Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Feather. Your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 192 today and it's the 15th of December 2024.

We're coming into the final hurrah, the final stretch of 2024. Really, it's too late to be trying to achieve those goals that you had for this year. If you had goals for this year, let me know in the comments how did you go? Did you achieve the goals? Did you smash those goals? Did you not even start those goals, or did you? You know, maybe you made some progression but you didn't kind of hit all those goals? Let me know, and that's kind of like the topic that I want to talk about today we're getting so close to the new calendar year, 2025. And you know, a common question that I get asked all the time and I've kind of like summarized it into one bigger question but is what are the methods that I use to set and achieve meaningful goals? Now, we've spoken about this probably every year for the last four years around this time and also at the start of the calendar year as well, but there's a couple of things here that I want to really dive into. Obviously, we can talk about the generic goal setting, techniques around SMART goals and things like that which look I'm not going to dive into that in this episode, but I'll probably brush over it very quickly so you can go look it up for yourself but I think it's more around making sure that I'm talking about the clarity of what does this actually mean and how do we take actionable steps. But also, I think the key thing here is aligning goals with personal values, and I'm going to share a bit more of my journey, my experience over the last four years of what this has looked like. We'll dive into a few different areas as well to hopefully give you some additional insight and encouragement and inspiration to make this happen for yourself.

Now, before we get into it, if you do enjoy this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, comment all those great things. But if you enjoy it more, so please share it with someone else. If it resonates with you, share it with someone, challenge them on it, get them to listen to it. I want to help further people's lifestyles. I want to help further your life and I'm furthering my own as well, and together we can make a bigger difference by sharing that with someone else that we think could obviously, you know, benefit from hearing this. And it's not about me, it's purely. I think there's some messages here, different perspectives, and sometimes we need to hear it in a different way for us to really grasp what needs to be done internally for ourselves and as to become a better version of ourselves. So that's my encouragement and challenge to you let's roll the intro and let's get into it.

So, what methods do you use to set and achieve meaningful goals? If you would ask me this question, maybe five, six, probably even 10 years ago, you know, I would have gone on to the whole smart goal process. Now, I've done this through, you know, when I was working in consulting. And, for those that don't know, it's a popular framework where you focus on specific, measurable and achievable and relevant time-bound goals and that's how you set them and that's how you work on achieving them and it makes sure that they're clear and actionable. Now, I think this is a great way to do it. If you have no idea how to do it, you need to have some level of a plan. You need to have some level of understanding of what it's going to take, how you're going to do it, when you're going to do it, what it's going to look like and how do you kind of evaluate that.

There's also the perspective of habit-driven goals and this is where I then started to take more of a turn to, which is focusing on, you know, building habits of consistency, so I can just continue to do these daily habits and the results are going to come through anyway, and that really emphasizes like a consistency focus rather than an outcome focus. And it's a great way to level up because if it becomes natural to you, it's just secondhand nature, right, you just do what you do. But I think where I've now kind of landed to is focusing on and this only happens after you've done a bit more of progression. So maybe you need to start with the smart goals, maybe you need to start with the habit-driven goals as well. But I think it comes down to understanding where are you actually wanting to go? Sometimes setting goals, you know we kind of block it out into a gear perspective because naturally that's when we reset.

But I think we need to kind of change that mentality for a couple of reasons. The first one is, I think, any goal that we do and look a weight loss one is a very generic and I'm going to use it If you want to lose weight, why do you want to lose weight? Is it a health reason? Do you want to look good? Are you trying to impress someone? Why Are you insecure about yourself? There's a whole bunch of questions you can ask, understanding why. Let's say, you get out there, you lose weight, you feel great, you've done it in a year. Now what's next? And usually we kind of do that and then either we continue to retain that habit and it's no longer a goal, it's just a lifestyle, or we go back to our old ways and we go back and do some things that we were doing in the past and it's just okay, that's done and dusted. I like to think of it, of what am I doing that you know. So if I'm doing a goal, what is it going to do? That's going to change my life. How is it going to make my life better? How is it going to further my lifestyle? And that's why I play now.

I'm more focused on a long-term perspective and for me to order to achieve what I've achieved today, it's taken multiple years of reps, of experience and application, small steps over a long period of time and going through the cycles and motions of learning and redirecting and problem solving and figuring out how do I make this work. And when I first started my business, my reselling business on eBay, when I just started this podcast as well, I wanted to do $100,000 in my first year, $100,000 revenue. I was like I can do this, this will be fine, this will be easy, and I figured I had it all figured out. Jeep is four months in. I realized we are not going to make it. And when you realize things are unattainable, you start to back off. Now, why were they not unattainable? Sorry, why was it not attainable? Why was I unable to attain it?

A number of things here I didn't do the research of understanding what is it going to take, what is the experience required, what are the reps required, what are the action steps that are required and the consistency and the ability to know how to sell stuff better. Look, I'm not going to say we did bad. I think we did 55,000. We did half of the 100,000. Now, if I hadn't set the $100,000 goal, maybe I would have only done 30,000. So there was some level of push, push, push. Now, the next year we ended up doing I think it was around 86,000, somewhere here. We didn't quite make it to the hundred, but we really improved, right, we really really improved from the, from the 55 or whatever it was. And then the third year, which was the end of last calendar year, we ended up doing I think it was 126,000, which is just, you know, just incredible. And then I think from there we've moved up to yeah, because we've only done 21, 22, 23. Yeah, so you know, it might've actually been high, it might've been 160. That might've been the financial year, but you know, this calendar year alone like I kid you, not for 2024, at the time of me filming this we're on track to potentially do 213,000. So, as you can see, there's been this.

I guess the only way to kind of this compounding effect. It's snowballed and it's getting bigger and bigger, because I can take everything in year one, start to apply to year two and then take lessons of those and apply it on top. All of a sudden you're doubling down to better results. Then same for year three and then same for year four. And now I understand that the reps, the experience and the application of those reps and experience are the things that's really the bread and butter here. That stuff is what's going to get you to where you want to be.

You can have smart goals, you can have habit-driven goals. They all kind of tangle into the same mess of a ball. But at the end of the day, if you're not taking action and if you're not moving forward and if you're not really moving towards where you actually want to be going and then taking the lessons and learnings along the way, then you will never really see that growth. I think SMART goals are really great for smaller goals around outcome, based on maybe a one to three month basis, maximum one year basis. A one to three month basis, maximum one year basis. Habit-driven goals are great for you wanting to be able to, yeah, achieve a new version of yourself in a timeframe of maybe one plus years. But the one year is to get to the outcome and then beyond that is more so for to maintain a lifestyle.

The stuff I'm talking about is I'm looking for big goals with small steps and because I know that in anything in life, it takes time to become better. It takes time to be a better version of yourself. What I know now I did not know 10 years ago who I am today and my values and what I understand is not the same as who I was 10, 20 years ago as a kid. Different perspectives as a kid, different perspectives as a teenager. Different perspectives as a young adult, different perspectives. I'm not even old, I'm 33. Now things have changed again. I've got complete different perspectives. I'm able to apply things that I've learned along the way and I'm able to execute more effectively and efficiently. The only way I've been able to do that is because I've been able to continue to take from my portfolio of small steps, of reps, of experience and application, to really focus on purpose over performance and being mindful in what I'm trying to achieve.

When we identify the purpose of things and that's why I said why are you doing things? Why are you wanting that goal when you have the purpose, the performance doesn't necessarily become the key kicker of you being able to perform right, because when you do something with purpose, you'll naturally already got the attention, the care, the kindness, the love and the passion for it. Therefore, that enables you to perform. And when we're mindful about our goal setting, emphasizing on, is this going to give me well-being? Is this going to give me personal fulfillment. What is the gratification from this? Is it for short-term or is it for a long time? And it balances some level of achievement along the way. So you're doing great, you're feeling fulfilled, you're, you know, you're doing it in a way which is making you happy, you're not stressed and you're also achieving things and kicking butt. I mean that's incredible, right?

I think the other thing we need to really bring into play here is what's it called Intrinsic motivation. You know, when we have goals that are personally meaningful or they're driven by desires other than external rewards, I think we will have a better outcome. I know, in the short term, I think it's easy to be motivated because we're going to get something in the short term, like a reward or something externally. Maybe it's in the long run that will not enable you to go the long mile, the long run, the long way, because you're going to want more of that, to be able to do more of that. Right, it's like why we get stuck in a job.

Let's say you're earning $100,000, you're, you know. You're working the nine to five. It's good, okay, not bad. Things change. You're working the nine to five. It's good, okay, not bad. Things change, cost of living goes up. Now all of a sudden you're like I can't do this. This is getting stressful for a hundred thousand. I can't justify it. All of a sudden they say we're going to give you 150,000. Stick around, we'll do another year. You're like, okay, not too bad. Right, it starts to numb it and it gives you this quick relief, but in the long run, you're not really dealing with the stress, you're not dealing with the work-life balance, you're not dealing with the issues it's creating in other areas of your life, it's not dealing with your health. All it is doing is helping you justify it. Okay, right, allowing you to say, yeah, no, I'm happy to sacrifice this to get that. Whereas when we have our own motives and we can bring that into it and we can really have it tied back to our core, to our roots of our richest desires, you will thrive so much more. I think.

Visualizing this understanding what do you want to see? Visualizing it, talking about it, writing it down, journaling on it and working towards it. Because then you can start to see Visualizing it, talking about it, writing it down, journaling on it and working towards it, because then you can start to see the things happen. I know what I want in my business, and the more of it comes to life and the more of it becomes more in grasp. There's still lots of things I need to do before I can get to that ultimate goal, but they're happening. And they're taking their time, but they're happening right. We're ticking them off. So I think one of the pain points here though and not to contradict what I'm saying about, you know, big goals is they can become a little bit overwhelming, and that's why I think sometimes you just need to slow down If you know you can and again, I talk revenue and I talk business because that's relevant to me at this point but if I know I can do, if I did $60,000 this year in revenue, I know I can do it again because I've done it.

So therefore it's okay. Naturally, we should be able to increase that. So let's let's see if we can go up Right, and from that lesson knowing that I couldn't hit a hundred thousand the first year, I hit 55, let's see if we can just do. Let's aim for the same number as a base minimum and see if we can increase it by, you know, maybe 20% right, and see what we can do. Once you do that right, you know you just continue to do what you were originally doing. You take the lessons, you apply it on top of that and then all of a sudden you're able to now do on top of that. So if I was to go ahead and say, okay, we did 60,000 last year, 100,000 last year, let's do a million, how do you 10X all of a sudden? Now I'm not saying it's not possible, that's not what I'm saying, but by putting that big pressure on you, you can tend to overwhelm yourself and it becomes too big of a mountain. So therefore, you back away, you step away, and it's also another point that kind of backs up.

What I was saying before is a lack of clarity. When we do not have a meaningful understanding of the goals, how they align to our personal values and the purpose, this can result also into misaligned efforts. Why are you doing it? You're doing it for what sake? For someone else's benefit, or is it for your benefit? So when we remove the detailed goals and the smart stuff around it and we just really focus on okay, this is what I want to achieve, I know what I need to be able to do to make that happen.

From a breakdown perspective of like to run a marathon, I know there's probably 20 weeks of training there. If I haven't run a marathon in two years, three years, probably going to have to make that 20 weeks of training different to the 20 weeks of training that I was doing when I was running at my peak performance. So you can see how there's different details that need to apply at those different things. So when you break it down, understand what's required. Understand is this achievable, is this manageable, is this understandable and are you excited to do it? If you're not excited to do it, probably something you might not want to embark. I know we can do things on the basis of we want to get out of a situation, so we work harder, that's great, but make sure you understand why you're doing it as well.

I think the other thing to bring into account here is reflection and adjustment. As I said, when you've achieved something at an end of a period, reflect on it Most of all, take the lessons, adjust from that and then do it again, but better on top. You know you can. If you run one kilometer, you know you can run it again. Why can't you do it? How do I now run that one kilometer, either a little bit faster, a little more comfortable, or maybe we should go for 2K. If I can do 1K, how hard can doing it twice?

Then you start to realize a lot of it's in our headspace and a lot of it is just our own inability to actually be willing to step it up. But as soon as you jump over too big of a fence and you realize you bit off more than you can chew, that's where it will impact your ability to execute. I think. From there I mean, look, coming back to the core question again, what methods do I use to set and achieve meaningful goals? All those things. But now it's kind of like I know what's working. How do I continue to fuel that? How do I make sure that that's running really really well oiled? And if that's working, it buys me time back. It gives me time back because I don't have to fix it, I don't have to worry about it, I don't have to try and make it better.

But once something becomes normal for you, consistent for you, and you start to become complacent, 100%, you're ready to level up, you are ready to step it up, you're ready to now push to a next level and that would be my final point of this is, if you're sticking around and things are easy and you're just breezing and you're getting bored or you're not seeing the results that you think you want, which is usually higher results it's because you're probably complacent and you're just making it. You're too focused on. Okay, I'll just sit back and relax. You get complacent, and I'm not saying please, I'm not saying that you should just go work, work, work, work. What I'm saying is I understand why you're complacent. Is it because you're happy where you're at? So, therefore, how do you use that time to ensure that you don't become too confident, that you start to pull your attention away to keeping that thing well maintained? What I'm saying is you put yourself in a unique situation where you're now able to build on top of that and hopefully, you can take a baseline and double it or grow from that.

This applies to anything in life. You know it could be cooking. It could be, you know, growing a chicken farm. It could be running. It could be building a business. It could be cooking. It could be growing a chicken farm. It could be running. It could be building a business. It could be collecting Pokemon cards as well, I'm serious, you can change the angles, the narrative, the understanding of it all and fit it to the picture or puzzle that you're currently designing. It really is right. Take this and I would encourage you to understand what are the things that you're working towards. Think about it this week. We're going to be taking a break shortly from the podcast. We'll take a few weeks off, not this week, but I think next week's the last episode before we take a break.

But as we get to the end of 2024, start to think about what are some of the things that you want to put in place of consistency for the new calendar year? What are the things that have been working well this year? How have you achieved that? What are the results you've achieved? So now, how do you make that your base plate of just rinse and repeat going into the new year? And how do you now take what you know, level it up and then work on getting something a little bit better out of that? I guess reputation stream or workflow.

And again, I know I might talk very business, I know I might talk very relevant to what I'm doing, because that's all I can talk about, because I'm not doing your life, but see if you can apply the same mentality, the narratives, and bring that perspective across to what it is that you're trying to achieve. So, to recap, I don't really emphasize on the goal-setting techniques for the longer term. You do need to do that. For the shorter term, though, my understanding of how do I achieve meaningful goals now is the long term of where I want it to be 1, 2, 5, 10 years and what I'm working towards, because I know that, even though this goal right now, this business is going to you know, obviously it's a salary, it's a wage I have a detailed plan of one year at a time, knowing where I want it to be in a few years, but what does that look like in 10 years? The reason why that's super important is because, when you understand why you're doing things and when it's time to change or, you know, step away or to double down, it's good to know when those points are available right, because if you know, it's also in the same. On the contrary, you need to understand when is it? When do you jump off a sinking ship as well? So that's why I focus on that Small steps over a long period of time, focusing on the reps, on the experience and the application of rinse and repeat.

That's today's episode. Really do appreciate you being here. If you've got comments, you want to continue the conversation more than happy to do so. If there's you know. If this resonated with you, please, please, share it with someone else, send it to them, challenge them that this is what they need to hear before 2025, or, you know, before they start to do their next level of goal setting or as they're on their journey to create the lifestyle that they want. Really do appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day, cheers.