270. End of Year Reflection & Goal Setting Process (Part 1)

This episode walks you through setting and achieving your 2025 goals, providing a clear and actionable framework for success. From defining meaningful objectives and conducting a thorough self-assessment to finding mentors, accessing valuable resources, building a detailed action plan, and staying accountable, you'll gain all the tools and insights needed to make 2025 your most successful and fulfilling year yet.

Subscribe & Review
Subscribing and leaving a rating and review are important factors in helping the Reshape Your Health Podcast and the YouTube Channel reach more people. If you haven't already subscribed, please do that today.

We would also be grateful if you left a rating and review, too. In your listening app, scroll to the “Ratings and Reviews” section, then click “Write a Review” and let us know what you enjoy about our show. We appreciate you taking the time to show your support. Thank you! 

Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

Well, hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte. And today I'm going to take you through an annual goal setting process that I went through recently with my husband and I found it to be a very fruitful conversation, an eye opening conversation and gave me a lot of concrete things that I can think about as I'm working towards setting personal goals for 2025.

And if you're driving, might wanna come back to this one and take notes. you have a journal handy, that would be awesome, or if you're near a computer, just so that you can like jot down the steps as I go, because I really think that you're wanna come back to this one. This doesn't work, this won't do anything for you unless you do it. So please, please, please take advantage of this episode and put it into action. The first thing that I think is helpful, so like step one,

is just have your overall goal in mind and write it down on a piece of paper. And if you don't have this step done yet, that's okay. I think if you've never done something like this before, or you're kind of new to personal development, it's not uncommon to feel like you're just like aimlessly wandering through this world. But I have a pretty clear goal that has evolved over the years. And currently it's to have a peaceful and calm mind, heart and spirit.

have a healthy, happy marriage and a loving relationship with my kids. Now you'll notice there was nothing about physical health in there because to me, when I am physically healthy, that facilitates me to have like a peaceful and calm mind, heart and spirit. So I feel like I have those health habits pretty well dialed in so that I can move into like deeper mental and emotional and spiritual growth this year and relational growth as well.

So that's step number one is just what is your overarching goal for your life in 2025? Step number two is going to be to rate yourself on several different pillars in your life. And I know that for a lot of people, this may feel like a negative exercise, like you're judging yourself or you're being critical on yourself. And especially if you're a perfectionist, it can be hard to like...

honestly rate yourself and say actually I'm not doing so well in this area. And that's okay. Like, my challenge to you is going to be keep a positive frame on this and just view this as a reflection exercise on areas that you can grow. So don't beat yourself up over it. But just take it seriously. You know, I think that some some good self reflection is necessary for growth and development and change.

I think I'm a huge proponent of focusing on your wins, but if we're only focusing on the wins all of the time, I think we're missing some really valuable lessons from life. So here are all of the areas that I rated myself on. And actually then I had my husband rate me too, so that I could get his feedback and see where the discrepancies were. And you can add whatever you want.

For me, I did financial health, physical health, mental and emotional health. I combine those two. Spiritual health, relational health, but I actually broke it down into roles. So I didn't rate my relational health. What I did was I rated my role as a wife and then my role as a mom. And you could go down that list if you're not a wife or you're not a mom, but maybe you're a friend. Maybe you're a leader in some capacity.

I could have done like my role as a boss, for example. You can always rate those. So you can elaborate however you want. The other role that I've rated myself on was housekeeper because that's been over the last, I would say like decade, I guess, since we got married. That's kind of a role that I've taken on. And the other thing that you could add is, again, just some other ideas if you really like this, but you know, I think simpler is always better.

you could rate yourself on some of your top values like from a scale of like on a scale of zero to 10. How well did I keep the value of patience? How well did I demonstrate the value of generosity? How well did I demonstrate the value of love or forgiveness or being kind? All of those things that you value you can actually objectively rate yourself on. And then my husband had a cool idea too. You know, he said,

Contribution. like how did you give back to society? And in what day in what ways did you affect the world positively or negatively? So you could maybe do like a contribution rating too. Or just you know, longhand that one. So that is step two. Step two is kind of figure out what pillars are important to you to rate yourself on. And then go ahead and rate yourself on a scale of zero to 10 is hero being like

you maybe like aren't aware of this area at all till I just said it, or you're completely ignoring it, or you feel like you're absolutely botching this area of your life and there's a ton of room for improvement and rate yourself. And then if you have somebody in your life that knows you really well, such as a spouse or maybe a sibling or a parent, you can ask them to rate you too. And I know that that takes some courage and I know that it can...

potentially cause some conflict, right? Because if you have a discrepancy with them about a number, my challenge to you is just going to be stay open to receive constructive feedback and be sure that if you're going to ask somebody for their advice that you're willing or, know, kind of it's not really advice. It's more like their opinion of you. I mean, you're kind of putting yourself out there and you're putting yourself on a limb.

So this person really needs to come from a positive intent and they need to be, I don't know, it just has to be the right person. Like you'll know the right person to do this exercise with you. Otherwise, I just think it creates unnecessary conflict and honestly, their feedback won't be as helpful. So that was the next thing was I rated myself and then Justin rated me. And we talked, like what that did was then it really identified

The next step is identify your top one to three sections or areas that you wanna grow in. So not everything is gonna be a seven, an eight, or a nine, or a 10. There might be some lower numbers. You might have some ones, you might have some fours, you might have some fives or sixes, and that is okay. Everybody is on their own growth journey, and you do not have to be perfect, okay?

But I think that this is so helpful to get clear on goal setting for next year. So you don't just start 2025 with this arbitrary New Year's resolution of like, I'm gonna exercise every morning or I'm gonna lose 20 pounds because we all know that those are not effective New Year's resolutions. And further, they may not even be like a values driven thing. I think that's what I like this exercise for is that it's a values driven exercise. So step three again is to identify what you wanna work on.

So one to three areas, probably no more than three. Now, step two was an interesting one. I went through this one with my husband as well. So for the top three-ish areas where we had the biggest discrepancies between my score or his, and just for full transparency, usually my lowest score was also his lowest score. But if there was a discrepancy there, like if I rated myself, you know,

lower than he rated me. Like we kind of talked about everything, but we focused in on the lowest scores. And then I said to myself and to him kind of gathered feedback from from both of us here. What would a 10 look like for this area? So if I was living this area at a full 10, what am I doing on a regular basis? And also what am I not doing that I'm currently doing? And that is such a

powerful question. What am I doing when I'm living this area at a 10? And what am I not doing when I'm living this area at a 10? Okay. And honestly, like that is great language for your personal faith formula. So if you're a zivli member, this is kind of how we dig into our thoughts and dig into those obstacles. And then we want to take these

growth opportunities and this rich information that we're gathering and incorporate that into that morning mindset routine so that we're keeping that vision in our minds of how do we want to show up? What do we want to start doing and what do we want to stop doing? The next thing, the next step is essentially find a mentor to learn from. like for example, the biggest areas that I'm going to focus on in 2025 are my mental and emotional health.

my spiritual health, and my role as a mom, or excuse me as a wife. That doesn't mean that everything else is going to fall to the wayside. It just means that I feel like every other area in my life is stronger, and I'm going to maintain what I'm doing and focus my energy on improving those three areas. So again, that's for me, mental and emotional health, spiritual health, and my role as a wife. And

I love that. Like I did not have this much clarity on what I wanted to focus on for 2025 before I actually went through this exercise. So again, please use this because it's really helpful. But anyways, the next step that I just mentioned was find a mentor or learn somebody who has the result that you want. So find somebody in my in my opinion, I think it's so helpful to learn from people who have already achieved what you want to achieve or who are already

living the type of life or have the type of relationship that you want to have. So if health is your goal, for example, like I'm a really, really good person to learn from for health. So if your physical health is a one, a two, a three or four, and that's an area that you want to work on, I would be more than happy to be your guide for that and your mentor for that. And I hope that you listen to the podcast or watch my YouTube videos or sign up for the blood sugar boot camp that we're hosting in January.

or enroll in our Zivli program that opens for enrollment in January. I'm a great mentor for that. Now, if you're struggling with this part and you're a person of faith, please, what I do is I just ask God, I'm like, God, please reveal to me people or resources that are my next best step. And he always does. it's without fail, a person or resource will show up in my life when I ask for it.

if I'm specific about what I need. And so we had some friends visit, when was that last weekend at the time of this recording? And I just feel like they're in a really cool season of life. They're in their early 30s. They don't have kids. They're pouring a lot of energy and attention into their spiritual life and into their marriage and into their mental and emotional health. So.

It was great to spend some time with them. We had dinner with them. They stayed the night. They played with the kids had breakfast with them the next day. So we had a lot of good quality time and conversations. And I love those kinds of friendships. I love those deep relationships where you can be honest about your opportunities for growth and ask them for advice. So for me, God put these people in my life right at the right time. And I love the wife here because she's

such a learner and such a share and she's like, she just loves contributing in that way to her relationships. And so she told me about like a podcast slash free online course from a spiritual development standpoint. It's a Christian based thing, but I think a lot of the principles that they teach are very applicable no matter what faith background you're in. And it's called, let me pull it up here.

It's called Rule of Life podcast. And there's four podcast episodes. They go through like, I think it's nine spiritual disciplines that Jesus taught. I'm a Christian, again, a lot of these are going to be applicable even if you're not. But some of them are like keeping a Sabbath. And what does that really look like beyond just going to church and prayer and solitude and all of these things. So I'm very, very excited.

to have that structured learning. If you don't know, I'm a structured person. So I was super excited about that. And then another resource that she shared with me that I'm going through is a book called, let me pull it up on Audible here. It's called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. And what I'm doing right now is I kind of am focusing on one discipline at a time.

And the first discipline is sabbathing because I've recognized that I need more rest in my life for a long time. But I don't think that I've been resting effectively. I've been physically resting, like watching more TV, but I don't feel that like rejuvenation that I want to feel after I'm resting, which to me tells me that something's missing. And I'm also experiencing that seasonal burnout that I've talked about before, which again, I think is a sign if it's repeating.

something's not quite right in my system of mental and emotional health and of spiritual health. So I'm using those resources, the Rule of Life podcast. I think that there's a course that goes along with it that I'm gonna do. And then reading that book, The Ruthless, what is it? Elimination of Hurry or something like that. You guys, it is so good. It's so good. Like even if you're in the same season of me of just like,

really wanting to improve your spiritual health especially, those two resources have just really been very refreshing. And I think filling that spiritual need that we all have, frankly, I'm pretty good about I'm great about going to church and praying and doing my morning mindset routine. But I want a deeper and more robust spiritual life. So and I think that that's gonna be really good for my mental and emotional health too.

Anyways, that's that step is find somebody who has gone before you, who is farther along in this area than you are, who has maybe resources or advice to share for you. And again, like we've, know, if you want to work on your finances, there's so many different people out there that help with that if you want to work on your relationship with your children, like there are so many resources for that. So again, find, find your guide, okay.

and invest in those resources. A lot of times they're free or very cheap. I mean, I just, it's a free podcast. It's a free course and a really cheap audio book and I'm working my way through it. But that's a good start, I think, but let's all recognize that, you know, your life is essentially one of the quotes from this book that I'm reading is like, your life is a result of your lifestyle.

And I think that I could preach that all day long from the physical health standpoint. And it really just clicked today when I heard that I'm like, yeah, that's also true for your mental and emotional and spiritual health. Like your life, your experience of life in those areas is a direct result of the systems that you have in place for those areas. So that I'm just so excited. Like I love resources. I love growing. I love all of this stuff. So

It feels good to finally have some clarity around those areas and also some resources to help me grow in them. So we're not stopping at learning, right? We are going to start to implement slowly what we learn. And the last step then is similar, like in that same vein, it's just commit to a plan. And for me right now, that plan is listening to the podcast, at some point going through the course material on Sabbath thing.

and reading that book on the ruthless pursuit of hurry and keeping that super top of mind. So writing it in my personal faith formula, repeating it every morning to myself, like I'm ruthlessly eliminating hurry or however I want to word it. There's going to be a lot of like rich insights that come out of practicing these two things and reading this book. And as I

gain those insights, I'm going to be writing them in my personal faith formula, reminding them, like, making them part of my identity. So that's kind of the plan. It's like, got to figure out your resources, commit to implementing those resources. And I haven't quite figured out how I want to hold myself accountable yet. There's a ton of different ways that we can do this. Like you could have, you could go through this, like a checklist for me, since these are the areas I want to work on.

I could regularly rate myself from zero to 10 on how did I do with my mental and emotional health this week or this month or this quarter, like how did I do with my spiritual health? How is my role as a wife going? Like I could rate myself more often than once a year. And honestly, I'm gonna try to do that because I'm gonna try to create more intentional, I don't know if rest is the right word anymore.

But space, mean, there's, you know, there's, I don't really know the right word, reflection, space, time with myself, time with God, like, intentional time, like with my spouse and my kids, like, I'm so excited for this next year to really focus on that aspect of things, because I know that's what my soul needs. And I'm hoping that by going through this,

reflection exercise, you can identify what your soul needs. Because we are going to have different needs, you're going to be in a different stage or phase of life, you're going to have different external demands than I do. But I wanted to give you this process so that you could get clarity on where you want to focus in 2025. So I'm going to review those steps one more time. The first is just to kind of state your overall goal if you have one for your life, that way you kind of have

you know, your lens on as you do the rest of the exercise. And then the next is to determine your personal pillars that you want to rate yourself on. And I just think the benefit of rating yourself is so you can have clarity of where to focus. So I would not think too much about it, go with your gut instinct on where you feel like you fall from zero to 10 on each of those pillars. And then after that, you're going to identify the lowest one to three.

that you wanna work on for this year. And then ask yourself, what would a 10 look like for this area? What am I doing when I'm living at that 10 and what am I not doing when I'm living at the 10? And that kind of becomes the benchmark for your behavior that you can work some of that language in your personal faith formula. The next step is to find a mentor or a guide to learn from. This can be a person, this can be a book, a podcast, a course, et cetera.

And then lastly, really just commit to a plan. So figure out what your plan of self-accountability is going to be. You could bring in an extra person for accountability, like a friend or a spouse or a parent, just someone who really knows you and someone who can be honest with you and someone you can be open to regarding their constructive feedback and that you're not going to get super offended or it's not going to hurt your relationship with them.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. you're a Zivli member, we're gonna be going through this exercise together at our upcoming mindset coaching call that's in the middle of December. So get excited for that. You can do your homework ahead of time or you can do it live there with me. And that's all I have for you today. I will talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.