The Mindset That Helps You Follow Through and Achieve Your New Year Goals in 2026 - EP # 234

Happy New Year, Diamond Effect Podcast listeners.

In today’s first episode of 2026, we’re talking about goals—but not in the fluffy, “new year, new you” way. We’re focusing on the mindset that actually helps you follow through past January… and definitely past February.

Because setting goals isn’t just about writing down a number. It’s about becoming the kind of leader who can stay consistent, make better decisions, and keep moving forward even when the plan gets messy.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why the New Year is a powerful moment to set goals (even if you don’t “wait for the perfect time”)
• The 3 categories of goals that keep you motivated and grounded
• How to stop letting timelines sabotage your belief and momentum
• Why progress goals (KPIs) are the real secret to achieving big outcomes
• How to build the habits, systems, and mindset that make consistency easier

The 3 types of goals to set (and how to think about each):

1. Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs)
   Your 3–10 year vision that fuels you. These goals help you focus less on “how” and more on who you need to become.
2. Short-Term Goals (Annual goals)
   Your 12-month target (revenue, number of clients, etc.) that should feel ambitious—but still believable enough that you can stand behind it and take action.
3. Progress Goals (KPIs)
   The weekly/daily actions that keep you on track—so you can measure what’s working, adjust quickly, and celebrate consistent progress.

A mindset shift I want you to take into 2026:

If you don’t set goals because you “just want to see what happens,” you’re leaving your future to chance.

And if you don’t set goals because you “don’t want to be disappointed,” that’s not protection—it’s avoidance.

The real work is building a healthy relationship with goals: using them to guide you, not judge you.

Mentioned in this episode:

• EP # 231 (Dec 12, 2025) - From Idea to Action: The Small Business CEO’s Guide to Making Things Happen in 2026
• EP # 213 (Aug 1, 2025) - Stop Playing It Safe with Your Dreams: Why 10-Year Goals Should Scare You Into Action
• EP # 130 (Jan 5, 202$) - How to Achieve Your Goals

Want help planning your 2026 goals?

If you’re listening before January 13, I’d love to invite you to my complimentary online event:

Design Your Success 2026

Jan 13–14, 2:00–5:00 PM EEST

We’ll set your 2026 goal, identify your top 3 focus areas, and map out the actions you’ll take weekly and monthly to make it real—without overwhelm.

To join, email me at: maggie@stairwaytoleadership.com

Transcript

Happy New Year. My Dear Diamond Effect podcast Listeners, I hope 2026 is your best year yet. I wanna thank you for showing up week after week and listening to the podcast, taking actions, taking value out of it, and staying. Loyal and staying committed to growing your business and growing yourself, and I hope that we can spend 2026 together, whether it's every week, whether you come back to whatever episode, talks to you, speaks to you.

I really appreciate you being here. I wish you all the best, a lot of health and happiness and love and wonderful moments in 2026 wishing you that all your goals and dreams come true and not come true by some sheer miracle, but [00:01:00] because you will be the one creating the opportunities, staking the action. And doing your part while trusting and believing in universe and God working with you to bring you and to create the best life and the bus business you have.

So with that, I wanted this very first episode of Diamond Effect Podcast soon. January 2nd, 2026, to be about goals. Setting the goals, achieving goals, and ultimately the mindset around goals. Because if you listened to episode 231 from December 12th, you know by now that I really believe that when you decide to go after something to achieve something and so on, you don't wait for the right moment. You don't wait [00:02:00] for the new year to start going after it. You make the right moment and you do it as soon as possible. But having said that. A new year is definitely a great moment, not only to rethink things and reflect back on the old year, but also to use.

That circumstance where our brain is more open than ever to change to trying something new. To put goals onto paper, make resolutions, and use that moment to your advantage. Start with your brain. Playing with you, not against you. And then set yourself up to success through habits and some support to continue throughout the year, not fall out in February to achieve your goals.

So that's why I decided that the first episode of this podcast for 2026 [00:03:00] will be about goals and especially about. Mindset around those goals so that I can help you follow through, stick to your goals throughout the year, and with that, accomplish them or come really close or blow them out of the water.

Achieve more than you ever thought you could.

So I like to think about goals in a couple of categories or categorize the goals and have a little bit of different thinking and perspective onto them. The first category is your big hairy and audacious goals. When you dream big, when you have a vision of what you want your business to be, what do you want your.

Ideal pie in the sky life look like, and those goals direct you. They make you passionate, right? This is what [00:04:00] you're passionate about, what motivates you, what keeps giving you the fuel. Whenever you think about it those are the ones that you're obsessed about. And it's really the way to set them up is to think about what do you really want?

Not what you think you should or what you feel like you want because others have those things. This is really those goals. I always think about connecting to who you truly are, to your values, to your. Moral and desire compass and being honest with yourself of what you want and what you want, not just based on your belief, whether you can accomplish it or not, but removing the disbelief or any limiting thoughts you have and thinking about if I could create anything [00:05:00] in terms of my business and my life.

Money was no object. Skills was no object. What's possible or not? Didn't matter. What would I truly want in being honest with yourself and not? Editing those goals, not judging those goals. So those are big hair and audacious goals and I talked about it a little bit more in episode 213 from earlier 2025, where I talk about stop playing safe with your big dreams.

So I definitely, we'll recommend you go back to the podcast and also listen there. But these goals, those are, let's say. Three to five to even 10 years from now. Goals that you can put on your vision board, and why I like to give them a longer timeline is to make it believable for your [00:06:00] brain that this is possible.

Right when we dream big, giving ourselves too short of a timeline, let's say we dream even in your business, right? Let's say right now you are at a hundred thousand dollars annual revenue and your big dream is to have big business with big team, helping a lot of people having big mission, and you're thinking I wanna have a hundred million dollar business.

And if you give yourself only a year to accomplish that, very often. That can become a limiting. Thing because your brain will keep trying to figure out how to do it and keep telling you, we don't know. It's not possible. It's too big of a goal. When it becomes a self-sabotage instead of motivation to being innovative and trying things and doing things you're scared of, right?

Giving yourself a longer timeline in those big, hairy, audacious goals allows you [00:07:00] to believe it's possible even without knowing how you will get there. Because when we're dreaming big, we're really thinking about something we've never done before. But at a large scale, and from our current perspective, it's difficult to figure out, how am I gonna get there when I'm miles, miles, miles away from it?

But if we've given ourselves enough timeline, we can believe it's possible. So what that goal does, what it should do to you in terms of the mindset of perspective is to help you figure out. First, who do you need to become to achieve those goals? Not how to do it, but who do you need to become? It should prompt you to start thinking about if I believe I achieve those goals, and I put myself in the shoes.

[00:08:00] Me, my future self who have achieved these goals, who is that person? Because it's definitely a different version of me, usually better version of me, more of who I am, a person who doesn't have certain limiting beliefs than maybe I have a person who developed and mastered certain skill sets that I don't have yet,

a person who makes. Different decisions, tolerates risks differently, solves problems differently, overcomes challenges differently, and going on a journey to understand that version of you and start acting like that person is really. The goal of having those big goals to put yourself on that journey. And also the important work is honing that belief, not only believing it's [00:09:00] possible, but getting yourself to.

Believing that this is done, not possible, that it's going to be done, even though you don't know how, even though you don't know how long it's gonna take you. But trusting in your own ability, having confidence in your own ability to learn anything, to figure things out, trusting in God or universe, whatever you believe in, to helping you on that.

Believing in a bit of magic that if you. Go on that path and you do your part, the universe will take care of you, okay? And building that trust that this is done, you're gonna get there. And the more you do that, the more of the future self you become. The better decisions you make, the more you see how you accomplish those goals.

And I would say that [00:10:00] this is an ongoing work, when it helps me especially, is if I am faced with a challenge or if I am, in one of my low moments where I. Don't believe things are working or when I had a bad day, whatever. If I put myself in the mindset of future Maggie who accomplished the big, hairy and audacious goals I have, it very quickly shifts my perspective and how I feel about my current challenges.

What do I do, what decisions I make, and so on. So it's a regular work that you should be doing, but it's a great mindset setting. Hack, if you wanna say, if you wanna call it that way. Okay. The second types of goals are more of a short term goal. So again, we're starting 2026. I always encourage my clients, the business owners, to set in annual revenue [00:11:00] goal, or at least the number of clients, depending on what type of business you're in.

So for example, if you are a home service business. Or medical health, or health and wellness, medical business, I would definitely. Recommend annual revenue unless you're just starting and you don't even have set up the prices and so on. Maybe you can set the number of clients if you're in financial type of services business.

Maybe it's asset under management or some sort of financial goal because, so when you set that goal, this one you wanna set. As an ambitious goal, but achievable in a sense where you can stand behind it and say, okay. I know how to get there. I can figure it out in a year. I believe that if I do this, learn this skill [00:12:00] or adopt these strategies or get this type of help and sowan, I can achieve it, right?

So you always wanna raise the bar you, unless you have really personal stuff going on where you decide to in your business okay, this business this year, we wanna. Repeat period, I'm gonna have a baby, or there's some other personal stuff, that's okay. But if you are in the growth mode, you always want to put a goal that's growth, but believable.

Again, one that motivates you to act, motivates you to do things differently and grow as a leader. But doesn't shut you down when you're like, this is impossible. I can't do it. Okay. From there, you will be able to figure out your focus areas and think about, okay, what are the key things that I need to focus on, and then my team members need to focus on [00:13:00] in order for us to achieve this goal.

I'm pretty sure I talk about it more. In detail in episode 130, so a little bit of an older episode on how to achieve goals. I highly recommend you go back and listen to that one as well. As you can see, I've created more than one podcast about setting and achieving goals because I think it's so important.

When we want to live a life on purpose, when we want to be intentional about how we're growing our business, where we're taking our business, and not be victims of falling into certain hassle, right? Or overwhelmed because we didn't set things intentionally.

The focus areas are very important. Because they do keep you focused, right? It's so easy to get distracted once you go into [00:14:00] execution and action mode. But when you have selected the things that only you as the CEO can do, and whatever only your team members can do in order to. Achieve your annual goal.

That still should be aligned with, of course, your big hairy and audacious goals. It keeps you away from this attractions and when you get very effective with your time, you can really work smart, not hard. Focus is the most important things in achieving, in getting to where you wanna be. Faster, simpler, easier, and without overwhelm.

It will also allow you to figure out when you have focus areas, no more than three on what you need to outsource, right? [00:15:00] What are the things that maybe should be done, but you shouldn't be the one doing it that you need help with? And then once you have the focus areas and within that, activities that need to happen, then of course execution of that consistent throughout the entire year, not just in January and February is key for you to getting where you wanna.

So here, in terms of mindset, what I wanna say is that sometimes I hear people or early on business owners saying, oh, I don't set goals because. I just like to see what happens. And to that, I wanna say if that's how you operate, then you're leaving your future to chance. And no wonder that maybe at the end of the year you're disappointed because you secretly [00:16:00] had a goal that you didn't maybe articulate and then you didn't get there.

Because you weren't focused on achieving it and you lot things to chance. Another thing that I sometimes hear is oh, I don't set goals because I don't wanna be disappointed if I'm not gonna achieve them, this is an excuse because the whole point of setting goals is to teach yourself to become a person that sets and achieves goals, and also has a healthy relationship with those goals.

Meaning the timelines that you set, the type of goals that you set. They're all, you get to decide. There's no right or wrong goal. You get to decide what's right or wrong. It's always arbitrary. So then. Nurturing and building your relationships with your goals. When they're motivating you, when they're focusing you, when they're showing you the path and not [00:17:00] discouraging you and making you feel bad about yourself, is the work in terms of mindset.

So that's why I, there was a third type of goal that I like. To then focus on throughout the year. That is more of a progress goals, your KPIs, ones that are small, that are achievable, that are reachable on a daily and weekly basis. Ones there specific enough when they allow you to be a scientist in your business where you can analyze and figure out.

What's happening as you're taking action towards those goals and be proud of yourself on a regular basis and do celebrations of achieving those progress goals. And if you're not achieving them, you can easily [00:18:00] see why this is happening. You can fix them, you can improve on them. If my short term goal, let's say, is to make X amount of income or sign X amount of clients, is that okay? How many clients do I need to sign? What strategies am I gonna choose to bring in potential clients into my sphere of influence? And then, have sales conversations with them and so on.

So let's say a progress goal could be, I'm going to send. A hundred connections on LinkedIn a week or a month, and then start conversations with those people, right? With whomever accepts my conversations. If I achieved it every week, I can celebrate saying, Hey, I'm doing what I need to be doing to achieve my short term goals and my.

Big, hairy and audacious goals, if I haven't seen those connections, then I can look back and say, why is that? Is that because I didn't plan for [00:19:00] it, I didn't manage my time well? Or is that because I have some thoughts about it that made me procrastinate and avoid, and I can address those thoughts?

Coaching is amazing for that. But then I can easily see. Why I achieved something or I didn't, and what do I need to do to keep going in the right direction or fix and redirect myself to go on the path that I wanna be.

So those progress goals are really what we should focus on day in, day out, when we're working towards. Short term goals and BHAs. And maybe as I talk about it, it sounds to you like, okay, this is boring. But the big mountains are conquered by boring, slow, mundane, step by step, moving forward.

And the big goals are [00:20:00] achieved by taking one step at a time. Day after day, week after week, month after month. So the day to day is what achieves those goals. And in the beginning you might not see that, but as you keep going, at some point you'll look back and you realize, oh my God, I'm there. Or I'm way past that.

And I achieved so much just by focusing on those small steps. So the key to. Getting there or doing that consistently. There's few things. First of all, learning to love or at least appreciate that journey. You don't need to love all of it, but appreciating the journey because that's the journey where you grow as a leader.

That's the journey where you help your clients one by one, right? Step by step, and. You get to do it. Nobody's forcing you. There's always other choices in life. You choose to do it. [00:21:00] Therefore, appreciating the mundane, the boring, or loving it is key. But to make it easy and simple for yourself, habits and systems are key.

So setting up learning how to be very effective with your time. Through habits, mindset changes, but also systems in your day-to-day life in your business, for your team processes and so on. Make everything doable and as simple as possible. And also if the challenges come up, it's easier to solve those challenges when you have those processes, systems, and habits in place.

That's what all high performers do. That's how whole all successful people do. 

Because it's all in execution. That's where magic is created, and [00:22:00] those who know how to be consistent, allow their goals to guide them. To show them where they're on track. Where they're off track, they're able to. Realize that quickly. And then those who learn how to get themselves back on track by being a scientist in their business by understanding what part of my small progress goal I'm doing wrong or what else do I need to add to get back on track, are the ones.

Who achieve their big, hairy and audacious goals. So being a person who sets and achieves goals isn't really about achieving them within the timeframe and you thought you needed in the first place and within the exact same effort or strategies that you thought would get you there in the beginning.

[00:23:00] Because when you are trying to create. New outcomes in your business, in your life that you've never created before. Anything you think in the beginning that is needed. It's just a theory because of course you've never done this before. And theory will not match the reality a hundred percent of the time.

It's just not logical, impossible. Think about. Constructing a new building. I've had, my background is in commercial real estate, facility management and construction partially, so sometimes I have those examples from construction. When you construct a new building, people who create, architects and general contractors that plan out that constructions, they've done probably similar buildings many times over, [00:24:00] and even then, the projects hardly ever.

Finish at the exact same timeframe and the exact same budget with the exact same efforts and swan that was planned before. Now, if you are good at it and you've done it, you have experience of doing, of constructing building, you'll get very close to it, but hardly ever you'll get exact thing, especially in a bigger, complex project.

And we're talking here about things that have been done before. So now bring yourself back to setting and achieving new goals, something that you've never done before. Of course, your initial predictions. Not match exactly the reality, and that's okay. That's totally normal, but this is not, or that shouldn't be an excuse to abandon your goals or feel like you're not good enough, like you don't know what you're [00:25:00] doing just because the final outcome at the end of the year.

Was different or it took you 18 months to achieve a 12 month goal. Of course, we're always happy to do things ahead of time or faster, but that doesn't happen every single time and that's not a problem at all. So the key thing about becoming a person who sets and achieves goals is becoming a person who creates the business and life that they want, who whose outcomes in lives align with what's important to them, and through that process.

You become a better version of yourself. You learn how not to give up. You learn how to manage your mind to not derail you from achieving the goals that [00:26:00] sometimes feel hard and unachievable. You become, you master yourself, how to handle challenges. How to solve problems. You acquire skills that you maybe never thought you would acquire before you problem solve better.

You become better at making decisions. You grow your confidence, so who cares if it takes you longer or requires more effort than you thought?

The pride that you get from. Doing the things that need to be done every day and every week from reflecting back, and not just once a year, but on a regular basis, weekly, monthly, on how far you've come, the things you've tried, the few you've overcame. It is so rewarding and you'll be so proud of yourself.

It's all worth it. [00:27:00] So now, because we're still, so now, if you are listening to this episode before January 13th and 13th, I want to invite you to join us for a complimentary free online event Design Your Success 2026. It is for ambitious business owners who wanna set their 2026 short term goal.

Figure out the three focus areas that will get you there, along with strategies and actions you're gonna take daily, weekly, monthly, and really have a clear plan that can guide you to achieving that goal. While still having fun, masterminding, and networking with fellow business owners, it's January 13th to 14th, two to 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

If you're interested in joining us, email me [00:28:00] maggie@stertoleadership.com. Happy to have you.

Happy New Year, everybody. May, 2026 be the best year yet because you make it. Because of the skills you develop, the better and bigger version of yourself, who of whom you become, and the mindset and perspective you adopt as a leader. All the best and see you here at Diamond Effect Podcast next week.

Bye.