Confidently Beautiful with Ciera

The Mid-Year Reset

• Ciera • Episode 73

Share episode

Send me a text!

Ever feel like your New Year's goals have disappeared into thin air by July? You're not alone. This candid mid-year check-in explores what it truly means to set goals that enhance rather than diminish your confidence.

We dive deep into the reality of goal-setting—the successes, the struggles, and the goals that simply haven't seen the light of day since January. I share my personal journey with my eight personal and six business goals for 2025, from my improved presence with loved ones to my untouched herb planters still sitting empty on my kitchen counter. This transparent look at goal progress reminds us that perfection isn't the point—intentional growth is.

The episode offers practical strategies that have transformed my own goal-keeping, including the game-changing practice of setting goals as device screensavers, breaking aspirations into tiny achievable wins, and anchoring each goal to your deeper "why." Most importantly, we explore the freedom that comes with modifying or even completely dropping goals that no longer align with your current season, energy levels, or true desires. Remember, goals should serve you, not shame you.

What goals will you reset, modify, or celebrate as you move into the second half of 2025? There's still so much year left to finish strong and grow in confidence. If this resonates with you, please share it with a friend who might need this reminder, or leave a review to help others discover these confidence-building conversations. Let's embrace progress over perfection together.

Join my e-mail list: Click here

Take my skincare quiz: Click here

Buy makeup products here and help survivors of child sexual abuse

Shop Confident Expression Etsy Shop: Click here

Visit saprea.org to learn more about hope and healing from child sexual abuse

Visit Defend Innocence for resources on child sexual abuse prevention

Connect with Ciera on Instagram @confidentlybeautifulpodcast

Ciera:

You're listening to Confidently Beautiful with Ciera, a podcast to help you stay confidently beautiful, because we all have confidence inside us. We just need to bring it out and I'm here to show you how Body image, dreams, parenting, style, personality and more. Here we cover it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful. Ready to stay confidently beautiful. Welcome back to the podcast. I am happy that you have decided to tune in and listen today. Can you believe that we are already halfway through 2025? Like, I can't even believe it. I mean, the fact that we're going back to school pretty soon is crazy to me, but being halfway through the year already is wild.

Ciera:

This is a perfect time of the year to reflect on what you have been doing this year and if it is on track to what you've been hoping that you could accomplish this year. And the heart of this whole episode is about progress and grace and confidence in the journey. It's not about getting to the final destination or checking that box and finally doing something, but just being confident throughout the whole journey and reevaluating as necessary. How are you doing with your goals? Are you totally crushing them? Have you forgotten what they even are? Do you feel stuck or behind, or maybe unsure, or maybe you're feeling like the goals that you had originally set aren't really applicable to you anymore. It's okay if you're off track. This is your moment that you can reset this year.

Ciera:

This year, for my personal goals, I set eight personal goals and I set six business goals, and I feel like I am struggling with most of them. I'm not on track with a lot of them, but there are a few that I feel like I am getting closer to. One of my personal goals that I feel like I am on track this year with is to be present with the people that I'm with them. So when I'm with my kids, to be with my kids. When I'm on date night, to be on date night. When I am having a conversation with a friend, to like be all in on that conversation. So to make sure my mind and my thoughts aren't wandering, I don't have my phone out, I'm not thinking of the next thing that I have to do. I've been really trying hard to do that this year. I'm definitely not perfect at it far from it but I've been really trying to. One goal that I definitely have not done anything with is to learn about gardening. I wanted that goal this year I wanted to learn about gardening and like more about food prep, and I even got these cute I think they were from my mom for Christmas, these cute herb planters that like go on my kitchen counter. They've been sitting there since Christmas, empty, like no dirt in them, no herbs in them, and I just I have really wanted to do that this year and I just have not taken the time to do that. So that is one of my goals that I am not. I'm not ready to let it go. I want to keep that goal, but I need to definitely reevaluate how I can make that more practical in my life and learning more about that.

Ciera:

Another one of my goals that I had for this year is to budget monthly and stick to it. I've done pretty good, I'm going to say I've been pretty good. I definitely have done a budget every single month but sticking to it. That is where I've kind of struggled a little bit, but I am definitely getting better. One of my business goals that I have had this year is I want to have 100 items in my Etsy shop by the end of the year and in fact, while I'm sitting here, let's pull it up and see how close I am to being on track to that goal, because I think I have a ways to go. But that has been one of my big goals that I wanted to do this year is to have 100 items that I have in my Etsy store. So I have my Etsy store, which is fabulous and great, and it looks like I have 34 items in my Etsy shop. So I am definitely behind. I should be closer to 50 if I want to have 100 by the end of the year, but I would say I'm doing pretty well. I'm not super far behind, so that is really good news. Speaking of my Etsy shop, if you didn't know, I have an Etsy shop. I'm running a 20% off sale right now for everything in my Etsy shop. There's some really, really cute things. There's a lot of things about confidence. There's some cute spring and summery attire and some cute mama attire tumblers, sweatshirts, t-shirts. There's some fun things in there. So if you want to check that out, click the link in the bio and definitely look by the end of this month, which is July, because that is when the 20% off sale will end is at the end of the month.

Ciera:

Some tips for staying focused on your goals which have helped me this year are to keep your goals visible. So my strategy this year has been to have all of my goals as a screensaver on my phone, my iPad and my laptop. This has been such a game changer for me to actually remember what my goals are, because there's been so many years in the past when somebody said, so what are your goals for this year? And I had forgotten by February what my goals were. But this way I can actually remember my goals. Like if you ask me what my goals are, I could pretty much tell you all of them off, just off the top of my head, because I look at them every single day. So that has been really helpful. It's just that constant reminder. So it gives me constant intention to remember my goals.

Ciera:

Tip number two is to break goals into tiny wins. So instead of just saying get fit, like, like you could say that you're going to make a goal to move for 10 minutes today, you can build on them. So like if your overall goal is like you want to maybe lose 15 pounds, or you want to be able to lift a certain amount of weight or just, in general, get fit, then you can set little tiny goals along the way, like the moving for 10 minutes a day or get maybe 10,000 steps is too much for you, so maybe you just say I want to get 6,000 steps a day. Whatever those little smaller goals are, that will give you those tiny wins and then you can build on them and this will build your confidence and your momentum. Tip number three is to anchor goals to a why. I want to move my body daily. Why? Because I feel mentally clearer.

Ciera:

Connect your goals to your values and your identity. So I talk a lot about values, but if you can go back and think about, like, what are my values, what do I value, then that can help you to identify your goals and what you want to achieve from those goals. So just pick one thing that you can try this week, like that is maybe tied to one of your values, and try and have a goal that is tied to that value and that will anchor your goal to something, so that you're not just like doing this goal for no reason, but you actually have a reason behind it. And as we're doing this goal evaluation, this mid-year check-in, you may find that your goals need a reset. So sometimes our goals like they just evolve, like we're not who we were when we set the goal six months ago, and that's totally okay. Maybe we started working towards the were when we set the goal six months ago, and that's totally okay. Maybe we started working towards the goal and we realized that this was not something that really was aligning with us or making us feel confident or that we wanted to do. So you can modify the goal. You can just base, like maybe something new has happened this year that wasn't taking place in January when you set the goal, and so you can change your goal, modify it based on your new circumstances or your energy, whatever the new situation may be. You can reset the goal, like maybe it's just not aligning with your values or your current season of life, and then you can just totally reset it. You can just drop a goal. There's nothing wrong with just dropping a goal. If it is not working for you, if it's not making you feel good, if it's not serving you, then you can just drop it.

Ciera:

One example that I have is I always would think to myself I want to work out early in the mornings, before my kids get up. I can think of so many times when I set this goal, but I have found that the truth is I do not have the drive right now to get up before my kids. Sleep is winning for me right now, and so I am not going to make this happen. So for me, like I just can't be like wake up at 5 am, mom, that I know a lot of people love and do religiously, but I just can't do that right now. I need to get up when my kids get up. I need all the sleep that I know a lot of people love and do religiously, but I just can't do that right now. I need to get up when my kids get up. I need all the sleep that I can get and then I can start moving my body and exercising. So, instead of saying I'm going to exercise before my kids get up, I just say I'm going to exercise first thing in the morning. That means that my kids will be awake and that's okay. I've just had to modify my exercise routine around that.

Ciera:

So, even though I had the desire, I didn't have the capacity to do that. I don't have the capacity to do that. So I set a more realistic goal and I gave myself permission to let it go instead of letting it chip away at my confidence, because every morning would come and I wouldn't get up and then it was just eating at my confidence because I was not keeping that promise to myself and that was not beneficial for me and it was doing more harm than good. So your goals should serve you. They're not supposed to shame you. So make sure that when you're setting goals, you're just making them realistic for your current situation, your current circumstances, smart goal setting, moving forward.

Ciera:

So what resources do I currently have? What support do I currently have? What is my energy level? Consider, like, your bandwidth, like what's your mental load like right now? What is your family season? Do you have a newborn? Do you have a middle schooler who's getting up really early for sports that you have to get them to? What is your mental health like right now? Are you feeling like you're pretty on a high and pretty stable, or are you maybe struggling with some anxiety and you don't know how you're going to feel when you wake up in the day, waking up in the night and maybe having a hard time going back to sleep because of your mental health? And then also consider your time, like what is your time looking like. Do you even have time to put all the energy and time into a specific goal, or do you need to have a goal that is less time consuming?

Ciera:

Also, check in with your desire, because if your desire is not there, it's probably not a goal worth pursuing. Is it just pressure, like you're just feeling like, well, I should be doing this, or is it because you really actually want it? I think when I set goals, there's a lot of times when I set a goal because I feel like it's what I should be doing or what other people around me or other moms are doing, and I can definitely fall into that trap of feeling the pressure rather than this is actually something that I want for myself. I encourage you to write one to three of your new goals or updated goals for the rest of 2025. So I'm going to go through mine, I'm going to update mine. I'm the ones that I haven't even touched or that I maybe don't even necessarily want to focus on right now. I'm going to modify or update, and then I'm going to update all of my screensavers right, because I want them on my screensaver so that I have them, and then I am going to try and finish out 2025 strong and not feeling like, when December comes, my confidence is taking a hit because I didn't hit the goals that I wanted to. I'm just going to allow myself this reset and know that it is okay, and if I need to reset again in three months, then that's great.

Ciera:

You are not behind. The fact that you're taking the time to reflect is proof of your growth and that you actually are trying. Confidence isn't about perfection. It's just about showing up with intention and self-trust and listen to what your heart is wanting. Celebrate what has gone well for you so far this year and move forward with like, fresh energy, like be excited for the things that you did accomplish and moving forward with the things that you want to accomplish and the things that you are adjusting. There's still so much year left. We can absolutely finish 2025 strong and be wiser and more confident than when we started the year.

Ciera:

If you found this episode to be helpful, I would love it more than anything if you would share it with a friend that you think might enjoy this episode. And if you're feeling extra kind and you want to screenshot this episode, tag me in it. Share it on your social media. It would mean so much to me, or if you want to leave a review. The reviews help other people find the podcast and it helps me to know what content you are enjoying and what I should continue to share. Thank you for listening and stay confidently beautiful. Thanks for listening. Connect with me on Instagram @ confidently beautiful podcast and share this episode with someone in your life who could use a little reminder of just how amazing they already are. Stay confidently beautiful.