Hi, I'm Jason Ramsden, a personal and executive coach and I'm on a positivity quest, we often work on leaving a more positive and intentional life. This show details my journey as I explore the intersection of ordinary people and extraordinary positivity. By sharing my learning stories and conversations with guests, I want to help you and me lead a more intentional life focused on being the best as possible. Make sure to subscribe today to follow along and to start your own positivity quest.
Do you struggle with goal setting? Well, welcome to the club. I'm CEO of goal setting where CEO stands for constantly evading outlining my goals. In today's episode we're talking about goal setting in an effort to help me get my button gear so I can outline some short term and long term goals with the hope that my struggle resonates with you. And along the way, we'll provide some concrete ways for you to set your own goals and achieve them. You're ready. Let's go. Okay, in all transparency, I do
set goals. I set goals at work. But in today's episode, I'm talking about little life goals. That's going to be the focus today, how can I set short and long term life goals for myself? And the reason I'm doing that is that I'm 50 Plus, and going to that next chapter of my life, I was like, Okay, what do I want to do with the next stage in my life? And I think, for me, at least, I have a difficult time outlining goals for my life
because of one driving factor. I haven't yet figured out my driving purpose in life. Now, I've spent 30 years working in schools, and I'm very focused there on achieving goals for the institution. But I haven't really been good about achieving goals for myself. Okay, so what does that next step in life look like? One of the things that I came across and doing some research for this episode is some information and research done by Stanford psychologist
Kelly McGonigal. And she recommends that we go through a process of looking out for questions to get ourselves connected with our ideal self. So remember, in an episode earlier, we talked about the challenge of change, that subconscious messes with us, right? Sometimes it doesn't allow us to do the things we want to because of what we've gone through in life. Okay, there's this subconscious part
that's holding us back. But if you want to figure out what your driving purpose, here's what McGonigal says, What do I want to experience more in my life? And what can I do to invite and create that into my life? Okay, that's, that's number one, for figuring out how to find your driving purpose. Two, how do I want to be in the most important relationships or roles in my life? Like, how do I show up? What would that look like in
practice? Two super difficult questions, and we're only halfway through there, what do I want to offer the world? And where do I begin? What do I want to offer the world now we're really escalating things. What's my driving purpose is really being escalated. And then how do I want to grow in the next year of my life? So if I'm looking at mechanicals questions for my ideal self, no wonder people struggle with setting goals that are connected to your personal
life. I know plenty people who set amazing goals for their professional life and achieve them. But for me, the struggle has always been with personal goals. What do I want to achieve as a person in this world right now? So McGonigal has thrown down the gauntlet, really, when talking about figuring out your driving purpose. And this isn't a five second exercise, we're talking about some deep thinking that has to take place here, when you start to set out to set
your personal goals. Now, if you spend some time looking at the subject, you'll find that just as many people struggle with setting goals, as there are people desiring to learn how to better set goals for themselves. So you have lots of different things out there. You have smart goals, smarter goals. So be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, time
bound, evaluate, readjust. Then you walk into another version of that the whoop method, wish, outcome, obstacle and plan, you'd go a little bit deeper, there's hard goals, where it's heartfelt, animated, required, and difficult, clear goals, collaborative, limited, emotional, appreciable, definable, and probably a dozen other types of goals that I didn't find while researching
for today's show. So I started thinking to myself, should I go after one of these Bigger types goals where lots of people talk about them, where there are people who are also doing podcasts about them. Or should I try to figure out a way to make goal setting more relevant for me. And if you know me, or you listen to this podcast long enough now, you know, I like to come up with my own way of thinking about things, so that it sticks in my head and hopefully will stick in your
head as well. So in this next segment, we're gonna get into what I came up with in an effort to help myself be better at goal setting. So stick around. Dream dreaming big is the first step in setting goals. In this next segment, we'll talk about what it means to have true dreams, and how you break them down to make them realistic and effective for you in reaching
those dreams. Now, before we get into true dreams, which I think probably some people out there right now, if they're still listening, are thinking, hey, this little skeptical, true dreams, like how does this play in? Now I fully believe that having a big vision, much like mechanical said, What do you want to what do you want to offer the world? And where do I start? Where do I begin, also ties in to some of the reading that I've mentioned before, with
Simon Sinek and find my why. And before we get into the true dreams, I think it's important for me to be transparent in how I went about finding my why. Now I've done that exercise, took some time to do took me about two months of really thinking and narrowing and being purposeful in my thought process about what is it in this next phase of my life that I want to offer the world? My Why is this to inspire people to see the worth and value of their lives.
So that Together, we can make the world a kind, generous and positive place for all humanity. Now, if that's not a lofty goal, or what I want to offer to the world, I don't know what it is. But it's what speaks to me. And it's what I'm really passionate about. So the next thing is, how do I set goals to that? How do I set goals to live my life around those. And that's where the dream true or true dreams come in. And so what is true dreams
mean? True dreams are really goals that are targeted, relevant, useful, and effective. That's true. Dream is then doing real exercises, about myself. So true dreams are setting goals that are targeted, relevant, useful and effective. And then doing the work, the real work around myself. That's what true dreams are. So you're probably saying to yourself, Jay, how do you even go about tackling
something so large? And the truth is, that's why this episode exists, so that I can talk it out, share my insights in the hope that it resonates with you. And also, so I can kind of help figure out how I am going to tackle true dreams, dreaming True, true dreams? And how do you even set a schedule to that? So if my Why is really to inspire people to have a positive impact on others in their lives and themselves? If that's the goal, then I have to break that into measurable
chunks. And then that becomes what am I doing every single day to bring positivity and kindness into the world. So we're going to go to the tea of true targeted, your goals have to be targeted to the next step in the process. So if I put that into thinking about launching this podcast, it was it was I had very targeted goals. I wanted to launch on New Year's Eve, I wanted to start 2021 off right.
Then I moved in to the are relevant, what were the relevant steps that I had to do today, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, and so on and so forth, to reach my targeted goal. And I had to take a look at the things that I was doing towards those goals and really decide what was I doing right then and there? Was it useful towards meeting that goal or is it more like a rock rocking horse, a lot of motion, and I wasn't going anywhere. And I'm
human. I said I said come to that often where I think I'm doing a lot to make momentum. And all I'm really doing is rocking back and forth. So what were the things that I were doing on a daily basis, useful towards heading towards my goal. And then finally, the E True, effective. So that's kind of a recap. If I look back on the day before and the week before, what are the things that I was doing to launch the podcast on New Year's Eve? Were all the things effective? Are they useful? Are
they relevant? Are they targeted. And then once I do those, then I had to move to the dream part. So we're talking about true dreams, were the things that I was doing real exercises about myself, that being honest with myself about the work that I was doing to accomplish my goals. And when you spend time with yourself, In your head, in your mind space, thinking about are the things that I'm doing right now. really helping me grow as an
individual? Are they really pushing me forward, and you reflect on those, you realize pretty quickly, that that's not always the case. So now you have kind of this real eye opener into the process. And I like I like the acronym, true dreams. Because I think it speaks volumes about people and where they want to be in life. There are plenty people, you hear the phrase all the time, you know, don't be a daydreamer.
But if you're not dreaming about where you want to be, at the next phase in your life, where you want to be in the aim and game of your life, if you're not setting those dreams, and I think that's the umbrella over everything that we need to do in life is having a dream of what life could be like, and then you can break it down, then you start to write out your goals, then you do the tactical, you break them into manageable pieces, then you create a realistic schedule, then you
plan for the hurdles that are going to come through, right, there's nothing worse than having false hope about meeting your goals, which are supposed to attain for yourself, your dreams. And then along the way, you have to have that support team, you have to have the cheerleaders that are behind you, they're going to push you forward to continue to reach your goals. When I launched this podcast, I told a bunch of people about it. And now I feel
like I'm committed to them. I have people in my corner that want to hear this, they want to wait for the next episode to come out. They want to talk about it with me. And now I'm feel committed, I feel committed to those people. And if you even if it is one or two people, that's all that matters. I really believe that whether you impact one person, or you impact 1 million people, there really
is no difference. And so because I've stated the goal and created a support team around the things that I'm doing, it drives me further. And then one of the other things that you have to do and keep in mind, you really just have to stay positive. And I know that's hard. There are times when you know the phrase, toxic positivity comes up, you know, people who talk about being positive all the time sometimes get labeled as having toxic positivity, where it's too
much, but I think it's key. And if you've ever listened to Mel Robbins, who is a coach has some amazing work out there. If you don't know her, please go check her out. She uses something called the five second rule, especially when negativity is creeping in. And so what she says is, when you get an impulse to take action towards a goal, then that subconscious kicks in. And it says, You know what, I'd rather take a nap. I'd rather sit on the couch, I'd rather not do that. count to five, and then
act. Once you go past the five second rule that window, your brain will shut it down. It'll shut it down and you will procrastinate. procrastinate, procrastinate, it's one of the best things I took away from Mel's recent audible podcast. And I'll point you in that direction. I'm a huge fan. It's called it's only on Audible. It's called start here with Mel Robbins, timeless pieces of information that you can go back to over and over and over again.
She says that even in the opening of that podcast, I binge listened to them over the winter holiday, the Christmas break and totally blown away on morning walks on how powerful just a 20 minute clip can be for changing your life. And to be honest, it is what set me on my path of of getting this, this particular show launched. For me put it in my own vernacular, my own mindset of having true dreams is what I can go back to over and
over again. For me true dreams becomes that rote learning that I can speak it over and over again. I have to have targeted, relevant, useful and effective goals. And then I have to do real exercises about myself to improve what I'm doing every single day. Now I know I threw some lofty things at you right? Find your purpose. Find Why, if you don't want to go through those processes, it's okay, it's super helpful to narrow it down to help you focus. But on the other hand, you can work off
adjust categories. If you're thinking that you have goals to meet, or something that you want to accomplish, break it down. Is it about your career? Or their financial goals that you want to meet? Or their educational goals? Are their attitude changes, physical changes, or their family changes you want to make? Do you want to be more of a volunteer and do public service? Do you want to take care of yourself have self care? What is it from that broad range of topics that you want to focus
on? Once you have that in place, then you start to chunk it, make yourself a to do list? How am I going to reach this goal in a year? And then back it out? What's the six month plan to get there? What's the three month plan to get there? What's the one month plan to get there? What do I have to do every day to achieve that particular goal? For me staying on the course?
Yeah, you have to measure them, they have to be measurable goals, you have to do things that allow you to attain them and make them easy to obtain. And I think I mentioned Mel before, she has a really good an acronym for goals, she calls them hard goals, which are you have to make it a habit. So think about working out. Gotta make it a habit. It has to bring you alive. So if your goals aren't around, something that gets you pumped up, it's not
going to happen. Again, subconscious is going to get in there, that procrastination, the five second rule is going to kick in, it's not going to work, they have to be reachable. Now, I still believe that you have to have dreams. But once you take those dreams, and you chunk them back down, then things become reachable. What are my targets over the next couple of days to get to a certain point so that that momentum continues, the best thing about momentum is, once you start having momentum,
it keeps you going. It keeps you going like a snowball rolling down the hill, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and faster and faster and faster. And you want that in life. And then finally, the idea of hard is having a daily plan, you want something a little bit easier to remember, then a true dreams hard goals come straight from Mel Robbins, again, big fan,
check her out. And I think between having hard goals and true dreams, I really believe that you can improve yourself that you can do anything that you set your mind to. But just don't say it, you have to do it. And when you're doing it, say it with a positive statement, be precise, keep things small and targeted set goals that are performance based, not outcome. And what I mean by that is that if you fail, it's not a big deal. And you will fail. Because we're all humans, we do do it.
But if you set performance goals, I will walk five minutes today, seven minutes tomorrow, 10 minutes the next day. That's a performance goal, not a, I'm going to walk so that I lose X amount of weight, set the performance goals. And that'll help you chunk things and be a little bit more mindful about where you're headed and how you're going to get there. Now I know I threw a lot of acronyms
at you in this episode. But what this really breaks down to your three takeaways from today's show about goal setting and being proactive about it. And this is me talking to myself is start small, make goals that are targeted. So think baby steps to make goals that are relevant, useful, and timely. And three, get really efficient in your work. And really efficient so that everything that you do doesn't have to take a long time to reach the next goal. By that I mean chunking chunking
chunking. The smaller the steps, the faster you'll grow, the better you'll get at your work. And the last thing I'll leave you with is believing yourself. I believe in you. I've got to stop believing in myself. And together we're going to walk through this path together, we're going to reach our goals, we're going to conquer everything that we need to conquer. We're gonna make the world a better place by making ourselves better people. And I fully believe that. So let's
keep this dialogue going. You can find me online on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And in closing, thank you so much for being here. Your gift of time listening to the show absolutely means the world to me. And always remember, be well be happy, be you and until the next time, may your quest for positivity begin today. If you liked today's episode, please go to pod chaser com search for the show and leave a five star rating and review. For more on
my positivity quest. Follow me at positively underscore Jay on Instagram and Tiktok or engage with the show on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Have an amazing day.