In this episode I want to chat with you about why setting goals will absolutely change your life. If you have ever set goals or thought about doing something new in your life, and then you’ve either forgotten about it, or you’ve not known where to begin, or you’ve just not been able to achieve it, then this episode is for you. Sometimes when we’ve tried to set goals and failed, then we can feel like a failure. I want you to know that it’s not you, it may just be how you’ve thought about goals. So, don’t give up on goal setting, and don’t give up on yourself. You are too important and your one life is too important for that.

Listen to the episode

Listen on Spotify or listen on Apple Podcasts

Before we dive into the episode, I want to give a bit of a life update! The podcast is back after a break. I got married, I went on my familymoon, we had two birthdays, and we had Christmas! We’ve had a lot going on, but we designed it that way. We wanted a big beautiful wedding, we wanted to all have a holiday together after the wedding. And I’m really grateful that we are ending the year with lots of family get-togethers and carols and all the other things that happen during this time.

We can often find ourselves complaining that there’s so much to do. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way at this special time of year. The wedding was just the best day ever! Everyone had an amazing time and it was just really heartfelt and family-centered, and it was lovely. Of course it flew by so fast, time is funny like that isn’t it. But now we can look back on a day filled with so much love and so many beautiful little moments.

The familymoon was our honeymoon but we took all 5 kids. We all spent a week lazing by the pool in Fiji and it was just such a relaxing break! Fiji was beautiful and we had lots of fun snorkeling and kayaking and swimming, and all the kids loved it. Evan and I got to spend a little time alone as well, we went and had massages, and we had a dinner together on his birthday which was the last full day that we were in Fiji.

Then when we came back it was Ruby’s birthday and she turned one! Again, the time absolutely flew by. She’s actually gotten really tall in the last month and we can’t believe how high she can reach. She can get into everything now! So it’s just been beautiful watching this happy little soul become more and more alert to the world around her, it’s been so special.

We actually all got quite sick before Christmas too, so we’ve been a bit miserable. You might be able to hear it in my voice today too, it’s taking AGES to go away. Ruby and Hayden only caught it this week so there’s still no end in sight unfortunately.

The kids finished up at school the week before Christmas. Then we had Christmas day at our house with some family and that was quite a relaxing day actually. Now we are in to this fantastic week where most people are taking a break. No one knows what day it is, and we’re reflecting on 2024 and thinking about what 2025 might bring. So I want to bring you this episode today to help inspire you to set goals. And at the end I’m going to talk about my free goal-setting workshop that I’m hosting on January 3rd.

Getting Curious About Your Life

If I think about my own life, every important moment and every beautiful moment happened because I dreamed about doing something, and then I went out and took action. To take just one example, if you know about my own career, I could have absolutely stayed as a neuropsychologist. I was great at my job, I helped people, and it was really interesting.

But it wasn’t the calling I had in my heart. I could not have got to the end of my career and the end of my life knowing that I hadn’t pursued a life of time management coaching, graphic design, and bringing the two together in designing planners. Those were the things that I really felt pulled to pursue, even though my career at the time felt good. I really only had the courage and the belief that I could change my life because of a process of exploration and goal-setting.

My Own Experience With Setting Goals

I really actively started my personal development journey at the start of 2019. Up until that point I had dabbled in personal development, but I was a person who was just getting through a todo list. I put things on the list because I felt like I had to do it all. I felt like I had to succeed, to get it all done, and to do anything that anyone asked. This meant that life was like spinning plates in the air. I didn’t have enough downtime. I didn’t sleep enough, and I wasn’t paying attention to how I felt and how I wanted to feel.

The beginning of my personal development journey looked like me putting time aside with a pen and paper, to write down some ideas that felt meaningful to me. I would put the kids to bed and then get into bed myself and have a notebook and write down my thoughts. I actually looked back on that first notebook. The very first thing in there was a list of things that I wanted in my life. I wrote down 7 things, from lifestyle to career to values.

And then the second thing that I did might come as a bit of a surprise. I wrote down 10 people that I was influenced by. These were not people I knew personally, these were people whose content I had been reading. I felt that they were helping me and supporting me through a difficult time, and teaching me to improve myself and heal. They say you’re the sum of the people who you surround yourself with. I totally agree with this, and by doing this I wanted to highlight the people I thought were most beneficial. Then I could remind myself of those people when I was feeling really low.

I also wrote down my values. These were not just qualities I wanted to live by and aspire to, but also good qualities that I wanted to accept about myself. These were qualities that I already had, because in the past I’d had a hard time thinking that I was worthy. Then I could come back to this list when things had been especially hard.

I also wrote down guiding principles. These were things that I was learning and wanted to hold at the forefront of my mind. I also wrote what I wanted in my ideal week.

I then created a mind map of how I wanted to feel. Doing it this way meant that I could see what was related to what. Then I could move closer to the actual feeling that felt best. So that meant I could come up with a couple of core feelings that were really important to me. This exercise is really interesting because it helps to guide your choices. If one action or achievement doesn’t work out, you can work towards something else that also allows you to feel that same feeling. This really helps you to understand why you do what you do, and so helps with self-awareness. And again, with this base, you can then design a life that is meaningful to you.

This was really the start of a long process where I would journal about what I wanted in my life. It helped me really decide what to work towards.

A Crossroads

In the middle of 2019, I then came to quite a significant crossroads in my life. I had to decide which lifestyle I wanted, and all the things that came along with that. I was a single parent, living in my dream house that I could no longer afford with working the number of days I was. It had to be either Path A – where I increased my work hours, earn more money, see the kids less, and keep the house. Or Path B – where I sold the house and moved somewhere else, left my job to pursue a new career, work during school hours, and spend more time with the kids.

Both paths had benefits. I loved my job, and I really loved the house and what the house represented for me and my kids. But I also wanted to be someone who prioritised time with their children, and I had this dream in my heart to change careers. It was only because I had spent that year working out my dreams, my values, and my goals, did I really understand and also accept which path I should take (and so, I sold the house in 2020 and eventually changed careers in 2021).

So goal-setting for me has really been a significant part of my story.

The Importance of Setting Goals

Now, I think that setting and going after goals does three things. I think that it pulls you out of autopilot, I think that it helps you get really really clear on exactly what you want to be doing, and it helps you feel less overwhelmed. I want to elaborate on these three ideas here.

Get Out of Autopilot

We live a lot of our life on autopilot. Our brains really like to do the same things over and over, because it’s easier. Your brain knows that those activities are safe (and remember, your brain’s number one job is to keep you alive). So you go around doing the same routines and reacting automatically so that you don’t have to think too hard. And this should be a good thing. Your brain is supposed to be making a lot of things automatic because your brain is trying to process millions and millions of pieces of information throughout the day. It would just implode if you had to consciously think about everything. But what this means is that sometimes you get a bit stuck doing things that don’t really support where you want to go in the future.

We want to become wiser and learn new things and have new experiences and get healthier. So doing the same old things does not support that. By consciously setting goals, you then have an endpoint that you want to work towards,. Then you can help steer your brain into doing new actions. With repetition these new actions will then become unconscious habits. So it’s a process, you have to move from dream or idea, to conscious choices and new actions, to new automatic habits and routines that will replace the old routines. This is how setting goals pulls you out of autopilot and changes your life. In this way, you are living with intention. You are being awake to not only what you are doing and why you are doing it, but the consequences of your actions.

Find Clarity

The next idea is about clarity. Have you ever felt stressed because you have something on your mind? When your brain keeps going over and over the same stuff? This is because we can only hold a few things in our mind at once. This storage system at the forefront of your mind is called your working memory. It’s very limited, and when things circle around and around in working memory, it might feel like we can’t get out of it.

Taking a document, you can start to write down those thoughts and ideas and dreams. What will happen is that you will start to empty out those first few thoughts in your working memory. Then something special will happen. Your brain will follow the thread and start to think of the next logical thing or the next thing that flows on, and so you’ll be able to explore your ideas much more effectively. You’ll be better able to solve your problem, problems like, “what do I want to do with my life” or “should I do this thing” etc. You’ll write your first few thoughts down, and then there will be space for your brain to think more clearly about the next idea.

So as you flesh out all these thoughts on paper, which is of course a much bigger space than your tiny working memory, you’ll be able to see the path ahead, see the gaps, see what doesn’t make sense. And you’ll see how you’re feeling as well. From all this information, you’ll then be able to generate some goals. You’ll be able to see them in the big picture. For example, why you want to pursue them, why they are important to you, and how to execute them. Doing this process of goal-setting really gives you clarity about what you want from your life.

Feel Less Overwhelmed

The final idea is that I believe goal-setting reduces your overwhelm. I think that sometimes we have a lot going on in our lives already. But we also have that mental todo list of all the other things that should be done, like “oh I have to take those bags of clothes to charity” and all those things that we want to be doing, like that photography course or printing out family photos. And it feels absolutely overwhelming. You just can’t see how you’re going to do another thing. And you believe that you’ll just never get to them.

But when we set goals with a timeline and action steps, what you’ll have is a roadmap laid out in front of you so that you can actually see when those things could be done. And when you see that, you can rest assured that things that you want to happen will happen all in good time. This takes those things off your mind, which will reduce your overwhelm.

So for me, I’ve been setting goals this new year period. There is something that has been on my mind, which is to paint a canvas for above the TV. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but with the wedding and Fiji and Christmas, I knew that I couldn’t do it in 2024. So I have now allocated it to a weekend in the middle of February. I know that January is a busy time with the kids being on school holidays, and family outings. We also want to move the kids bedrooms around, so that’s our project for January. This means I know that I’ll have time for the painting in mid Feb. Now I don’t have to feel like I’ll just never get around to it. When that time comes, I’m committed to doing it.

Now of course we can do this in the short term too. You might be planning to batch cook some food. It’s weighing on your mind all week and you’re thinking you’ll never get around to it, but when you put it on your calendar for Saturday afternoon, you won’t feel that uncomfortable time pressure any more. When things sit in a timeline like this, whether it’s a short timeframe or a long timeframe, then they are out of your mind and not bothering you.

Sustainability

There’s also a matter of sustainability. When you are living an overwhelming lifestyle where you are being pulled in multiple directions, it’s not one that is sustainable. It will lead to burnout. Burnout is when you are trying really really hard to effect change and it’s not happening. Then you develop fatigue, exhaustion, and a sense of futility. And so if you’re living a life where you’re just running around doing whatever feels urgent that day, then trying to live a life that is more meaningful to you will feel frustrating and futile. Setting goals is how you get around this. You can start with goals around your health, so that you can improve the foundation upon which everything else is built, and then go from there.

Is Setting Goals About Controlling the Future?

Now, I have an important note on control. Some people think that having goals, having a plan, trying to predict the future, is all futile. And you might prefer to just sit back and see where life takes you, but I totally disagree. Hopefully I have convinced you in this episode that without intentionality, you won’t be doing the things that are most important to you. It’s true that you absolutely can’t control the outcome. You can’t plan 100% of your life, you can’t control other people, and you can’t control circumstance. However, you can absolutely sway the odds in your favour. And, you can step forward and go after what you want.

And the science supports this! There is a range of research that shows that having a goal and planning leads to greater success than not having a goal or a plan at all. Going back to my example about selling the house and changing careers, there were heaps of things I couldn’t control. I couldn’t control how much money the house sold for, when and if it sold, where we would live after that, how successful my new career was going to be, if and when I would meet a new partner, and plenty of other little things along the way. But that’s ok, we still need to be the driving force behind our actions regardless of what else happens.

One Important Thought…

Everything that now exists was once someone else’s dream. Every development, every experience, every product, every service, was once someone’s idea. They took that idea from dream to goal to action. And I want this for you because you are so important. All those things that happen on purpose, happen because you set goals.

Don’t Follow SMART Goals

Now I’ve been diving really heavily this year into goal-setting theory, which is the science behind how to set goals and achieve them. And I have taken this large body of research and broken it down into a really impactful step-by-step process for you. Then you can set goals that are meaningful to you, and then actually achieve them.

It’s funny, years ago I used to set goals that I thought were in a useful format. For example, lose 5kgs by the end of April, or make $50,000 revenue in my business by end of year. These were consistent with what everyone uses, which is the SMART goal-setting framework. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound, and this is what everyone says you should use when you’re setting goals. But did you know that this framework actually goes against what the science says? It’s not helpful!

When I was setting these types of goals, they actually felt to me like they were uncontrollable, like I didn’t have control over the outcome. So I would try my best to do the things that I thought would move the needle. But one week I would lose 1 kg and the next I would put on 300g – so it just felt really unpredictable. And I wasn’t actually enjoying what I was even doing because I had no idea what the result would be.

Same for earning a certain revenue right? I can do all the things, and yet I might earn less than my goal or more than my goal. There are so many unpredictable factors external to my own thoughts and actions, like the economy, or demand, or what your niche wants, etc, so goal setting started to feel really futile to me, and so I actually started changing the way I set goals, focusing more on what I could control.

And it was actually after that that I heard someone mention on a podcast episode, I think it was on the Being Well podcast, that there were different types of goals. This really helped to spark my interest in this and it kinda snowballed from there.

So, I want this for you. I don’t want goal-setting to feel onerous or futile, or tokenistic, and I think that when we set goals around this time of year and talk about New Years resolutions, that they can feel tokenistic, because everyone else is doing it and they aren’t really meaningful for you.

This is why I’m hosting a free workshop to teach you exactly how to set goals according to the science, and then turn those into an action plan – a roadmap for your activities for the year so you can live an intentional life. The workshop is called Setting GLORIOUS GOALS and it’s at 10am Friday January 3rd. You need to register for this, I’ll put the link in the shownotes. Now there is a replay for those who register, but I urge you to show up live otherwise it ends up just falling by the wayside. I know the workshop will be inspiring and energising for you so that you won’t let other things fall by the wayside either. It’s just 30mins and you’ll come away with completely new insights about setting goals and it really will change your life.

Take the Time to Change Your Life!

So come along to the free workshop, register, and I will also be talking at the end of the workshop about my online time management course TIMEWISE. There is a promotion for TIMEWISE this week where I’m offering TIMEWISE for the reduced price of $365 – one dollar for everyday of 2025 when you are going to take new actions towards your dream life. There is also a single session of 1:1 coaching for you when you purchase TIMEWISE as well. This is an invaluable individualised experience.

The promotion for TIMEWISE closes Jan 12. The course is the perfect compliment to goal-setting! It covers broader ideas about ideal self, cognition, distractions, procrastination, and so many other things. I like to say that the free goal-setting workshop Setting Glorious Goals and TIMEWISE go together like wine and chocolate, they cover different things but they are the perfect pairing to help you take back your days and work out what you want to do with your one wild and precious life, as the poet Mary Oliver says. That’s what I have for you today!

---

The Setting Glorious Goals Workshop access has ended, but TIMEWISE is open! If you want to take back your days and craft the life of your dreams, join my online time management course that covers brain function, purpose, planning, and so much more.

---