175 Achieve Your Secret Goal Inside Shape Shift

We all have something that if we accomplished would change everything. It might be so close to our hearts that we’ve never even spoken it aloud. We’re terrified of the disappointment. In this episode I’ll share the critical elements you need to make this happen for you and why I included them in my program Shape Shift.

You’ll learn:

• What stops us from going “all in” on our dreams
• What matters other than taking action and mindset
• What’s behind my decisions and creation of Shape Shift, my newest group coaching program

• Shape Shift Program LEARN MORE
• Instagram: @mindful_shape
• Free Self Coaching Resources
• Interested in getting coached by me? Go to my website mindfulshape.com

Transcript

 This transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I am Paula Parker. Today I wanna talk about how to achieve your secret goal. I'm calling it a secret goal, and I have a fun story around that inside my shapeshift program as it is right now. Now, with all my programs, I always iterate them and change them over time, but.

It is available to sign up for within the next, if you're listening to this in real time until March 27th, 2026. So if you're listening to this in real time, you can join us. But I wanna give you an overview of how, how I made decisions in terms of what we are doing inside of this program. And then also, even if you are listening to this outside of the.

Time when you can join. Is that for any kind of secret goal that you have? You have a clear map of how to approach it. That might be a little bit different in terms of how you were thinking, which is, which we tend to do with our goals, we come up with a plan. It's very action oriented. And if you've been listening to this, you know that mindset is a big component to that as well.

So today we'll be talking about action, yes, but also mindset and embodiment, and how those three things together are really going to help to transform you. All right? So this is what I do in shapeshift, but this is what you can do on your own if. You are keen to do so, and this is outside of the enrollment period.

So I did this program called Experiment a while ago, and I love doing experiment. A different approach to goals in which, yes, we do have a. Personal victory that we are setting out to achieve. But we come at it from an angle, which is how I approach all goals as we come at it from an angle and an experiment is specifically by running experiments.

And I once had a participant who emailed me and said, I have a secret goal. This is my secret goal, which I just love, like I love the. Juiciness of having a secret goal that's so close to your heart that you, you almost don't even wanna tell anybody, at least not anybody in your life, right? Like your friends, family.

This is just for you. And maybe if you're in shapeshift or you're in one of my programs, you share it with us because we also have our own secret goals and we are not in your world. We don't have any. Preconceived notions about you and what you're capable of, like other people in your life, right? That's not to put them down.

It's just like we do have these, we have identities when it comes to who we are in our friendships and who we are at work and who we are within our family and with our in-laws and with our family of origin. We have these identities. It's not to say we can't shift them. We absolutely can shift them, but it's going to.

Sometimes come up with resistance because we're acting in a different way. We're not showing up how we used to show up, and that can cause some friction. And when there's friction, our brains will get scared. This is too uncomfortable. There's dissonance there. And it will be easy for our brains and for ourselves to then revert and go back to the old way of showing up, the old way of acting.

Thinking about things taking action from that old self. So when you are in a new environment with new people who only see you as somebody who is achieving that goal, you show up in that way, right? So it's like this really special container in which you get to access that part of you. So that secret goal that you have, whatever you have in your heart that you want to achieve, sometimes.

It's like we are on a continuum in which we get very inspired by our goal, and we imagine it's possible and we can experience that sense of possibility. And we really believe in it and we believe it's possible for us. And then on the other side of the continuum, it almost can feel like a weight, like it's an anchor of a dream and it, it drains our.

Aliveness that drains our verve because we know we want it. But all of this cloudiness of, it's not possible. That dream is too big or it's not possible for you because you can't do it or you won't do it right. You're not somebody who's capable of figuring it out, any of that, and that just like drains it.

The wanting of the dream. The secret goal doesn't go anywhere. It's just what gets in the way is all of this clouded thinking and moves you down that continuum.

So you might be somebody who's very ambitious and you tend to make progress. Like if you decide on something, you decide to go for it, you make progress. But. Then what you notice is you don't quite reach your goal. You get close or you reach it and then you go backwards. So you self-sabotage even though this is something that you truly want.

And often we can experience this as a battle. So there's like a part of us that's like the good side and the part of us that's like what we think of as the bad side that's holding us back. And in that moment of choice, when it's comes down to I do the workout or I don't. Or I have the cookie or I don't.

We can't quite get ourselves to do it a hundred percent of the time. Oftentimes when I'm working with clients, they say, I just need to be more consistent. How do I get myself become more consistent? I knew if I was consistent with it, I would see results. Maybe it's you wanna start a creative project, like you wanna start a novel, or you just want to say no to yourself.

More often, you wanna pass on the wine because you know that if you. Skip the wine if you have your tea. Instead, you're gonna get a good sleep and you're gonna feel so much better the next day. But in that moment you're thinking, Ugh, like I've had such a hard day. I'm too tired. I'm too tired to write tonight, or I'm too tired.

I just wanna relax and connect with my partner and enjoy my evening. And it's like tomorrow's version. We'll deal with that. So you're thinking to yourself, concept is good and you think. This should be easy for someone like me because yes, I have the tools. I feel like I have good self-esteem.

I have a good mindset. Most of the things in my life I'm very successful at. You also are probably not new to mindset work, personal development, all of that, okay, so. If you were that person, you're ready to commit to yourself in a deeper way. And it's not so much about following rules or more discipline or more self-control.

If you're a little bit skeptical about that and what lights you up is. Self authority. It's this is a fuller expression of yourself. You're like, yes, this is a new identity, but this is a more maybe truer version of me. If there's something there, maybe you don't a hundred percent believe it, but there's just a twinge of yes, that resonates, then you're gonna love this.

This is for you. Okay? Because I wanna talk about the importance of that flicker of. Belief, that importance of your secret goal and how, of course it's not just mindset, that's essential, but it's not enough. But let's talk about what I mean when I'm talking about mindset, because mindset is crucial. You do want to incorporate some sort of mindset work into your plan, into achieving your goal, into your personal victory.

And that may or may not mean setting aside time to do it. I think it requires both. I think we need to incorporate a foundational practice to reprogram our brains, to offset the, you know, barrage of information that we get that keeps us small.

So like that. Thing that somebody said a long time ago where like, who does she think she is? Or you overheard like some mean girls talking about you or that weird thing your uncle said one time or somebody said to you, don't get too skinny. Anything like that, like you're, you're subconscious. It got that message.

And so we need to reprogram your brain so that your subconscious is not running the show. So there is a foundational mindset piece to this. And in the My Program's shape shift, I will be giving you some practices, some rituals with specific step-by-step questions that I do. Takes like 10 minutes some specific.

Sounds or music that you wanna put on to kind of get yourself in the state where you're relaxed and you're receptive and you're doing the mindset work to reprogram your thoughts. In addition to that, you're going to be wanting to develop more awareness in real time. Those moments like when it's really tough and you're thinking, I could do this or I could do that, it's like that angel or devil on your shoulder.

Yeah. There's gonna be thinking that you want to access. In that moment, but oftentimes thinking is not enough. And I will go into that in terms of embodiment work, but the foundational practices of mindset work that is going to allow you to access A, a higher level of thinking in those tough moments. And B, if you can't access those thoughts, then it will allow you to do the pause and pivot to.

Get a glass of water to reorient yourself so that you're not just complying. It doesn't feel like you are reactive anymore, you are responding.

Mindset is really cognitive awareness. It's understanding why you do what you do. A big part of this is also understanding the different parts of you. I want you to consider that instead of banishing that devil, we don't chastise or ignore that part of you that that part of you actually has some, something to tell you.

It has some wisdom, and that if we can. Listen, if we can drop judgment of, oh, that devil part of me, like she's depressed or she's anxious, or she always gets me to overindulge or overconsume and I don't like that part, so long as we resist it and push it away, you just know it's gonna. Rise up, right? It's gonna be even angrier.

Why? Because she wants to get her needs met. So instead of that, we want to bring her out. We wanna invite her to the party, I wanna teach you in shapeshift, I'll teach you how to integrate that part of you so that we can actually access that wisdom inside of you and use it to, instead of.

Self-sabotage. Instead, we use it to catapult your success. I have done this in terms of alter ego work in which I actually name that part of myself. So I have different identities and I name her and I get to know her, and when she comes up I can have a dialogue with her, right?

So I will talk about this in my program more, but it's really deciding that she's here. She will be listened to. It's just a matter of are you resisting listening to her or are you open to listening to her? Because I promise you that once you say, okay, I see you. I hear you. What do you have to say? She will soften.

You will notice, you will soften, you'll relax. You won't be in that resistance mode, and you will be able to get unstuck sooner. You'll be able to get out of resistance sooner.

We'll be doing all of that Alter Ego work in the first part of shapeshift, in which we are cultivating awareness.

So we wanna get really clear on what your secret goal is, what you truly want for yourself, and then we are going to be infusing that goal with desire. And so I'm going to, as much as we are working with that alter ego, we are also going to be working with that version of you who. Really believes and really wants it.

Otherwise, you wouldn't have that desire in your heart. If it wasn't possible for you, then you wouldn't even want it. You would've had that thought of like, oh, that would be nice, and then it just drifts away and you never think about it again. But if there is something that keeps coming back.

And or you hear about somebody else achieving it and it triggers you. You feel jealousy, you feel envy. You feel a tinge of, oh, I want that. That's not a bad thing. You wanna listen to that. That is something that we wanna follow. But what we tend to do is compare and despair. And what I wanna offer is that.

When that happens to you, you see it as a gift and you see it as inspiration. If you struggle with this, we can talk about it in the identity calls. Every Thursday in shape shift, we'll be having 60 to 90 minute identity calls in which we will deal with all of this stuff that comes up in a safe space.

How do we transmute comparison and judgment into inspiration? That's what I wanna teach you, right? Because when you can do that, you're constantly feeling inspired.

In this part of the program, in this first part, awareness. We really wanna be focusing on who you need to become. In order to make that secret goal, that personal victory inevitable. So it's merely days on the calendar. And to do that, we need to drop all that self-judgment.

That's why we do some of the alter ego work, and we need to. Uncover the patterns and the constructs. These like mental cages that you are unconsciously living, whether you think you are somebody who is a all or nothing person. Somebody who can't follow through, somebody who needs to release 20 pounds before you are in deserving of buying new clothes.

Okay? So we have to make all of this stuff known that unseen. You know, murky stuff that's in the background that's really creating how you are feeling and how you are showing up. And then we will again, integrate those parts, validate them, see what's going on underneath so that we can let them go. Now, I don't actually think of this as letting go, but that might help you in terms of.

Understanding, because what I really do think is we keep those parts, we don't banish them, but we wanna embrace them. We just completely transmute the relationship that we have with them. Because when we do that from that place, that's when we just, we feel free. We feel like, oh wow, there is possibility.

And we can really connect to that, what I think of as an irresistible future. And from there we can construct your new identity.

In the second part I'll teach you about embodiment. So I'm gonna teach you how to process your emotions so that you aren't subconsciously running your life through self-sabotage where you know what to do, but you aren't doing it. You'll also learn how to relate to your emotions differently, so that instead of avoiding negative emotions like boredom or self pity, or anger or sadness, disappointment, you will use it to take action in your life.

Okay. I just talked about the comparison to inspiration. That's how we can take an emotion that feels a certain way in our body. I wanna teach you how to relate to those sensations differently so that you can transmute them into something that will fuel you into action. I named it, embody your new identity.

We wanna get clear on how she is feeling and we want to tap into that. I think so often we are almost afraid of feeling how good it's going to feel. Like how good can it get? We are so used to numbing, we are so used to holding ourselves back. From believing from going all in because we are terrified of the disappointment, terrified of the disappointment.

I wanna change that. I want to encourage you to be somebody who. Like, it's so cliche, but dares to dream, right? Changes your relationship with disappointment structurally, like in your circuitry. So your brain body completely has a different relationship with the experience of disappointment such that.

That would never stop you. That would never stop you from going for what you truly want. And again, if you truly want something, if you really want something, there's something that's just been coming back around and coming back around, I urge you to listen to it. It's there for a reason. And I think the reason is so that you can learn processes like this because the core of processes like this are acceptance.

It's like I can accept myself. Even if I feel disappointed, because the worst case scenario is disappointment. We're gonna have immediate feelings, like disappointment, like I failed, and then we feel disappointment.

But if at the foundational level there's unconditional self-acceptance. That experience is going to be brief, very brief, if at all. And if we do experience it, it is totally normal. It's like a human emotion and we can move through it. We can move through it without any resistance. Why? Because ultimately all of this is about self-acceptance.

Okay? So we have these secret goals, we have these, you know, missions or these. Quests that are all internal. 'cause we don't really have to do anything. I mean, you could say, yeah, I have to work, like I have to make money and all these things to survive. But if you really question that, you actually don't have to do that either.

You could live on the streets, you could, you could work at Starbucks, you could do the minimum. No, you probably don't want that if you're here, you don't want that. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe that is somebody's, you know, mission, that's part of why they came here. But for you, it might be more, it's likely more.

And so I encourage you to embrace that, to not see that as a problem. To not see, oh, I'm constantly being challenged, or I have all these goals and I can't achieve them. No, that is the gold because in that wanting of it. We get to learn more self-acceptance. Okay.

So let's talk about the next part, which is, okay, how do I get myself to actually do the things? Yes, yes. Mindset, yes. Feeling all the feels, feeling the good vibes, transmuting the negative. But then how do I actually do the thing? So this is when we get really deeper into what I call taking aligned action.

So we want to. Challenge what you're currently capable of when it comes to your behavior. We're gonna be looking at obstacles like what typically gets in your way when you usually say, oh, I need a break, or, it's too hard, or what's the point, or, I'm too tired. I'm gonna give you a very specific repeatable framework. To essentially regulate your nervous system so that you can access your highest level of thinking and you can take action regardless.

So I always say there's two options. You can take action whether you are feeling like it or not, whether you are motivated or not, or you can regulate your nervous system, access a higher mode of thinking, and then cultivate that willingness.

So really there are two options, and you can do it either way. Now, one caveat here, because I personally believe that if you are on a daily basis taking action from a place of resistance, so you're doing it when you really don't feel like doing it every day, every day, every day. I personally believe that leads to burnout.

Burnout not because of the action, but because the energy with which you are doing the action. Again, this goes back to what are the fundamental, the foundational practices that you have. Maybe it's in a coaching container and you're getting coached like in this program. That's why we do weekly calls or workshops or podcasts or trainings that you're listening to or your thought work or journaling on paper.

Or your workouts, like if workouts are really easy for you and you don't have to force yourself to do it, all of those supportive things like meditating, listening to music, going for walks, anything that's just like easier for you, then that is going to help regulate your nervous system such that you can access the higher level of thinking to induce that inspiration, that motivation, because

what will lead to burnout is constantly believing thoughts like, I'm exhausted. This is too hard. This is not sustainable. We need to course correct those thoughts. Doing these foundational practices, doing mindset work that will help. Offset those thoughts when your brain goes back to them because you just thought them a million times before.

Your old identity loves that story. It just wants to stay the same. Your brain is wired that way. So we need to counteract heavily. Everything builds, right? We're gonna be focused on mindset, embodiment, and how to regulate your nervous system. When is it appropriate to take action when you don't feel it, and when is it appropriate to?

Develop a practice, a sequence that you can tap into on demand when you need it, to cultivate that willingness. And then the last part is going to be really transformation. So transforming into your new identity. This is where we say goodbye to all of those old identities. So that all or nothing that people pleaser.

A perfectionist emotional eater, that fun party girl. Maybe that person who starts but doesn't finish things. This is when we're gonna rewrite that inner narrative around. Whatever is getting in your way, whether it's weight, your food, your self authority, and we're going to calibrate your nervous system to your new identity.

There's this topic that I talk about a lot with clients, which is success in tolerance. That's where your brain diminishes your progress. It sees. Where you messed up. We have a negativity bias, we're loss averse. So even though we were on point for six days, that one day where we so-called messed up, I don't even like using that term.

We made choices, right? So neutral, we made choices. Your brain is gonna be so focused on that and then it's gonna deprive you of thinking of yourself as a successful person, okay?

We're going to need to know what is going to potentially block you from fully transforming into this new version of yourself. And it might be letting go of. Past behaviors like rewarding your success with overindulging, with food, or anything else that you wanna kick that habit, right?

You're also gonna learn how to handle it when you do mess up, so-called mess up, when you do slip back into that old identity, when your resources are low, when you've had a poor night's sleep, when you have more stress than usual, so that you can get back on track quickly.

So if you are somebody who you love personal development, like in your heart of hearts, you know you are capable of being the best version of you on a day-to-day basis warts and all, right? Because the best version of you is not this like glossy version of your life. It's you in your current life, but relating to yourself and your life.

In the highest way. And also if you have a body goal, you really want to feel like your body matches how you feel on the inside. This program, shapeshift is also going to be for you if. You see it as a priority right now.

This is a goal that you're just ready. You're like, i'm gonna make it happen. I'm ready to dedicate my time, money, and effort into this because even though it feels a little indulgent, I want to do this for me because I know I'm worth it and I know that my future self is cheering me on to go for it.

If you are truly ready to release old patterns. What's not getting you closer to what you want and who you want to be. You are ready and you're willing to challenge your old self-concept of someone who struggles, of somebody who's negative, of somebody who tends to be tired and too busy to get what they want.

We're gonna confront that with so much love. We're gonna challenge that and confront that. And lastly, if staying exactly the same, one year from now is. More painful than giving yourself a shot and going for it and potentially being disappointed. And again, I wanna teach you how to go for your goal and integrate that feeling of disappointment.

So even disappointment would never scare you. Like you can handle it. You can totally handle it. Not only that, your mindset is going to be such that even if you were disappointed because you did not get that goal. You did not achieve it. You will have grown. You will have learned more about yourself. You will feel more connected with yourself

and in other ways you are better off just for having had that goal. I had this goal of like being in the best shape of my life this year. I am not a hundred percent convinced that is going to happen, okay? To be honest, and I don't need to a hundred percent believe because I know that just by having that goal one, I'm more likely to work out.

I'm more likely to. Uh, take care of my body. I'm more likely to have loving thoughts about myself and my body. I'm more likely to make healthy choices, so of course, just by having that extreme goal of being in the best shape of my life doesn't mean I'm going to, it just means that I'm going to show up along the way in a way that I can feel proud of, in a way that is very self-supportive for me.

So the actual being in the best shape of my life is not as important as who I get to be. Along the way this year simply by having that goal, and if I get into the best shape of my life, then amazing. That would be so fun and a big bonus. So again, if you're thinking like, shapeshift is a three month program, what could I possibly achieve in that?

It might not necessarily mean you achieve that goal. It might, depending on the goal, on your secret goal. But if you don't, I promise you that either A, you'll be somebody who believes that they can much more often than you waver or fall out of belief. And then second, you are so much further ahead just for having worked on it, just for having.

Worked on your mindset, worked on your embodiment of how you relate to emotions and experiencing that in your body, and changing your brain body circuitry so that you can. Process emotion rather than numb or distract, you are gonna be so much better off. Okay. So if you're curious about joining shapeshift, if you want to be part of a community of women going through the same exact process and supporting each other,

oftentimes I think a community is the thing that we need and we didn't even know that we needed it. That's true for me as somebody who tends to be do it myself, lone wolf kind of person. When I'm in the right community, I feel so supportive I co-regulate with other people, and I am transformed through that process.

I don't think of myself as that anymore. I don't think of myself as a lone wolf. When you're inside this program, here's what you're gonna get. We're gonna do calls on Thursdays at 1130. Pacific Time. Those calls will be anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes. I wanna make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to get coached if they want coaching.

If you can't be there, that's no problem. I'm gonna be sending a recording so you can watch. Listen to the recording. You will also have lifetime access to the video training series specifically for this process, specifically for shapeshift, and I will be doing, of course, ongoing updates.

You'll always get those ongoing updates. You will get a workbook. Practices, explanation of tools, all of the concepts that we talk about. This is to accelerate your learning and identity shift.

This is not going to be a book that's going to take you the three months to read, okay? This is gonna be very specific and very intentional I also really want time set aside for going through the material together

so every month we will do a 90 minute workshop that I will guide and I will walk you through some of this somatic embodiment work, some visualizations. It's where we take some of the stuff that's more conceptual or esoteric and we put it into practice these calls are gonna be happening on Tuesdays at noon Pacific time, and this is great for.

Those of you who tend to put off the exercises, like you have the workbook, but you never get around to doing it, or you just want a sacred spot on your calendar where you know you can show up in community and do it together, and oftentimes it's just more fun being guided rather than doing everything on your own.

So you're gonna love this because you just get to sit back and be guided through it. You feel inspired. It supports your nervous system because we co-regulate and you just feel like you are more on track.

These will be recorded, so if you do miss it, you can go through it at your own pace, at your own convenience, so you can pause it, you can do the exercises, or you can even watch it at 1.25 speed. So you can take as much time as you need, or you can speed it up.

I really see this program as moving out of an old paradigm of we need to better ourselves into a new paradigm of we want to, for the sake of. Growth and for the sake of being a human who is on this planet and who wants to extract as much aliveness and experience and joy out of it, doesn't mean you have to be doing all the time.

Doesn't even mean you have to change much around you externally, but your sense of things your.

Experience of your daily life is going to shift in subtle, in significant ways, and we can't change what's outside of our awareness. So it's really time to deconstruct invisible and often internalized structures that keep us small and keep us distracted.

So everything we do inside shapeshift, I think of as a. Bold expression of our unwavering wholeness as a worthy human being. So worthiness is just baseline. I was told once you, when you're born, you just get your worthiness card.

Nothing you could do is going to diminish that or enhance that. It's just baseline worthiness. So the old paradigm tells us we need to feel terrible about ourselves in order to change. Like we need to hit rock bottom. We know differently. You are worthy of your dreams and your dreams are worthy of you.

If what I've talked about today calls to you, then you would be a perfect fit for the program. You are welcome to check it out in the link of this podcast description. You can go to mindful shape.com/shapeshift. You can also book a call with me if you want any more clarification on anything that I've mentioned today.

This program is being built in real time, which means that those of you who will be joining in this first round will be helping shape the program. What is it that you need? What is it that you're struggling with? What do you love and you want more of?

I can really mold it and cultivate it around you so I know what lights me up. I know what has worked for me and is making the biggest changes, and I've taken everything over the last, what, 10 years of doing this coaching and put it into this program. That's why it's not just about food and body. It can really be applied to any area of your life.

Any personal victory that you feel in your heart is there for you to achieve. I wanna help you get there. So again, you can click the link of this podcast description. You can go to my Instagram account. I will have a link in there, or you can even DM me, just DM me shapeshift, and then we can get in conversation about what this program is.

I can send you the links, I can send you all of the information that you need to know. The goal is not to. Convince you to join. I really want people to join who feel called, who feel aligned, who this feels like it's the right match, and we'll make magic happen. Okay. I hope that was helpful in terms of when you have a secret goal, it's going to be about mindset.

It's going to be about moving into that new identity. It's going to be about. Embracing the parts of you that you may not want to look  📍 at. We look at that. We bring them in and we want to process emotion, so embodiment and all of that together. Then we get to transform. This is a iterative process. It happens over and over and over again.

It's not a one and done. So I'm with you. I support you in your secret dream, and I'll talk to you again soon. Okay, bye.