Turn Your Dreams Into Reality with Strengths-Based Goals (Waypoint 7 of 8)

In this episode, you’ll discover why traditional goal-setting strategies like SMART goals may have failed you in the past and learn how to set H.A.R.D. goals tailored to your strengths. This strengths-based approach ensures success by aligning goals with your talents and vision.  

"You have what you need to achieve any goal you set for yourself already inside of you."

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between SMART and H.A.R.D. goals.
• How to use the Strengths Wheel to lean into your talents while recognizing potential pitfalls.
• Why aligning your goals with your heartfelt "why" increases your chances of success.
• Steps to create actionable, meaningful goals that resonate with your mission.

How to use H.A.R.D. Goals Framework:
A concept from Mark Murphy's book Hard Goals : The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be 

• Heartfelt: Connect deeply with your “why.”
• Animated: Bring your vision to life through drawings or visualizations.
• Required: Understand what’s at stake if you don’t take action.
• Difficult: Push yourself slightly beyond your comfort zone for growth.

Practical Tools Shared :

• How to use the Strengths Wheel to map out your goals.
• Steps to "dial up" or "dial down" your CliftonStrengths® themes to support your progress.
• Questions to uncover your most heartfelt, aligned goals.

Action Steps to Take: 

• Tune in each week for new podcast episodes.
•  Join the conversation in the Discovering Your Calling 8-Week Challenge Facebook Group for support and feedback. 
• Download the Discover Your Calling Academy Workbook for free and filled with tools, journal prompts and more!    

Special VIP Offer:

Ready to dig even deeper? I'm offering an exclusive VIP Coaching Experience, which includes:

• A free CliftonStrengths Assessment
• Two personalized 1:1 coaching sessions
• One group coaching session
• Early access to my upcoming book—all for just $347!
  Sign up here.

Act fast—this offer expires on Nov. 30, 2024.

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Transcript

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In this episode, you'll discover why setting Smart goals may not have worked for you in the past, and how to goal set in a way that it's almost guaranteed to bring you success, even if you've never been great at goal setting in the past.

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sets out Dobson shares without goals and plans to reach them. You are like a ship that is set sail with no destination.

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Now, like this quote says, if you don't take the time to set meaningful goals and create a map to guide you toward your desired destination, you risk

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wandering aimlessly for the next

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five, ten, 20 years of your life. And I know that is not what you want. Otherwise, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast episode today.

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So welcome back friends.

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I am your host, Sherry Meister, and we are on waypoint number seven of the Discovering Your Calling

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challenge. This is based off of my Discovering Your Calling Academy, where I help individuals find their ideal career, and not just in the traditional sense. It is how to create a career that light you up, a career that is truly your calling and matches the life that you desire.

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So it's based on that, but it's also based on the book that I have been writing. And I'm going to be honest, doing this challenge on a podcast format has been a challenge for me because a lot of what I write and what I teach live doesn't always,

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come across well in a podcast format. It's really been hard for me because

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I'm such a visual person for learning and teaching,

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so I hope that you have been able to gain some insight on your career and your calling by listening to these episodes, but do know that when the book comes out in 2025 and or the next live cohort of the Discovering Your Calling academy,

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it is so much better when it is,

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caught in a

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coaching format and or reading the book. But

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I'm doing the best I can and hopefully you have found value in listening to these episodes.

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So again, we are on way point number seven of eight. So we're coming to an end to this time together.

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And today we're going to talk about goal setting. And I know some of you are like yes I love goal setting. And some of you just did an eye roll and or attempted to, you know, pop off of this episode before we even begin. And whether you love it or hate it, I want you to know this episode is going to be a fresh approach to goal setting.

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I'm going to take you through a way that I teach and what's in the book,

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and it's a way that I started setting goals. That is so much better than Smart goals. And you probably heard of setting Smart goals or setting smarter goals. And we're going to be basing this on setting hard goals. And I'll get into that in a minute.

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But also then how to set strengths based hard goals.

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And when you take this new, fresh approach, it really breaks down and it makes goal setting, I think, super fun, but it also makes it in a way that when you you work this process, you almost are guaranteed to hit your goals, which isn't that what we ultimately want and I say almost guaranteed because, you know, life does not have guarantees at all.

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So I can't guarantee anything but almost guaranteed to hit them.

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Now, in the next episode, I want to also set the pace for what's ahead. And our last waypoint number eight,

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we're going to craft out how to create a personal calling map, which is going to give you a step by step guide to achieve your goals.

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So don't get hung up if you don't know the step by step

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way to achieve your goals today.

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That's not the purpose of this waypoint. This waypoint is to get really crystal clear on what your goals are and how your natural talent themes can help support you or hinder you from achieving that goal.

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So

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I also want to say a couple things before we jump into this episode

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one.

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If you are starting to feel behind and you feel like, okay, I've been listening every week, but I know I'm way behind and doing the work and it starts to stress you out.

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I want you to just take the stress away. This isn't meant to be. This challenge isn't meant to be a challenge in that respect. I don't want any guilt trips. I don't want you to feel stressed out about it. Just do the best you can. And I'm going to give you some tips on that as we go through today's episode as well.

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And also, if you do want to get a little more one on one support from me to help you get through the areas that maybe you've been stuck on,

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I just want to remind you that there's only like two weeks left to grab a VIP upgrade or uplevel spot, and that's where for less than $400, you're going to get two one on one private coaching sessions with me, plus another small group, VIP coaching session.

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So really three opportunities to get all your questions answered to get a little one on one coaching, break through those barriers that are holding you back

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for a phenomenal deal. Phenomenal deal. But time is running out. This offer does go away. On November 30th of 2024. In case you are listening to This Way Into the future.

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And of course, utilize the discover in your Calling Facebook community.

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It's your community where you can go post, you know what you're working on, post your struggles, post your ideas, and let's just connect over there in the Facebook community. That's absolutely a free resource for you.

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All right. Now that we have the housekeeping out of the way, let's talk about setting strengths based goals. So what do I mean by strengths based goals?

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Well, first of all, strengths based goals is focused on positive outcomes.

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And it's created to really cater to your natural talents while still challenging you to use those talents in new ways.

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And when we get to that part, you want to definitely have your five your top five Cliftonstrengths themes in mind. Hopefully you've done that by now. If you haven't, go back to, you know, waypoint number one or listen to that and you might want to think about investing in getting your Cliftonstrengths top five themes.

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And if not, just think about what are your natural talents if you kind of can guess at them.

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But again, listen to number one to find out why that's not the best step for you.

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All right. Before I get way off track on that, let's keep going here.

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This is also

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bringing all of what you've been doing in this challenge together.

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So hopefully you have learned a little bit about yourself or a lot about yourself. You have learned about your talents, you have learned about your values, and you have a vision and a mission in mind for what you want to achieve in the future. So now it's time to really bring it all together and make it concrete and make it achievable and make it seem like, oh yes, I see now how I can achieve this.

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And we're going to break this episode down into two

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separate parts. And if it works best for you, listen to the two separate parts separately. The first we're going to cover what is setting hard goals. And we'll spend a lot of time here. And then I'll show you how to set those strengths based goals using what's called the strengths wheel.

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And it's a tool that will help increase your chances of success by leaning into your natural strengths. But also in this part of the episode, we're going to talk about how to also recognize those talents and strengths that you have that might actually hold you back from achieving your goals.

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And yes, my friend, your strengths can sometimes hinder or get in the way of your success.

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So make sure you keep listening or where you listen to that part of the this episode

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when you can.

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So what are hard goals? And again, you've probably been taught to set Smart goals, which is not a horrible way to do it. It's not a bad way. I just found that usually that's not the most effective way to set goals.

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And then I came across hard goals. And hard goals is based on Mark Murphy's book called Hard Goals The Secret to getting from where you are to where you want to be.

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Now I found him on YouTube so you can YouTube,

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Mark Murphy and learn more about his actual hard goals process

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and what it means. But basically, he breaks down goal setting into four main parts.

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The each is heartfelt

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and then you have a is animated are required and D is difficult hence hard goal. So heartfelt animated required and difficult.

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Now, I'm not gonna lie, I took a little liberty to tweak things to make them fit our program and I hope, hopefully Mark won't mind because I do push that. Read his book, find him on YouTube.

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But for this program, we're going to tweak things slightly to make them fit our purpose of setting strengths based goals.

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And

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let's just jump right in. So heartfelt. The first one, heartfelt. Heartfelt is all about just thinking deeply about your why. What's the why. That is the driving force behind your goal. Now we talked about whys earlier and the challenge whys on why our mission is important to us, but now we're talking about like, why is achieving this goal important to you?

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And in this step,

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the goal, pun intended, I guess,

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is to come up with at least a three

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heartfelt reasons why you want to achieve this goal.

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And they can be intrinsic,

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personal or extrinsic goals or extrinsic whys

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of why this is important to you.

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And when I take the students through this in the discussion your calling academy, we want to go back once again.

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Go back to that whole peeling the onion exercise to get down to what I call the Y that makes you cry.

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But for today, I just have three more. Really? I guess it's six main questions for you to ant to ask yourself that can help you determine that deep why you want this goal. The heartfelt why.

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So here's some questions you can start by asking yourself.

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Number one, why do I even want to create this new business?

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If going in that direction is the right direction for you.

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And how will it change my life?

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So why do I even want to create this new business? And how will that change my life?

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Or you might ask yourself, why do I want to find a new career?

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And what will change when I land that perfect career?

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You might also ask yourself, why do I want this lifestyle that you've been dreaming about for yourself? That we did in Visionary and Waypoint number two?

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And what will it mean for me and my family when I create that lifestyle for us?

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So ask yourself, why do you want to create this new business or opportunity for yourself? And how will your life change when you do?

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Why do you want to find that new career or job? And what will change when you land that perfect career?

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And why do you want that lifestyle you envisioned in the vision hearing stage? And what will that mean for you and your family?

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And really try to go deep. Like don't go to the superficial first answer. Really spend time contemplating this question so you can really get clear on that heartfelt why.

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And once you do, jot down your top three reasons in your workbook.

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Then we move on to question two. Animated the A in the hard goals.

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And this is my favorite one. I'm not going to lie, only because you get to grab your favorite colored pencils, your markers, that new fresh box of crayons. You know, go ahead and splurge on the one with the little sharpener in the back.

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And here we're going to really take those the steps you did in the vision, hearing

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and bring them to life with art. Now, we are not judging your artwork here. Stick figures are totally fine,

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but it has to be something that you draw that you know what it stands for. And when you look at the picture that you were going to draw, it stirs up

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emotions with all of your senses.

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So, for example,

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when I did this exercise, once, I drew a picture of a sailboat and let me tell you, it was like a basic sailboat, like my five year old grandson probably could have drawn a much better sailboat than I.

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But when I looked at it, I knew what it represented. I could smell that salt air. I could feel the gentle waves, and I could imagine my husband and I living out our dreams of traveling on a sailboat.

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And guess what? A few years later, after I drew that simple little sailboat, we did do that. We bought the boat and we did live out our dreams.

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Now,

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truth be told, it wasn't exactly how I envisioned it, but it was pretty darn close.

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And yeah, you know, this may feel a bit woowoo to you, but it works.

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So trust the process. So take your time in this part. The animated stage and draw out. What does your vision for your life look like? Again, no judgment on the artwork. The only rule is that it has to resonate with you and stir up excitement when you look at it.

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There's space in your workbook to do this step, or go ahead and just draw it on a sheet of paper, but make sure you keep that picture someplace where you will see it daily.

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Posted on a mirror posted in the bathroom.

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Put it on the refrigerator. Where will you see it all the time to remind you of this goal that really stirs up some emotion.

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Better yet, tired. And when you draw it, better yet to tie it to those heartfelt whys behind their.

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Then we move on to the R, which is required

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in the book Hard Goals.

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Mark explains that the required section is about looking at the goal and why you must achieve it.

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And we're going to do that. And there's two ways though I'm going to change this to look at the required. One is, as Mark shared, that it's so ingrained in you that you can't not achieve this goal. And we'll talk about that in a minute.

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But I also want you to think about what is required. What is the work required of you to achieve your goals.

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So first let's look at the first required. What would your life look like

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if you didn't

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achieve your goal?

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I want you to imagine yourself now one years, three years or five years from now. And what if nothing changes?

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That's scary, isn't it?

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And that should. That thought should have just made you really uncomfortable. Like squirming in your seat. Like dread. Like don't do that to yourself, because I know you don't want that. And I know staying stuck is not even a an option for you.

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You know, staying stuck in the same place where nothing is changed should feel far worse than taking the risk to make the change.

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And this

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is why this goal is required. Because you can't stand the thought of not achieving this, of being in the same place

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year after year after year. And you know, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

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And this thought should be that create that sense of urgency for you. And it should be why this goal is just simply like, I've got to do this.

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Hence the required part.

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And now that you have that sense of urgency and mine and you know that not doing this goal is just not an option.

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Let's move over to what is the work required of you to achieve this goal?

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And in the Discovering Your Calling Academy, I have our students look at like, where do you need to be a year from now?

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Where do you need to be six months from now?

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But for today, let's just keep it simple. I want you to think about where do you need to be 90 days from now? What's the marker that you're going to know? All right. If I achieve this, if I do this. If this has happened, then in night, in the next 90 day time period, you know, you're one step closer to achieving your ultimate life and career goals.

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Then think about what is it you have to have done. So the activity that you have to have achieved in 30 days,

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what does it look like for one week?

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And then here's the key, my friend. What is the one thing that you need to do tomorrow

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to move closer to your goal?

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Or what's the one thing you can do today to move closer to your goal?

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And that required needs to be something tangible. It needs to be. All right I need to buy a book and learn how to do X, Y, and Z.

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I need to block off time to re listen to this entire eight week discovered your calling challenge and do the work that is required of me.

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Maybe it's taking time to research a new career or business idea.

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What are the markers that are going to help you see that you're moving closer to your goal? What's required as far as the work goes?

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And then the last part of setting the hard goals is the difficult.

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And this may seem a little

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challenging to think about the goals being difficult, but it's not about so difficult that it feels overwhelming and it freezes you up and you can't do anything about it because you're so overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done.

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The difficulty needs to be in a sweet spot. And I've heard that that sweet spot is moving 20 to 30% beyond your comfort zone.

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So it's it's out. It's pushing you enough out of your comfort zone that it excites you, but it's not so far out of your comfort zone that it overwhelms and freezes you. Does that make sense?

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So that 20 to 30% beyond where you think, what what you think you can do

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is that sweet spot?

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That's where the hard goal needs to be. Because here's the thing if it's easy peasy to do, it's not motivating. Who cares?

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But if it's going to stretch you and make you grow and give you that excitement. That, my friend, is fun.

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And every time I think about the hard goals, I think about the first time. Well, first and only time so far in my life and in you'll hear why I say only so far, because it's something that I would love to be able to do again. If my body will physically allow me to.

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But it's when I set a goal to run a half marathon.

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And no, I had run to five K's before. I, you know, ran pretty regularly, but usually during the week, maybe a total of 3 to 5 miles, no more than ten and a whole week.

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So it was a big stretch, but I knew it was also a stretch that I knew I could achieve. So it was in that 20 to 30% out of my comfort zone sweet spot.

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And I did this hard. Goals. I envision that 13.1 sticker on my car and I won. I knew my why I had those intrinsic and

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extrinsic goals or my why, why I wanted this, and I had a plan. I hired a coach to help me,

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but I knew that because it was a hard goal for me, it had.

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I had to work at it every week and I couldn't just set.

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I couldn't just say, oh, it's not that big a deal. I don't need to go for my run today. No, I needed to go for the run today, or I knew I would not achieve the ultimate goal of finishing the half marathon.

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And I'll be honest,

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that goal pushed me,

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you know, further than I've ever done, mentally and physically.

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But it is still, to this day, one of my favorite goals I've ever achieved. And I do hope that someday my body will allow me to do it again.

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So what is that sweet spot for you?

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What is it? What is that goal that makes you feel like, oh, this is a little challenging, but I know I can do it if I stay focused and work at it.

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So, my friend, it's your turn now. So I want you to reflect

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on your passions, your vision, your mission, and set those goals. And yes,

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it can feel scary and intimidating, but it's also that that scariness that's going to force you to carve out the time to reach it.

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So go ahead, grab your workbook and jot down what is that difficult goal that you really want to achieve

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now.

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And if you need a little inspiration on doing this, I would encourage you to tune into an episode podcast episode I did a while back.

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It was titled sailing into Success with Vicki Lindbergh's, and it was how she achieved her ultimate hard goal to become a sailor with no sailing experience. Initially

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was a really insightful episode.

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So that, my friends, is how to do the hard goals.

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So it's about heartfelt. Wise is about having an animated visual for you to look at. It's about required knowing

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why you want to achieve this, because otherwise there's no art. You know what's required of you mentally because you know not doing it is not an option and what's required of you physically.

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And also knowing that it's in that difficult, sweet spot.

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So that's the hard goals part.

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So now let's dive in to making them strengths based goals.

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And in the workbook. If you've downloaded the Discovering Your Calling workbook, there is a page that shows the strengths wheel. And that's what we use when we're setting strengths based goals. And if you don't have that right in front of you,

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and I'll post this in the Facebook community for for you as well.

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But just picture a pie chart. So you have your goal in the center of this circle that looks like a giant pie of ten slices. So maybe it's a ten slice pizza pie or a ten slice apple pie. You choose the pie, but there's ten,

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little pie slices going around the circle. And in the middle is your goal, your hard goal that you now know what it is and why you want to achieve it.

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You put that in the center of this pie chart

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and then the ten slices, we'll call them around the circle. You're going to put your top ten talent themes. Your cliftonstrengths top ten talent themes. Now if you only know your top five, then make it a five slice pie chart and put those all around the center or all around the pie slices.

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And

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what you're going to do is you're going to look at each of these 5 or 10 talent themes

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and think about how can this talent theme help me achieve this goal,

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but also look at each talent theme and think,

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Will this talent theme not help me? But will this talent theme hinder my success? Will it get in my way at success?

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And that was a big eye opener when I taught this at one of my small group cohorts that

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people are like, what a talent can get in the way. And that was something they hadn't ever thought about. But here's the thing. Like I use my maximizer and learner to illustrate this, because maximizer is one of my top ten talent themes, and Maximizers like to take what's already good and make it excellent.

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And I have learned that

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sometimes my maximizer helps me create some really awesome things that help me write. Hopefully a really great book. It helps me create a really good program. It helps me do things with excellence, but it can also get in the way because

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it wants perfection. And if I let my maximizer run free without

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a stopping point,

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I'll stay in improving mode

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or far too long instead of just getting it done and I have to be very aware of this, and I have to be willing to sometimes say it's good enough because perfection doesn't exist.

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So I have to just stop myself and realize like, ooh, I think I've crossed that line. And now I actually call it maximizing something to death.

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And actually a new friend of mine who paints, I was sharing this with her, talking about this, and she's like, oh, I totally get that, she says. Sometimes I do that when I'm painting

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and she keeps looking at a spot and wants to keep perfecting it, and then she crosses the line where it actually messes up the painting instead of making it better.

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And I realize that was I loved when she said that, because it's like, yes, that's what happens with my maximizer, that sometimes I keep working on something that I actually make it worse than it was. So maximizer for me can sometimes get in the way of my success. So it depends on what goal it is, whether it's going to help me or hinder my success.

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A learner is another talent theme of mine

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that sometimes can get in the way. Now my learner is why I love to read books. It's why I love to digest other people's courses is why I love to just be constantly learning new skills, new learn new ideas, and feeding my brain.

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But it's also very detrimental for my well-being sometimes because I can stay in learning mode

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far too long, I can be consuming and not outputting things.

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And sometimes if I consume way too much and too many of other people's ideas,

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I just get to be a mess. I either go into comparison mode and I'm never good enough, or I can just keep wanting to learn more before I just start implementing what I already know.

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So those are just two quick examples of how your talent themes could at sometimes help you, but they could also hinder you depending on what the goal is.

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And that's where the strengths based goal sheet, the strengths will comes in handy because it's a very good visual of like, what is it you're working on right now? And is this talent theme going to help or is it going to hinder?

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And once you figure that out, then what I suggest you do is highlight each of the talent themes

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and either highlight them in green if you feel like they are a going to help you and they're going to help you, finish the task or achieve the goal, then you want to go with those talent themes.

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Now, on the other hand, if they are one that might hinder you and you just want to be cautious about them, highlight them. Yellow.

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And if you are totally aware that, ooh, I got to watch it. This talent theme is could totally get in my way of my success

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to achieve this goal. Then highlight that one in red and that is just like stop!

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Don't even let it.

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Don't even go there. Don't let it get in the way. So green is go, yellow is caution. It might get in the way and red is like ooh, it is definitely going to stop you. So be aware.

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So that's a quick snap synopsis of how to set strengths based goals. And it's also in when I'm doing a training, I like to call this dialing up and dialing down your talent themes.

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You may have heard me talk about this before, and it's sometimes just when, like with my maximizer and learner, I have learned when I need to dial them up

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and also when I need to dial them down and you dial them up when you need to lean into them more to help you achieve something and dial them down when you sense that they are going to hinder you or get in your way.

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And again, my friend, just if that sounds very overwhelming to you, you're like, Sherry, I just totally don't get it. I am going to try to do a a Facebook Live in, where I explain some of these things in person because as I shared at the beginning of this episode, it's really hard to just hear how to do this.

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It's so much better when you can visually see it.

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And this is also another reason why I encourage you to maybe do the VIP upgrade, because you and I can do a zoom chat and talk about this and really break it down to what your hard goal is, what it should be, what it looks like, and also how your talent themes can help you or hinder you.

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This is a great way to spend when you're coaching sessions.

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Okay,

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let's wrap this all up, my friends.

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Here's the thing. The one big thing I want you to take away from everything I share today

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is that

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you have what you need to achieve any goal you set for yourself, already inside of you.

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And if you take nothing else away from this episode, I want you to take that away and own it.

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Everything you need is already inside of you. You just need to learn how to tap into it. Your God given talents are there to support you on this journey, so use them.

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And there's also no need to force things to happen. If you start to feel overwhelmed, just take a deep breath, pause and remember you've got this and God's got this

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and God knows what your finished puzzle looks like.

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We don't know. So just keep collecting the pieces and trust that he's going to show up and show you where they go. But you have to start doing the work. He expects you to show up and do the work. He'll do the rest.

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Also, remember, you're right where you need to be. You're equipped with everything you need to succeed.

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And one last thought don't be afraid to just test things out.

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Remember the boat that I drew

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when I was setting my personal goals?

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Well, we did buy that boat and we lived on it for seven months.

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But you know what? It turned out that boat life wasn't for us. We tried it and we made incredible memories. We gained clarity on what we don't want, but we also gained a lot of clarity on what we do want over the next 3 to 5, ten years.

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And the key is that we chase the dream. And even though it didn't end the way we thought it would.

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Guess what? There's no more wondering what if

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we're not left wondering about it?

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And most importantly, we don't have to live with regret that comes from dreaming about something, but never pursuing it.

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So go ahead my friend. This is your time to set those goals.

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Quit wondering if don't live with regret. Just chase after it and lean into your natural abilities to achieve it.

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Now, next week is our final waypoint and we are going to break down all your goals into step by step. Clear action plans so you can create this

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wonderful career and vision you have for your life.

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And then we're going to finish the whole challenge with a bonus mindset mastery for episode nine.

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So in two weeks.

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And remember that goals can be intense and they can require massive changes,

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but they can also be modest and require smaller incremental changes over an extended period. You get to decide, but use your strengths to be a participant in your own success. Don't wait for things to happen. Go to work to make them happen.

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You've got this, my friend, and I will see you back here next Tuesday for our final waypoint. In the meanwhile, I do hope to see you over in the Discovering Your Calling challenge. Facebook community, or perhaps in a VIP upgrade.