EP 160: Why SMART goals don't work for visionary women (and what to do instead)

Traditional goal-setting wasn’t built for visionary women.
SMART goals? Productivity hacks? Hustle culture?
They fall flat when your nervous system is in survival and your goals are shaped by performance, pressure, or proving.

This episode invites you into something deeper.

We’re unpacking why most goal-setting frameworks don’t work for intuitive, emotionally intelligent women—and introducing a new way forward.

Inside this conversation, you’ll learn:

• Why your subconscious mind resists “traditional” goals
• The six-phase Vision Activation Method and how it anchors your desires into your body
• What it means to set goals that are emotionally safe, strategically sound, and soul-aligned
• How to track success without relying on external validation or burnout-based metrics

Whether you’ve been stuck in a cycle of setting goals that don’t stick—or chasing outcomes that never feel like enough—this episode will recalibrate your entire approach.

You’ll leave with a powerful new framework for defining success, mapping your focus, and integrating your vision in a way that supports your nervous system and your next evolution.

Reflection questions to journal on:

• Where have I been setting goals from pressure—not presence?
• What version of success am I ready to release?
• What would change if I let my body lead my business?

Listen now and begin building a business from your deepest truth—not your conditioning.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Resource with Jessica Reed. This is the podcast for visionary entrepreneurs who are here to build a thriving business and luminous life, fully resourced from the inside out. Here we unlock the magic of inner alignment, emotional mastery, and energetic strategies, so you can lead with clarity, confidence, and ease. This is your space to shed what no longer serves you, embody your highest potential, and expand into the next evolution of your business and soul's work. You are meant for more, and it all starts here.

squadcaster-a7c6_2_03-31-2025_094830: 0:48

Have you ever wondered why you achieve the goals that you set, but you don't actually get any closer to the bigger picture that you're working towards or why you set goals and you don't achieve them? month after month, and you're probably likely internalizing that, oh, I just can't I'm not cut out for this. I shouldn't be running a business. I'm not good enough for what I'm doing. What if it's actually that your body is saying no to the very goals that your brain is trying to fall? And instead of being out looking for more productivity hacks, more focus timers, more fancy to-do list stationary, you actually need a way to listen to your nervous system and to set goals that are rooted in your truth. Values driven, not based on that need to perform or that pressure. Which is likely coming from that conditioning around. The more I do, the more I'll make, or the higher performing I am, the more I will be loved, valued, successful. In Search Your Story, you might even have a story that you are a high performing woman, and if you do have that story, and I have that story, I'm a high performing woman. But I have had to really define for myself what that means, so I no longer set goals from that space. I may get some hate for saying this, but I have thrown the smart goal setting process out the window because I don't believe that it works for visionary women. So today we are going to talk about what you can do instead. So welcome to Resource with Jessica Read. This is the space that we grow beyond tactics and timelines, and we anchor into what really actually creates sustainable soul led success. So today I am pulling back the curtain for you on my signature Vision Activation method. This is the VAM, the Vision Activation Method. This is a goal setting process that I have tried and tested for years with my. Self with my clients. We do this in my Mastermind. It is a six phase framework that integrates neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, somatic intelligence, and strategic clarity so that you can set goals that actually come first of all, that happened. And second of all, feed the bigger picture of your outcome because that is a piece that most people are missing when they set their goals in their practices. In their healing businesses, we'll set a goal. We want this much money or we want this many clients. But does that feed your bigger purpose? And that is, as I said, often where the disconnect happens. So this isn't a set your goals and hope they stick episode. This is really about learning how to anchor into your vision, into your nervous system so that your desires feel safe, supported, and then inevitable. So by the end of this episode, you'll understand why most goal setting methods don't work for emotionally intelligent, intuitive women like us. The six phases of my vision activation method and why they matter, and how to get out of hustle mode and into creation, sorry, co-creation with your desires. If you've ever done my business foundation's frameworks, then you will know that I talk a lot about co-creating with your business. And if you would like me to take you through this process privately, we can do that in a two hour breakthrough session. We can go through my whole vision activation method from start to finish and actually create clear, tangible goals that are firmly planted in your subconscious mind so that you are actually taking aligned action. There is a link to book a breakthrough session down in the show notes. So this is my experience, and again, smart goals have their place. They absolutely do. But in my opinion, smart goals were made for performance management systems, not for women whose gifts live in nuance, in intuition and deep emotional truth. Here is the thing about goals and about any action that you're taking in your life. Your subconscious, the part of your mind responsible for 95% of your actions. It doesn't respond to logic, it responds to emotion, it responds to repetition, and it responds to identity. And if you are chasing goals that your body doesn't feel safe holding, and you've heard me say this before, we can't out strategize our nervous system. We can't outgrow our current identity that we are operating from. If your nervous system doesn't feel safe holding the goals that you are setting, even if those goals do directly feed to that bigger vision. Or you are chasing outcomes that are rooted in fear or comparison or proving energy, then you are going to sabotage them every single time. And then just like I touched on in the introduction, you will likely internalize that to mean something about yourself that you already deeply believe. That just reaffirms that, every single time that you don't meet your goals. So I actually think that this way of goal setting can be quite almost damaging to someone's self-esteem if you are not aware of the narratives and the internal stories that are driving what you are actually looking for every single day. What I mean by that is, is the stories and the beliefs that you have, the core beliefs that you have about yourself, the limiting beliefs that you're operating from, the stories that you're repeatedly telling yourself every single day about why you aren't where you are yet. If you don't have awareness about that and you are using a smart goal system, that again, I believe was very much, is very much rooted in corporate performance. It is a measuring stick for businesses who are very outcome focused. I'll stop there. So the vision activation method is a combination of subconscious reprogramming, a combination of embodiment, a combination of bringing your goals into. Your values driven vision, and it is designed for women like us who are done performing, who are done pushing. Not that we are not high achieving, but we are ready to do that in a more held way. And we are done pretending that smart goals are enough. This framework, the VAM, I just like saying it the VAM. It brings together nervous system wisdom, energetic alignment, and CEO execution so that you can set goals that actually get met without sacrificing your wellbeing and unconsciously begin to take aligned action towards those goals as you begin to actually. Embody the identity of the woman who holds them. So let's walk through the six phases of the vision activation method. Phase one is all about somatic connection and embodiment. Do you know when I did this process with my mastermind last week? And by the way, this method just to jump around quickly, this method can be used I recommend using it at the beginning. Your year, whether that be financial year or calendar year, whatever you are working on. Use it at the beginning of your year and then repeat this process each quarter, repeat this process, come back to it every single quarter because as the year goes, your vision may shift, your focus might, might become completely disconnected from where you actually wanna be going. So it is really important to keep doing this, but once you have this process down pat and my mastermind is they've got the workbooks, they've got it all in the portal so they can just keep coming in and just re-implementing this process, it walks'em through every single step. And we did it on a live call the other day as well, and the very first thing that we did on this live call. Was not go, okay, what's what's our vision? Or what's our goal? The first thing we did was we came home to our bodies. We started by dancing. Everyone had their cameras off, and we danced. Because the thing is, that without that somatic connection. We can't actually determine whether we are making our goals, setting our goals from a space of survival or creation. We can't determine whether we are setting our goals from contraction or expansion or complete comfort zone because we are not connected with the messages that our body is sending us. You can't create a future from a body that is stuck in the past. So some ideas for Somatic Connection. It's completely up to you. As I said, we danced in the last Mastermind one, but this could be tapping breath work shaking any kind of, somatic practice, any kind of body-based practice. That is going to get you to come some beautiful stretching, some yoga directly before something that is getting you to come into your body so that as you move through this process, you can be asking yourself, does this feel expansive or contractive? Am I grounded enough to actually create from desire? Because if you are using these somatic check-ins. As you move through your goal setting process, then your body will reveal for you what is true, where you can push, where you are misaligned with what you are setting. So phase two is in vision and value alignment. So once we are grounded, once we are connected to our bodies and we expand into the bigger picture. And now I know there's a lot of this. Oh, future self. True to you all. What does your, big picture look like? All of those types of things that are out there at the moment. I wanna tell you why this matters for your quarterly goal setting, for your monthly goal setting, for your daily actions. There is a couple of reasons here. Connecting into. What kind of life you're actually building because life first, business second business is your vehicle to create the life that you want. And even if your business is a huge part of that life that you want, it is still the vehicle to the internal experiences that you wanna be having to the wealth that you wanna be building, to the experiences that you wanna be creating for yourself and for your family. And so if you do not connect back to this big vision, the big vision for your life as well as your business, then we do not know what we're doing this for. And again, we are setting goals because it's what we've been told to do. We're setting goals so that we can reach our performance targets. We are not setting emotionally driven goals. We connect to our vision, whether that be through a journaling, through a live scripting, or through an auditory meditation, we connect back to that big vision. And then we connect into our core values, and we just do a check of these every single time. Why? Because every step that we are taking should be moving us towards our big vision in a values driven way. And that is why this process is so different. This is why everything that I teach in every program is so different because we are really always circling it back to does this actually align with my core values? So what are your non-negotiables in terms of your values in this next chapter that you are goal setting for? It reconnects you with why you started this business in the first place, what impact you are here to have. Then it brings your desires into alignment with who you really are. So as you go through this process and you choose your way to connect back to your big vision again, you could be journaling, you could be meditating, you could be listening to an audio. If we are working together, I will take you through a really deep process in hypnosis to actually connect with that. But what I really recommend that you do check in with and why it becomes so powerful and why I like to take people through this process in hypnosis at least once a year, is because we want to be creating that experience all ready in your mind. This is the core difference between just setting goals and. Working with your subconscious to plant a seed in your subconscious mind, to connect to what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like, what you're touching in these moments, how your body is responding in these moments. The tiny details of this, the sea mis touching your skin, like to get into that depth of vision creation. And you might be thinking, gosh, do I have to do this every quarter? I would be connecting with my goals, with my vision every week in one way, shape, or form to keep bringing in those felt experiences. Because remember that your brain does not know the difference between a real lived experience and one that you are replaying in your head. That's why we can have such a visceral response to replaying something upsetting. You think about something that hurt you, that upset you, and all of a sudden your heart's pumping and you're having anxiety and you're like, hang on a minute, I'm not there anymore. That's not happening. It's exactly the same. When we are planting our future visions, when we can tell our brain that this is a lived felt experience, which we are creating with our mental rehearsal in depth, we are planting a seed. Within our subconscious, we are planting beliefs in there. We are choosing what programming we are entering each day with, and then our reticular activating system steps in and it says, okay, she has told me that of all of the billions of bits of information that I am bringing in, that I'm processing, filtering through, this is what's important. She is telling me that this is what's important. So if you are waking up and you are focusing on your goals and you've created them from a space of lack, you've created them from a, desperate energy, from a space of comparison, this person's hit. That's so I should be working towards that too. Then you are telling your brain to focus on that lack. If you have the stories that say, oh, I set the goal last time and I got nowhere close to it. I wanted the$50,000 a month income, and I only got 10. And then you get up and you focus on that. Then you are telling your brain what to look for. So we come again into our big vision and we create that experience. Therefore, we are planting the seed. Our reticular activating system knows what is important to us, and we reaffirm that each day with our aligned actions, which we'll get to at the end. So as you go through this process, as I mentioned, I want you to connect in with what it feels like, looks every single sense. If we, again, working privately together, we can do that in our breakthrough call. And then asking yourself, just checking in, what kind of life am I here to create? What values must guide every decision that I make? So craft this vision, identify your core values, and if you are doing this as a quarterly process, come back to the vision. Remind yourself. What impact am I here to have? What am I working towards that is bigger picture visions and get really detailed on that. So then we move into phase three, and this is where we are going into our success metrics, definitions. So most women that I work with have been chasing goals that aren't even theirs. And I was, this was me too. This piece is so important. This phase redefines success across all areas of your life, your emotional wellbeing, your lifestyle, your impact, your presence, not just your revenue or recognition. This is something I learned deeply from my mentor, Tracy. Defining your success metrics is so important because if you are purely focused, and maybe this works for you and that's fine, but I feel like if you're listening to this, then you are. The Embodied Entrepreneur, we do things differently. Okay? If you are just focused on the revenue, if you are just focused on the numbers, if you are just focused on the recognition, if you are just focused on external metrics, then you are likely missing. Those internal cues that are circling back to your big vision and whether or not you are actually taking action that's aligned with your values. So for you to have defined success across your emotional wellbeing. If I am successful at these goals, what is happening in my mental health? Because do you wanna achieve the$50,000 months and be unwell, burnt out, and unable to en engage your. Creative thinking mind because you are creating from survival mode. Do you want to create those$50,000 months and have your family life in absolute shambles? Do you want to create that full practice and have your full calendar and have your 20 clients a week and have your lifestyle completely impacted? And suddenly there's no time for your hobbies anymore, and you're doing all your session notes at kids' bedtime and you're sacrificing presence. You define what is success to you. Yes, across your business metrics, but also across other areas of your life, like your health, like your emotional wellbeing, your mental health, your relationships, your family life, your hobbies, your self care. And so this helps you to really know how will I know when I'm thriving, rather than just achieving, you need to be clear on what success looks and feels like for you across all areas. So at this point, you'd be choosing three to five or more holistic metrics that track your evolution, not just business milestone. So phase four is where we begin to get a little bit more strategic. This is where the core focus and the goal structuring is coming in, where we begin to become strategic without disconnecting from our bodies, without disconnecting from that flow, from that vision. We begin by choosing one core focus per quarter, and this is why I recommend doing this quarterly focus on one per one focus per quarter. What is a focus in your business that is going to take you to that goal? So that could be audience growth, that could be list building, that could be launching. That could be setting up systems. It could be that hiring is your focus for that quarter. And yes, the reality of business is that we will have other things that also need our attention and we might not be working on just one goal on one, sorry, major focus in our business. But what is that bigger focus? What is the thing that we know right now? Is going to really move us towards that vision. And then we break that down into three aligned goals that actually move the needle. So three goals that are measurable. So we are smart, can come in a little bit here. These three goals are measurable. They can be time-based, but that this is not the whole part of the goal setting process. Three clear goals that will step you directly towards that focus. And that focus comes in under your bigger picture. And each goal is filtered both through strategy. Again, moving towards that big picture, that one focus and two somatic alignment. How does this skull feel? We want it to feel stretchy. But is it coming from desperation? Does it feel completely safe? In which case, let's stretch it. And if you don't have that connection to your body, then you need to come back in again. Because for me, this is how we do a body led business. This is how we tune into our communication, our intuition, our whether whether we're sacral beings or, however you are designed to respond. This is how you connect into that. And if you are setting goals purely from your head, because it makes sense that you need to have a hundred more people on your list. But what if you feel into that a hundred people and that actually doesn't feel stretchy and we're not growing through that a hundred people on the list would be amazing in that quarter, but can we get it to oh 200? That feels oh, okay. Yeah. You need to feel in. Then once you've set these three strategic goals, and if we are working together privately, we can, we will make sure that these are needle moving goals. Okay. Because of, what I often see people do is make a huge disconnect between their core focus for the quarter and the goals that they set. And that's because a lot of people just don't know how to set goals and that's okay. Even had a brilliant question the other day in the Mastermind, like I just struggled to wrap my head around the difference between goals and vision. This is why we're breaking this down, and then you've set your goals and you check in. Do these goals ultimately align with my core values or am I setting goals that are completely misaligned? You just do that check in. And then a part of this process too is recognizing not so you can focus on it, but so you can bring it into your awareness, what may get in the way of you actually achieving this. What has gotten in the way in the past that you see. And then we would go through and we would really break that down because so often what's getting in the way is just stories. It's your perception looking for certain things and certain outcomes. So then as you look at your goals, you can reflect, does this goal energize me or drain me? Is it, is this desire rooted or is it something that I've inherited like I should? So by the end of this point, you should have three measurable goals that support your quarterly vision, but also. Work with your nervous system and the season that you are in right now. And this is why, again, we are making these aligned. We are activating them by planting our big vision into our subconscious at the very beginning of this and connecting in emotionally and connecting in with all of our senses. We then become clear on what those goals are that are actually gonna move us towards where we wanna go. And now we've set them. We go move into phase five, which is pathway mapping and action planning. So this is where I actually really like to, I often people go, oh, what are steps are you gonna take each day to create those goals? And I have an open head center in my human design. I look at a question like that and go, what? I don't know if you tell me where do I start? I don't know. And because we don't know that first step, what often happens. It becomes too overwhelming and we do nothing. So for me, pathway mapping, actually reverse engineers the goals. It's just imagine if, what do I imagine would be the step before I achieve this thing? What do I imagine would be happening right before that? And if you work that back, and in our workbooks in the Mastermind, we've got the pathway that you can draw on if you want to. But if you work that back for each goal. Into what do I imagine is happening right before this? Right before this? Then you will have mapped out steps to take, and they might not be lineal, some, they're absolutely not. But what you will get back to eventually is your very next step. And then if we're working on this together, we would look at all of those steps and identify which of those are actually necessary. Because sometimes we like to put in lots of additional things, and one of my skills is to be able to really zone out and to be able to, see the most effective way to get somewhere. So get all your steps. Know your first step. Now you do have a pathway to follow. Then you identify habits that are going to support you, beliefs that are going to support you. To get to these steps. So throughout this as well, we get really clear and, there's part of this process too, where in terms of our goals, we're getting really clear on our revenue goals as well as the goals that are gonna move us up to our business. And then we look at that big picture, these, this pathway, these goals that I've set. This bigger vision that I, this, sorry, core focus that I have and this bigger vision that I'm working towards. Do my revenue goals actually feed that, do my three business goals, my three core business goals that I am focusing on. Do they actually feed that? Everything becomes completely aligned and now you know your first step. We start to move into our phase six, which is our CEO execution and our daily integration. Every Monday in the mastermind we have our little robot friend come in and do a check in. What are you working on this week? Does it actually directly relate to the goals that you have set? Because what happens then is we get lost in the daily to-do list. And so many business owners, particularly I find people who are running practices where we are hands-on with our clients all the time. Maybe we're in that one-to-one setting. Maybe we're trying to grow our digital courses, but when we start as business owners, we don't know the difference between CEO level tasks, needle moving tasks and being in the business. Working it like working in the trees. We don't know the difference between that. And so phase six is, this is the integration phase and this is the alignment piece that most people skip. Not intentionally, but because they are really caught up in what there's going on in their day-to-day worlds and generally focused on operating from a survival mode. Okay, so this is one of, one of the things. Because it's one thing to set goals, but it's another to actually weave them into your daily rhythms, your decision making and your leadership. So when we are looking at our day-to-day tasks, I like to ask a couple of questions and ask these questions. No matter what stage your business is at, whether you have team or not, if you don't have team, learn to automate. That's actually our next grow call in the mastermind. In what month are we now? March. We are in April. The end of April, we are focusing on systems automation. So don't use the excuse, oh, I'm, I don't have a va, I don't have a team. It's just me. Don't, that's not an excuse. There is so many softwares, so many things that can help you automate. I love putting these systems into process. A couple of weeks ago, I recorded an episode about how we can create a business that holds us even when life gets tricky. These same processes and systems also hold our business so we can live in flow, so we can be in creation, so we can be in our zones of genius. And so when we anchor into these daily questions, easy for me to do. Do I delegate this? Do I automate it? Is it even necessary? Can I delete it? So again, is this for me to do? Is this a task that only I can do that's going to serve clients and make me money? That's strategic level. These are things your launch mappings, your core content creation. I'm not talking about all the repurposing, I'm talking about the Canva graphics. I'm talking about the core things that only you can do, the core message that only you can send out in your business. The core transformations that only you can deliver, the core sales conversations that only you can have. The core offer building that only your genius can bring. Is this for me to do? Can I delegate it? Can I automate it? There's probably a lot more that you can automate than you realize. Or is it even necessary? Does it even move me closer to that goal, that pathway, that core focus or my vision? Or is it something just to keep me busy? And so this phase six. Our daily check-ins and our we or weekly focuses, depending on whether your brain likes a weekly list or a daily list this keeps your energy clean and it keeps your execution intentional. And because we have intentionally broken this down, we have created this vision already. In your subconscious mind, your brain is actively looking for the steps, the opportunities, because it believes it is a real lived experience that you are recreating. Then your goals. Your goals happen. Your goals, yes, you get to tick them off. You get to feel that satisfaction of, I achieved this goal, or I've got really close to this number. But what you also get is this deep sense of alignment and fulfillment because you are moving towards that bigger vision. So I love this process. I absolutely love the VAM. It is such an effective way to set goals. And, not only set goals, but do them in that really amazing CEO level vision activating way. So what this method is really giving you is a way to use your body, not just your brain, to choose your direction. A roadmap for setting emotionally aligned goals that actually stick. A structure that helps you measure success across every part of your life, not just your Stripe or Instagram metrics and daily integration practices to keep you grounded, strategic, and clear. So as we wrap up this episode, I would love for you to reflect on where have I been setting goals from pressure not presence. And what version of success is no longer aligned with who you are becoming and what would change if you let your body step into more leadership in your business? If this method is landing and you know that it is time to start creating your business from this place, then I would love to take you through the vision activation method in a private breakthrough session. Or of course, we could talk about. The Mastermind, if that is something that you feel like is your next step. As I said, all of the things to support you to move through this process all lives inside of that portal in a private session. I will personally walk you through every single step of this process so you leave with aligned goals, strategic clarity, and an embodied plan that your nervous system can actually hold. So send me a DM on Instagrams at jessica.read.ilc and let me know. I wanna explore the vision activation and we can do that, or you can go straight ahead and just book it in. Book in your breakthrough call. There is a link underneath this episode that we'll send you there, and I cannot wait to do this with you. And I will just say breakthrough calls, they are limited. So when we get to a certain number on my calendar, it just cuts it off. Okay. And that's because I work at the capacity of, what I choose to with my energy. So I cannot wait to move through all of this with you. I would love to hear your thoughts on, how you've been setting goals and. I will see you in next week's episode.

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Thank you for tuning into resource with Jessica Reed. If today's episode spoke to you, I'd love for you to share it with another soul led entrepreneur who is also ready to rise. Make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and stay connected because when you are deeply resourced, you become unstoppable. Until next time, my friend, stay resourced. Stay radiant and trust in the magic that is you.