The Soulful Leader Podcast
The Soulful Leader Podcast
Aligning Goals and Meaning
The resolution and goal frenzy is loud - and frustrating. What if there is a richer path?
Stephanie and Maren kick off the year by turning goal setting on its head. They reframe why we set goals, how we measure progress, and what actually sustains motivation when the novelty fades.
👉🏻 Instead of chasing numbers to prove worth, they explore how to build meaning like a skill.
👉🏻 They unpack a pivotal shift: goals are less about the finish line and more about who you become on the way.
👉🏻 They expose the danger of borrowed metrics, insightfully discuss why removing every roadblock dulls growth, and share how to recognize the subtle indicators of inner growth and transformation.
👉🏻 You’ll hear how to unlock connection and joy, as well as how to rewire stress responses.
Their personal, candid stories of burnout, rebuilding, and small reframes that changed everything, map a path from external validation to inner alignment that you can apply right away.
If you’ve ever experienced goals as heavy, joyless, or strangely empty even when you hit them, their conversation offers a practical alternative. Are you ready to…
- align challenges with your deeper why
- choose battles that genuinely grow you
- craft an inner story that stops the blame/shame monster and creates motivation instead
Today’s podcast offers a better scoreboard—one that values resilience, clarity, and heart alongside outcomes.
✅ Subscribe, share with a friend who’s rethinking resolutions, and leave a review telling us one small reframe you’re trying this week.
REFERENCES
9:57 Daniel Goodenough The HuPerson Project, Caravan of Remembering
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In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering: is this really it?
Maren:Deep inside, you know there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.
Stephanie:That's what we invite you to explore with us.
Maren:We're your hosts,
Stephanie:Stephanie Allen
Maren:and Maren Oslac.
Stephanie and Maren:And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.
Stephanie:Yay!
Maren:Welcome to the Soulful Leader Podcast and Happy New Year. We're super excited to be here. My name is Maren, and I'm here with Stephanie. And everybody is in the midst of this goals and New Year's resolutions. And I found that people are either in the midst of it and like knee deep and like head over, you know, head down butt up, as Stephanie likes to say, head down, butt up, go, go, go, or it's just tossed to the side. So you've got both of those camps going. And I wonder for me, and I think for Stephanie too, she can speak to this. I've moved away from goals not as an absolute, more from a place of meaning. If I don't have the meaning, the goal that I'm pursuing or that I've set or that I've been convinced by society or advertising or my parents or my kids or whomever, that that should be my goal, and so I've taken it on - it loses its luster and it becomes really frustrating. And oftentimes we don't know what we want, what the meaning is in our lives. We're not connected to it. Even though our head might tell us that we are, when we truly look into our hearts, we go, Oh yeah, I'm not.
Stephanie:I think in a world where we have so much, everything comes easy. Everything is available to us just by a click. You know, we can order something, we can get the quick fix of it. And I think it takes away from our internal capabilities to look in and say, what is it that I am really seeking? Because I think a lot of things are already there for us. And so it doesn't give us that internal, almost that internal struggle of like, oh, I want this, or I, I, I want to give that, or it's already there.
Maren:So it's interesting because what I'm hearing is you're looking at meaning like a skill. Tell me about that.
Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, it's like that that kind of thing that we are trained through schooling is that you know you need to get to the next level. So there's certain steps and practices and and skills you have to have in order to pass the test to get to the next level. And I don't know about you, but I know in in Canada here there's been a removal of even that, that people just get pushed along because we don't want to hurt anyone, we don't want to leave anyone behind, but ultimately people are showing up at higher levels of grades, not being able to read or write or have comprehension. So it is indirectly actually hurting not only themselves, but to you know, our society. So I think we're still caught in that skillfulness of like looking at it as step one, step two, step three, when really that's all been gone, but we're still so habitually addicted to it that we don't know how to stop. It's I always say it's like you know, having a full load in your in your vehicle and you don't have any brakes and you're going downhill and you're like, oh man, I can't stop. But I know I, you know, we're in that direction anyway.
Maren:So you mean that we're addicted to the achieving to the next level, next level without actually having built the skill, which was, so the way I think about goals is that the reason I have a goal is not to achieve it, it's to build the skill. It's like something changes in me as I'm moving towards the goal, and then I realize oh, that wasn't the goal at all. And I have a great example of a time in my life when I was not able to do that. I owned a ballroom dance studio, and many of you know that. And I beat that dead horse because I really thought that my success should look a certain way, and I hadn't gotten to that particular number that I had in my head of here's what success looks like. And that was my goal. It was my goal, I was gonna make that or I was gonna die trying. And unfortunately, or possibly fortunately for me, the second actually happened, I I tried so hard that I burned myself out and I had lots of problems, physical, mental, emotional, and otherwise. And it wasn't until I could look back, hindsight is 2020, that I realized that my goal was developing all of these things in me that I really wanted to develop. They were already developed, and I just kept going anyway. So now I was in that burnout phase.
Stephanie:So were you looking at the external validation of success versus the internal change of growth that was happening within you?
Maren:Yes, absolutely. I didn't, I wasn't looking at, you know, so that like we were saying, the skill, I wasn't valuing the skills that were built, the internal changes, who I had become over the years of doing these things. So I lost track of me in the pursuit of the external goal.
Stephanie:It's so fascinating, isn't it? It's like because we really can't measure in the way of our current evidence-based kind of reality, of although there is a way of measuring it, but it's more of a, a subjective rather than objective.
Maren:Meaning measuring my own personal,
Stephanie:Yeah, you have to look within yourself to say, well, I used to be this kind of person. And through this goal setting, through this, you know, this year of trying to make something happen, I actually have seen my internal change. Now, people close to you, like you know, that love you and that are in your sphere frequently may also see that, but that's also subjectively. You know, somebody doesn't know you, doesn't, you know, well, who were you before and who are you now, and who are you after? You know, it's it's different.
Maren:And and it's not numbers on a spreadsheet. Yeah. And that was what I was raised to value and appreciate, not who am I? I mean, yes, there was a part of my life where I where I definitely was taught to value that and be a good person and all of those things.
Stephanie:But even what does that mean, right? Be a good person. What does that mean? According to who, according to what? Like, what does that even mean? That's also subjective.
Maren:And this takes me back to the very first thing we started with like, if there isn't meaning, your why, like a deeper sense of meaning behind your goals, then they just become these outer movements and they lose their luster really quickly. And that's what you're saying of like, without the meaning, then we don't have a measuring stick. And now the measuring stick becomes what somebody else sees, what somebody else values, what like the outer, the external. Right. And we don't have that internal place. So you've lost in two ways. One, because you're not truly attached or really interested in achieving the goal, so it won't motivate you. And two, you have no true good measurement. So you'll end up like me getting burned out trying to do something that is no longer meaningful, because originally the the studio was super meaningful to me. And I did great things with it, and then it started to go, because I did that inside.
Stephanie:I was gonna say, because that is also a practice of like whether it's a relationship, whether it's a business, whether it's your health, whether it is, you know, whatever it is, it's like to find meaning in it. Like I often will say, like, how can I fall in love with this? Like something that is that is so annoyingly difficult, or like, what do I have to do this? I will trick myself to say, How can I fall in love with this? How can I make this have meaning so that I can stay present and and be in it without feeling like I'm a victim.
Maren:Thank you for going there, because that's I think what I was looking for when I asked you earlier. Like, you're you're talking about meaning like a skill. So talk to me about it as a skill because we assume that it's either there or it's not. It's not something, and I disagree with that greatly. Um, and that's thanks to very much to my own teacher, Daniel Goodenough, who his entire life has been dedicated to each person's individual meaning for why we're here on the planet. And each of us has a unique individual, like literally, like our fingerprint is unique. Our meaning, our why for being on the planet is unique. And we're not taught to look at that. We're taught to be a good member of society. And I love that you asked, like, what does that mean? This we got takes us back to meaning again. Because for each of us, that will be different. And yet
Stephanie:And it changes, it changes, it changes as you grow, as you change, as you it it's gonna, like you'll see this in relationships and people I've lost the, you know, I've lost why I'm even married anymore or why I even want to be in this job. And you know, there's there's the way of fear. You can make meaning out of fear of like, well, if I don't take this job, or if I, you know, what's gonna happen to me, or you can make it out of love. And that takes practice, it takes effort, and it takes guidance. Like, you have to really take some time to look inside of like, well, why is this so important to me? And and if I don't, you know, make you know, don't fulfill this, like the relationship or the job or whatever it is, I let it go, what would that mean? And maybe it means nothing, maybe, or maybe it means a lot of things, but I think to be able to sit with it, not try to figure it out, but just to sit with it. Because sometimes I feel our souls are being asked to do something that our the animal part of ourself goes, I don't like this. This is really uncomfortable. But we're actually meant to evolve that animal nature so that we come from more from our heart rather than from our gentiles, you know, from our lower chakras, meaning power and control and self-esteem, self-worth, but to come from that place of like what if this was yeah, inspiration. What if this was the last time I'd be with this person or the last time I would ever be here in this body or in this life or in this way, which in some ways is actually really true because we are always changing. It's like what would be important and what could you make meaning without making it anxious, but to make it inspirational, yeah. And that is a practice to change that inner dialogue, to change that inner connection.
Maren:There's something that I'm kind of uncomfortable with of like making meaning. And the reason I'm uncomfortable with it is because it kind of feels fabricated, right? Like, and I get, I think I get what you're saying of like, let's make this important so that I'm I'm building that skill of I understand how to show up differently instead of showing up in a grumpy way. I uh a great example of this um with my own family. I, you know, going into the holidays with family, it can be challenging. And I often go in with the attitude of tolerating it. Like, all right, I can do this. And this year I decided to do it differently. I decided to go in with curiosity and in interest of being like, who are these people? Like, not just I guess that's the the thing is with family, we assume we know them. And it's like, what if I didn't know them? Who are they? Who would I, who would I get to know? What what would I find fascinating about them? And when I when I did that this holiday season, it really truly changed everything for me. I had a completely different experience with my family. And I had so much fun. At one point, Jeff's like, okay, you're ready to go. I was like, already? And normally I'm like, um, look at the time, don't we have to go?
Stephanie:Yeah, you're more present and time goes away and your heart opens up and not so much judgmental.
Maren:So I'm thinking that that is kind of going back to my uncomfortableness with this making of meaning. That that's kind of what you mean of like I've made I just made something meaningful out of that. Is that what you're talking about?
Stephanie:Yeah. You let go of the stories of your past and and your judgments and your, you know, shoulda, coulda, woulda, ought-tos, but you just go, okay, you know, what if I could show up totally fresh with no past, you know, and be curious and and ask myself, you know, like what if, what if I if I was meant to do this? What if my soul was actually asking me to do this? Like, how could I have to shift to shift that internal, that internal narrative to actually be present to it? And it's not fake in some ways it is kind of faking it, but it's not really. It's more of like it's like when I say to somebody and they say, you know, when they come in for a session and they'll say, I just want to be out of pain. Okay, is there another way to say that that is more inspirational? Because when you're pushing something away, pain, it's gonna take energy and effort. And, you know, if the pain wasn't there, you know, what would be there instead? It's like, well, I would feel more at ease in my body, and I'd be more flexible, I'd be more relaxed. I said, Well, let's focus on that. It just it's the same thing. They'd have more relaxation, more freedom, and there's obviously there'd be less pain, but we're not focused on the pain. So this is kind of what I'm saying is like that internal of like with the relationships or with the jobs or with it with a goal or whatever it is. It's like we tend to look at what isn't working or what we wish would go away. Instead of going, well, what is there that I can that really nourishes me, that really brings joy and inspiration that I can put my attention there on.
Maren:I appreciate that distinction because when I was thinking about meaning, when I was talking about meaning earlier, it was much more from like that deeper level of why I'm on the planet, like my real, like deep meaning. And there is a level of making anything that we do- You know, there's the the mystics say that how we do one thing is how we do everything. And what they mean by that is what Stephanie is saying is like if I show up grumpy to one thing, I'm probably somebody who shows up grumpy to everything, and I can shift that by changing how I show up and changing the meaning. Um, you could maybe call that the story, and so looking at pushing away versus moving towards of using that as a you know, a shift of meaning or a shift of of story. And then there's almost a deeper, there is a deeper level of meaning, of like what is that essence that's in you that that truly is your why for waking up in the morning. And we most of us don't know what that is. And so it it's uh, it's hard to wake up in the morning and we need our coffee and we need our moment to be grumpy and we need all of the stuff, and when we really connect into that deep why within us, that gets easier.
Stephanie:Yeah, the more you do something, the more entrained it becomes, the more natural it becomes. And that that that's also like even being, you know, cranky and grumpy. The more you do cranky and grumpy, the more you become cranky and grumpy. Like it's it it does. And I'm not saying that you don't feel that which is uncomfortable. I think that's important too, but it's really like what part of you is showing up to the uncomfortability? Are you making a story about it? Or can you just observe it? So here's an example of like, I often will say, like, what story are you telling yourself? Like if you have this internal story, so let's use pain again because it's the most familiar to me. When there's an experience of pain, we can go internally and say, I wish pain would go away. I wish there was something different. I wish I was feeling better. But we have this other story about the pain. It's like, oh my God, I'm old, I'm it's only gonna get worse. And we kind of go on this. I call it a mini-series. It's not even just like a dialogue, it's a mini-series that has like a full-on beyond movie, epic movie. It's like it's like series. And we've gone on this whole story for a long, long, long time. And it's changing our body. Our body is now moving into fight or flight. It's trying to protect us, the hormones are raging, you have all these different things. So it's it's creating this whole plethora of inner chemicals that may or may not actually be helpful and may actually be contributing to even more pain. And that's why I say, can we reframe it? Can we find it? Yes, the pain is there. But so is the relaxation, so is the rest, so is the permission to ask for help, the permission to receive. There's so many beautiful things about it. If we can start to train ourselves, like to be the observer, there's that triangle again, you know, the pain and and the possibility, the health, the well-being, and then the the the middle ones like, can we can we be present to both of those and help to draw up the new story? Like, what would be the new story? Not to make, because I think we're so caught in making pain go away, but what if? What if pain was actually helping us become present to the gifts that are being hidden? I I just I just have a different story around pain.
Maren:Well, I think it a great example is what you were talking about earlier. When we're not challenged, we don't grow. Yeah. And we're you had mentioned the the school systems, which are taking out the challenges, right? Let's remove all the roadblocks so nobody feels like they are inadequate. We don't want to make them feel bad. And when you remove the roadblocks, that, that also removes the the path towards growth to actual learning. And there's all kinds of studies and proof around the fact that we learn best when we're challenged, or that we actually learn when we're challenged, right? And so without that, we don't grow, we don't change. And we could look at pain as a challenge, it's our body's version of challenge. And if you talk to any athlete ever, right, we challenge our muscles by breaking them down so that they can get built back up again. And I mean, this is the process of goals. So they're, they're, all of the things that we're talking about are all interrelated, right? They're all versions of the same thing and having a different perspective on it. Like my mother hates exercise. So for her, the the afterburn of working out was horrible. I love working out, I love that feeling of like, oh my god, it hurts. It hurts so bad. Like, because I know what it was doing for me because I was an athlete. But that's that internal dialogue that I'm talking about.
Stephanie:Yes. Exactly so you have a different internal narrative than what your mother has about it. And if we can help to listen or pay attention to make space for that internal dialogue and shift it, it changes who we are for the better.
Maren:And when we can look at not what we're missing, oh yeah, I still haven't built those muscles, or oh yeah, I'm still in pain, or oh yeah, I still haven't reached the number that I wanted at my studio. And we can shift it to I, look at the, you know, like because there is pain, that means that I'm growing, that means that I'm working, that means that I'm moving towards that, that means that I'm changing. There's something in me that's growing and changing. What is that? And get curious about that. Then then it becomes an exciting journey instead of a daunting journey or an overwhelming journey.
Stephanie:It's like that old saying of like, you know, we need to let kids eat more dirt because it builds their immune system.
Maren:Yes.
Stephanie:Right? So it's like you cannot get the same cold twice, you can't get the same flu twice, you can't break the bone in the same area twice. You just can't. Your body becomes so much more resilient, so much stronger. And so if we eliminate those obstacles or those challenges, then we don't actually grow stronger. And I'm not saying that we want to be addicted to the things that are painful and suffering and all that kind of stuff. We want to challenge ourselves in a way that is inspirational.
Maren:And that takes us back to the meaning. Because if we're just challenging ourselves to challenge ourselves, yes, there's a certain amount of growth that's happening for what? Towards what?
Stephanie:Yeah, is it aligned? You know, is it aligned?
Maren:When we can do it from that deep meaning that I was mentioning, and that's where the challenge was well, am I making money meaning? Am I making meaning, or am I connecting to my own deep meaning? Because when I'm connected to my own deep meaning, then which of these pains and which of these obstacles is mine to actually move through becomes so much clearer. And then I don't have all the excess of it, right? I don't have to, I don't have to tackle everything. I can let some things go. That align, I love that word, alignment. So our wish for you this 2026, this year, whatever year you're listening to this in, because this will be around on the internet forever, I'm sure. And our wish for you is to be aligned in your pursuits so that you have you're connected to your meaning and that the stories are gentler and inspiring.
Stephanie:And you're clearing out those internal dialogues that are creating pain and discomfort within you. Like, what, how can you restore them so that maybe the outer world hasn't really gotten to where you want it to go, but your internal is very different. How you're showing up is different, how you are with yourself is different, your inner narrative is different. And that actually makes a huge impact in the world, far more than actually doing something in the outer.
Maren:It does. And if you're interested in doing that with us, you can always contact us. You can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn and on YouTube at Soulful Leaders. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you in a couple weeks. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at the Soulful Leader Podcast.com.
Stephanie:Until next time.