What If Joy Was The Real Finish Line (Vault)

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We rethink goal setting through a simple lens: how we want to feel, not what we want to prove. We share how slowing down, focusing on 1% shifts, and managing inputs brings better results with more joy and less grinding. 
• setting a goal that matters even if nobody knows 
• slowing down to speed up through smarter training and better efficiency 
• using 1% shifts to create compounding progress 
• managing inputs like schedule, frequency, and connection instead of obsessing over outcomes 
• noticing the high achiever trap of moving goalposts and earning joy through suffering 
• stripping out busyness and coping behaviours to find what actually matters 
• practising self-compassion when you pick the wrong 1% and choosing again today 
If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. 
And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs.

The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute

For women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.

We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.

If something landed today, there's more where that came from.

And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.

🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast
🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com
💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne
📷 @therealjostone

Transcript

Jo Stone (Host) 0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly dose of insight, wisdom, and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective, or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect, and reset. Let's dive in. What if I could share with you a different way to set a goal that

Welcome And A Quick Reset

Jo Stone (Host) 0:28

I have recently been working through? And most importantly for me, the amount of joy I'm getting about the journey. What are some multifaceted ways that we can solve problems or challenges, particularly when it comes to health? I am not going to step into the same old paradigm that I used to have, where

Setting Goals Through Feeling

Jo Stone (Host) 0:46

it was all about hustling, it was all about white knuckling. And working with my body coach, he's put on a program that works on the theory that you have to slow down to speed up. This is something that was very opposite to what I believed in. I was all about speed. And in actual fact, what this is doing is this is building your body up from the inside out. And that's such a beautiful analogy for how I have set this goal.

Slow Down To Speed Up

Jo Stone (Host) 1:12

I have set this goal as how do I want to feel? Why does this goal matter to me? And it's not about the accolades. This is a goal that I wouldn't care if anybody knew that I was doing. This is about me connecting into why am I doing this? And I want to do this because I want to try something in a different way. I want to be focused on the feeling that going for a run gives me rather than everything being hard and waiting until race day in order to feel that euphoria and feel that joy and feel satisfied and content. I want to get that every single run. So for me, this goal is about bringing some discipline back in terms of frequency of exercise. It's about challenging myself. I wanted to see what would happen if I followed one of the best in the world and what could be possible. And he's given me a goal time that I laughed at when he told me. I went, What do you what? I can't possibly ever run that fast. I said to him, I have done five or six or seven half marathons, maybe more. And I always hit a plateau, but I could never increase my speed. And what was really interesting is after doing all this training with him, he sent me off on a training run and he said, All right, Joe, I want you to go and run three K's. Don't put the handbrake on, don't worry about how fast you're running. I want you to run at a pace that feels really good at five or six out of 10. I do not want your sprinting. I do not want you in straining. And at the end of the three K's, hit stop and let's use it as a baseline and see how fast you run. Well, I did that and I ran those three Ks effortlessly and faster than I ever have run in my entire life. And let's be clear, I thought I was not running fit. I thought I didn't have a good level of cardio fitness. And yet, because of all the work I've been doing with him on the inside, it shifted because we've done it differently. We have slowed down. We have focused on those little 1% shifts that are needed in order for me to be optimal. I've focused on picking up my heels more so that I've got a longer stride. We've unlocked my hip flexes so that with each stride I go longer, so I'm much more efficient. This is all about how do we have minimum effort for maximum

The 1% Tweaks That Compound

Jo Stone (Host) 3:29

gain. Because I'm running optimally the way my body is designed to run, everything unlocks. And if you've been around me a while, you know that I love facts and figures. I love science and I love neuroscience and understanding that the way my program has been designed, it's all about maximizing my body's efficiency. I want to know that I'm not going to die at the 8K line because I flog myself. And while this is not about giving you a 10K run training program, I want you to understand that when you come at your goals in a different way, when you intentionally work out what is the 1% shift focus area that I can tweak right now that is going to give you exponential results. And what has to shift, though, is you've got to take your focus off just that end goal. You've got to stop it being about ego or about the insta-perfect. Yay, I finished. And how can you develop these goals in a way that means training becomes fun or doing the things leading up to your goal becomes fun? And too often we talk about managing ourselves to outputs. So by output

Manage Inputs Not Outcomes

Jo Stone (Host) 4:38

means that my success is measured by race day. My success is measured by the time I got on the finish line. But what I'm actually managing now is the inputs. I'm managing my schedule. I'm managing the joy. I'm doing this with a friend. So I'm making sure it meets my need for connection. We're holding each other accountable. We're sharing our running times. So again, I never used to do this with anyone because I was worried about being too competitive. I was worried about what they might think of me. I was worried about letting someone down. And so again, everything has been completely redesigned in order to focus on one of the 1% pieces that are going to make a difference. This is what I suggest you do if you think about a goal you have, a vision you have, a dream you have, an objective you have. If you look at all the things you're doing, are you putting all your joy in the achievement of the thing? Too often I see with high achievers, they put all their joy or contentment or relief when they hit the goal. But the moment they come even a tiny bit closer to the goal, they shift the goalposts and go, Well, I'm actually running really fast. I said I wanted to do this time. Now I should do this time. So there's no fulfillment. All the joy is

Why High Achievers Lose Joy

Jo Stone (Host) 5:51

removed. And this is what makes life really hard. It's why we white knuckle, it's why we push and then we lean into, well, there's not much joy here. Well, I better work hard because I've got to earn my joy. Instead of saying, you know what, in order to find the 1% of the thing that you need to focus on, either you can get a coach that's going to tell you what the 1% is because they can look at you from the outside, or you have to slow down. You have to stop and take a cold hard look at yourself and say, of all the things I'm doing, what's the 1% thing that's actually going to help me get to my goal, to that thing that I want? Because that's what matters. You know what stops us looking at the 1%? Is we're afraid we're going to pick the wrong 1%. Or there's too many 1%ers to choose from. So we get so overwhelmed, and then it's easy just to procrastinate. Or we're such a high achiever, or we're so hyper-vigilant that we're going to beat ourselves up because we chose the wrong thing. So when that's the case, just be busy. Throw in, I've got more work to do, let me work harder. And we push and push and push because working harder, even though it sucks the joy out of life, it's actually the easier thing for us to do. It's the thing that sits inside our comfort zone. And so we do it. I've had people on the phone to me who are working 80 hours a week. And they say, I'm really proud that I'm showing my kids a strong work ethic. I'm like, that's wonderful. But I'm pretty sure your kids might appreciate a strong work ethic if we can get you working 60 hours a week or maybe even 50. You might have a bit more time for them. You might have a bit more time for you. So this is what you've got to do. You have to learn to slow down. You've got to learn to find your 1%. You got to strip out what doesn't matter. You've got to strip out the busyness, all the coping mechanisms, all the behaviors you're doing, because you do not have the courage or the skills or the tools in your toolkit to stop and look for that 1%. I have gone to somebody who's the best in the world to find my 1%. And I'm continuously relooking at my mindset. I'm continuously saying, how do I find joy in this? The day that I'm recording this, I went for a long run. And it felt amazing. After my long run, I went to my favorite spot in the bush. So I celebrated. I filled up my cup. I didn't then feel guilty because I'd been out for a run. And then I was worried about the kids. I went, nah, I'm going for my long run. I'm going to make sure it finishes at my favorite spot. So I'm then going to take time out for me to celebrate my body's feeling great. To celebrate, I'm

Celebration, Compassion, And Your Challenge

Jo Stone (Host) 8:24

feeling no injuries. I'm feeling smooth. I'm feeling alive. I'm feeling like I'm working towards something. This is this intentional cultivation. It's the slowing down. And I know that come race day, I'm going to end up running faster than I could ever imagine. But what's more important to me is that I will look back over these four, five months that I've had this training program and know that I've done this differently, that I have lent into a better version of me, that I've broken some old habits, that I've found more joy. And that's what life's about. So I'm going to achieve my goal. I'm going to eliminate the suffering and the guesswork and the overwhelm. I'm going to do the things that we have to do in order to get a goal in a way that brings me joy, that brings me connection, that makes me feel fulfilled. I'm determined that it's not going to be hard because I'm slowing down and I'm focusing on the things that matter. I'm focusing on my 1%. So this is my challenge to you today. What needs to shift in your life so you can slow down? What is something that you are aiming towards, whether it's a health thing, a work thing, a family thing, a financial thing? What's the 1% that's actually going to make a difference? And how do you have the courage and the tools to stop, to slow down long enough to find the 1%, to give yourself compassion if you picked the wrong thing yesterday? Well, you can pick again today, to put down the imposter, to put down the beating yourself up, enough of the self-deprecation, enough of the grinding, and to tap into joy and enjoy the process. And the outcome will end up taking care of itself. So there's your challenge. Go and find your thing, your dream, the 1%, and set your goals, set them this year with a difference. Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. See you next time.