Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: Shatter Limiting Beliefs - Redefine Success - Chase Big Dreams
Cultivate Your Best Q2 Yet!
Apr 08, 2024
Erica Rooney
It is time for a GOAL refresh!
Why? Because January was THREE months ago!
It is time to reflect back on how you have been tracking towards your goals and evaluate - do I need to stay the course, or potentially make a shift?
In this episode, I review the exact formula I use each quarter to reflect back on my progress, evaluate where I am at - how far I have come, and what challenges I run into, and where to shift - and I teach you how to do the same!
Want my bonus guide? Send me an email - and I'll get it in your hands!
It is time to reflect back on how you have been tracking towards your goals and evaluate - do I need to stay the course, or potentially make a shift?
In this episode, I review the exact formula I use each quarter to reflect back on my progress, evaluate where I am at - how far I have come, and what challenges I run into, and where to shift - and I teach you how to do the same!
Want my bonus guide? Send me an email - and I'll get it in your hands!
Y'all know, I love a fresh start and we are officially in Q2, which is a fantastic time to have a really candid check-in with yourself. How is this you're going, how are you doing? Yes. It's only been three months, but you know how quickly those three months went. And that was with a January that seemed to last an eternity. These next three months are also going to fly by because Hulu it's summer. And then we are going to be halfway through the year. Y'all it is crazy. Time is just such a wild concept. But today's episode is all about how can we make the best use of our time and in doing so, I'm going to walk you through my exact formula for what I call the quarterly refresh. I'm going to give you all the questions and prompts that I ask myself at the end of every quarter to ensure that I am tracking towards my goals and where I need to get honest with myself about where I may have fallen short. But here's the twist and what makes this quarterly refresh so powerful. It's the mindset that nothing is a failure. And I'll share that secret with a little example in my life of what some might consider a flop, but I see as a stepping stone, You are listening to the glass ceiling and sticky floor podcast. The podcast. That will empower you to shatter the meeting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities so that you can live your best life. I'm Erica Rooney and I'm on a mission to bring more women into positions of power and keep them there. I'm obsessed with all things, growth and abundance. And I'm here to talk to you through the tried and true secrets. To get you to level up your career and your life. We talk about the hard stuff here. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear and burnout. So pull up a seat popping in near bed and let's dive in. All right. Y'all the quarterly refresh consists of three parts. That's it. Three parts first earth election followed by an official refresh. And then finally the action planning. It is so, so, so important. That when we hit one of these fresh start moments, which, you know, I love like a new quarter that we reflect back on where we've been now for me, I love the concept of monthly reflections. And also quarterly ones. So if I rewind all the way back to January, I asked myself. How am I feeling about my life? Now I like to look at my life in categories, work family, my marriage, friendships, fitness, and nutrition and personal growth. Yours might also include these or others such as spiritual community finances or something else. Totally different. At the beginning of the year, I rank myself in each of these categories that I deem important on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest one, being everything has got awful. How do I feel about each area of my life? So if you didn't do this back in January now is as good of a time as any to start. Right. How, which areas of your life matter the most, and then give yourself a ranking. If you've done this in the past, compare them. How are you ranking yourself today versus how did you rank yourself back in January? Now one super important thing to note here. Is that I do not ever want you to feel like you have to consistently go up, up, up in each category. That is not the goal here. This reflection piece is all about taking stock of your life. It's not about hitting all tens in every single category. Every time you check in with yourself, that's quite honestly. Going to set you up for failure and massive disappointment. It's about having that honest check-in to say, are there any areas in my life that I need to pay more attention to? Or are there areas that I need to focus on in a different way? So I'll give you an example in January. And health and wellness. I was on point y'all. I ranked myself an eight. I was feeling really good about how I maintained during the holidays and about my consistencies of the workouts that I was getting in. But this month right now. It felt more like a six or a seven. And when I got really honest with myself and I did a look back, I recognize that I, in January of all time had had way more sugar than I would have liked, or I would really like to publicly admit. And not as consistent with my workouts as I would have humped. So for me, I then ask myself, is this okay? Am I okay with this ranking? Now for me, the sugars that gave me a hard, no, it's not how I like to eat. It's not what I like to put in my body. It's not like me to be in John sugar as I did this past quarter, but I got into that nasty habit. So while my workout consistency, I was okay with it. I wasn't okay with the sugar I was taking in. So I need to cultivate my health a bit differently as I move into Q2, by cutting back on the sugar. Now another area was my relationships specifically. My marriage. Now I previously gave myself a four, which was like the lowest out of all of my categories. And I just, I felt really disconnected with Dan over the holiday season. And I was not where I wanted my marriage to be. Uh, I'd really slipped away from date nights and spending time together without the kids. And so over the past few months, like he, and I really put in the work to find a babysitter for date nights alone. And with friends, we started having more family dinners together and started being more present with him instead of on my phone. And we even talked with a counselor. So, you know what? I went up in that damn category. I now ranked at a six or seven. Now I still have a lot of work that I want to do in this area, but the point is I'm making progress and I'm really good with that because you're not going to go from like a four to a 10 overnight, you know, that's impossible. So for step one, the reflection list out the different categories. That mean the most to you. Family, marriage, job growth. Health finances, et cetera, and rank yourself on a scale of one to 10. And then ask yourself and be honest. How are you feeling about each category? Are there any areas you feel you really want or need to focus on? And then still in step one here, ask yourself over the past three months. Where have you seen the most growth and development, right? It adults. And then girl congratulate your damn self. You did that. But once you've done your little happy dance. I want you to ask yourself what goals need more focus. One of my biggest goals that needs work is ironing out my rhythms, how, and when I do all of the things that I do, I want to be more intentional with my time and less like fly by the seat of my pants. So that's where I'm going to be focusing my energies. Now I love to always ask myself at this point, what do I need to say no to this quarter, to help me with my focus areas. Areas. And what will I say yes to. Maybe you need to say no to meetings without agendas or making the bed every morning. PS, that's something I really need to do. And maybe you need to say yes to invitations out with friends. Now I'm personally saying yes to more creative time in my day and more revenue driving activities, more date nights and more reading before bed. But that also means I'm saying no. To endless scroll. Social media scrolling, and I'm going to need y'all to wish me luck and give you some support on that. Now step two, this is your official refresh. And it's also where we're going to talk about the mindset shift that is of the utmost importance to your success. Long-term. Take a look back at your goals from January. And if those goals still hold true. Or you're tracking towards them. Uh, amazing. Give yourself the gold star or reward yourself with a massage or a facial, but if not, instead of getting down on yourself, Calling yourself a failure or just giving up completely. Take a breath. And write out a refreshed goal. This refreshed goal might be a new timetable. For example, I wanted to launch a digital course in Q1 yall. Nowhere near happening. Did not happen for 1,000,001 reasons. But it's still a goal that I have and something I want to do. So I refreshed my timetable on this and instead of having it up and ready to go by Q1, I simply shifted the duty back to Q2. And honestly, maybe Q3, depending on how this quarter goes. Right now I'm keeping it flexible. Now another refresh for me is travel time. In January. I wrote out that I wanted one triple Dan, no kids. And then one trip with the kids. And, you know, we actually just got back from The Bahamas with the kids. So check down on that. One 50% of the goal is complete and we're only in Q two. And Dan and I are currently mapping out our 10-year anniversary trip. But what I also found this past quarter was that I was really craving some alone time for myself. So I refreshed my goal and I added that to my travel goal. Now you see the refresh is all about taking life in, as it comes and allowing your goals, the flexibility to shift. And not consider it a failure. All too often. I see people get wrapped up in goals that they aren't hitting just because of life. And they throw in the towel. They feel like they missed the boat or something. And that my friend is a bunch of BS. It's not a failure unless you stop trying. Now, let me throw this caveat in there that sometimes you need to take your goals and put them in a box and put them away for a bit. For example, if you wanted to run a half marathon this year, but you have an aging parent whose health has taken a turn. You may have to talk that goal away while you spend your free time sorting out that piece of your life. Or maybe you get an injury and you're unable to run and you have to do PT instead. Tuck that goal away. Don't toss it. You can always come back if you wish. Now the other piece is don't hold so tightly to goals that no longer serve you. I once had a dream to run a half marathon in two different states every single year, which sounds great and attainable on paper. But turns out it was a lot harder for me at this stage of my life with two small kids than I thought. I've gotten this beautiful piece of like wood art that hangs on my wall. All of my half marathon metals dangled from it. And the goal is like, after you run a half marathon, you color in one of the states and then they're all colored in. Well, no new states have been colored in since 2020 cheetah. Y'all legit. Still love this idea. And I still want to do half marathons and new states. I think that's a great way to travel, but I needed to let go of this goal that I could do two states in every year. Because it just wasn't going to happen. And it wasn't serving me at the stage of my life. So out the door goes. So step two. Refresh those goals. Ask yourself, what matters the most? Does this align with the areas of my life that I just acknowledged in step one that I want to focus on. What can I let go? What time tables do I need to shift? And where can I be more realistic? Remember, it's never a failure unless you give up. And even then it's not a failure. If it no longer serves you. One foot in front of the other one foot in front of the other. That's all you need to do. Now step three, which is the final step is action planning, planning this out, take those big ass goals, break them down into bite sized chunks. What do you need to do each month, each week and each day to hit those goals? You have to plan for the season ahead and a great way to do that is by establishing the monthly, daily and weekly rhythms. So, what do I mean by that? Let me give you some examples. Monthly. I always look ahead for any big events or holidays that I may want to plan content around. Are there any holidays coming up? Am I taking any vacations where I need to get ahead of some content planning? How can I make the most of this month from a scheduling perspective? I literally sit down at the beginning of every month and I do that. And I always try to then schedule the month out with my rhythms because what gets scheduled gets done. I also then each month look back, this is part of my rhythm. What is working? What isn't. How are my numbers tracking? What is my revenue look like? Did I hit my targets? Why or why not? So all of those are monthly rhythms. Weekly rhythms are meal planning, scheduling workouts and clients. Making sure the family's aligned on what's going on. Activity-wise and then daily rhythms are all about the habits that I want to cultivate or keep going, such as physical activity, nutrition, gratitude, journal, flossing, my teeth, even et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So. Now it is your turn. Think about your monthly, weekly, and daily rhythms and what they need to look like. The truth is the smaller you can make this next step. The more likely you are to take it. When you regularly break down these goals and you reflect back, you learned so much about yourself. You accomplish so much more and the best part you grow, you feel proud of yourself and you aren't just wasting away. The days. Girl, you are living out your dreams day by day, week by week, moment by moment. So take a look back, reflect on how you did, what do you need to say yes to what do you need to say no to and refresh your goals and then plan it out and start dealing with it. Now I highly, highly, highly recommend taking an hour out of a day. One day where you can have quiet and no interruption. And focus on these three steps. Get really clear about your goals and start taking action. This will disrupt your life and it will change how you look at your goal tracking for beat better. Now I will 100% be checking in on you. To see how you're doing and how you're tracking towards these goals. And remember, I'm always here to help. All you gotta do is holler at me. So thank you for listening and tuning in. If you haven't already dropped that, five-star review do it today. It truly helps it land in the hands of the woman that needs to hear it most. And don't forget to jump over to my socials, to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Tik TOK. I dropped some really great Phoebe's over there. So you do not want to miss out. And until next time, remember the only ceilings that exist are the ones we place over ourselves. Let's smash through them together.