Five reasons you need some sexy biz goals (even if you hate goals!)

Set big hairy goals, be consistent, push through. Goals can be... exhausting. But what if the 'problem' was the approach we've been told to take?

In this ep we are talking about setting goals that light you and your biz up - even if you’re navigating self-doubt, feeling some resistance, or have a complicated relationship with follow-through. 

We’ll explore the five things that make a goal actually doable - from choosing something juicy, to the research-backed truth about why being hard on yourself is a terrible strategy. If you’re ready to stop half-assing your goals (with a perfect plan you don’t follow) and start building real momentum in a way that feels sustainable, supported, and genuinely satisfying - listen in.

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Inside Ripen, we’ve just kicked off a round of Courage-based Goals, and the momentum already building is so fun! Want to join in?  Apply now: www.saspetherick.com/ripen 

Join The Coaching Well for Group Supervision here

FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it  here

Website: www.saspetherick.com | Instagram:  @saspetherick

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Apply now for Ripen www.saspetherick.com/ripen 

Join The Coaching Well for Group Supervision here

FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it  here

Website: www.saspetherick.com | Instagram:  @saspetherick

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Courage and Spice for Coaches, where you build your self-belief and your business in under 30 minutes a week. I'm Sass Petherick, your host. I'm a coach, supervisor, and unapologetic self-belief nerd. My mission is simple. I want your coaching practice to feel like a right fucking peach. Let's go. Alright, so to mark the equinox, today we're going to talk about five reasons why I think you need some sexy business goals. And this is even if you hate goals. This has come about because inside of Ripen, we're starting our spring courage-based goal. Courage-based goals is my framework for choosing, planning, and taking action on goals within 50 days. And the idea is that it meets you where you are. So you don't have to suddenly love goals or feel like you're consistent or you don't have any procrastination tendencies. None of that's necessary. So no circumstances need to change, and you can use this approach to attain a goal. I developed this about a decade ago because I found that every traditional model for goal attainment actually exacerbates self-doubt. And for my clients who at the time had a lot of self-doubt, I knew I needed to create something that would actually work for my people, most of whom had dreams, desires, goals, but they didn't love the term goal because it never worked for them, and they made it mean that they were just rubbish at goals instead of questioning the process. That is apparently, you know, for everyone. So in Ripen, we have three rounds of courage-based goals each year, and it's such a great way of just getting some shit done, right? So in the first week of this round, two coaches have resigned from their day jobs because they now have coaching offers they are selling. Several are reinvigorating some stagnant email subscriber lists with some ripen energy, they have real clarity over who their clients are and what to talk to them about. Other coaches are bringing new offers into the world and starting to market these. I find the momentum of working with this group just so inspiring. I think it works in Inverted Commas partly because it's so fun to do this in company. And I can't tell you how fun it is for me to just wake up to the Voxer group chat in my time zone, and co-working sessions have happened the day before, and people are connecting with each other and sharing information. And you know, for me, I always wanted Ripen to be bigger than me, to be a true supportive community of the most thoughtful coaches. Like that's totally my love language to see that this is forming after only a couple of group calls so far. And look, coaches are joining us all the time, there's no right time, just when you're ready. So please do message me, we can figure this out. Okay, so look, if you have some intentions, dreams, loose or vague hopes for your coaching business this year, do listen in, even if you have a bit of a weird relationship with goals. I I want to share how we go about choosing goals that can really set you up for success. So the first one is playing to the title of this episode: Is your goal sexy enough? Like, is your goal kind of juicy and exciting for you? So one thing I think we've done traditionally, and anyone who was in a corporate setting in the 90s will probably recognise big, hairy, audacious goals or bhags. This is where you set a massive goal, like a really big ass dream, and then you kind of go about making it happen. And the idea is that it's just so big and juicy that you'll somehow magically feel motivated to do it. And look, to me, that's a really fast way to fail, especially if you don't have a great relationship with girls. Like maybe you know that you kind of quit when things get a bit tricky, or maybe you believe you're just never going to be good at consistency. So setting an enormous hairy goal is never gonna help you kind of change that kind of tendency, right? If your goal feels so big, it's unlikely that it will actually feel real and achievable. And if you don't have a history of trusting yourself to kind of meet that big audacious goal, all that's gonna happen is you'll experience a lot of resistance quite quickly. I do think though that your goal has to be a little bit bigger than your current reality because it's really about your growth, so there is a kind of sweet spot. It might be helpful for me to share what how I define a goal. So I believe a goal is consistent intentional action over time to achieve a meaningful outcome. So the meaningful bit is really important here. Like, does the outcome, does where you're actually going, feel meaningful to you? It needs to be juicy enough that you are willing to explore your resistance around it, to look at why you want to quit or why you make it mean that you you haven't been consistent every day, so you may as well just give up now. And just to use an example for me personally, like a year ago, almost to the day, I set a meaningful goal of healing my relationship with my body, with food and movement, particularly. And for me, this was connected with trusting myself, like keeping promises to myself, doing the slow, deliberate actions until I got where I wanted to be. That just felt so much more meaningful to me than a really quick fix, you know, a kind of a cleanse or a you know 30-day program, none of that really hit my heart. It didn't really feel like it would do anything for me. So maybe for you the goal is about making enough income that you can cut back on your day job or maybe go full-time as a coach. It might be that it's about really claiming the coaching work you're here to do instead of perhaps possefooting around something inoffensive that feels a bit beige, right? Whatever you wanting to create, is it sexy to you? Like, does it make your heart beat a little faster? Is there some manageable excitementslash trepidation associated with it? Doesn't have to be big, hairy, and audacious, but does it feel a bit juicy? Okay, number two, are you actually in control of your goal? So another thing that I see so easy for us to do is to choose goals that we don't actually have a ton of control over, and then when they don't work out like we expect or hope, we make ourselves really wrong. So this happens with goals like I want to sign three clients this month, when actually you can't control the decision-making timing of those clients, right? Or I want to make 5k this month. Again, this is super arbitrary, it's untethered to the things that you actually get to do, the actions you take. But what if your goal was something like I'm gonna go all in on my marketing this month, or I'm gonna create a really clear and compelling offer designed specifically for my ideal clients. Like now we're talking because this is all within your responsibility, and it's it's gonna stretch you and grow you, right? Like you're gonna need to decide who your clients, your ideal clients actually are, and get really good at understanding the outcomes they actually want, and then designing the best approaches and tools and concepts into your offer to help them reach those outcomes. You're gonna need to explore the self-doubt that comes up as you start to share this and go full on in your marketing, right? Whatever your goal is. But remember, this is why we're here, right? To create offers that resonate with the pool of humans that we're here to help. We're here to do the humble work of figuring out our own blocks and how we encourage ourselves to work through those setbacks, right? But when it's all in your sphere of influence, whether it's about your marketing or your offer design, like you get to decide, you get to make all the decisions. It means you can absolutely own the results. This is gonna be stretchy and growy, right? And this is the gig. This is the gig that we've all signed up for. So are you actually in control of your goal? Really important. Number three, are you being a dick to yourself in pursuit of this goal? And look, no shade at all because every single traditional approach to goals almost requires you to be a dick to yourself, right? And having read approximately a squillion research studies on goal attainment, human motivation, behavioural change, can I just say that we know and we have known for a really long time that being a dick to yourself has really poor outcomes. Like the too long didn't read answer of all of those studies, harsh self-talk is a terrible long-term strategy for goal attainment. Like it can create some sort of short bursts of compliance, if you like, but it will reliably and unequivocally undermine motivation, consistency, and well-being over time. So it can create some urgency and push a bit of action in the short term, but usually it erodes trust in yourself, it makes it so easy to disengage, and if you keep going this way, it can create some burnout. So, on the contrary, a really large body of research, led mostly by Kristen Neff and Paul Gilbert, who are real advocates for self-compassion, say that if you are actually showing up with more self-compassionate self-talk, you're more accountable to yourself because it will increase resilience after setbacks, improve consistency and persistence. It supports learning and behavioral change. It means you can kind of face your mistakes and your setbacks without collapsing. There's actually this really cool research called self-determination theory that shows humans thriving in a goal setting where you have three core psychological needs met, which is autonomy, competence, and relatedness. So, autonomy, I'm choosing this, competence, I believe I can do this, and relatedness, I'm supported as I do this. So the other part of this is I think that being a bit of a dick to yourself can actually be a pretty sophisticated blind spot. Like we don't always know that we're doing it. And there is this cool research called the inspection, introspection illusion, I think it's called, I'm pretty sure it's called that, where we don't have um a kind of accurate assessment to with the real causes of our thoughts and behaviors. So we we sort of construct justifications after the fact and then feel pretty certain that we're seeing things clearly, right? So with harsh self-talk, if you're inside an introspection illusion, you might think, well, I'm just being really disciplined, this is what keeps me sharp, this is my edge, right? And honestly, like that is how I operated in my corporate world for a really long time, right? I was a dick to myself the whole time, and I have convinced myself, I've been in the introspection illusion, I think, for the last 15 years as I've been coaching and I've slowly kind of extricated myself from that. But what I've learned from spending the last year healing my relationship with my body is I was still quite deep in the introspection illusion in this realm, right? And I kind of love this for me. Working with my coach has been so so helpful because I can really see that now that I really do genuinely trust my body, I can see all the ways that I didn't, but I thought I did, right? So the that third element is you know, are you being a bit of a dick to yourself? How can you create more compassionate self-talk? Like, how can you embody more autonomy where I choose this and competence? I believe I can do this and relatedness, I'm supported as I do this. And following on from this kind of concept of the self-determination theory, I think this makes such a huge difference. So, number four for me is are you actually being supported? Right, like trying to do this alone is really hard work. To have someone, like whether it's your partner or a coach pal you trust, or you know, joining us in ripen, when you feel supported as you do this beautiful brave thing of bringing a goal in your work to life, it will change so much. And it I think this is partly because when you hang around with people who are a few steps ahead of you, like for sure it can be really inspiring because you know you get to see what they're doing, and it's it's kind of awesome to kind of see how people explain and take care of themselves while they're doing these things that are really inspiring. The other reason that I think this is so helpful is that you start to see they're not actually that different to you. Like they've probably just either started earlier or taken more action, and you start to realize that it's not an ability problem that actually you are completely capable. And one of the things I say all the time, because I believe it's absolutely true, is that way dumber people than us have figured this out, right? There are so many people in the coaching industry with less skill, less knowledge, less training, experience, less ability than you that are doing better. And that's usually because they've started, you know, they've put themselves in situations that do feel a bit uncomfortable. They've started before they felt completely ready. They've um set some exciting sexy goals, and they were able to kind of get started and do the do the stuff that feels a bit awkward to start with. Like I want you to be looking at people a few steps ahead of you and thinking, I could do that. I could do that, but maybe better. I I think that should kind of light a fire in you. I think there are interestingly two kinds of people around this or two approaches to this. There are the people that go, Well, actually, I think I could do better than that, or there's no reason I can't do that, and they're like not a million miles away from my capability, and so they crack on. And there are other approaches, right, where we go, I actually know my approach is way more effective than that famous influencer/slash coach, but then they get super resentful that this other person is more successful than them, perceived success. And I would say make sure you're the former, not the latter, like really choose to be inspired rather than envious. I really hope you're looking at me like that, genuinely, because I think every coach I work with should be looking at me like, oh, you're no more qualified or better or more capable than than I am, right? Like, I think it's part of my job to help you see that. Like, I don't believe I'm doing anything that special, I'm not that different. I'm probably just a couple of steps ahead. It might be because I started earlier, it's probably because I've taken action, because I've done the work to look at myself doubt, and and I was always supported, I've always invested in coaching support. So, all to say, like, I really don't want in any way to feel like you to feel like this is a capability issue. In fact, I would say that's often the last thing that I would suggest is true. So, number five is to get some wins on the board early so that you can watch your capability expand, your comfort zone around your own capability expand. I think this is one of the best ways to stay motivated is to put in enough effort to actually get some early results. There's nothing more motivating than some wins on the board, right? So, encourage-based goals, the approach we take is we have a simple pimple goal planning process, like it takes less than an hour and we do it live on the call, and then people start taking action that same day. Because I'm with you, I love a bit of stationery. I'm not trying to cock block your post-it note habit in any way, that's highly encouraged. But if you do get a bit stuck in a long, complicated, color-coded plan, I really want to encourage you to change your approach and make it so, so much faster. Because that kind of planning doesn't really work for you. I think it's probably a protective behavior. Like the thinking might be if I have the perfect plan, the goal will feel more doable. But most plans will fail. And I say this not just as a coach, but as someone who worked in very complex, risky, high-profile projects for 15 years before I became a coach. We always had a really complicated project plan that we made early on in the process, and it assumes that progress happens in a straight line, and that is never ever the case when you've got humans involved. I think also our plans will fail because we focus on the what, like what needs to happen, not the how, or for some of the tasks that will probably be involved in any goal that's worth doing. How the hell do I do this? Right? So we focus on the task, but we don't think about what we might need to actually achieve that. And what will pretty quickly happen is that the plan stops reflecting reality, and so we lose our trust in it, right? It's like, oh, I haven't looked at that in a while, or I have I'm not actually crossing things off as I'm going, so now I don't know where I am, so I don't really trust it. We also never plan for anything unexpected, right? We we we don't think about what's my first setback gonna be, right? What what will go wrong here? We we just don't. I think that's partly because my assumption, coaches are have a tendency to be a bit more optimistic than the average bear, and sometimes if we feel a bit sort of tender around goals, we might not want to put anything down because someone on a motive on a manifestation course one time told us that we'll just make negative things come true if we acknowledge them, right? So we don't plan for anything unexpected. I so hear you on that, but I think it's really worth doing. And the other reason why lots of plans fail is because we kind of ignore what we know about ourselves, right? Like, what do you tend to do when you're faced with uncertainty or disappointment or a bit of a squeaky bum task, right? Like what you tend to do will determine whether or not you'll achieve it. So it's the bit on the not focusing on the how or how the hell do I do that? So I want your plan to be a really living thing that supports your goal, that meets you where you are, and assumes that your real life and you you as a you know whole human is still gonna be you, right? So when you ignore your reality, what happens is you end up half-assing your your goal or your energy that goes into the goal, and this still takes effort, right? You just don't get much back, and that's why it's so motivating demotivating. I think you can avoid a lot of disappointment and therefore maintain a lot more momentum and motivation if you kind of have some real. Expectations of the work that's required, right? So to put this in context that maybe will resonate with people, like if you have a client that has a realization in a coaching session, right? A kind of aha moment, classic stuff. Say it's something like, Oh, the reason I don't ever ask for help is because I don't trust that other people will help. Like I've learned since I was a kid that people let you down. Oh God, that makes so much sense. So the client has an aha moment and they may have an expectation that that realization is enough. Right? Like now I know this new information, I'm gonna be totally free from all the associated behaviors that go along with it. And if they believe that, they're gonna be really disappointed and probably give up, right? They're probably gonna have a kind of negative experience of coaching. But when you say, hey, that feels like you had a really important realization about yourself. And so it can take some time to shift these long-standing beliefs. So let's just for the next couple of weeks, when this comes up, right? Oh, I I don't ever ask for help because I don't trust other people will help. Right. When this comes up, I just want you to notice it. Notice how you want to respond. And it may be that you want to respond in the way you've always done this. You might find it so automatic. You only notice that that was another occasion where you didn't ask for help hours later. Right? So we set those that client's expectations really low. Oh, you have some choices about how you might respond. You can experiment when you're ready, it might be tomorrow, it might be months away, right? They're gonna be really happy with that progress. So if we bring it back to you and your goal, having realistic expectations about progress, like, isn't there to dampen progress or set low standards or demotivate you in any way? It's actually to do the opposite. Resistance is totally normal. If you get some wins in and you expect resistance, if you plan for it, when your nervous system is in a nice calm state and your creative thinking is on board, if you feel really supported, so that when the resistance feels a bit bigger and you you you have somewhere to go for ideas, for for belief you can borrow, right? For some compassionate ass kicks, that will make all the difference, right? And I think this is where you set yourself up for success. I think goals are so fun to achieve in your coaching business, particularly. And you know, I I know I've you just used this process, this courage-based goals process, to radically shift my relationship with my body over the last year after four decades of pretty crappy stuff. And I've just done it through this consistent intentional action over time to achieve a meaningful outcome. So, look, this is my secret weapon for anyone with self-doubt to get things done. If this feels right up your alley, do get in touch, come and join Ripen. I've created it because it's what I wish I had. It is so good, it's with the best coaches. If you're interested, just go fill in the application at saspethoract.com backslash ripen. The link is also in the show notes, and you'll be able to book a call. We'll just have a no-obligation chat about you know what your beautiful coaching business is like, what your goals are, what you want support with. If you're not a good fit, like if I don't think I can help you and your business grow, or if I just don't think you're the right fit for ripen, I won't let you sign up. So you have nothing to lose. Alright, I want you to go set some sexy goals to really like tap into being in control of your goal, stop being a dick to yourself in pursuit of the goal, and um let yourself be supported so you can get some wins on the board, expand your comfort zone, expand your growth. I think that's really what goals are there to do. Alrighty, that is all for today. I will talk to you soon. Have an amazing week. May the force be with us.