Great, your goals are set... but will they stick?
What to do when your goals feel a bit fluffy and how to spot early signs of misalignment and fix them before it’s too late!
Dunno about you, but 2024 was a wild, bumpy ride for me. Felt like I was in one of those speed boats that purposely go super fast up to the bottom edge of a large waterfall and quickly swing you back out. It’s filled with adrenaline and excitement, and you’ll most likely get soaked.
Sure, it might have been fun 1 or 2 times, but… 5-6 nonstop loops of that. No, it’s not fun anymore being thrown around and continuously getting drenched. I was ready for the year (more accurately, that particular pattern) to be over.
Here’s something important to highlight…
Upon reflection, this was all… self induced! Like the people who went on that speedboat ride, they chose to go on it and willingly shelled out money for it, too.
Yeah… I was doing this to myself as a result from my decisions, choices, and how I went about setting goals and deadlines for myself.
Partway through the year, I became more hyper aware of and frustrated with these recurring patterns and did what I could to course correct them. But they’d still creep up and pounce like a horror flick monster from a dark, unsuspecting corner. Plus, the consequences and their side effects had been compounding to the point that I had to forcibly pause and stop.
These were my self sabotaging behaviors, and I distilled them down to these 3:
The workaholic and high achiever tendencies that were deeply ingrained within my unconscious and made me feel like it’s never enough.
The impatience in wanting success now drove me harder to do more and faster.
The hope that someone else had the right answers for me, but that chase led to following inauthentic and energy-draining strategies that burned me out quicker.
With these insightful saboteurs in mind, I could factor these into my planning and do reflective gut checks to evaluate my motivations and strategies.
I use questions like: Why am I choosing this specific goal and setting this particular deadline? Is this what I really want to do, or am I trying to prove something or impress someone? Then I use the answers to tweak my plans accordingly.
YOUR TURN! TAKE A MOMENT AND CONSIDER…
What are your patterns that have been holding you back achieving your goals? How do they commonly affect my decision making?
Feedback + opportunity = another shot at success
It’s a new year with new intentions and new ways of being. Plus, I’m readying for a whole lot of new life changes this upcoming year.
I had to come up with a better system for myself, derived from all the various goal setting courses and content I’ve come across and tested and setting it up in a way that I could personalize it for myself.
It’s not just about writing down the goals you have in mind.
It’s also about looking back to see how your goals fit into the bigger picture of your life and delving into the details to understand what those goal setting choices entail.
In just one goal, there are many dimensions, dependencies, and tasks derived from it.
Now layer that upon the numerous goals and intentions you have for this year, and be sure to consider both your life goals with your work goals, too.
On top of that, factor in the busyness of life and unexpected distractions that could derail you as well.
Can you see how goal setting can get messy, unsustainable, and complicated… fast? Without a clear plan, consistent focus, and support, even the best intentions can unravel and fall apart.
Plus, you could get so busy in the doing and achieving that you lose touch with your inner self, your instincts, your intuition, and your purpose. How many times have you felt like sleepwalking through life with your eyes open and your senses shut down?
You are not just your work. You’re not meant to sacrifice your life for your work.
Your work is meant to enrich and grant you the lifestyle you desire.
So how do you do this differently and do it in a way to have that ideal work life balance you desire?
That’s why continuous intentional planning matters.
Look, intentional planning isn’t just about writing down some goals and committing to them with perfection. It doesn’t have to feel rigid, stifling, or filled with the pressure of needing to get it all figured out now.
It’s about dreaming about the life you desire and crafting a practical path toward it. This is a creative process where imagination meets strategy, and it’s about keeping your intentions and plans front and center in your mind. This allows you to transform intangible dreams into a series of achievable, inspired actions. Those create small wins, and those wins? They’ll add up in ways that might surprise you.
It’s about creating clarity, space, and momentum. You don’t need the perfect plan to start. In fact, it’s in the act of starting that clarity often emerges. You don’t need to make dramatic changes. It’s about taking continual, progressive steps towards your intended direction. Every step you take builds confidence, and that confidence fuels the next step and the step after. Yes, intentional planning is an iterative process, and that is why it’s effective!
It’s about simplifying your decisions and hyperfocusing your energy, leaving room for what truly matters. When you set clear intentions, you engage in a form of mental decluttering and boundary setting. You fend off the grips of indecision, distractions, overcommitment, and opportunities that pull you in every direction. You know where you’re going and what you need to do, and that’s the foundation for meaningful progress. The key after that is consistency and course correction.
It’s about reconnecting with your purpose—the core of what drives you. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day shuffle, reacting to whatever demands your attention and being pulled by seemingly unavoidable obligations and expectations. But intentional planning pulls you back to your core, refocuses you, and reminds you of what matters most. When you have it set up like a vision-board-esque document, you can reference it at any time and leverage it to easily plan out your daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.
It’s about reclaiming power and responsibility over your life. So much of our energy is spent reacting to external pressures, letting our priorities get overshadowed by the noise. But when you set intentions, you take back control. You focus on what you can influence, and you let go of what’s outside your grasp. It’s freeing. It’s grounding. It’s empowering!
There’s even science behind this. When you set specific intentions, you activate your brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS). When you tell your brain what to notice or focus on, this amazing little filter tunes your brain to spot opportunities and solutions that support your goals. It’s like aligning your mind with your purpose, making it easier to recognize what’s meant for you and act on it.
Intentional planning is active. It’s collaborative. It’s personal! It’s you working alongside your vision, showing up every day in even the smallest ways. Because the truth is, you can’t just sit back and hope for things to change—you’ve got to cocreate the life you want. This is how your dreams start to take shape, so that they’re no longer distant “maybes” but something you can touch, feel, and move toward.
I purposely waited to send out this Post so you had time to think about your goals. Because right now, I challenge you to look at your goals and consider:
How do you truly feel about them?
How confident are you in successfully achieving them in your current state?
Are you fully aware of the effects, choices, and sacrifices you have to make to fulfill that goal?
This is exactly what I did with my paid subscribers this week.
I guided them through my Soulfueled Intentions Planner and helped them develop a holistic view of their goals and intentions for this year.
This is what they said…
“It pushed me to think about things with a longer focal length than I've been using.”
“I can see more of a pathway to get where I want to get this year and to grow my business and myself. It's given me a lot of clarity which is super helpful!”
“This was just really helpful, seeing it all laid out, recognizing the benefits of overcoming my limiting beliefs, and getting really clear on that why. That was really helpful for me. I loved it, so thank you.”
“I was a little skeptical when I saw that it was a spreadsheet… but, your aesthetic and design, the way you approach it, like actually made the spreadsheet soft and usable. What it did was it allowed me to see everything on one page, which means I have to stay accountable to what I'm writing as I'm moving through it. Now, I can just pop it up, quickly look through it, and quit it.”
“After reflecting for a minute on the core goals and then on the support assistance required, I was able to write everything down on just two stickies that I can stick to my monitor as a reminder. That felt really good that I was able to like summarize everything down to two stickies like that which are meaningful and something I can look at in the morning when I start my work.”
(and these were two tiny post-its that he wrote on!)
“Thank you, Kat. That's a pretty cool skill that you have in pulling all this together. I haven't seen anything like this before.”
Plus, several people chimed in saying that…
“Showing up in community makes such a big difference. It definitely helped give me the motivation and the support to journey a little deeper than I would if I was just doing it by myself.”
Want this for yourself, too?
Because of all the positive feedback and benefits I’ve gotten personally from doing this process, I’m hosting another session next week: Weds Jan 15 at 3pm PST / 6pm EST. (Hey, you can attend again if you want to work on your Planner more!)
So if you’re interested in joining this live 90 min coworking session where we work on your Soulfueled Intentions Planner together, sign up here for free by Monday Jan 13th. (Sign up even if you just want the recording and planner to complete on your own time.)
Feel free to invite others to join, too. Let’s help more people set holistic and achievable goals this year.
Cheers to starting 2025 strong and making it the year you don’t just set goals,
you achieve them with clarity, focus, and purpose!
USEFUL JOURNAL PROMPTS
Why do you want to achieve these particular goals now? What would happen if you did? What would happen if you didn’t? How would you choose to show up differently this time?