay. Now I guess I can’t eat healthy. If you add in the word average, I want to eat healthy and average of four times a week,

that that gives you a lot of grace. It gives you a lot of space. It gives you a lot of flexibility that some weeks maybe you only eat healthy twice. And the next week, maybe you’re going to shoot for five to help lift that average up. Or maybe you get six, right? Some weeks you’re going to be able to get seven days of eating healthy and that’s going to help even out some of that.

This is that idea of harmony rather than balance that we talk about where you’re looking and you’re zooming out and you’re getting that big picture. So using the word average is one way in the book. I also talk about the MTO method, which is probably one of my very favorite ways. Maybe we’ll talk about that on a future episode, but for the sake of time,

we’re just going to focus in on one. So you can dive into the MTO method again in the book, if you’d like, so there we have it so far inspirational, measurable, purpose-driven adaptable, but challenging. And then we get to our T, which is timed. It’s so important to set a deadline for when you’re going to check in on this.

Now notice I said, you’re going to set a deadline for when you’re going to check in not necessarily when it’s going to be done. And I think healthy eating is a, is a great example. Again, it’s not like you’re going to say, oh, you know what? I want to eat healthy and average of four times a week through March.

And then when I get to April, it’s all nachos and beer And it doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, it doesn’t sound Terrible, but not a good choice. Right? So what we want to do is we want to set a time to stop and we want to check in and you can say, okay, how am I doing with this goal?

Do I, am I ready to up it? Maybe I want to try to eat healthy. Now, five days a week, an average of five days a week, or, Ooh, I had a really tough go that last couple of months. I think I’m going to move it to three times a week so that I can still be challenging myself,

but I want to make sure I’m achieving this right building in those baby steps, but it also gives you a chance to go, you know what, man? I did well, look at how well I’ve done. Let’s stop and celebrate. I think so often we don’t take the time to intentionally pause and celebrate what we’ve accomplished and having this timed element in there is a chance for you to stop and assess.

Wow, I did a great job. I’m really pleased. And I’m going to keep going with my average of four days a week, just because you get to that deadline doesn’t mean it has to go up or down. It can stay the same. It’s just an opportunity to reflect an intentional pause to celebrate or to possibly adjust. Yeah. And I think that’s what it’s about.

It’s, it’s kind of like, I look at this one, it’s almost like personal accountability, right? Because it’s not about the finish line. It’s about setting aside those moments to say, okay, where am I? How did that go? What do I need to do? Do I need to change this? It’s setting aside that time where you can check in with yourself and see how things are going and see if you need to adjust.

Does that build motivation? Absolutely. It does. I know motivation again. I mean, this is like the motivation episode. I feel like that is one of the things we hear a lot from a lot of people that’s like, I just can’t get motivated. Everything we’ve talked about today is about building that motivation. It’s about building up that self-trust, you know,

I talk about that cycle of self-trust, that’s what we need to overcome our fears. That’s what we need to overcome the disbelief in ourselves. I want you to begin to believe that anything is possible because you were designed for greatness. That is the God’s honest truth. You were designed for greatness. It’s just about stepping into it. Okay. So there we have it,

the impact framework, inspirational, measurable, purpose-driven adaptable, but challenging and timed. And here we are new year’s week. And we’ve talked in the past about new year’s resolutions and how they don’t work. We Have first episode, I Believe. Yeah. For very first episode, you can go back and check that out. Maybe Doke. Probably not very I’m sure that’s not true.

So if you want to make sure you’re making goals instead of resolutions, because that’s why those resolutions don’t work, they’re just statements. Right? So the first thing, the key to making a resolution into a goal is to write it down. That makes a huge difference. And whether or not you achieve that, but if you write it down using a framework,

you’re almost ensuring success. You’re ensuring that you’re going to have a much better chance of hitting that goal that you really want to do. Yes, absolutely. And that’s really why we wanted to time this episode to come out the week of new year’s Eve. Now, if you’re listening to this months later, Hey, there’s nothing special about new. Year’s nothing special about January 1st.

There’s nothing magical about what happens on January 1st. You can set your goals now, even if it’s may, even if it’s August, doesn’t matter. I want to encourage you to use these tools to get started right away. And speaking of tools, if you like this impact framework it’s built in to the inkWELL Press school setting planner, I designed the inkWELL Press goal setting planner.

So it works seamlessly with all the things that we’re talking about here with setting and achieving your goals. You can pick that up at inkWELL, Press dot com. The goal setting planner is huge. I think that it is probably the secret to my own success is writing out the goals. It has, the check-ins already built in. It has the impact framework built into it as well.

So I want to encourage you if you’re serious about accomplishing your goals, go and pick that up. Now, you know, this year coming up 2022 is a big one. I’m officially off of social media as of January 1st, 2022. That was my big statement. I made several weeks back on that episode called taking a stand. I am really excited about it.

And I am excited about how excited you guys are about what this is going to look like. I truly believe this is going to challenge me and it’s going to push me out of my own comfort zone. Not doing things like everybody else does. That’s really, that’s really my focus for 2022. My word of the year is audacious and I plan to step into that word and live it wholly fully and completely as we step into 2022,

I’m hoping John, to get you on more shows that would be audacious. I’ll make a proclamation right now that I will be on more shit. Oh, look at that. Talk about holding you accountable. I’ve got that now on record. Fabulous. All right, everybody, I’m hoping that you are more excited than ever about accomplishing your goals and seeing that your goals really can truly be aligned to that life you want,

because I want you to keep this in mind. When we choose goals for ourselves that are tied to that bigger purpose, it becomes about the ripples. We create the small stone, hitting the pond, having those ripples grow into giant ways. That’s how we make the impact that we want. That’s how we make a difference. Not only in our own lives,

but the lives of others. And when you set goals with impact, that’s when you know you’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 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.

 

The transcript for this productivity podcast for women is made using AI. Excuse any typos.

Tanya Dalton is one of the best female keynote speakers on the topic of productivity, time management and finding balance. She is a productivity expert and has written two productivity books for women.