[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the So Here For It podcast. I am your host, Amy Mingin, and today I am talking all about goal setting. It is coming towards the end of 2024. So many people are starting to have reflective time and figure out what the heck they want for 2025. But before we go into that, before we even go into goal setting, have you given yourself the chance to actually sit in an abundant state?
And what I mean by this is often it's a reflective process of being able to say, see how far you've come. It's beautiful to gain perspective. And I do this every single night before I go to bed. I go, what went well today? And what this actually helps to do is reprogram our unconscious mind. It helps us remember more of the good stuff because our brains, like I've said in other podcast episodes, our brains are already wired toward [00:01:00] negativity. It's a negativity bias. So I have this thing that I really want to overcome the negativity bias. And some days are easier than others, right? Depends on what my capacity is like on the day, where I'm up to in my cycle, what's actually going on in my life. There's so much going on at this time of year that a lot of people say that their capacity is at its absolute minimum, but also maximum because there's a lot on, right? But then it's totally up to us what we choose to take on and what we focus on. And what I encourage you to do is to gain some perspective. And I call this the zoom out method. So if you haven't already learned this, you can zoom out from your current perspective to give yourself the perspective of where you've come from, what achievements you've had, how great you feel about different things, what you might change. But also like really let yourself receive the celebration that you want to feel.
And I was [00:02:00] talking about this to a client yesterday and she has hugely high standards, which is perfect. I love a high standard myself, but she was saying that she feels like she's gone backwards. And I said, Oh, that's interesting cause I don't see that in you. I see how far you've come. And she goes, ah, and it was really hard for her to receive a compliment. So we did a process and this process is self appreciation. If you aren't appreciating yourself, if you aren't appreciating your own journey, if you aren't appreciating the great work that you do in this world and how open hearted you are and how loving you are, how do you expect other people to love you and to appreciate you and to recognize you?
Probably they already do, but it's about you learning to receive it. And this is what I truly believe is the state of abundance. It's not just about material possessions. It's how we actually [00:03:00] feel about ourselves. It's how much self compassion we can bring to the table. And so once you've gone through that process then you're ready to set goals. Okay. So give yourself some self compassion, give yourself some zoom out, give yourself perspective, because the moment we start to notice something bigger than ourselves, all of a sudden the problems that we perceive when we're really zoomed in seem a lot less significant.
So that's why we do it. It's very healthy for the nervous system. It's so normal for us to feel like there's a lot on our plates and there is, it is so much more consumable to have things in front of us all the time, you think about it in the way of food, in the way of information, in the way of over consuming in so many ways.
I'm not talking about abundance in that way. I'm talking about abundance internally. And you being this self appreciating, self compassionate person is going to take you so much further for 2025. So [00:04:00] now that we're through with that. Let's go into goal setting. So you've probably heard of SMART goals or STAR goals and I'm not going to do it in that traditional way today.
The way that I want to do it is in a more psychological way. And this is the way I like to do it because I like to get really clear and I like to crystallize my methods and I like to be able to teach them in really simple steps. So here it is.
Number one, what do you want? Most people can't answer that question, by the way. So if you can't, that's okay. Just start jotting down some things that you might, you might want, and it's okay if they're material, it's okay if they're outside of you. I want you to be selfish. What is it that you want? Because it's actually okay for you to want what you want. It's okay to have desires.
It's okay to even have needs. What is it that you want? And then I want you to ask yourself three times, even up to five times, why do I [00:05:00] want what I want? And you might have several things that you have asked yourself about inside of that. And you've come to a conclusion of why you want what you want. A lot of the time, it's going to come down to things like you want to feel love, or you want to feel connection, or you want to feel safe, or you want to feel secure. You want to feel confident. You want to feel like there's some certainty in your life and this is all the basic human needs. At the end of the day, all we really want is the basic human needs. And so once you figure that out, then you know how to bring that feeling into your body. So once you've done that step, then we go to step two.
So you've got what you want and you've figured out why you want it, that underlying desire, the underlying need. Now, I want you to get a piece of paper out and go, all right, what obstacles might I face on the way to getting what I want. So for example, let's say that your goal, let's say you work a lot. Let's say you work a lot and you're [00:06:00] working in your business and you're going really well. And your goal this year is to spend more time with your friends, so have more social situations, and also to spend quality time with your family. Sounds like a pretty good goal, if you ask me. A lot of people asking about work life balance, and I don't really believe in the word balance, but I do believe in training our focus.
And our focused attention can come through our goals. So this is why it's so important to create goals, particularly at the end of one year for the start of the next year. But you can do this at any time of your life. You literally get to be in the driver's seat. But have a think about where is your focus right now? What do you keep focusing on? And is it in alignment with the goal that you currently have? Because if it's not, then that's okay. You can pivot and change what your focus is. So what are the obstacles? And the reason why we look at the obstacles, it's not because we're going into negativity bias. It's so that we can plan for the [00:07:00] future.
And so that if the worst did happen, you've already gone over it inside your head. If you got, so like I'll give you a very, oh this feels like a vulnerable example to give you, but it happened to me this year. It happened. I dealt with some haters on social media. And so if one of my obstacles, right, so I'm going to tell you like my goal inside of 2024 was to get visible, is to see what transpires on the other side of me being consistently visible. Well what's part of that, the more you become visible, the more you're visible to people who love you, but also the people who don't agree with you.
So for me, when I had some haters, I was like. Oh, it was like an arrow to the heart. I did not like it. It felt very hurtful. It felt like very risky to show up online. It felt really vulnerable and I'm not going to lie. There were some tears. I was like, oh my God, that person doesn't like, oh my God, they disagree.
Oh my God. And it wasn't just [00:08:00] once, this happened multiple times. I would say up to a dozen times this has happened this year. And this is not an invitation to stop showing up on social media by the way. This is my story to let you guys know how to come through something. Because my word for the year was transpire and open hearted and guess what happens, whenever I get hurt I want to close my heart. But the risk on my heart if I close it means I'm not going to go through to the other side. So reopening my heart even to the haters. I'm not blocking them. I'm just letting them feed my algorithm, thumbs up their comment, move on with my life. So one of those obstacles is dealing with the haters. That was one of my goals. And I dealt with the haters. And you know what, when somebody disagrees with me now, I don't take it to heart so much. I'm just like, okay, I know how to deal with this. This was one of my fears of showing up online in a bigger way, being a little more opinionated because I'm saying what I really want to say about the things that are important to [00:09:00] me.
And that was, that was an obstacle. The haters for me were an obstacle and it hurt my heart. But you know what? I showed up the next day, I kept showing up. And what happened is I became a little less sensitive to the hate and a little more solid in what I believe. Because for every one hater, there's at least a thousand who love it.
So by me showing up continuously, I'm still serving that whole big audience. So if I used that one obstacle to stop me then I wouldn't be where I am now, right? So open my heart, and I move through the obstacle. So that's one version of me sharing a vulnerable truth with you guys of how I moved through it.
Now, once you've come up with your obstacle list, I want you to come up with scenarios of how you would overcome them. So, let's think about it. Let's say that you [00:10:00] want to invest in your health. In 2025, you want to invest in your health. So what's one of the obstacles that you might face? What if it's just like every other time and you start something and you start really well and then you don't go through with it? What if it's one of those times where you go off track? What if it's one of those times where chaos happens in life and then like you forget what you're up to and, and it's too hard. I hear these sorts of reasons all the time, but it doesn't mean you have to stop. Like life happens. This is the thing about life. It is dynamic. So are we. The one thing that our body knows how to do, our mind knows how to do, is to adapt. So whatever circumstances are being dealt to us, it is so that we can move through those obstacles to learn the lesson, to move through to our goals. That the obstacle, can we just see that the path is clear? The obstacle comes in our path so that we get to where we're going. There's nothing bad about [00:11:00] having an obstacle. Okay.
So then I want you to come up with a plan. And the plan might be, all right, I'm going to invest in my health. I'm going to follow the plan and I'm going to have a plan B. If I go off track, then I'm going to reach out for help. That would be a really cool thing to do, right? And then you get back on track again. It's like you can create your own flow diagram of like, if yes, this. If no, this. If yes, this. If no, this. And you have your own plan.
Now here is the biggest thing of this whole episode that's really, really important. And I want you to hear this and hear this well. Write this down.
Take aligned action every single day. Now that you're clear on your goal, you know what you want. You know why you want it. So you know exactly what outcome you want. You have a very clear path in front of you. You have gone boop here's my GPS on the map. That is where I'm going. And you've got the potential obstacles. It doesn't mean that they're all going to happen. You're [00:12:00] just going to be prepared for them if they do. You've got potential obstacles. You've got ways of overcoming those obstacles. So your nervous system's like, Hey, we're prepared. We can get through this. That helps you have a little more belief in yourself, right?
The thing to actually get confident that you can have what you want is to take action, aligned action every single day. So if it is, you're investing in your health. What are you doing every single day? If you're stepping into your healthy self, what decisions does that healthy self make every single day?
Does that healthy self scroll at nighttime before bed? Probably not. Probably leaves the phone out in the lounge room. It leaves the alarm going out in the lounge room. Does that healthy self get up and go for a walk in the morning? Probably. Does that healthy self meditate and find a sense of calm? Probably.
So see how the different versions of us come to the front as soon as we're clear on the goal. Of course, if an obstacle comes, often a [00:13:00] stressed out version from the past of us will try and take over. If you've ever seen the movie Inside Out, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Particularly Inside Out 2 where she's like, the anxiety one takes over. Yes. And she doesn't become herself. She becomes a different version of herself. And this happens inside of us whenever we're stressed, we revert back to a stressed version that got us through in a previous way toward another goal or through a different stressful situation.
And then I want you to remember, and it's just like this very calm self goes, Oh, look at that pattern that I'm playing out. I get to choose differently because here is my goal. And you step back onto the goal track and you step forward taking aligned action. You don't need to make it mean anything about you. It doesn't mean that you failed. It doesn't mean that you're crap. It doesn't mean anything. It actually just means that you're human and humans get distracted sometimes and humans get caught up in emotions often.
And that's okay. That's actually part of the [00:14:00] experience. It's part of the obstacles. It's part of the learnings. And it's part of us learning to get to know each other and ourselves most importantly. So I hope that this has helped. I feel really clear about what I want in 2025. And if you would love to deep dive into this, I have a workshop coming up on the 12th of December.
It is for you if you want to get crystal clear about this stuff. It is $55, it is two hours of your time. If you can make it live, amazing, if you can't make it live, I will be recording it and I'll send out questions and make sure I cover them for you. So if you would love that, check out the show notes. It will be available on replay afterwards as well.
So if you want to have the best 2025 with the most clear goals, with the most aligned action, make sure you join me for vision 25. Thanks so much. And I'll see you on the next episode.
