#319: Goal Avoidance

Goal Avoidance

Here's a transcription of this episode:

Do you set goals? More importantly, do you stick with those goals throughout your year? 

There's so many of us who set goals and then we just forget about them. We put them off. So today I wanna speak specifically to you. If you're somebody who notices, you set goals, but you don't follow through, or you don't even set goals because they don't feel good, I wanna talk to you because goals are the fastest ticket to our personal development and our business development.

 Listen in to learn more.

 Hi, I'm Dina Cataldo, a master coach and ex criminal prosecutor. I created Be a Better Lawyer, podcast for driven lawyers like you who want more from life than sitting behind a desk. You've been playing by other people's rules. Those rules have left you overwhelmed. Unfulfilled, and feeling like a hamster on a wheel. I've been there. I was doing everything people told me to do to be successful, working late nights, weekends, and trying to make everyone happy.

So why wasn't I happy and I wanted more in life? 

When was I going to find time to find and pursue that? 

Well, I did.

 And I'm sharing with you my secrets to living a happier and more fulfilling life. This podcast gives you a lifetime of wisdom, mindset, principles, and bedrock strategies to give you unshakeable confidence, more time to pursue your goals, a powerful sense of purpose to uplevel your life and law practice and so much more. These are things we were never taught in law school. This podcast bridges the gap between law, school and life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.

Hello, my friend. 

So I've been wanting to do this episode for quite some time because I notice when I speak to lawyers, a lot of them are very resistant to setting goals. 

They're very resistant to even figuring out or discovering what it is they want. And one of the things that I have noticed over the years is that part of them doesn't want to set a goal because they are scared. 

They are scared that they aren't going to follow through, and then shame themselves because they're not following through. Or if they don't hit their goal, they are going to feel disappointed and then also shame themselves and tell themselves that they're not capable or good enough. 

So I want to really dispel this myth that it's the goals and setting of the goals that's doing this. What's actually happening here is what's going on in our minds.

That's why mindset is so important. And I wanna share with you really the power of goals to help us grow. And every single one of us is on this planet to grow. And I know you're only listening to this podcast because you want to grow too, and goals are your fastest ticket to helping you do that.

So I wanna share with you some of my experiences around goals today, goal setting and how I think about goals. 

Now that's different from years ago when I really was struggling. I wanna help you if you find yourself avoidant of goal setting or setting a goal. But then if you don't hit it the first month, then you kind of give up on yourself. I really want to help you strengthen your personal sense of power. 

And we talked about that a little bit in the last episode, to help you create the life that you want and not allow your subconscious brain to be steering the car.

I want you to be steering the car. And the way we can do that is is with setting goals. Before we get going here, I want to invite you to download the Busy Lawyers treasure Map.

Now, the Be a Better Lawyer podcast has about what and what is it? We're at 3 3 19 now, 319 episodes. 

And that's a lot of episodes to need to sift through to find the ones that are most relevant to you. So I created the Be a Better Lawyer podcast roadmap so that our treasure map, so that you are able to really get your eyes on the podcast or your ears on the podcast that you need to be listening to in order to further your goals. 

You can download that at DinaCataldo.com/Map. 

It's really gonna help you get a bird's eye view of the kinds of topics that we've talked about here on Be a Better Lawyer podcast and give you clickable links to take you straight to those episodes that you really want to focus your attention on.

With that said, let's come back to goal setting. So I want you to ask yourself this question, are you setting goals? If your answer is yes, are you giving up on yourself without hitting the goal? And if that's you, I want you to ask yourself why.

 Why are you doing that? Why aren't you following through? What is it that you tell yourself is happening? Do you tell yourself that you're not working hard enough or that it's not possible to hit that goal now that you haven't made it this first month? 

And let me give you an example of that. For instance, if you have a revenue goal for the year and you haven't hit that, that marker, you know, you take the year of your revenue and you divide it by 12 and you tell yourself, okay, if I make X amount of revenue in these months, then I'm on track to hit my goal.

And that's what your brain says is, okay, if I hit my my revenue target in January, february, March, april, then that means I'm gonna hit it. But then if may comes around and you are much lower in your revenue tally, you say, oh, you know what? Screw it, <laugh>, I'm not even gonna keep going. 

There's no point. 

I'm not gonna hit my revenue goal. 

That's one example. 

Or let's make that even smaller. Let's say you tell yourself this month, this month I have the goal to hit X revenue goal. And then you're in the last week of the month and you tell yourself, ah, there's just no way I am gonna do it. And you totally give up and then you don't hit your goal. Well, that is the power of mindset. That is the power of consciously directing your mind in the direction you wanna go.

And if you tell yourself, I'm not gonna hit it, you more than likely are not going to hit it because you're telling your brain it's not gonna happen.

 You're telling your brain, no, we're not gonna do that. And anytime we have those kinds of thoughts, we are directing our result whether we're conscious of it or not. So if you are giving up part way on a goal, of course you're not gonna hit it. That's, that is issue one.

 Okay? We just wanna cover that. You want to have the mindset piece dialed in. So when I work with my one-on-one clients, that's what we're working on. I had a client who had been thinking about creating a podcast for quite some time, and she was kind of putting it off, putting it off, and we did some mindset work around it, right? She had some thoughts about how it would be perceived, what was going to happen, you know, what if it didn't work, those kinds of things.

So we talked through it, right? 

We, she got some coaching on it, and then she just started taking small consistent steps towards creating the foundation for the podcast. And then sure enough, as soon as she started taking those consistent steps and managing her mind every single week around creating this new podcast, she started making those shifts. 

She kept her focus on, yes, this is already happening. I I'm focused on it. This is what's going to happen. So she actually created the podcast. It started getting like the ball moving really quickly. She got a lot of attention, and now she is running a really beautiful podcast that is also bringing clients into her business. 

So these are the things that we can do when we consciously manage our mind around goals. 

Now let me ask you this question. Maybe you're not in the camp where you're setting goals and then forgetting them.

Maybe you're in the camp where you're not even setting goals.

 Is that you? 

So if that's you, I'm curious, why, why aren't you setting goals?

Answer this question for yourself, because the answer I hear most often is, I don't like how I'm going to feel if I don't hit my goal. 

Now, if that is how you wanna run your life, you constantly want to be run by your subconscious brains telling you, well, you're gonna feel bad if you don't hit your goal, then I want to offer that this probably isn't the podcast for you because we're here. Right? I believe this is my deep belief that we are here to change ourselves in the most beautiful way. And goals are such a amazing way to really create those shifts consciously. Now, when I say consciously, I mean you are consciously putting yourself in what your subconscious thinks is danger.

It's not really danger, right? It, the worst that could happen is that you feel bad. That's not danger. You're not being chased by a tiger. You're not being, you know, hunted <laugh>. 

That is happening. But our subconscious brain believes that that is what is happening. And so when we put ourselves, our brains into what it believes is danger, that brings up, it stirs up all of these feelings, which is a really good thing. We want those feelings to be stirred up because then we can address what's happening. 

And it can be kind of scary at first because we are so used to being mean to ourselves If we don't hit a goal, right? Oh, I didn't get an a plus, that means that I'm not working hard enough. I should be working harder. And we tell ourselves all these horrible things because somewhere in the past we trained our brain to do that.

Now, I don't, I I don't go after goals like that anymore. I used to, and it really prevented me from so much growth. It, it was something that was debilitating for me. It prevented me from growing as the person I wanted to become. 

Anytime I set, I should preface this, anytime I set a goal for myself in my business, it's not about the monetary goal for me. Yes, I love money. I love what it can do and the freedom it creates and all of those things. And I'm so grateful for it. But the reason I set goals in my business now, right? I didn't always do it this way, but the reason I do it now is because of the exponential growth I will receive as a human. The being I will become because I face my brain and my brain says, oh, nope, that can't happen.

And I train my brain to say, well, I'm gonna take steps anyway, even though you're telling me it's not gonna work. I am going to manage my brain consciously, and I'm gonna take those steps. Even though you're telling me it's not going to work. I am going to be the person who manages my brain. 

I'm not gonna make, I'm not gonna let my brain run me. I am constantly going to be driving the car. And that is an act of will. It is not something I am perfect at. And you definitely don't have to be perfect at this, right?

Another reason I hear people don't set goals is because, well, if I don't hit it, I'm gonna beat myself up. And that is also part of that perfectionism, right? So I used to have that. I used to have so much of that. Well, if I don't say this just right, I'm not gonna put it out into the world.

If I don't have this exactly ready the way I think it should be, I'm not going to make an offer. 

Those kinds of things held me back so much. 

But when I started allowing myself to feel the fear and do it anyway, that's when I started to create growth. And this reminds me of what's been happening with one of my clients, is she has, she came to me initially, she wanted to grow her practice. And one of the things we talked through in terms of her goal was what were the actions that she needed to take in order to achieve that goal? And she said, well, one of them is networking. And she told me she hated networking. She cried about it with me because it was just so, it felt so hard. And the, the reason it felt hard is because all of these old stories she had about what people thought about her, who she was, started bubbling to the surface.

Because when we talk to other people, it can feel very vulnerable. 

It can be very vulnerable, sharing ourselves with them and talking about what we do for a living. In fact, one of the things, one of the stories that came up was, I don't want people to think I'm salesy.

I don't want people to think that I'm trying to use them. And that is so important to notice. If that's you and you are trying to grow your business, that's a thought, that's a barrier between you and success.

It's a barrier between you and the life you wanna live. So when she started uncovering all of these thoughts, we just worked through them in coaching and we just started talking through them. And she started to attend networking events by putting herself out there, right? 

She was uncomfortable. She knew she would feel uncomfortable. We worked through how she would be thinking when that discomfort came up for her, the conversation she would have with herself.

-And she started going to these events. 

-And now she absolutely loves them. 

-She's like addicted to networking. 

-She loves going out and talking to people.

And because of that, she is growing her business and it's happening faster than she anticipated. She texted me, 'cause she texted me and she started just saying like, wow, this is happening so fast, like this is happening and this is happening. You know, people want to be on my email newsletter like <laugh>. 

And so I just said, oh, it's beautiful. What's coming up for you? And really what was coming up for her was one part fear, but one part amazing gratitude for all of the things that she had done for herself. All of the, the, the times when she felt fear and she took the baby step anyway, all of the times when she said yes to invitations, to network, right?

Like those kinds of things were bubbling up for her because she really put in the work. Hitting goals is not easy because of our mind and all of the things it says about what we're capable of. 

And so we need to be able to have the ability to consciously direct our mind so that we can go in the direction we wanna go. It's kind of like, okay, I I'm gonna go for a run and my brain wants to say no, we're just gonna, we're just gonna stay here on the couch. It's beautiful here. It's like, okay, well I want to go on a run. And, and here's the reasons, right? 

We, we have to self motivate ourselves. We have to remind ourselves why this is important to us. And then we need to take the baby steps. We need to say, okay, I'm just gonna put on the running shoes, okay, I'm just gonna step out the door, okay?

I am just gonna start at a walk. Now we're gonna walk a little quicker and then we're gonna start running and pretty sure pretty soon you're already on your jog. So it's important for us to learn that skill when it comes to the goals that we're setting for ourselves. So if you are in a revenue goal, I wanna come back to the example of the monthly revenue goal. This was something that I worked with for a really long time because I could notice what was going on in my mind. I could, I had so much awareness of what was happening 'cause I was journaling every single day. 

I was getting coached all of these things on my monthly goal. And I could see, ah, I had a lot of thoughts about I'm not capable or I'm scared. I'm gonna feel ashamed if I don't hit this goal.

And that's why I am not taking action. Because anytime we shame ourselves around a result that we want to create, and it's not happening in the way that we think it should be happening, we put up a barrier. We put up a barrier to continue moving forward.

If you notice that you set goals and then you procrastinate on taking action towards those goals, that's what's happening. And there's something there where you're shaming yourself, where you're anti, your brain is anticipating, oh, it's not gonna happen. Oh, there's no point.

Oh, you're gonna feel bad. And then you do not take action so that it's incumbent upon you if that's happening to you, to learn how to manage your brain, to learn how to say, 

Hey, I see you, I see what you're doing, brain and I am 100% capable. And here's all the reasons why I know I'm capable.

One of the things I work on with my clients is helping them learn how to create evidence of their capability. And this is something I want to give to you because if you have goals or you want to set goals and you are noticing that there feels like there's a wall between you and either setting the goal or achieving the goal, then there are some thoughts that are happening. And some of them are likely around, I'm not capable, or I can't because fill in the blank. 

When our brain says that, that is what we call living from circumstance. 

So if your brain is saying, I can't because I don't have time, this is an example of working from circumstance. A great way to get out of working from circumstance is how do I create time? How can I create more time to create X result?

And that consciously directs your brain to begin not working from circumstance, but working with what you got now. And that's where you need to begin, is working with what you have. 

Now, if your brain is saying something like that, I don't have enough time, then it's your turn to come in and say, wait a minute, I make time for what's most important to me. And then I want you to create evidence of that.

Here's what I mean. 

When I want to go to the gym, I make time for it. Is that true? Maybe it is for you, maybe it isn't. But I want you to start looking at what's important to you.

Is picking up your child from school important to you? Is having family vacations? Is that important to you? Is having date night with your partner important to you? Are you making time for those things that are important to you?

And you will find that when you make time for things, those are the things that you are making important.

If you are not making time for any of the things that I mentioned, that's okay, what are you making time for?

If you're making time for just client work, that's what's important to you. So you are making time for what's important to you. 

If you're not making time for other things that you tell yourself that are important to you, those things aren't actually important to you right now. 

They're not really all that important because I guarantee if you had a kid who was at school and they were depending upon you for a ride, you would make time to pick them up. 

So this is an important thing to notice. I talked about this in the coaching open house around the subconscious mind and how we can begin to get awareness around what we believe.

And so when, when we tell ourselves it's really important to me to work out, it's really important to me to hit XYZ  goal, it's really important to me to create close connection with my spouse. 

What we need to do is look at what actions am I taking to achieve those results? Because those actions will tell you what your subconscious truly believes. So if you're not creating date night with your spouse, if you are not creating an opportunity to create that connection with someone who's important in your life, your subconscious is telling you it's not that big a deal. 

It's okay, you don't have time right now, you'll do that later. That's what your subconscious brain is really gonna bring up. You might have some other thoughts there too. Like, well, maybe that person is disconnecting from me, or maybe that goal's just not achievable for me, or maybe the other person simply isn't capable of it.

Or maybe this other person has lots of thoughts about me. 

Our brain likes to make up stories. But creating awareness around those stories, it's what is essential to helping you to achieve the results you want in your life and in your business. 

Having a goal intentionally helps you direct your mind and it intentionally brings up all of those subconscious thoughts that are already happening in your brain so that we can take a look at them so we can shine a light on them.

So you've got some tools here, you've got some really good tools here to start understanding what your brain is doing and why it's doing what it's doing, and why you're not taking action in the way you want to take action. I wanna ask you a few more questions though. I want you to ask yourself, if I could wave a magic wand for you, what result would you create with your life?

We're all gonna die someday. 

Okay? This is not a secret. 

This is not something that people have hid from us. We have a limited amount of time on this planet. 

We have a limited amount of time to have the impact that we want on this planet to create the relationships that we want in this, on this planet to be able to have the experiences that we want on this planet. And if we are not intentional about where we direct our energy, we are wasting that time. I don't want to waste that time. And I definitely don't wanna see you waste that time. It doesn't mean we're not gonna have days when we don't wanna do anything. It doesn't mean that we're not gonna have times when, you know what, this is not the day for me to start that new project. That is okay. What is important is that we don't let that day or even that week determine our focus, determine what we can create in this life.

I guarantee you that day or that week or even that month is not going to dictate what happens next. 

Your capabilities, the goal you're set to achieve. 

Just like if you had 12 months out of the year and you had a revenue goal and you made $0 one month, that means nothing about your ability to achieve that goal for the year. 

But we let our subconscious brain tell us otherwise, we let it dictate what we are capable of. 

And it is up to us to use our energy to manage our mind so that it is not driving the car. 

So let me come back to that question. 

If I could wave a magic wand, if I could create any life that you wanted, what would it look like? 

And this can be really difficult. Every time I talk to a lawyer just about it is next to impossible at first for them to articulate what it is they want.

So I want you to know if that's you right now, it's incredibly normal. 

I, I think it was even really difficult for me too, because I had gotten out of the habit of asking myself what I wanted. So you gotta start somewhere. This doesn't have to be set in stone. If you, you know, take out a piece of paper, which I highly encourage you to do, take out a piece of paper, grab a pen, and just start writing all the things you want.

Well, you know, I'd like to have a million dollars in the bank account. And your brain might say, oh, that's crazy. 

That's impossible. 

That's okay.

Let it think that it's crazy and impossible. Don't disagree with it. That's just some resistance that's coming up. But I want you to just say, okay, this is what I want. I I want this. And it might feel uncomfortable to write it down because your brain might also have stories about what it means to have a lot of money.

Oh, that's greedy. 

I shouldn't do this. 

What will people think?

 All of these different stories. 

And it, it's so difficult. If this is the first time doing this exercise to put it down on paper, that's okay. Let it be difficult. And then ask yourself, okay, what else do I want? Well, I want to have a better relationship with my partner. What does that relationship look like? Do we have, you know, monthly vacations, quarterly vacations? Do we go away on weekends together? Do we have date night together? Do we make time to talk about finances together? Maybe you wanna feel more calm in your life. You wanna calm the overwhelm in your practice. What does that look like? Even like when you walk in the office, how do you feel? What does your office look like? How does it feel? Do you have flowers in different parts of your office?

Do you have a a voice message that greets people in a certain way? Do you have different practices that you do? How do you manage your calendar? How do you manage your time? How do you manage yourself? 

These are tough questions.

So I know I'm posing these questions to you, but I'm posing it to you in the context of if you want to change your life, you need to set goals to create that life intentionally. To do it in a, like you're creating your life all the time. It's like it could be unintentional or intentional. 

You're always creating something. My goal here with this podcast is to help you create your life intentionally. And goal setting is a tool to do that. So this paper you have out, hopefully you're writing something down this paper you have out where you're writing out exactly what you want and you know, you feel maybe a little uncomfortable or maybe like you're even doing something wrong.

Like, oh wow, this is so selfish. Maybe I have an hour to myself every single morning just to sit and do nothing and just be with my coffee. Maybe I decide, you know, it would be really great to have a dog or a cat. Like what would, what are those things? Or oh my gosh, it would be so amazing to have somebody who like cleaned my house every week. 

Or maybe something else, right? Maybe you have your own chef. It's, you know, someone who comes in and prepares your food every week. Like, think of the things that would make so it would just feel so good. It would just feel so amazing if you had those things. This is your rough draft on thinking through what you want. And I work with clients all the time. Like I work with lawyers all the time around different things.

We often work on their business, but oftentimes we're working on things like their relationship with their, their spouse or with their ex-spouse or with their child, because those things come up in the context of business and life. 'cause You cannot separate them. You cannot separate them. 

Everything is energy. 

And we are learning how to manage that energy in the best way possible to consciously create the lives that we want. 

And the question is always going to be how are you managing your energy? That's the question I'm always asking myself. Because if I am complaining, if I am whining, and it's not to say I never do these things, right? I'm a human too. 

I'm dealing with the same things you are. But I notice it more quickly now because I've been doing this work so long and I can consciously redirect my brain and just be like, oh yeah, my brain's complaining.

But why is it complaining? 

Oh, because it thinks that something's gone wrong here. 

No, nothing's gone wrong.

I just need to redirect my brain. I wanna bring it back to the context of the revenue goal. 'cause I, I think that, and you can even use this for like your billing goal or whatever. Imagine what is relevant for you.

But when I talk to a lot of lawyers, we talk about revenue. And when we're talking about revenue, a lot of feelings can come up. So let's put this into the context of a one year revenue goal. And you have made a revenue goal, and maybe you set it in January, but it's kind of gone to the back of your mind 'cause you didn't necessarily hit the milestones you thought you were gonna make and some of the months up to this point. 

And your brain is saying, you know, what's the point?

We're just, we're not even gonna do it. I want to offer to you that this is the time. Now is the time to learn the skill of managing your energy, managing your mind. This is the time. 

Because if you're listening to this in real time, it's June and we're halfway through the year, not even halfway through the year, you have so much possibility ahead of you to create exactly what you wanna create. 

That's a beautiful thing. Even if you're listening to this, maybe you're listening to this in the future and it's like November and your brain is given up on that January goal. I want you to reset. I want you to use this episode as an opportunity to reset yourself and to say, okay, let's look at the numbers. And I'm not gonna make the numbers mean anything about me. I am going to simply say, okay, I made an impossible goal.

That's a beautiful thing. 

Let's just take a look. 

Let's just take a peek under the hood, see what's going on in the car. 

What numbers do I have? Okay, what, what do I think about that? These are, these are questions to seriously ask yourself wherever you are right now in your revenue goal, in your approach to whatever goal you have, where am I right now? What do I think about that? And ask yourself, are those thoughts like really mean judgy thoughts? Like, oh my gosh, you're horrible, you should be ashamed of yourself. Or are they, okay, well, you know, you got pretty good numbers here. I'm, I'm a little, I don't know that that's actually gonna help. Like I'm, I don't know that I'm actually gonna hit my goal, but that's okay. And then I want you to ask yourself these questions. What has been going really well this year or up to this point, what hasn't been going the way that I wanted it to?

And what will I do differently? 

Those are three questions that we can use anytime we're evaluating anything happening in our life.

I use them all the time.

Those three questions will help you. 

Now, the first question, you've gotta find things that are going well, that's a, that's a requirement. There's always at least two things that are going well. 

And this is probably the hardest question for people that are very used to beating themselves up and telling themselves they're not working hard enough and that they should be doing better. And this is gonna be the hardest question for you if that's you. 

But I, I want you to find at least two things that are going well. And I want you to congratulate yourself on them because those two things are things you are doing that are helping you hit your goal. So they could be, I, you know, I show up on days even when I don't feel like it or you know, people are referring me all the time.

So that must mean that I'm doing really good work for the clients that I do have. 

So those kinds of things we tend to dismiss because our brain, our subconscious brain wants to say, you're not working hard enough, you should be doing better. 

You're not capable of hitting this goal, and we've gotta shine a light on that. And we've gotta shine that light with so much compassion and kindness, understanding that that's what our subconscious brain does. 

And it's up to us, our higher self to say, I see you. And that is not true. I am 100% capable. I might not have the numbers that are gonna make it work right now, but it will work. It might not be on the timeline that I imagine, but it is going to happen. 

We've got to talk to ourselves like we want ourselves to succeed. 

That is essential. 

Talk to yourself like you want yourself to succeed.

Those words that we tell ourself will dictate how we perform. Because if we are simply agreeing with the subconscious and we're letting the subconscious drive the car, and we are not intentionally taking the wheel and turning it in the direction we wanna go, we will constantly be living in circumstance. We will constantly be going in the direction we don't wanna go. 

We will be creating our life unintentionally in the opposite direction of growth. And so it's important that, you know, goals are meant to be uncomfortable because that is what growth is. That's why they call it growing pains. In order to grow, we've gotta feel some discomfort. 

Just like I was talking about my client who went to networking events. She went in with a plan, like we created that plan and then she was able to manage her mind through those uncomfortable interactions. And the more and more she did it, the more she realized she actually really liked networking.

And that's, she's not the only client that I've had specifically with a networking example that I've heard that back from, is that once she managed her mind around those uncomfortable interactions, that she began enjoying it, she began enjoying the, the, the contact with people talking about what she does. So those are the things we need to do. 

So I, I wanna give, this is gonna have a lot of information in it. So you might wanna go back and listen to this a couple times because I'm saying things in different ways because I want you to hear this, especially if you have an aversion to setting goals or you are setting goals and forgetting about it and just saying, ah, whatever. And you're not hitting your goals. 

I want you to hear this in whatever way makes sense to you. And, and that means me saying it like 10 different ways on this podcast.

So let me share with you a few things that I think about when I set a goal and when I set a goal, I want it to be a little uncomfortable.

I want my brain to say, wanna be a little hard to do because if I set a goal that's easy for me to do that feels like, oh, that's done, then I'm not gonna bring up all of the discomfort I need to bring up in order for me to grow. I'm not gonna bring up all the thoughts, like, I'm not capable of that or I'm not, I I don't have the numbers for that, or I don't have this or that or the other. All of those thoughts, they're gonna be fine, right? 

Because if I hit a goal, I know I can hit, then it's not a problem. Then I'm just like, oh, la la la, la la la and I just, I just do it.

That's what I see with incremental growth, which is it's not a problem if you're growing and you wanna grow incrementally. I think that's a beautiful thing and I think we can do that very well on autopilot. I that when we see people exponentially grow, when we see people really elevate themselves in these ways that seem larger than life, it's because they are putting themselves in that discomfort zone when it comes to goals. And that goal, if you're in the discomfort zone, that's great. Now you don't wanna put yourself in a zone where you freeze up and you're paralyzed, right? I work with my clients to kind of get them into this perfect zone, you know, kind of like the Goldilocks zone is what I like to call it, of goal setting. 

So that you are not playing it safe, but you're also challenging yourself just enough to get the growth.

And then you just agree with yourself, Hey, okay, I know part of my brain is saying, this is crazy. It's insane. 

Let it, let it be there. 

Don't resist it. 

Just say, yeah, I know it's insane. 

I'm, I'm still gonna go after it just for fun. I'm just gonna do it for fun. That's it. 'cause That will open up your brain to allowing you to create what you put on that list that we talked about. 

And then I want you to make a meeting with yourself. I want you to treat this with devotion to yourself. Not discipline, devotion. Discipline is like I'm scolding a child. <Laugh>, devotion is love for yourself and the growth that you want to experience. Devotion is that ability to really connect with yourself on a higher level. Devotion to the growth, devotion to the expansion. 

And I just think that's a beautiful way of thinking of it.

And if you're looking at it like, okay, I'm devoted to myself and my growth. 

Let's look at this every month I'm gonna have this on my calendar. I'm gonna spend 30 minutes, maybe an hour looking at what I created. Let's take a look. Let's celebrate and then ask yourself those three questions. What did I do really well? What worked for me? Right? What maybe didn't go the way I wanted it to? And what will I do differently next month? 

Those three questions will help you take the steps that you want to be taking towards your growth. And the entire time you're doing this evaluation, you are kind to yourself. 

Remember the way you talk to yourself matters because your performance is going to rise to the level of the voices in your head. If you're constantly telling yourself that you're not capable or you should have worked harder or you know, you're not, you're not doing good enough, or maybe I should have studied more, or maybe I should have this or that or that, you know, while you're trying to just look at your wins, you are going to be rising to the level of the voices of your head and you're not gonna change.

But if you start changing and looking at that from the perspective of, ah, I noticed my hours weren't quite as many as usual. 

That's so fascinating, right? 

Take it from judgment to fascination. That's so fascinating. It's so fascinating. 

I didn't hit my hours. I'm really curious why, what happened last month? Maybe your child had more events than usual. Maybe you were sick, maybe you had something else come up. 

But usually what happens when we don't approach something, a topic like that with just fascination, just curiosity, we go straight to what the subconscious always has running in the back, which is, you're not good enough. You should have worked harder.

 You're not capable. 

Don't let those thoughts steer your car. 

Come back, come back and talk to yourself and be fascinated and be interested and be curious. Find out what's happening. That's the only way we can find out what's happening, is to ask ourselves that question and be interested in that.

Show an interest in ourselves. How does it feel when somebody shows an interest in you? They're curious about what makes you tick. Why are you doing what you're doing? Why does that interest you? It feels really good, right? It feels encouraging. 

You wanna share, you wanna open up, you're able to be more vulnerable with that person. 

Share some things that maybe you wouldn't share normally with some people. 

The reason you're able to do that is because you're feeling that connection. 

You're hearing they really are interested in you. And it's a rare commodity, right? 

Most people don't care. Most people are just running through their lives. 

They, they're not even present in their own life. They can't be present for you. 

So when you are connecting with yourself every month, this is some of the most important time you can spend because you are able to open up and you're able to see, ah, there's some things there that I wanna work on. And that's okay. And that's when we get to the third question, what will I do differently next month?

That is key, right? The, these are the questions that are just so simple and yet we never ask them of ourselves. We never create that connection with ourselves. So that is it, right? 

We create a goal that's just a little uncomfortable. Use that exercise I gave you.

Write out the things that seem impossible to you. I think that's a beautiful way to start. 

And then agree, whatever you decide you want your goal to be, just pick one.

Don't do 'em all at once. 'cause That just overwhelms the brain. Just pick one and then agree with your brain. Hey, it's crazy. This is insane. Why am I doing this? 

It's okay, it's gonna be fun. Tell yourself that we're just gonna, we're just gonna have some fun. 

And then you just start taking action. You start deciding, ah, let's try this. Let's try that, let's try this, let's try that.

And you ask yourself those three questions and you're gonna be trying things. 

Life isn't given to you in a box, in a like, here you go. Here's the box of all the things that are gonna help you succeed. That's not how life works. We actually have to pay to play. 

We've gotta play the game in order to learn what we need to learn. 

So we've gotta play, we've gotta treat life as like our playground and try different things. 

That's, that is really the essence I wanna share with you, is you creating growth in your life is about you playing the game. And the game here is getting intentional, managing your mind and creating what you wanna create. That's the game. And it can be fun once we start talking to ourselves like we wanna succeed. Once we start giving ourselves the opportunity to make tiny shifts instead of expecting these magical, big things to happen, which they do happen.

And I think they're beautiful when they do, but we can get so focused and attached to that happening that we don't focus on the small, consistent steps that we can take every single day to get us closer to that goal. And that's what I wanna share with you. 

And I hope you got that from this episode today. If you want to learn to set a goal and stay with it, to stick to it, whether it's in your business or something else that's happening in your life, like I wanna help you with that. I know I've helped a lot of lawyers around time management and how they really think about their relationship with time, how they manage their life, their mind around time, and they're able to get their lives back. That's, to me, is one of the most beautiful things, is when their goal is to take back their time, to get freedom in their life, to really feel free versus feeling attached to this business or attached to their law practice.

That is something that is so worthwhile, in my opinion. That was where I started and it changed my life. If that's something that you want for yourself, if you want to be able to make those shifts for yourself, I wanna encourage you to book a strategy session with me. 

You can book it at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. Having that support that you need to help you even envision the goal. 'cause So many, so many of us stop at even envisioning the goal that we don't take any steps to move forward. And then those of us who can envision a goal, if we're not hitting it fast enough, then we self-sabotage and having that support, a coach by your side to be able to spot these things when they happen immediately, and be able to shine a light on those things and ensure that your subconscious isn't driving the car. 

It makes a world of difference. It really puts you in the driver's seat. And you can book that strategy session at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. Alright, my friend, I hope you got what you needed from this episode, and I will talk to you next week.