[00:14] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And today we want to talk about setting goals without shame. Th so welcome to 2024. Emily is back from maternity leave. Yay. Welcome. So excited. We have our regular co hosts on the podcast today. So excited to be back.
[00:40] Emily: And this is such a fun topic. I'm so passionate about goals.
[00:43] Rachel: Yeah, me too. And it's the time of year to talk about them because everybody is setting goals for the year, resolutions for the year, intentions, whatever you call it. You're thinking about what do you want this year to be and how are you going to do all the things?
[00:58] Emily: All the things.
[01:01] Rachel: So today we're talking about setting goals without shame. Because in our experience and in our own personal lives, we've really felt like a lot of the reasons that people set goals stem from a feeling of, like, I have to do more in order to be better, which can translate into those shame feelings. And really, it sets us up to fail from the start. Like, we set all these productivity goals, we set all these health goals, writing goals, whatever they are, because somehow, if we achieve them, it will fix us.
[01:37] Emily: Yeah. There's nothing that hustle culture pervades more than goal setting because goal setting is a tool, right? It's not a good or a bad thing. It's just a tool that we can use, but it's a tool that can be used to shame ourselves. It's a tool that can be used to push ourselves in ways that we don't want to be pushed in or shouldn't be pushed in. It's a tool that can be used to shame ourselves and just try to control ourselves. That's what I was looking for, because that's how I used to use them, is I felt like I wouldn't achieve enough if I didn't use really rigid goal setting and mapping out, using the full focus planner, like we were talking about yesterday, to map out when I was going to do every little step of a project. Because if I didn't map it out, then it wasn't going to happen and then I would be a failure of the human being. Yes, I have a great relationship with goal setting, you guys, but I think so many of us have see it.
[02:42] Rachel: As a tool that we're like, oh.
[02:44] Emily: This is the tool that's going to help me succeed, but it's not actually coming from a healthy place. And so that's what we're going to break down. Today.
[02:52] Rachel: Yeah, it feels really healthy. I mean, you look at the beginning of a new year as a time of resetting, renewing. Let's get on the right track. But with health goals, for example, you set a goal to maybe eat healthier. And on the surface, it feels like that's good for me. I can't wait to do this. It's going to be so great. But underneath the surface, it's like, well, you have a terrible diet. You don't take care of yourself. It's all of these negative self talks that fuel to have a goal, because.
[03:27] Emily: It'S like, oh, if I can just meet these goals, then I'll be a better person.
[03:33] Rachel: So don't do that.
[03:34] Emily: Don't do that.
[03:35] Rachel: End of the episode.
[03:38] Emily: So we're going to talk to you about kind of some ways that this shows up and how you can navigate it and how you can set goals from a place of self love.
[03:47] Rachel: Yes.
[03:48] Emily: So before we get there, though, we don't want to set goals from shame. What does that mean?
[03:56] Rachel: That's all of these feelings, that's all of these reasons of why you're setting goals to be better. As if the current version of yourself is not enough. And we're not saying that goals don't help you make improvements in your life. Obviously, you know that. But like, what you said earlier is there's a tool, and you can use it in a strong, positive way, or you can use it in a sneaky, pervasive, tough way. And setting goals from shame, is that pervasive? Those thoughts, those negative self talk thoughts that then fuel your goals, trying to teach you, or tell yourself that if I do this, if I achieve this, I have more value. I have proven that I am good. I have proven that I'm successful, that I'm worthy of being an author, that I can do this, that I can make money. All those hustle reasons that we've talked about before, it's like if the goal is coming from that place of not enoughness, that's setting goals from.
[04:57] Emily: Yeah, I. So last year around this time, Kristen Kafer, who's a great friend of ours and another creative coach, she had a podcast episode about this topic on her podcast, Wild making. I think we just discovered it's episode seven.
[05:12] Rachel: Yes, episode seven.
[05:13] Emily: So, absolutely, if this is speaking to you, go listen to that, because she is just such a wise and articulate person. So I'm going to read a quote from that podcast because it hit me so hard, because I was setting goals for the year, and I just picked up this podcast and all of a sudden it was like she was speaking to my soul and she said something. When we're setting goals from shame, this is what it looks like we're saying to ourselves, something about who I am now or what I'm doing now is not enough, is not good enough, or it's not real enough, or lesser than or lacking. And so I'm trying to solve that problem by setting this goal for myself. Because if I can achieve this goal, then I believe that I will feel good enough, that I will feel better, that I will be more real, more worthy. And if setting goals from that place looks like saying to yourself, I want to prove to myself I can do something, or real creatives do this. So I need to follow that, right? Or if I can reach this goal, it will mean that I am x, y or z, right? So if I finish, like real creatives write a draft in the year, or real creatives write 1000 words a day, or I want to prove to myself that I can write as much as x writer that I see, that writes 1500 words a day, or if I can finish my draft this year, then that means that I'm a real writer or that I can have a career as a writer, right? We attach all of these external meanings to the goal that we're trying to achieve. And that is when we're trying to shame ourselves, like brow beat ourselves into being a version of ourselves that we want to be because we feel like we're not enough.
[06:58] Rachel: Yeah, it's all this not enoughness. And the flip side of that, which is where we're heading towards, is the feeling of enoughness, the feeling of self love. And we've talked a lot about this on the podcast before of how central we think this is to the writing mindset. And if this is something you're working on currently, you're like, I'm trying to make those to feel enough. I'm trying like, I'm working on my mindset actively. Full props to you. You're doing an amazing job. It's really tough to switch the self talk that's so steeped in hustle culture, that's so steep in our western culture of how we talk to ourselves, how we create goals, like you said, how we think of success. Like, what does success mean? It's so steeped in these feelings of not enoughness that it can be really difficult to tease it out, tease it apart and rebuild the belief in yourself, rebuild the trust in yourself, the confidence in yourself. So I'm saying this because it's a work in progress to shift away from this, but it does wonders for unlocking creativity. Unlocking. And everybody knows I don't love this word, but productivity, like opening yourself up, freeing it, taking away the shame, takes away the pressure. And I 100% believe that when you don't have the pressure, you do more. You create more. Like pressure is strangling. And when you get rid of the pressure and the shame, you're suddenly on a cloud free and you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. And it's easier. Easy with a huge asterisk or easier, easier.
[08:46] Emily: So we're talking about goal setting as this thing that's like a tool used to oppress ourselves, basically. Right? So what happens if you believe you're enough? Do you just not set goals? Are you not ambitious? Like, okay, I'm enough. I don't need to achieve more. How do we bridge that gap? Because I think that that's really, I know that you like to talk about this, and I think it can be hard to know, am I brow beating myself or am I just trying being ambitious from a place of love?
[09:12] Rachel: Yeah, I think for me this is such a good question because I think that's your instant thought of, well, if I'm not setting goals from shame, do I just not care about anything? Do I just not want to do anything? How do I get myself to the point where I can do stuff? And it is a completely different way for me of thinking about the whole process, thinking about the ideas of success and what you do on a consistent basis. But to answer that quickly, tldr, no, of course you can set goals. Of course you can. But there's a shift to them. There's a shift towards fun and doable. There's a shift towards ease. There's a shift towards what is realistically accomplishable. And honestly, for me, determining what was realistically accomplishable was really hard because I had to fight with that word of, like, what's realistic for me, what's accomplishable for me, because I am a set big goals kind of person. And then I had to learn that, actually, no, in this current phase of my life, I can't set these massively huge goals. Or I couldn't a year ago, I couldn't set these massively huge goals because I just knew that I didn't want to set a massively huge goal knowing that I would have to work myself to the bone to get there. Instead, I wanted to set, like a goal that I would love, a goal that would love me a goal that would feel good, a goal that was going to be fun. What's so funny to me about hustle culture is like, it's not fun, yet we do it so hard. I still think you can be wildly ambitious. I still think you can have super big dreams. I still think that you can achieve and do a lot. Like, I did a shit ton last year that I had no intent. Like at the beginning of the year, no expectations for. But as soon as I let go of the expectation or the pressure, to me it really was like an unlock. It was like opening. Suddenly. I could see what made me happy and what I wanted to do and what was fun and doing. I want to do fun things more. Like, if something is fun, I want to do it more. I want to do it more often. I want to do it more frequently, I want to do it more. So if I make it fun, it's more likely for me to do it not like, set this massive goal that is a burden to achieve every day.
[11:51] Emily: Well, oftentimes I think hustle culture tells us if something's fun, it's not hard enough.
[11:55] Rachel: Yes.
[11:55] Emily: And I think that's if you take one thing away from this podcast, it's that your goals don't have to feel miserable to achieve. They should feel doable and fun. And that means that they're good. They're good for you, they're at the exact right level. You're going to go so far. If they feel like they're not going to be fun. Yeah, that's a huge red flag.
[12:19] Rachel: Sorry. Oh, my gosh. Practice. Look at us.
[12:22] Emily: I know, but I was going to.
[12:25] Rachel: Say you asked earlier, how do you start this shift and how do we get from shaming goals to self loving goals? And I think a good question to start, if you're thinking about this, is like, if I felt like I didn't need to prove anything, what would I want to do? If I felt like I could just play this whole year, what would I want to do? If I gave myself like a year to just sit in a sandbox and figure it out, what would I want to do? And that's where you can still dream big. For last year, I had a goal of figuring out a new writing process that worked for me, and that was one of my big goals and that had nothing to do with achieving a certain amount of things. But through doing that work, I wrote more than I ever have in all of last year. And it was fun. It was an experiment. It was like, let me figure this out. Let me see what I want to do. What would that big dream look for me if I believed already that I was enough? And I didn't need to set a goal to prove I was enough. I already am. I already was enough. So if I believed I was enough, what kind of goals would I make? And that changed the way that I looked at my self. Love goals.
[13:47] Emily: Love that. I love that. Our first advice for you is don't set goals from shame. Watch where your goals are coming from. Like, why are you setting them? Where are the expectations coming from? Kind of. Who says that that should be your goal? Is it you or is it someone else? Is it some external force that you're kind of inhabiting as your own? And then ask, yeah, is what you want to do? Are the goals that you're setting, are they fun? Do they sound doable? Do they sound easy? Like easeful? Maybe not easy, but easeful. Like you could show up for them. You're not going to have to brow beat yourself. If you feel like you're going to have to force yourself to do something. Question why you're asking yourself to do that in the first place?
[14:33] Rachel: Yeah. Be real with yourself. Because I am an ambitious person. Ambitious person. And I am a prideful person. So that word doable to me is like, anything. Is doable, anything. But then I was like, well, hang on. Obviously I know that I can accomplish anything. I grew up with the mom telling me that, like, strong women, yes, we can do anything that we put our minds to so that weren't doable. It's like, of course I can write 1000 words a day.
[15:04] Emily: That's doable.
[15:04] Rachel: But really though, is that what would make me happy? Is that easy or easeful, as you've said, is that realistically doable in the current phase of your life? That has also helped me is to put like, just because something might not feel realistically doable right now in the space and time that I exist in, doesn't mean it will. Like, it will feel the same year, the same way. Sorry, next year. So that's kind of helped me reframe what is actually realistic for me and take a little judgment off of myself for choosing to do plan, set goals for a little bit less.
[15:48] Emily: Yeah, I love that. Another trick that I've used, I've talked about this before, I think is one of my clients. She set a minimum goal of she wanted to three times a week, sit down and write at least one paragraph. Because for her, the hardest thing was just getting into the chair and she knew that once she did that, the words would flow, but it was the pressure of setting a word count or setting a time limit she didn't want to, that would make her not show up. And so having it, like, as long as you show up and write a paragraph, and sometimes that's all that she did. But that was information. This is not the time to write today. And then other times she would be there for two, 3 hours because she just got real into it. And so think outside the box as to the types of goals that you set, too.
[16:32] Rachel: Yeah, that's why we want to kind of let go of those productivity expectations. Like, maybe word count is not right for you. It wasn't for me because it felt like such a burden. But for me at this time last year, it was just show up twice a week. And then I started to show up twice a week and I was like, whoa, I feel better. Let me show up three times a week. And then I did, and I was like, oh, my gosh, let me try four or five and see what happens. And then there were some days where I would go back and I'd be like, no, three is good right now. We're sick. I'm tired. I don't want to do know. So it's like you said, think outside the box and try really hard not to set a productivity goal, but perhaps think more open minded of find what feels good. Goal. We're doing yoga with Adrienne this month. Find what feels good, you know?
[17:24] Emily: You know?
[17:25] Rachel: Yes, exactly.
[17:27] Emily: Seriously, look up yoga with adrienne. She's amazing.
[17:31] Rachel: I think it's actually findwhitefeelsgood.com. Yeah, it is. Go check that out.
[17:37] Emily: Find what feels good. Okay, so the last kind of trick that we want to leave you guys with is to think about how to pair your external goals, right? What we think of as goals, word count goals or draft goals or whatever, with mindset shift goals. So this is something else that we got that I was inspired by from kristen. Kristen Kiefer wild making podcast. Go check it out. Because kristen kind of blew my mind with this idea of pairing this goal that you want to do with the belief that you want to step into that will help you achieve that goal, right? So I often use this example in the tenacious writing society or community when we talk about this, where I really wanted to finish a draft in. I think I had four months and half of the draft left or whatever the goal was. And I realized that I had to step into or step out of my fear of the blank page in order to achieve that, that I was. I. It just wasn't going to happen. Like, I had never written that much in four months, and I identified that that was the belief. Like, sitting down and staring at a blank page was the fear that was keeping me from being able to achieve that goal. And so no matter how much I set that goal and browbed myself and shamed myself, like, it wasn't going to happen unless I believed that I was a person who had fun with the blank page. That was the belief that I wanted to step into. I am a person who has fun with the blank page, and I just love that idea of really thinking about, okay, I want to set this goal. Like, maybe you want to show up, maybe you do want to show up and write 500 words five days a week, let's say, but you've never done that before. So, like, sitting within yourself and looking at, okay, what beliefs do I have or do I want to step into or what fears do I want to step out of that are going to prevent me from achieving this goal or that I want to step into that could help me to achieve it?
[19:40] Rachel: Right.
[19:40] Emily: You can look at it both ways, but thinking about the fears that you have and the beliefs that you have about your ability to create and things like that, looking at what beliefs you can step into to achieve those goals can help you think about ways to start to shift the way you approach those goals. Right. So for me, I was like, okay, I have to stop fearing the blank page, which means I have to start seeing it as something that's fun. And so for me, I ended up writing, journaling, outlining by hand, and just kind of sketching and starting to play with a scene before I actually went and tried to type it, because that helped me just play around with no pressure, no purpose, really, other than to explore. And then when I actually went to sit down to face the quote unquote blank page, I already had stuff to work with.
[20:30] Rachel: And so it was way less scary.
[20:32] Emily: And way more fun. So just as an example, it will help you think outside the box as to what do you need to do to be able to achieve the goal that you want to, from a self love place, achieve for yourself.
[20:45] Rachel: Yeah. And this is another place where play with it. Open your mind. Think of all the different ways. Think of all the different ways that mindset shift might help you, or what mindset shift is holding you back. Because for a while with me, with setting those external productivity goals, it was like, this is the only path to success. And then you're like, well, no, who says that? Why does that have to be true? What are those narratives you tell to yourself that feel true and then examine them and be like, that's not true. So I had a lot of resistance when I had set a goal to only write two days a week of, well, I'm never going to get anything done. And you're like, well, is that true? No, of course it doesn't have to be true. And then when I was like, I can actually achieve a lot if I showed up two days a week, that was a huge mindset shift for me. And I achieved a lot. Yeah, you did prove that to me. So I think there's those. If you just spent, like three minutes writing down what are all the true quote, huge, massive air quotes, what are all the true narratives that go through your head when you're thinking about setting goals? And then flip them. Flip them. How are those things not true? Why is that a myth? What? Could you think differently? That's how I found some of those mindset shifts. That's how I love that. Yeah. Landed on the ones that spoke to me.
[22:14] Emily: Awesome.
[22:15] Rachel: Cool. So action items.
[22:18] Emily: Yeah. So as you guys are thinking about, I feel like there's so many action items baked into this episode. So maybe listen to it again and pull them out. But we have some questions you can ask yourself as you are setting your goals for this year. So those would be what's your next milestone goal that you'd like to reach? And then what's a procedural goal that will help you reach that milestone goal. Right. I wanted to finish my draft in four months. It meant I had see, jumping into it meant that I wanted to show up x number of times a week.
[22:50] Rachel: Right.
[22:50] Emily: Or I wanted to write x number of words. Whatever works for you. It's different for everybody. And then ask yourself, what belief could you step into that will help you achieve those goals? What fears do you need to let go of? And what beliefs can you replace them with? What easy achievable to you, to you.
[23:09] Rachel: In this phase of your life action.
[23:12] Emily: Can you regularly take towards your milestone? So for me, right now, that is showing up at least once a day, four days a week. Yeah, that's it for you. And really think outside the box for that. It can be word count, time, number, all kinds of different ways that you can look at that. And then in what small way can you regularly work to step into your new belief? Right. We only start to believe something when we have proven to ourselves that it is true. Right. When I feared the blank page. It took me a while of showing up still fearing it and going through the motions of journaling before I actually found some play. And then it took me a while longer of doing that practice to actually believe that it would be fun when.
[24:02] Rachel: I sat down, right?
[24:03] Emily: There's sometimes you sit down and you're like, this is going to suck. And then it doesn't. Yes, but it takes a while to trust that you're going to have fun when you sit down. So what are some small ways that you can regularly step into those new beliefs or let go of those fears that you've identified?
[24:20] Rachel: I think a huge thing that I don't think I can remember the exact quote, but this was a quote that you and I have talked about, Emily, and that I've said before from the good inside podcast with Dr. Becky. And it basically is like the first step towards changing your action is changing your thought. And the idea is bringing awareness to the thoughts that you're having and catching them is a really good step to start to change the mindset. So like I said earlier, it's not easy. It's not like you just wake up today listening to this podcast and you're like, I'm going to believe all of a sudden that this mindset is perfect for me. Maybe it feels like that, but you're still going to have those pesky old thoughts that you need to catch. Bring awareness to in order to fully live out that mindset shift over the course of a year longer. This is big work, heavy stuff to really change some of these ingrained beliefs that we've all grown up with or that have been ingrained into our being.
[25:28] Emily: Yeah, seriously.
[25:32] Rachel: Okay. On top of those questions, another thing that you need to do for action items is don't forget to celebrate your progress and your small successes. You don't have to like hot take. You don't have to stave up your happy, proud feelings of yourself until you've achieved your goal. You can be happy and proud of yourself in the midst of trying a new thing. You don't have to have achieved this goal in order to feel good about it. You're like starting it. So celebrate that small progress, celebrate those small successes, whatever that looks like. I am a full believer and you got to constantly praise yourself and that brought a lot of healing to me. You're doing your best. Look at you. Wow.
[26:24] Emily: Coddle yourself. Yeah. Love on yourself. Celebrate your small wins the way that a parent would celebrate their child's small.
[26:32] Rachel: Achievements parenting your inner child.
[26:35] Emily: Yeah, I'm like, Bailey, you grabbed a.
[26:41] Rachel: Like, you found your thumb. Celebrate yourself like that.
[26:45] Emily: Cheer for yourself that way.
[26:47] Rachel: Exactly. It's like, wow, I sat on my computer today. That's amazing. And honestly, it might feel silly at first, but do it. That's another great way to bring some joy to the process. To make it fun, is to celebrate when you are making that progress, when you're doing the thing. And last very important note is don't forget to incorporate rest into this. We are not hustling towards these self love goals, guys. We are also resting, taking care of yourselves, building that into our year, building that into the goals that we set. Dare I say, maybe some of you even need to set your goal is to rest. And that is what you focus on this year. And what mindset shifts are you going to create around rest? Rest is so important. It fuels us. It keeps us moving forward. It helps us actually create and sustain way longer progress than if you want to hustle your way through this, which we all know just doesn't work, it.
[27:55] Emily: Leads to burnout 100%. And the last thing is if you guys, these are things we talk about with tenacious writing folks all the time. Tenacious writing is our membership program for writers and we hold goal setting workshops pretty much every six months.
[28:14] Rachel: Yeah, it was definitely like that last.
[28:16] Emily: Year, which is good. Yeah, and we'll probably keep doing that. We have recordings of all of our goals workshops that walk you through step by step how you can set up this stuff for yourself and think through it. And we do a lot of general mindset work together. We have lots of coaching calls and whatnot where you can talk to us about your goals and how you're feeling about your goals and work through all of the feelings that we have around goals and when we do and don't meet them and celebrate when we meet them as a community and all of that. So if you are looking to do this work with other folks, check out tenacious writing for sure.
[28:52] Rachel: Link in the show notes, friends. Swipe up right now. Tap that link. We want you to be part of our party. Come join our party. Awesome. We love goals.
[29:05] Emily: We do. Awesome. Well, if you want to get. What?
[29:10] Rachel: What was that?
[29:11] Emily: Start over, you guys, I'm back. This is my first time.
[29:15] Rachel: I'm going to leave this in.
[29:17] Emily: You should.
[29:18] Rachel: Okay. Restart.
[29:20] Emily: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[29:26] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs after seven days of email Magic. You'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the bye.
[29:35] Emily: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Happy 2024. Bye.
