Personal Growth for Newbies, Step 2: Setting Goals

If you have heard about personal growth, personal development, maybe you’ve read a couple self-help
books here and there, then you know what I’m talking about. But basically all personal growth or
personal growth journeys, start with your mindset. So we talked about last week how there are basically
two different mindsets that you can have when it comes to looking at yourself and looking at your life.
And one of those is a fixed mindset, and one of those is a growth mindset. So a fixed mindset is one that
unfortunately a lot of people live in where they’re sort of just complacent and they go throughout their
day-to-day just accepting their life for what it is. And like I mentioned last week, that’s not necessarily a
bad thing, but there is a lot more that that you can do. You don’t have to just accept things for the way
that they are.

And sometimes people never actually grow and develop because they are content with just existing.
This is the way life is, this is all I know, this is all it’s ever going to be. Adopting a growth mindset simply
means that you choose to be open to possibilities and potential, and you don’t settle for limiting beliefs.
Now, a lot of people that live with the fixed mindset are not even aware that they live that way. And
sometimes it’s not until we have a really defining moment in our lives or a really significant event that
we start to realize that there is a different way that we can think about things. So in my case, it was
because of a breakup that really made me realize I don’t have to live this way and I don’t have to feel
this way, and this just because this one thing that I really wanted to work out didn’t doesn’t mean that
it’s the end of the world and there’s a lot more that I can accomplish in my life than I think is possible
right now.

So my goal with this series is to help you understand that as well, and to help you adopt a growth
mindset because I truly believe it is the best and most fulfilling way to live. So in step one, last week we
talked about creating a vision for your life. And the easiest way to do that is by going through the eight
life categories, which I learned from one of the top personal growth leaders out there. And that is Tony
Robbins. So if you haven’t listened to that episode yet, I would do that first. But I am going to recap
those eight life categories for you. And I would write these down and keep them somewhere, because
you’ll be able to reference them whenever you need to, or whenever you feel like maybe there’s an area
in your life that is lacking, but you’re not really sure how to figure it out, I keep these in a note on my
phone so that I have them all the time and I can always refer to them.

So the eight life categories are as follows. They are health, relationships, money, career and business, personal and spiritual development, environment and space recreation and fun and volunteering and contribution. So the first step was to look at each of these areas and come up with a vision for your life. Come up with a picture for what you want your life to look like in each of those areas. And if you haven’t done that yet, you need help, you need that explained a little bit more than just go back to last week’s episode. The next step in the process is going to be setting goals. So goal setting, while fun can be kind of tricky because sometimes you can really not have any or not even sure where to start, or you can have a thousand of them . So it’s usually one way or the other.

Right now, when you’re looking at all of these different areas, these eight light categories, you’re likely
going to come up with a lot of goals because there’s, it’s just pretty much all encompassing. Every, each
area of your life is here. So you’re gonna have different goals in different areas of your life. So the
difference between coming up with your vision and then coming up with your individual goals is that
your vision is going to be this overarching picture of what you want your life to look like. Whereas your
goals, it’s really going to be all about specificity, being as specific as you possibly can with your desires.
So let’s just say for money, you put that you want to be wealthy, that is your vision for your life. You see
yourself as a wealthy person. You have to be specific about exactly what the term wealthy means to
you.

How much money is it that you want to make. And this is sort of the easiest example that I could think
of. But for each category, you’re gonna have to be specific about the goals that you have. So if you
wanna make a lot of money, how much money do you wanna make? If you want to get healthy or lose
weight, how much weight do you wanna lose? What does being healthy look like for you? Initially it’s
gonna sound very generic. So like, I wanna be healthy, I want to be in love, I want to be wealthy. I wanna
have a career that I enjoy. So the more specific you can be about those individual things, the easier it’s
going to be for you in the next step, which is going to be actually planning everything out, scheduling
time to do all the tasks that you need to do to get to where you want to go.

So just try to be as specific as possible. Now, like I said, when you go through this, you’re likely going to
have a lot of things that you wanna accomplish and a lot of things that you wanna work on, and that is
great, but I’m going to suggest, I’m gonna encourage you to work on them one at a time. Now, you may
have some smaller goals and some larger goals, and you can, you know, include some of the smaller
ones in with whatever else you’re doing. But in terms of the big goals, you’re really gonna want to focus
on those one at a time. And I can tell you from experience that that’s the best way to do it. Because
when you are putting a little bit of energy and a little bit of effort into all these different things, it’s
gonna be really hard to see any results.

If you go all in on one thing, you are far more likely to make progress and see results and get the ball
rolling much, much faster. And I kind of dealt with this over the last year or so because one of my big
goals was to start a business, an online business. And then another goal of mine was to buy a house.
And what happened was when I started to get further into the home buying process and really start
looking and planning, and oh, I also moved like a thousand miles away from where I was living. So it was,
I was making these big, big moves and it was taking away from being able to build my business, which
technically was my, my number one goal at the time. So now I am getting back into that and everything
worked out fine, but I’m just saying it’s, it’s much easier to just focus on one thing at a time.

I actually just listened to an amazing book all about this. I’m actually listening to it now for the second
time, but it’s called The One Thing, and it is by Gary Keller of Keller Williams Real Estate and Jay Papasan. Hopefully I’m saying that correctly. But the book is called The One Thing, and it is all about deciding on the one thing that you can do today to move the needle forward in terms of your goals. So it’s really, really awesome. I really love this book. I will link that in the show notes for you as well, if you wanna check that out. Now, one thing I hear a lot of people suggest is to also make a deadline for your goals. I make sort of generic deadlines, but I don’t make any like hard and fast rules, like this needs to be done by this time because then I will just be putting a ton of pressure on myself and get anxiety about it.

And , I won’t hold myself accountable most of the time, right? But it’s entirely up to you. But in terms of deadlines, one way you could look at it. Let’s say you decide that you wanna make a million dollars in, I don’t know, five years. Okay, well, before you make a million dollars, you’re gonna have to make a half a million. And before you make a half a million, you’re gonna have to make a hundred thousand and so on and so forth. So you can kind of break it down that way. Or another example would be, let’s say you decide that you want to run a marathon. Okay, cool. You wanna run a marathon. Before you do that, you’re gonna have to run a half a marathon. Before you do that, you’re gonna have to be able to run a 10K Before you do that, you’re gonna have to be able to run a 5K.

And so it just breaks down like that. You’re breaking things down into smaller, more manageable steps,
which will make it easier for you and will make it less daunting. When you look at this ginormous goal
that you have, if you break it down piece by piece, then you realize it is in fact doable. There is some
statistic out there that says, people who write their goals down are more likely to achieve them. And I
don’t remember what the percentage is or where I even heard this from. It was probably from that
book. But I highly suggest writing down what your goals are, and then whatever your main focus is, your
main goal, you wanna keep that at the forefront of your mind. So if you want to write notes to yourself,
keep a vision board, whatever it is that you need to do, I will sometimes write my goal on a post-it note
and just stick it on my bathroom mirror so that I look at it every single day.

When I get up to brush my teeth, every time I go in there, it’s there, I see it and I remember it. And then
I think to myself, okay, what’s the one thing that I can do today to move the needle forward so that I can
achieve this? Another thing you might want to do is to track your progress on a calendar, or you can
create a cool little tracker and a notebook somewhere, whatever you wanna do. But I think that is really
beneficial. If you’re somebody who really needs that little oomph, that little reminder that lets you know
that you are getting somewhere you are accomplishing something. Even if you’re just taking the smallest
little step, doing one small thing every day adds up. And it’s so much better. It’s so much easier to
accomplish things when you, you know, take the marathon route as opposed to the sprint.

If you try to do all the things every day, one after the other day after day, you’re gonna burn out like fast. So it’s much easier just to do a little bit at a time, a little bit every single day. Now, depending on how big your goals are or how maybe complicated they are, you are going to want to give up. I have wanted to give up many, many times. And if your dream, if your goal is truly big enough, then you’ll probably cry like a lot , and I don’t say that to scare you, but things that are worth doing, things that are really meaningful, it’s, it’s going to be a challenge. It’s, there’s nothing worth having that truly comes easily. But the truth is, you gain so much from the journey and so much from the experience, that’s sometimes that’s even more important than your destination, which it sounds cliche and corny, and a lot of people say that, but it’s really true.

You grow, you develop, you accomplish maybe other smaller things along the way. So just
remember that it’s a process you will get there, but just try to relax and enjoy that process. Sometimes I
look back at when I thought, I wanna start a business, I’m gonna start an online business. And I literally
had no idea how to do anything. Even when I wanted to start this podcast, I had, I had listened to
podcasts, but I was like, I don’t know how to make one. Like, do I, I need to get a microphone. Like what
kind of programs do I need to use? How do I record? How do I schedule it? What do, what kind of
platform do I need to put it out? Like I had zero clue. But the amazing thing is, we have this beautiful
thing called the internet, and I’m not trying to be facetious, but it’s like we forget that we have all these
resources available to us.

So I think back at that time when I literally knew nothing about podcasting, about how to start an online business, and then I look at where I am now and how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown, and of course there were struggles along the way trying to figure a lot of these things out, all the technical things, and it was, it would get aggravating. And it, yeah, it’s, it does happen. But when I look at where I am now compared to where I was a year or two ago, I’m like, holy crap. Like I really did, I really did a lot of stuff . And so then I think about like six months a year, 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now, who knows what could happen? It, I mean, I’m, I’m really excited and I’m really looking forward to continuing to grow. And you know, as aggravating as some of those experiences were along the way, it really, it taught me so much.

And you wanna make sure that you’re also celebrating the small successes or the tiny victories along the
way, along your journey. And that will help keep you motivated. So if you’re like me and you’re one of
these people that you have a lot of things that you wanna do, you have a lot of goals and a lot of
ambitions, and you just can’t pick one thing, you know, there’s just, there’s just too much. I want you to
know that a lot of these things overlap. So while you are growing and building towards one specific goal,
one specific destination, you’re likely gonna see results in other areas as well, in other life categories.
For example, one of my goals has been to develop a stronger relationship with God and with my faith.
I’m a Christian and, and my faith is something that’s important to me, but I hadn’t really had that
relationship with God in the way that I wanted to.

So I joined a church when I moved. So that has helped me really grow in my personal and my spiritual
development. But then I’ve also started making friends at church. So I’m building relationships. I started
volunteering with them. So that is, that’s contributing to the volunteering and contribution. I’m
volunteering my time and that time is really meaningful for me, that time that I get to spend every
week. So they do overlap. You will see results in different areas, even when you think you, you may just
be focused on one. So the first step is going to be, again, creating that overall vision, using the eight life
categories as a guide. And then you wanna create goals that are specific, figure out exactly what it is
that you want to achieve. Try to be as clear and concise as possible. You can choose to set deadlines if
you want to, if that’s helpful for you, if that’s what helps you stay focused and motivated.

But either way, you’re gonna wanna break down your goal into smaller, more manageable, a more
manageable steps. Writing down your goals is super helpful, probably more than you would think. Like I
said, write them down on post-Its. Post them places that you go to every day. Places that you look at
every day, your bathroom mirror, your car, your desk, whatever it is, just your refrigerator. Just make
sure that it’s places that you go to often that you’re gonna be able to see it. Often you can track your
progress, whether that be on a calendar and just checking off every single day that you take another
step or finish another task in regards to your goals. You can journal daily, weekly, whatever, just so that
you can, again, it’ll help you stay motivated and maybe make any necessary adjustments that need to be
made. And then you also wanna celebrate your successes along the way.

And remember that this is a journey and you will get to where you wanna go, but the journey is still a
really important part and it’s still a really fulfilling part. The next step and the next part in this series is
gonna be all about creating a plan. You’re gonna be creating a plan of action for actually achieving these
goals. ’cause You need to determine what the steps are that you need to take, what resources that you
might need, and then how much time you’re going to need to complete each of these steps. And you’re
gonna wanna schedule out time so that you are making sure that you are staying focused on your goals
every single day, that you are doing what you can to make the most out of every day, even if you’re only
working towards your goal for five or 10 minutes.

So that is what we’re gonna get into next week. I really hope that this week’s episode, this lesson, if you
will, on goal setting was helpful for you. If it was, let me know. Let me know what your goals are, what
you have figured out from listening to this. You can shoot me a direct message on Instagram @theheartbreaknurse. You can email me hello@theheartbreaknurse.com. If you have a question about this or about anything else related to personal growth or breakups or relationships, anything like that, send me an email, hello@theheartbreaknurse.com if you’re enjoying the show. If you are getting something valuable from this, then go ahead and leave me a rating or a review or go ahead and share this with a friend. Share this episode with somebody that you think would find this information helpful. This community is really growing and I can’t tell you how appreciative I am to have you here with me as a
listener to be able to talk to you and for me to know how much this information has helped you. It really
means a lot to me, and it’s really what keeps me going. So thank you so much for being here. And with
that, I will see you next week in part three of our Personal Growth for Newbies series. I will see you
then.

Are you ready and determined to make this next season of your life the best season of your life? I
believe that any person who is willing to invest in their personal growth has the ability to accomplish
anything, and I wanna give you the tools to make that happen. That’s why I created Heartbreak Hero. It’s
my premier program designed to help high value people just like you heal from their breakup, discover
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ready to make your comeback.