Episode 44: NYRT #4 – Your Goals Are Connected

Welcome, welcome to the third New Year’s Tips series of The Work Of Becoming podcast. Today, I want to talk about a concept that’s very important to me which is the idea that your goals are connected.

So, as you know, I’ve been nuts about self-help for years, and my family lives in Sweden, so I would go to Sweden to see them for Christmas every year, and I would lay in my bed in Stockholm in the middle of the night, awake, because, of course, I was totally jetlagged, and I would lay there, and I would fill out these planners that I had bought or fill out these worksheets that I had bought online trying to figure out how to set my goals.

I always remember that there were these wheels that they would give you, and they would be like, “Okay, how do you feel about the social domain of your life? How do you feel about the physical domain of your life?” What that did for me, in that moment, was it made me feel like I could set a goal in each and every one of those areas. So, all of a sudden, I would set a social goal and an emotional goal and a physical goal and a spiritual goal and an environmental goal and a financial goal, and I would end up with 10 or 20 different goals for the new year.

Then, of course, the new year would come around, and I wouldn’t be able to follow through because I had set so many goals. I would get frustrated. I wouldn’t understand. I just have these things I want to improve. Why can’t I do it?

The concept I really want to talk to you about today is the idea that there are no domains of your life. There’s no separation between goals for this and goals for that, and this is particularly true for those of you who happen to be business owners. Your goals for your business, especially if you’re a solopreneur, your goals for yourself in your personal life are going to pull from the name resources.

So, story number two. As many of you know, this year I had set three goals for myself, and I’m gonna really talk about the first two in this episode. The first one was to compete at a powerlifting meet and total 600 pounds, and the second one was to create $250,000 of revenue for Body Brain Alliance. So, spoiler alert, I did not hit 600 pounds at my powerlifting meet, but I did hit that revenue goal for Body Brain Alliance in June of this year. So, now you know the results.

Here’s what I want to talk to you about, though. At the beginning of this year, there was a time in March and April where my stress level went up. My stress level went up a lot, and my schedule got crazy because we were buying a condo. We were buying the condo that we were living in. It was a really stressful time. There was a lot of paperwork to be done. There were lots of logistics, and there were moments where I did not have a lot of self-regulation power, and there were moments where I did not have a lot of time. I had to make choices between do I regulate myself around my business or do I regulate myself and get my ass to the gym to train and do my training for this meet?

I think what this little story really teaches you is that you may think, “Oh, my gym routine and my business revenue are completely different,” but are they really? Because those two things tap into the same four resources.

1. They tap into my time, in terms of am I spending time on my business or am I spending time working out.

2. They tap into my self-regulation, in terms of how much mental power I have to adjust my thoughts and motivate my behavior and things like that.

3. They tap into my energy. Maybe I do a really hard workout, and the next day I don’t have as much energy as I would have to work on my business.

4. They tap into the same financial situation because, in order to do a meet, I have to get a powerlifting singlet, I have to register for a federation, I have to maybe pay for a coach, and if I’m investing in my business in order to help my business grow, there’s a competition there, too.

And so, I’m not saying that you can’t set more than one goal. I’m a big believer in essentialism, so I would encourage you to set less goals rather than more goals, but what I’m asking you to do is, as you’re starting to brainstorm your goals during this month, I want you to really think about, “Am I acknowledging how the goals I’m setting in different, quote, “domains” of my life are gonna impact each other? How are they gonna support each other, and how are they gonna compete with each other?”

Because that’s the other thing I want to mention. My workout goal helped my business goal. As I got stronger, as I went to the gym on a weekly basis and cleared my head and reduced my stress, I was able to make better business decisions, and as my business grew and became more successful, I had more financial capital to put into things like a trainer and the resources that I need and the protein that I’m eating on a daily basis.

And so, your goals probably support each other in various ways and they probably compete against each other in various ways. So, instead of using this time and getting that Elegant Excellence Planner (which is the one that I used to have) and dividing your life into neat little categories, I want you to really think about, “Okay, what are the big goals that I’m looking for? How are they gonna compete? How are they gonna support each other? And how does that influence what I eventually settle and what I eventually pick?”

That’s what I’ve got! I’ll see you in the next episode.