Episode 39: You Don’t Have to Pick a Goal Yet

Good morning, everybody! Welcome to this episode of The Work Of Becoming podcast which is gonna be a big ole reminder for you. That reminder is that you don’t have to decide on your goals for the new year right now.

I think when we hit December, social media starts identifying that the new year is coming up. Everybody gets really, really excited about it, and what we want to do is we want to start making decisions ahead of time.

And so, even I am feeling this, and I’m actually recording this in November (way before this is ever gonna come out), but even right now, I told John the other day: “Hmm, I don’t really know what my goals for 2023 are gonna be.” And so, I’m just gonna say that again for emphasis. I have no idea what I want to set as a goal for 2023.

Also, I want to mention that you don’t have to set a goal for 2023. If there’s not something that immediately starts to jump out at you over the next month that feels authentic and desirable to you, you don’t have to set a goal at all. There’s nothing wrong with going into the new year without a goal, period.

I think, at this particular time of year, we start to put this pressure on ourselves to decide and then once we decide, we sort of lock in and we tell ourselves: “Oh, I’ve already decided I’m gonna do this.” And even if that desire fades, it starts becoming a big “should” in our brain. It starts to become this idea of, oh, well I really should do this because I said I was gonna do this. Or the goals that pop into our brain are very subtly coming from a place of societal expectation or systemic pressure or things we think that we should do because society tells us that we are gonna become a better person if we do this.

So, all that is to say is I’m gonna tell you how I approach the month of December, and this is what I encourage you to play with if it sounds right to you. So, what I do in the month of December is I view December as a big ole brainstorming period. I probably am gonna have a lot of ideas of what my 2023 goals are going to be. And so, I’m gonna write those ideas down. I’m gonna capture those ideas. I may even start to experiment with some ideas.

So, for example, one of the ideas I’m already having that I’m not sure I’m gonna follow through on is maybe I want to do some kind of race. Maybe I want to do a 5k, maybe I want to do a half marathon. Maybe I want to run in 2023. What I might do in the month of December is I might go for a run one day just to remind myself, this is what running is actually like. Let me experiment with this. Let me play around with this a little bit. Let me take a tiny baby step. Let me get a taste of what this goal might look or feel like before I tell myself I’ll actually commit to it in the month of January.

December is an amazing month to experiment. It’s an amazing month to learn about yourself. And so, if you are the kind of person who’s already like, “[Gasp] I need to think of a goal,” or if you’re putting all this pressure on yourself like, “I have to pick the right goal. I have to set a good goal,” you’re doing all the new years resolution Googling of how do I set the perfect goal, I want to remind you again that there is no such thing as the perfect goal. There is no such thing as a goal that will automatically make you follow through. You could write the most perfect 100% amazing goal, and that is still not gonna guarantee that you’re gonna follow through on it because follow through is a separate skill.

However, I also want to remind you, if you are having trouble with the planning process, if you are thinking about 2023, and you’re like: “I feel a little uncertain. I have lots of ideas. I don’t know what to pick. I’m not sure how to plan.” If you feel like you’ve done some brainstorming and you’re not sure what the next step is, our December Change Academy Workshop is gonna be all about how to plan your year. That is the theme: how to plan your year.

I will give you the spoiler alert which I’m only gonna say on this podcast, so you are my secret listeners that get to know ’cause you’re my podcast people. We will be opening The Change Academy Vault in the month of December. So, what that means is you can join Change Academy. You can pay up front for the whole year for Change Academy which is a discount so you have the opportunity to get in at the cheapest it’s ever been. You can do the workshop of How to Set a Goal (how to plan your year) that we’re gonna do.

And then you’ll have access to and the ability to look through the entire list of workshops from the last year whether that’s How to Motivate Yourself, How to Form a Habit, How to Manage Your Time. These are all workshops that we’ve done in the past year. The Vault is our library of past workshops, and twice a year we open it up so that you can actually get access to those workshops. You can actually purchase past workshops.

In December, we are gonna do that, and we’re doing that so that you have all of the ammo, you have all of the materials, you have all of the resources and change education that you could need in order to do that follow-through piece and in order to make a plan that’s compassionate for your year and figure out how you’re actually going to grow your skills and adjust your mindset and change your behavior in pursuit of that 2.0 person you want to be.

So, that is what I’ve got for you today. Just a quick reminder that if you haven’t set a goal yet, that’s okay. You don’t have to set one. You don’t have to set one at all, and don’t pressure yourself to lock something in, really, until January hits.

I will see you in the next episode!