How to Set Realistic Goals and Get Clear on What You Want

Episode 73: How to Set Realistic Goals and Get Clear on What You Want

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Social Media Consultant & emotional intelligence nerd - shares with you...

• her own experiences and how life changes have influenced her business and goal-setting approach
• why is it important to regularly reflect on your progress to understand your growth and areas for improvement
• her “promises system" to set realistic, manageable weekly goals in areas like your career, health, finances, and more

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Transcript

If you're like me and you're at the end of 2024 and you are struggling with what is it that I really want to accomplish and get done in 2025, this episode is for you.
I'm going to break down for you how I use a very simple technique to set goals and get even more clearer than ever on what it is I actually want to get done in the new year and beyond so that it actually works.
Welcome back to the show.
This is Holly Hibbard, and this the Holly Hibbard Show.
I am so grateful for you to be here, especially today because we are going to talk about goal setting.
More specifically than goal setting though is how to get clear on what it is you actually want.
This is something I've been going through in my business specifically for the last 2 to 3 years.
Yes.
You heard me right.
2 to 3 years.
And I wanted to use this episode to explain where I've been in business decisions that I've been making.
What is it that I want to use as my next step?
Navigating those moments where I think, Ugh, am I changing my mind again?
But more so I want to explain to you the technique, which is a goal setting technique that I utilize to get clear on what it is I actually want to accomplish.
And because the end of a year, like the end of 2024 when I'm recording this, is a very reflective time for so many people or maybe you're not normally a reflective person, but the end of the year gets you in that zone, I really hope that this helps you to figure out where you want to go next in any area of your life.
So I'm gonna be using business examples as an entrepreneur today in this episode, but you can apply this to any area of your life, that matters to you and where you don't feel like that area of your life is exactly where you want it to be at this point.
Let me start by giving you some backstory.
When it comes to my coaching and consulting practice, I started coaching back in 2014.
So I'm really on year 10, year 11 or so.
I have to redo my math remembering that we're going into 2025 now.
And, when I began coaching, I said that I was an entrepreneur.
But to be honest with you, I didn't get fully serious all in committed until probably 2015, 2016 when I was hiring coaches myself and went through a personal development program that had me sit down and look at what is it it what is it that I wanted for my life in every area of my life?
What did I want that business or my career to look like?
Also, what did I want my relationships to look like?
My romantic relationship, my family, you know, my friendships.
I also looked at what do I want my finances to look like.
So I was really put in a position or put myself in a position in that program where it was time to take a good honest look at where was I now in career, finances, business, my spirituality, my relationships, and where did I want to be within a given period of time.
So I look at the end of the year going into a new year as an opportunity to check-in in a similar way.
For me to sit back and instead of spending my time and energy on, oh my gosh, this didn't get done in 2024 or 2023.
And now who do I think I am that I'm gonna be able to get it done next year?
Yes.
You can spend the time guilting yourself, blaming yourself, shaming yourself.
But I think a better use of our time and your time is to think about to think forward, to think, okay, what do I want to have happen next?
So as I mentioned, I've been in a bit of a challenge with my coaching practice for the last 2 years.
When my coaching practice was growing so much, 2018, 19, 20, 21, I was specifically coaching people on relationships and also leading workshops in leadership, in the sense of really taking that ownership of your life and what is it that you want.
And so my personal coaching clients and the courses that I was writing and launching were all about relationships and leadership.
And both of those involve peopling, a lot of peopling, listening to people, being there for people, sometimes consulting, giving folks ideas on how to work through, what they if they wanted ideas, how to work through those things to get to where they wanted to be.
And up until a couple years ago, as I've mentioned in previous episodes, I was single for a very long time.
And starting at the end of 2021, I met my now husband and my now daughter.
And then not that, like, and then a year later my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I lost my mom, here in the beginning of 2024.
And it has been so many massive life changes from being single to being married, to then becoming a mother, to then moving in and having a family all under one roof when I'm so used to having done everything on my own in my business and in my personal life for many, many years.
I'm a very independent person, and I wanted companionship and family so much.
But I bring it up, even though I said I'm gonna be talking primarily about my business, it all was around my business.
It all impacted my business.
Because when I was single and building my coaching practice, my vision for my coaching practice, my goal was I'm gonna build this coaching practice with a flexible schedule, working with these types of clients in these areas so that when I meet the person I'm going to end up marrying and I have the family that I want to have, my coaching practice will naturally blend with those life changes.
So I'm sharing this with you now being on the other side of those events happening.
So I and I also share that to say that you can set your goals with as much preparation as possible, But if you don't have a tool in place to make a moment or an unexpected moment flexible and work for you, it can get really frustrated and stop all growth in its tracks, all progress, all achievement, all success of whatever type.
And that's where this goal setting, practice I'm gonna talk about here in a moment comes into play.
It takes life and what might seem impossible to move forward in some ways, it makes it possible again because we're gonna chunk down complicated steps to something that is more manageable, that feels doable, that feels realistic.
So my business changed a lot because I stopped my relationship coaching practice, really toward the end of 2022, into 2023.
I was really focused on being with my mom and also getting acclimated with my, was going to be my fiance.
And then in 2024, I got married and I moved.
And like and with my mom, there were so many things.
And yes, I've done so many episodes about that, but I share it because those were all massive life changing events.
And I didn't have just one.
I had a multitude of them all happening at the same time.
So I know that this process I'm going to describe to you here in a moment to get clear on where it is you wanna go and what it is you want.
I know that it works because if it can be done in periods in life where all the most stressful situations that can possibly happen to you are all happening at the same time, then I promise you, you can utilize it in a time where maybe 1 or 2 of those major stressors are happening in your life.
And so as I've moved through 2024 and grieving the loss of my mom and becoming adjusted with my new family and married life, and, I worked for a company, some contract work for a while that was back in the, in the leadership development arena, which I really enjoyed.
I'm like, wow, I really miss being in this arena.
And then come to toward the end of the year.
And as you know, if you're listening to this episode, or from the intro or previous episodes, I have been focusing the last many of my episodes of my show here and my social media content at the end of 2024 on creating your content online.
And I love supporting people who are wanting to zero in on the message that they want to get out into the world.
That's why as I was making all those episodes for you, I did talk about coaches and consultants and teachers and service based providers in, entrepreneurs and business owners.
Because for the most part, all of those people do have a message or a product or something that they really wanna get out there.
And I love helping people who want to be in service.
And as I was making that content, I would, you know, it was really interesting because I was invited to be on another podcast and I was being interviewed.
And in the interview, I was being asked questions.
And you know what I was not talking about?
I wasn't talking about content creation.
And I thought, okay, this is weird.
Why am I And not because they weren't asking me questions about it.
I was still talking about leadership and relationships, leadership and relationships, goal setting, how to get clear on where it is you wanna go.
How that can, yes, come out in the content that you create.
It is connected.
It's a big part of what I do with my platform.
But I found it interesting when we were done recording that show that, wow, did I just spend my time here talking about something that I thought I was past for a while?
And, then that moves into the holiday season and we've had some slower time, just more time with our family and, downtime for myself and and my husband and my daughter.
And, I actually had a dream, something happened last 2 weeks, where I was walking into an auditorium and I was going to lead what I thought was a small relationship workshop on communication tools, how to work through sticky situations.
The the the topics that I wrote a whole online course about, a number of years ago, 5 5 years ago or so I wrote it.
And I just thought, oh, there may be a few people in the audience.
Well, in this dream, I had a packed audience and I'm getting ready to walk on stage and I'm like, oh my gosh, I filled this place up.
You mean people still wanna learn about this relationship stuff?
They still wanna learn better communication?
And I woke up from the dream and thought, okay.
Now I'm talking about leadership.
I'm dreaming about relationships.
Like, why am I doing all this stuff about content creation?
And, again, it's not because I'm not upset about the content that I've put out recently.
But I'm noticing that I feel muddy.
I feel muddy in this area of my life called career.
Because I do I am multi passionate.
I have a lot of experiences in different arenas and different industries.
But they all have certain themes in common.
Teaching and education, leadership and relationships, working with people so that they can, grow their emotional intelligence and work through moments as a strengthened unit.
Not so much in the room, in the like romantic, couples coaching kind of thing.
Although I did coach that for a long time.
Today, I'm more about, okay, you have a vision?
Do you have a vision?
Do you want your business to thrive?
Do you want your team to be successful?
Do you want your family as a unit to be successful and be able to understand each other the best you can and communicate?
I'm passionate about that, and that has not gone away.
I use my content creation to do that.
Yes.
I am capable of teaching content creation and that's what I've been focused on for the last 4 months.
But my goodness, I found in the last couple of weeks what has lit me up for so long.
I was being interviewed in another instance about a week ago and I mentioned as I have for the last 2 decades, the question was something like, what makes you passionate about transformational work?
And I said, I love a light bulb moment.
I live for a light bulb moment.
In fact, everybody, I, when I taught science in the middle school and high school many years ago, I said the same thing then that I say now.
I love a light bulb moment.
I loved seeing my student.
And today I love seeing my clients or the businesses that I work with or the people that I'm doing consultancy for.
I love it when they have that or that light bulb moment where they see that they can actually accomplish something they did not think was possible.
Something that they thought was out of reach or too complicated or that they did not think that they had what it took to make it happen.
They suddenly see a path to go for it.
And I love having a help in that.
Like, I love being that person that can open their eyes just a little bit and then help them plan if they need to.
Right?
So that's where I'm at with, my business lately.
And you might relate to this in in your business if you're a coach, a consultant, a small business owner.
But you might be listening to this and thinking, okay, it's not my career, but I feel that way with my circle of friends.
Or I feel that way with my faith.
Or I feel that way with parenting my kids.
Or I you know, there's just so many places in life as our seasons of life continue to shift and change as we get older.
We're going to have moments where we don't have clarity, and we want to find our way through it.
So let me now tell you some a way that I set goals to help me get clarity on what is it that I actually want to accomplish.
And this is such a back to basics process for me that I was taught, in a leadership development program back in 2014.
I have used it to find love.
I've used it to save, lots of money.
I've used it to grow my business, to start my business.
I've used this process.
I've used it for my health.
I've used it in every facet of my life at some point in time.
And I'll call it the promises system.
Okay?
So oftentimes you might hear people when they talk about goal setting for especially at the end of the year, they're like, okay, decide what it is that you want to achieve or accomplish by the end of 2025.
Right?
So you we're we're starting into a whole new year.
Or let's say you don't even go that far.
You're like, what do you wanna get done in the next 90 days or 6 months?
So what happens is we can set that goal and we can even make it what's called a SMART goal, s m a r t, a specific, a measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound goal.
Different topic for another time, but SMART goal is a very common thing in goal setting.
You can always look it up and you'll see.
Well, what happens is we say, okay, by the end of next year, I wanna get this done.
And then other folks might say, alright, now reverse engineer it.
Think about what do you need to have done by June to get to that goal?
What needs to happen and then go half of that?
What needs to be done next year by March?
For me personally, I don't know about you.
My life, especially since my forties began, I just turned 45, My life is completely different at 45 than it was at 40.
Some folks can go 5 years and their life pretty much stays the same.
Same relationship, parenting, same career or something similar, driving the same vehicle, living in the same place.
There's a lot of people who have have the same or very similar life within a 5 year time span.
My life has changed so much in the last 5 years.
Again, mostly for the better.
But I also know that big events have happened and some of it I planned for and some of it I didn't.
So when I'm looking at 2025 and thinking, what do I wanna do by the end of the year?
Okay.
Reverse engineer it.
Go back 6 months.
Go back 3 months.
I can tell you right now, there's a little part of me inside that gets scared because my thought is what's gonna pop up in 2025 that I'm not expecting?
We have some big changes coming in 2025.
My family is moving.
We're super excited about that, and that is a big change.
This is a big change.
You know?
New home for us, new school for our daughter, you know, adjusting to our careers to that, the logistics of moving alone.
That's a lot.
So to me, I need more flexibility than that.
So at least I feel reassured that I can get to said goal by the end of the year.
So there's a part of me that I actually prefer to plan goals quarterly.
I think it's great to have an end of the year.
Hey.
This would be nice.
But I also give myself permission that when I sit down to do this promises method and I just focus on Q1 of 2025, January, February, March, I allow myself to say, okay.
I'm I'm just gonna look at these 3 months.
And at the end of March, I'll take a point to reflect and decide, do I need to alter my yearly goal?
Do I need to redirect to something that suddenly more important like the illness of a family member, right, as happened to me the last 2 years?
And those events are going to happen.
And I like that I can use this method to make it realistic and flexible, but there's still a plan.
So now that I sit down and say, okay, I want to accomplish something by the end of March.
So let's say I I'm gonna do this specifically for my business because of what I'm talking about.
So let's say by the end of March, I'm committed to having a certain number of coaching clients.
Or let's say I want to, have a group coaching program because I haven't had one of those in 2 years.
And actually I really miss it.
I really enjoy that a lot.
Or maybe the goal is around my podcast.
It would be a couple a lot of different things there.
But let's say I also at the same time have health goals that I wanna get accomplished.
Right?
I wanna consistently continue to be weightlifting.
That's a big part of, my health goals right now to get consistently stronger.
And I also want to I actually wanna read more.
I'm a big audio book person.
I wanna read more books like paper because, I think it's going to support me in being more focused, and getting away from technology while I am learning.
So anyhoo, promises.
You can hear just from me blabbing, I hope, that there are a multitude multitude of things that me as a multi passionate person want to accomplish.
There's some fun stuff.
There's some health stuff.
There's some career stuff.
So instead of inundating myself with a list of 10 or 15 goals for 2025, The first thing I'm gonna remind myself is you're only allowed to do what's realistic without overwhelming.
Because a form of self sabotage is putting too many goals on your plate.
So I would say, have one big goal for no more than, let's say, 3 areas of your life.
And start there for the 1st 90 days.
So let's say the 3 areas of my life I'm going to really focus on for the 1st 90 days of the new year are my career, my health, and let's call it leisure.
Because reading up the book for me is a form of leisure and rest.
Okay?
Yes.
Rest, by the way, is a category.
Having fun and resting is a category, is a life category.
So from there, I can decide what is it I'm aiming for over 90 days in each of those three areas, like the big goal for the 90 days, and then the promises.
Every week I write down on ideally Sunday night, sometimes Monday morning, 5 promises.
And the sentence that I write down begins with, I promise I will, and I'm going to segment my categories and those areas, into mini goals.
So let's say for the business goal, let's say the business goal is I have a flyer that I need to edit and I want to distribute it to some local businesses about coaching.
So I could write promise number 1 for this upcoming week.
Number 1, I promise to edit and complete the edit of this file by Sunday at 5 PM.
So there's a time.
It's specific.
I know I can get it done within a week.
Right?
I'm giving myself from Monday to Sunday at 5.
And then let's say the next goal, I want it to be in that category of health.
So maybe I'll put, I promise to complete 4 days of my weightlifting regimen before Sunday at 5 PM.
Now there's a reason I'm gonna phrase it that way.
Because if I say I'm going to do 7 days, and let's say currently, I only do 2 days a week, that can also be a form of self sabotage.
So I want to aim for something that's out of my comfort zone a little bit, but I know it's realistic.
I know I can get it done.
So I also notice I'm saying I'm going to get 4 sessions done before Sunday.
Because for me to have flexibility, if something comes up with my family or I need to be somewhere unexpectedly, I have an easier time saying I will complete 4 days than I do saying it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday.
Because my schedule in the last 2 years has been unpredictable sometimes.
So I'm learning as I go what works for me and what doesn't.
For some of you being even more specific and saying, No, I will get it done Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday.
That's even better for you.
And this is where you can adapt it to yourself.
So anyhow, you write down that statement, I promise I will, and you only write 5 statements.
So maybe 2 of them are about for my career, maybe 2 are about my health, and one is about reading a certain number of pages or reading a book or whatever it is.
And then you track it.
And I was listening to, a podcast today and, with Doctor.
Daniel Amen, he was talking about brain health.
And he says something and it hit me in a really profound way, although I've heard this a 1000 times, but I guess I needed to hear it again.
And he said, if you want something, whatever you do not measure will not grow.
If you're not measuring it, it won't grow.
Meaning, if you want to improve in some area of your life, you've got to be tracking it somehow.
It's got to have a way for you to check-in on the daily or on the weekly of what am I doing to move the ball down the field closer to this goal or seeking improvement.
We need to have a measurement if we want to improve any area of our life.
So having this promise system, 5 promises, they are set to be done before Sunday at 5 PM.
But the beauty is after 5 PM on Sunday, the evening is used to reflect, Not to beat up on yourself, not to say, oh, this was terrible.
I didn't do this right.
But rather to look and say, okay.
Of these five goals, what did I have happen?
What did not happen?
And practicing looking at it in a neutral way as if it's data, because it is.
It's data.
It's feedback.
And you can look at it and say, okay, I committed to 4 days of weight lifting and I accomplished 3.
Way to go.
And for next week, should I commit to 3 or should I really commit to 4?
And how do I see it to it that 4 days can happen?
If I want to get this flyer done, let's say, I said I was gonna complete the flyer by Sunday at 5, and I got it done by Wednesday.
Wow.
Maybe I should have promised something else that can push me a little bit further quicker.
So you can use that reflective time to decide what worked for you and what also got in the way or didn't work.
And if you see any tweaks in your strategy or in how you need to emotionally connect to those goals, that's the time to add it in also.
So what's beautiful about this process of writing down 5 promises to yourself is this is ultimately a practice in 2 things.
1, building integrity with yourself or reinvigorating your integrity by doing what you say you're going to do, by when you say you're going to do it.
And 2, this is also a practice in learning how to trust yourself or rebuilding the trust you have with yourself again because have you not made a bunch of promises in your life to yourself that you've not kept?
Likely you have because I think almost everybody has at some point.
You could be great at keeping promises to others, but maybe not to yourself.
And so that's where this tool of making those 5 promises every week can give you an opportunity to get clear on what is it that I really want, yes, for the year, but even just for this upcoming week.
So it doesn't feel so overwhelming.
So it doesn't feel like something you wanna quit on and walk away from so quickly.
And then in addition to it giving you that clarity, you have a process.
You have a strategy.
You have something that now you can implement and put into place.
And every Sunday night when you're doing that reflective period, you also have a practice in keeping it neutral and reducing the amount of judgment or guilt or blame that you put on yourself when you aren't perfect or when you don't get a 100% every single time.
So this is a habit that has brought me so much success and accomplishment in my life, fulfillment in my life when I have applied it and used it, Not perfectly.
That's the point.
But it's given me the clarity and it's given me vision and a process to take a step forward in the areas of my life that matter to me.
Relationships, careers, finance, your spirituality, your health, your friendships, your leisure time, your fun time, the amount that you rest, travel.
You can even have travel as a category.
There's so many ways that you can use this.
So I hope this was supportive for you today.
I hope this is giving you a perspective on something that you can utilize, yes, possibly for the upcoming new year if you're listening to this rough to roughly close to when it came out.
But also regardless of when you listen to this episode, this is a process that you can implement in your life anytime you feel like you're you've been jostled around quite a bit or things are just changing a little more rapidly than you anticipated.
You can chunk it down to 1 week at a time, make some promises to yourself, see how you do, Practice being kind with yourself in the process.
And then do it again next week.
And the week after that.
And the week after that.
And watch your successes start showing up.
And watch your confidence in yourself and your belief in yourself come through also because you will begin to see what other people have probably already seen in you, but maybe you couldn't, that yes, you can.
Yes, you will.
You've got what you what you need to have in order to get to where, it is that you dream of or aspire to be.
And so that's all I have for you for today.
I would love for you to share with me in a comment or a reply below.
Let me know what is a goal, what's a promise that you're gonna make to yourself for the next 7 days, whenever you hear this.
Just give me one of them.
Don't do more than 5 overachievers.
Okay?
Trust me.
I've been there.
I did that.
Don't do it.
It doesn't work.
But I think it's a great start to recognizing and realizing what it is you're capable of because you still got it, just like I still got it.
We we got this.
And you can pivot and change whenever you need to.
Okay?
That's it.
I love you.
I mean it.
And until next time, I will talk to you next time.