The Yes...And Podcast with Claire Darr

Season 1. Episode 11. The Yes...And Podcast. New Years Resolutions in April!

Claire Darr Season 1 Episode 11

In this episode of The Yes...And Podcast, Claire discusses the importance of embracing life with courage and purpose, focusing on the concept of New Year's resolutions and how they can be revisited at any time of the year. She emphasizes the significance of setting goals, reflecting on intentions, and creating a vision for the future. Claire shares her personal approach to monthly goal setting and assessment, highlighting the importance of celebrating progress and overcoming limiting beliefs. She encourages listeners to design their lives according to their desires and to seek support when needed.

Follow me at @iamclairedarr

Welcome to The Yes… And Podcast, where we explore what happens when you say yes to life, embrace your purpose, and step into your fullest potential.

Hosted by Claire Darr—former corporate lawyer turned executive coach, wife, mom, and passionate believer in intentional living—this podcast is your guide to creating a life you can’t wait to wake up for.

Each week, we’ll dive into inspiring stories and practical lessons, blending soulful conversations with actionable strategies to help you overcome self-imposed limits, find balance, and build a legacy of joy and fulfillment. From courageous entrepreneurs to everyday heroes, our guests share how they’ve said yes… and to faith, family, career, and the adventures of life.

Whether you’re a busy professional, a working mom, or someone feeling stuck or overwhelmed,The Yes… And Podcast is here to empower you with the tools, mindset, and inspiration to dream big and live boldly.

Life is too short to play small. It’s time to say yes to more—and discover the yes..and life you’ve been longing for.

Subscribe now and join the movement toward a life of peace, purpose, and boundless possibilities.

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Interested in working with me, all the links here: https://linktr.ee/clairedarr



Well, hi, hi. I am coming to you today on April 30th. It's a beautiful day. If this is a special day, it happens to be my wedding anniversary. And you'll see the topic is New Year's resolutions. Okay, no, I haven't lost it. No, you're not listening to this on the wrong day. I didn't record this back in January.

I am actually sitting here in April, the end of April of 2025, talking about New Year's resolutions. And when I say the word resolution, I know it'll bring things up for people. It's the word resolution has gotten a bad rap lately. And I think it's because people don't keep them and it's, it's thought to be like, kind of worthless, pointless, you don't do it. So why say you're going to do it, you know,

You'll set a new year's resolution in January and by the end of January, you've already broken it or given up on it or whatever. So I don't care what word you use. Use resolution, intention, goal, dream. I'm going to use goals and dreams together and separate and interchangeably. I'll use the word intentions. I might drop in the resolution every once in a while. The gist is you figuring out things that you want that are important to you, that you want to have happen, achieve, do, be.

in the year, right? That's what we do in January. And most people put a ton of pressure on themselves in the beginning part of the year. If you haven't sat down and done your list of New Year's resolutions by, you know, the second of January, you're a loser, you're never going to achieve anything. It's pointless. You might as well not do it. And I felt that way for years. I put so much pressure on myself to have it all done the first or second day of the year. And

Let me just tell you, it doesn't happen. It's not happening for me in my house. The first second of January, the days that I take the tree down, take all the Christmas decorations down, get the house all clean and fresh and ready for a new year. And I like doing that on that day. And I'm not gonna sit in a reflective place at that time of year. What I aim to do is at some point before the end of January.

Sometimes it's happened like the second week in January. I really don't put a whole lot of pressure on myself, but at some point I want to sit in quiet time. It's usually by the way, after the kids have gone back to school, ⁓ quiet reflective time, thinking about what I want, what I want to achieve, targets, goals, dreams, things that are important to me to happen in that coming year. And ⁓ I really don't get caught up in when it's...

when it happens, I really don't get caught up in when I do this exercise. I think a lot of people took themselves out of it if it doesn't get done early enough. And when in reality, you've got a whole year to achieve something. So if it doesn't get done in the first few days of January, don't worry about it. Do not worry about it. Just give yourself the gift of that time. So I did that.

I did actually do it back in January. I sat down and it's written somewhere in one of my journals, somewhere here. If I really had to, I'd put my hands on it, but right now I can't. And I spent some really good reflective time journaling. had journaling prompts. I thought ahead to what I wanted to achieve in 2025, what I wanted 2025 to look like. I honestly don't remember every single detail. I know one of them has us sitting on a beach.

⁓ celebrating New Year's Eve ⁓ on a beach somewhere. I've always wanted to do that. That's one of my goals, dreams for the year. ⁓ Always wanted to do that.

But the detail of the rest of them, I can pull it up anytime, but it became kind of relevant, not relevant yesterday. So here's what happened yesterday. Here's why I'm saying, do your New Year's resolutions now in April, or do them tomorrow in May, but do them in the next week. I felt this drive calling desire to...

do some New Year's resolutions again. And it kept bugging me. This thought kept coming to me. I'm like, Claire, it's April. Seriously. Why are you doing this? ⁓ It's not a good use of your time right now. It's the end of the month. You've got a lot going on. You've already done it. You know, go use those notes. You know, go pull out that study guide. You know, I was kind of thinking of it that way. Like you've already done the homework. Don't do the homework again, Claire.

And but it kept coming to me and coming to me enough where I wrote it down on my on my daily to do list a few days in a row. And finally, yesterday, I had an extra hour and a bit of time this afternoon that I wasn't planning on having. And I was like, you know what, I'm darn well gonna do it right now. I am I'm gonna sit down with my journal and come up with my New Year's resolutions in April and just see what happens. And

I And let me tell you...

Today I woke up with a new sense of purpose and energy that just feels incredible. I mean, I'm tingling. It's like it is tingling out of my fingertips. The things I'm excited about, the things I want to achieve, the goals and dreams that I have. ⁓ Yesterday after I did it, I felt that same energy. I felt clarity. I felt aligned. I felt just in tune.

that makes sense. Things just in the world felt right. And, and so I want to walk you through what I did, how I did it. It's not a one size fits all, but maybe you'll make your own interpretation out of how I did it. Maybe you'll do it exactly like I did it. ⁓ Maybe it'll just inspire you to do something. But I encourage you to do this exercise soon. If

if nothing else, for you to feel how I'm feeling right now, for you to feel some momentum, some drive, some energy, some excitement, that aligned feeling of, wow, okay, what am I going to do for the rest of this year and beyond? So what I did yesterday is a little different to what I've done in the past. And ⁓ I'll segue for a second if you'll bear with me.

I do and if you're a client of mine, you know I do this, I do this personally, I do this with my clients, I encourage everyone I know to do this. I set goals every month as well. I sit down the first few days of the month and just kind of get clear on what I want to achieve, what I want to have happen that coming month. And it varies from health and wellbeing to business to family to whatever. And just whatever comes to me. And... ⁓

And I have it sitting on my desk there as a guide. ⁓ It drives my action every day. It drives my priorities every day. When I sit down at my desk and I've got a million things to do and the procrastinator in me. Yes, I still battle procrastination. The perfectionist in me, I still battle, battle perfection. All of that is just avoidance and fear, by the way. Looks at that list and says, all right, what will move the needle?

what will help me achieve my goal this month, what will make progress on it, what will crush it, what will at least get me further forward. And I do those things first. having my monthly goals ⁓ really does help drive my action every day, making some progress towards meeting those goals. Now, at the start of the next month,

I sit down, I do a little, you know, gut check, a little inventory, a little audit. How did I do? Let's look, you know, if there's nothing better than checking something off, right? Check, did it? Yes, did it, did it. Doesn't always happen. Actually doesn't happen most of the time. I'll go through my list and some of the things I'll have achieved. Some of them I'll have partly gotten there, made progress on, or it's taken a different turn. Some of them flat out, not done, not accomplished.

And I use that exercise to fuel me for the next month. So I don't sit in judgment or self-deprecating, you're a failure, look at you, you can't do anything, Claire, you didn't even achieve these things, so there's no point even trying next month. No, I use it as information and fuel for the next month. So I sit with a blank slate and I think, what do I want to achieve next month? What's important to me?

what will move me forward in the things that are important. Okay, great. New things. Then I look at the goals from last month and think, okay, are any of these still important to me? Are any of these still things I would love to achieve or need to achieve or want to achieve? If so, okay, put them back down and then do a self assessment. Why didn't I achieve it last month? Why? Hmm. Well.

It could have been something beyond my control, a circumstance external to me beyond my control that stopped it from happening. It could have been, ⁓ I chose not to. It could have been something else took priority that I couldn't have foreseen when I wrote this list. It could have been, it became less of a priority and I actually thought it'd be better to do it another time. Or I might have just honestly.

forgotten about it or it was no longer important. So I do that. I look back at what I wanted to achieve. If I didn't achieve it, I didn't fully achieve it. Is it important enough for me to devote my time and energy to it next month? If so, it goes back on the list and I figure out how based on what I've learned from the prior month, how I am going to switch up my behavior because we all know the same behavior over and over and over again is going to get you the same results, right? So

If I was doing something and it didn't achieve a goal for me, no point in continue doing it, right? That is burying your head in the sand. By the way, I had to explain that concept to my child yesterday. The concept of burying your head in the sand. It's really fun to explain things to a little one who's hearing it for the first time. ⁓ And so that's just burying your head in the sand. That's more procrastination and avoidance. So

I'll pick something just to give you an example. Say it's a weight loss goal, right? Say you say I want to lose 10 pounds in the month and you get to the end of the month and you've lost one.

And you're like, ⁓ what happened? What happened? I said 10. I only lost one. Okay, just assess it. Do you still is it still important? Do you lose that weight? Is that still important? Okay, great. It is. Does it go back on the list? Yeah. It may still be 10 pounds. Now you're like, well, I'm to go one over maybe five, you know, reassess. There's the overall goal or thing you want to achieve reassess kind of the parameters around it. Okay.

And what happened last month? Just be curious, be a gentle, curious observer. Don't beat yourself up. Be honest, be real. What happened? Well, I got sick. Nothing I could have done about that, right? there was that one weekend where I made bad choices, whatever, right? You know what? I had all the good intentions in the world and after the first few days, it all went out the window because I was busy. I got stressed.

I fell back into old habits, whatever it is, right? Just assess what happened. And then you get to decide going forward. Again, we're using weight loss as an example. You can apply this example to any area of your life from relationships to money to business to anything, right? So then you get to say, all right, it's still important to me to lose the weight. This is why I think it didn't happen last month. A couple of things in my control, a couple of things beyond my control, bunch of stuff.

I need to rework and then you decide what you're going to do every day to get you towards your goal. And you keep moving forward. You keep the momentum going. It may be like, I really need to be clear on my daily habits. I need to drink more water. I need to get up that bit earlier. I need to plan meals. ⁓ look, I've got that girls night out coming up this month. I've got this event. All right, what am I going to do? What choices am I going to make? And

You can't plan for everything, but the things you know, you can plan for, right? I am going to be intentional and move as far forward as I can towards my goal. Now, let's fast forward. You get to the end of that month and you set a goal for losing nine pounds, say, and you lost eight.

not failure. Some people are so hard on themselves but I said nine and I only lost eight. Hello, hello, not failure. You did not fail.

You've made such progress. You've moved the needle so much. If we look back over the last two months, you've actually lost nine of the 10 pounds you'd planned on. What do you choose to do the next month? Are you happy with that? Do you want to keep moving forward? What do you want to do? You get to choose, right? You see the gist. It's constant forward momentum towards expansion, growth, being better, doing better, achieving things, putting your life in a place on every level.

to where you want it to be. Okay, so sorry, that was a big aside. That does not, sorry, not sorry, by the way. It's important. I do that every month. I encourage my clients to do it every month. It is valuable. I will be doing it probably Friday of this week, which is May 2nd, because I know I have some nice quiet time on Friday. can sit down and assess my April goals and see what I want to achieve in May. Every month is different, by the way.

Your life, your circumstances, everything coming at you, your needs, your desires, your wants, all of it continues to evolve and change. And I don't, I do have my April list, right there, but I've achieved a bunch of things on it, there's a bunch of things I haven't, and a bunch of things I want to move to May. Great, and some new things I'm going to add for May, I'm sure. So that's my monthly deal. So back to my New Year's resolutions yesterday, April 29th. Here's what I did.

I sat down and got myself in an energetic space of what do I want? What do I want? What do I want? What do I want? What do I really want? And if there were no limits on me, if everything and anything was possible, what do I want? What I want to have happen? What do I want to achieve? Who do I want to be? What do I want to see and do and have and all the things? How do want my life to feel?

I don't want to feel about these things. What feels good? What feels aligned? What do I want? So important you give yourself space and time to ask that question and listen to what comes up. Listen to yourself.

and free right. And don't judge. Please do not judge what comes up. Please do not judge the thoughts that come up. Please notice if any limiting thoughts come up like I'm too old, there's not enough time, I don't have enough money, I live in the wrong place, blah, blah. Don't, let's not let those limiting thoughts stop us expansively without limit.

thinking about what you want. is what I call, you know, your, your Christmas list, you know, as a kid, can I tell you something? My daughter, God, she is just, she is such a hoot. She is so funny. She is, she's so incredible. Last year for Christmas, she asked Santa Claus for a dragon. She loves those movies, How to Train Your Dragon, loves, loves, loves. Santa Claus brought her the most

amazing stuffed dragon toy. ⁓ She has her sights set on a real dragon. She has a plan for where it will live, how she's going to feed it, how she's going to take care of it. And yesterday out of the blue, again, she was she's not letting go of her dreams in life. She said, by the way, it's going to go back on my list this year, mommy.

I want a dragon and please do not talk separately to Santa Claus and tell him not to bring it to me. Her older sister rolls her eyes and it's like at what point is she going to realize dragons are not real? Santa Claus can do so much, but dragons are not real. Anyway, we're just, we're just letting her live in that ⁓ little world of she wants a dragon right now. And there's nothing, there is no limit other than me saying no right now.

to which she is trying desperately to persuade me otherwise, no limit to her having that in her mind. Okay, so suspend reality and practical and the world and the economy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Suspend all of that and think, what do I really want without limits? Okay, so you start in that place. Because guess what? You get to design your life exactly as you want it.

and exactly how you want it to feel. You get to do this. Okay. So this time around, I ended up with six categories. I free wrote in and thought about what I want. Sometimes I have four categories, sometimes I have more than six. This just kind of came to me and I just went with it and...

I encourage you to do that kind of just trust what comes to you don't overthink it don't overanalyze don't think Claire had six so I need seven or I need to do exactly the ones Claire had please what comes to you is right for you and align so follow that not not what I've done if mine inspire you great take them please but really feel aligned so I had six they are health and well-being which is

my physical health, my emotional mental health. It's everything from my weight to how my body feels to my strength to my flexibility to my energy to any recurring pain I may have to I am a migraine sufferer. So that's what I mean by that to my sleep to my hydration to my movement to my

happiness every day, my energy level every day, my intentionality, my focus, all of that. Then we have family and relationships. I sometimes split this out, this time I did not. This incorporates everyone who is something and meaningful to me. So my husband, my children, my parents, his parents, family members, loved ones, close...

people, clients, know, relationships.

then I have business, ⁓ and then I have money. I've separated this time business and money out because while they overlap in a big way, they also have different purposes, value systems, and they feel different to me, ⁓ even though there's a lot of overlap. So for business, ⁓ there could be things, yes, there are some monetary goals and

targets and what have you. And I'm in business to make money. I'm also in business to have an impact. So there may be some things I do with my business that don't generate financial gain, but are very rich and fulfilling and have a huge impact, right? So I don't want to get bogged down in the finances, even though they're important. ⁓

when I'm kind of vision casting for my business and where I want to take it and what I want to do. And then money, ⁓ not all of that comes from my business. So I don't want to feel kind of in a box about my business. It's the only place it can come from. It can come from other places and sources and there are other uses for it. And I wanted to feel more free about receiving money, spending money, investing money, using money for good. And I didn't want to tie to business.

So there's that. New to the list this year, it just like popped up, is travel. Travel often pops up for me in connection with family. It's always been very important for us to have experiences and make memories together traveling. I mean, I'll be honest with you. Like we don't always feel fancy, right? I mean, we do travel to some lovely places, but...

not always super duper fancy, but it's time together, right? So that, and I had fun kind of brainstorming and just seeing what came through on that. It was really fun, actually. And then ⁓ last but not least is personal development. I think of this as everything kind of from the inside for me and my growth expansion as a human being, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a friend, as a coach.

as a mentor, as a human in this world? How can I continue to develop and grow and expand? What do I want to do? I realized yesterday I want to take a certification in a certain thing. ⁓ More to come on that. Very exciting. But it's important to me to be certified in this thing so that I know I can teach it well. I have some courses I want to take, some books I want to read.

some things I want to incorporate into my daily habits to solidify them from a personal development standpoint. And so that's what that is. So again, what do I want? What do I really, really want without limits? What feels good and aligned and amazing and me? And how do I want to feel? How do I want to feel? And

I had so much fun free writing on all of this. ⁓ It's not fancy. It's not poetic. ⁓ But it's meaningful. And I know me writing this down, connecting with it, thinking about it will fuel me for the rest of this year and into 2026. And let's talk about time. You know, often we set these deadlines for ourselves.

must lose this much weight by this date, must make this much money, must do this, must, you know. And I think deadlines are good and it's important to stay accountable and have a vision for when you want to achieve it. I do think that's important. ⁓ But I also think we can use it ⁓ against us if I set a goal and it was gonna be achieved by the end of May and I didn't achieve it.

or didn't fully achieve it. Sometimes we're inclined as humans to see that as failure and we give up and we use it as a path of least resistance and well, I was useless, should have listened, knew that wasn't gonna happen, knew it wasn't practical, knew it was a bad time, you know, all of that. So while I set loose deadlines, go timelines, ⁓ I set them. And so I...

then broke this out into short term and long term. So I see short term as the next four to six weeks. Basically, what do I want to have happen achieve? What do I want in my life? Before my kids get out of school for summer. And I did it in all of those six categories. And then more long term the next one to two years. So for the rest of 2025 and 2026,

What's important to me? What do I want? What do I want to achieve? What do I want to see happen? What do I want to experience in my life? What do I want to become my normal everyday reality? Right? We'll use the word reality there for ourselves. What do I want to have happen? And I keep it pretty loose because you know what, if I set a goal right now and I think, Ooh, I want it to happen before December 31st, 2025 and it happens in February, 2026, that's a win.

And if I give up on December 31st, because I didn't achieve it, guess what? I lose. I won't get to experience the win in February, and I want the win. And so this is all about moving the needle forward, momentum, staying consistent, having a bigger picture for where we want our lives to go and what we want in life and what's important to us. And checking off all of these little markers along the way.

For my people who are like me and they love to check stuff off their list. If you're the procrastinator, perfectionist person, you love a list and you love to pat yourself on the back and check stuff off. So yes, please do that. Give yourself those small little incremental wins and celebrate them. And then let's see how those wins stack up over time.

It's incredible when you see them stack up. And I promise you if there's something that's important to you right now today that you want to have happen before the end of this year, you will be equally as happy if it happens in February of next year. That extra two months will not make a blind bit of difference to you. And so don't let these things ⁓ take you off course and listen to that voice.

it that tells you you haven't achieved you're not good enough you're not you're not you're not you're not and say thank you I'm doing it anyway I'm doing it anyway because this is important to me and that's why we start with the what do really want from that heartfelt aligned purpose-driven soul driven place within you because ultimately they're going to be the things that are imprinted

on your heart, right? The part of your DNA is what you were set here to achieve and do and have. And good things happen for everyone in the world when you achieve them. So if it's in 2025 or 2026 or 2030, it does not matter. It's about you living in your purpose and feeling aligned and having fun along the way and being kind to yourself along the way and stacking the winds and making progress and

not giving in to the sabotage and the fears and the doubts and letting it derail you moving forward anyway. And so that's why I would love you all to do this little New Year's resolution reset, whatever you want to call it here now in April or May and see what comes up with for you for the next month or so, the next seven months, the next 18 months.

There's so much you can accomplish. There's so much you can achieve. There's so much good that can happen. It just requires you to keep your eye on it, right? And make that progress every day and keep moving forward no matter what and hold yourself accountable and celebrate and look at where things fell short and figure out why and figure out what you get to do now.

and I think you'll really, really benefit from it. I do some work with people ⁓ if goal setting, dream casting and visioning is something you feel a little blocked with or stuck on, you just can't seem to get it to work for you or your old habits don't work anymore, the old things you used to do don't work or you're just stuck. Reach out to me please.

I have some free resources I can send you to help you get unstuck. I have some paid for resources that will absolutely get you unstuck that are so valuable. ⁓ I've got ways to help you. So don't sit in that place of, just can't seem to get myself moving. I don't know why my old things aren't working for me anymore. Let's...

get that momentum in place and get you moving now. So reach out to me and let's figure out what will work best for you. There's no reason, no reason for you to stay stuck. No reason for you to struggle with this. I would love nothing more than for all of you listening to have fun with this exercise, feel the excitement, feel the energy, feel the sparkle.

that I did yesterday and that I woke up with today. And it's going to continue. It is going to continue. And I'll tell you what, I love this exercise so much. I may do it again towards the end of the year. know, September, October, maybe a good time for me to sit down and do my New Year's resolutions again. And just see what's important to me because a lot of things shift and change and our priorities change and what we need and what changes. ⁓ And so...

things may look very different in October. So me setting something in January and rigidly sticking to it no matter what or throwing it out of the window because it doesn't fit anymore, but not replacing it is not going to help me or serve me or anyone else in my life or that I touch. So I may do it again in October. So if you're listening to this in October, yay, ⁓ you may be doing it alongside me. If

you are listening to it real time or before October, then bookmark it and let's visit. I'm going to put it on my calendar to check back in and do a little New Year's resolution reset.

I cannot wait for all the things that are going to happen for you. As things happen, please tell me because it gives me life. And I'm just going to feel it anyway because the energy will be palpable for all of us. But look forward to those things. And don't forget, ask yourself, what do I want? What do I really want without limits? How do I want to feel? And listen.

I hope you have a beautiful day and I can't wait to hear from all of you and see what happens in your lives. It's going to be marvelous. It's going to be magical. I know it is. Take care. Bye bye.