INTRO:

Hey, it’s Julie Zuzek and welcome to the Corporate Yogi podcast. How the heck are you? I am very excited to be back in action with the podcast for this special episode to kick off the new year. For you regular listeners you know I had to press pause on the podcast during my maternity leave and there were a number of personal things that took all my time and attention. I’m happy to report, I’m back in action, have a wealth of new content to share and will be publishing bi-weekly episodes going forward. And really, what better way to start a new year than starting back with fresh new energy and inspiration to share with you. I have to confess, I’ve missed the podcasting. My daughter is almost 2 years old now, and while I’ve enjoyed spending every single moment of being at home with her and transitioning her into daycare, I’ve really missed this time dedicated to curating my best ideas and content from clients into regular episodes for you. New episodes will be available every other Tuesday, on your usual podcasting platforms, the format will remain the same, and for those of you who are keeners and want the episode early, be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website where you’ll get access to that month’s episodes in advance.

When it comes to goal setting you’re either in 1 of 2 camps. You are a firm believer like me of investing the time and energy to gain clarity around what you want, you drink the Kool-Aid so to speak and you don’t need any convincing at all about why this is important. And for those of you in the other camp, you’re somewhat skeptical about why you should invest the time to do all this work and you’re not quite sure how it will add value to your life. If you’re a member of camp Kool-Aid you’ll be happy to know that my 2024 Goal Setting Program is now live and available for download. It includes all the great features from before, but this year I’ve added in something NEW that will take your goal setting to the next level. I’ll share what that is in the last segment today. For those of you skeptics, I guarantee that by the end of this episode you will be inspired and ready to set goals for the new year and understand why this process is such a critical game changer

So here’s a look at what you’re going to learn today:

1) First, we’ll talk about the biggest mistakes people make when goal setting

2) In the 2nd segment I’ll explain why exactly it’s so important to set goals if you want to live a fulfilled life

3) And in the 3rd segment I’ll share a somewhat vulnerable perspective on my top goal for 2024

4) and in the last segment I’ll explain the HOW of goal setting. I’ll walk you through my program, what makes it unique different and why it’s designed to deliver big results.

So get out of your head and into your heart and let’s talk about goal setting.

SEGMENT 1:

I want to share with you now the biggest mistakes people make when setting goals. I see these mistakes all the time and want to make sure you avoid them.

Mistake #1: They set too many goals

They take a “more is better” approach and bite off more than they can chew. They take on too much instead of getting clear about what really matters. Think of the analogy of watering plants. If you only have one dedicated watering can, do you really want to split it across 100 different plants? If you do this, none of them will thrive, none will get the time and attention they really deserve to make it. A better approach is to be more selective and just pick 5 plants to water – 5 goals, this way you’ll ensure they get enough water, love and the right attention. When it comes to goals, more is not better, more is just more. Focus and alignment are key here – you need to pick things that will make you feel fulfilled. So that’s mistake #1 – setting too many goals.

Mistake #2: Setting Should Goals or OPGs – Other people’s goals.

This one might land for any of you who are people pleasers and love dedicating your life to the happiness of others. It’s a guaranteed recipe for misery. An example of a common should goal is, I really want to lose 10 pounds this year. Now, don’t get me wrong – I value the importance of investing in your health, but if your goal feels like an obligation, and doesn’t bring you joy, you won’t be inspired to achieve it. An easy way to spot a Should Goal is that it often becomes a Recycled Goal – meaning it shows up on your list year after year, and trust me it doesn’t get any more exciting each time it shows up. I would argue there is less chance of making it happen the more times it shows up on your list. The OPG is a different type of obligation – it’s the perceived obligation to make other people happy. Like your mother, or society, it’s about comparing ourselves to others and thinking we need to do something that will bring us happiness. So mistake #2 is setting should goals or OPGs.

Mistake #3: Picking goals that are better served as habits

You have a unique opportunity to set 3-5 goals that will really move the dial in life, don’t waste them on low level things. An example here might be – reading more, starting a meditation practice, or getting up early each day to start a morning routine. These are all fantastic things which I fully support, but they’re really more about setting up habits that are non-negotiable than they are around goals. Goals should leave you a little bit breathless, they should excite you, there should be a little bit of adrenaline as you get excited and wonder, how am I going to achieve that? What will be possible when I do and how will life be different. Focus on the things that will move the dial – the big boulders, not the tiny stones. The other reason I peg these as habits is I don’t want you to just do them for a short period of time in your life – I want you to make the permanent changes in your life that will allow you to do them forever, which is why they’re better served as habits, not goals. So mistake #3 is setting goals that are actually better served as habits in your life.

Mistake #4: Setting goals that don’t align with your vision

The goals you set should really align around a common vision of where you are heading and who you want to become in the process. This is the secret to making sure they will be fulfilling for you. Too often people lack the clarity of what they really want, and it’s because they don’t have a vision. If you don’t know where you’re heading and what will make you happy, how will you know if you’re goals will support who you want to become? Your vision is your guiding North Star for what you want, and you have the choice to set goals that will either accelerate you getting there, or taking you off course. For example, if you have a passion of becoming a people manager and building out a team, you know what logical steps you can take to get there. You won’t be distracted by investing your time into other things that don’t support you in achieving that goal. Your goals should be like signposts of achieving your vision for where you want to be, and this will make you feel fulfilled and happy, because your vision is the culmination of your values and your purpose statement. And when you stick with those things, you are unstoppable. So mistake #4 is setting goals with don’t align with your vision.

Mistake #5: Setting goals without reflecting first

This is perhaps the biggest mistake people make is sitting down to set goals for the new year without reflecting on their previous goals to see what they actually accomplished. How will you ever master the process of setting goals if you don’t measure your goals. Right? You can’t have goals without accountability. Did you meet your goals? Did you set the right goals? Do you need to do something differently this year? But it’s so much more than just reflecting on last years goals. It’s about reflection in general. And I’ll let you in on a little secret, reflection is a superpower. It really is. And not just for tracking your results, but for APPRECIATING all that you’ve accomplished. You are building integrity with yourself as you grow and learn – it’s all part of the process. We can reflect on our core values and life purpose statement, and on our vision of where we are heading. Sometimes these things change over time. I know for me, becoming a Mom caused me to change so many things in my life. I no longer have the novelty of working 10-12 hour days, I have 6 hours to work each day. And I have to use that time wisely. It’s a choice, I could have my daughter in daycare for longer days, but with family as a core value right now, I choose the shorter, more flexible days, I love having time with her in the morning and in the evening. So reflection serves many different purposes in our lives.

Ok let’s recap those top 5 mistakes people make when setting goals:

1 -  They set too many goals

2- Setting Should Goals or OPGs

3- Picking goals that are better served as habits

4- Setting goals that don’t align with your vision

And #5 - Setting goals without reflecting first

SEGMENT 2:

OK so now you know exactly what mistakes to avoid when setting goals. Let’s talk a little big about WHY we want to invest time in this annual process. Why is it important to set goals?

The main reason we want to set goals is to feel fulfilled and proud about who we are. So often I hear people complain about the daily grind, they feel as though each day is just a carbon copy of the previous one, wake up, go to work, battle the dumpster fires, come home, have dinner and numb out on Netflix, of whatever people are watching these days. I’d have to agree, that’s not very inspirational to me either. As humans, we’re meant to learn, grow and evolve. To become better versions of ourselves. We feel the most alive when we are pushed out of our comfort zone. Why? Because that’s when we grow the most and that’s when we feel the most alive. Having goals forces you to grow, it forces you to get clear on what you want out of life and to have an impact on others. That’s what fulfillment truly is. I like to say that we set goals not simply for progress, but for who we become in the process of accomplishing them. But it requires you to be hungry for life, hungry for change, hungry to learn.

Oprah has a great way of framing this, she says

People get to where they want to go because they know where they want to go.

Most people are driven by what they think they should do, and what they think others want them to do.  

The most important question is to ask yourself, What do I really want?

Once you can answer that, every choice you make will force you in the direction of what your vision is, and when you do that – the forces of life rise up to meet you.

The reason most people have chaotic lives is because they live in chaos in their head, and as soon as you get clear – it clears up.

And once you have clarity over where you want to be in life, your goals will make sure that you get there. I like to use the GPS analogy. If you have a GPS in your vehicle, it can help you take you anywhere you want to go. But having the GPS alone is not enough, you have to actually program in where you want to go, you have to plug in that address and only then will it take you there. The address is your Vision, your North Star of where you want to be in life and your goals are the sign posts along the way that make sure you get there.

Did you know that only 3% of adults have clear, written goals. And as a result, they accomplish up to 10 times as much as people who have never taken the time to write out exactly what they want.

According to a Harvard Business Study, people who write down their goals are 30 times more successful than those who don’t set goals at all. Yes, you heard that right, the simple act of writing down your goals, brings them to life. We are manifesters and need to remember that the Law of attraction is always working for us, whether we want it to or not. So it’s important to be clear and intentional about what we’re drawing in. Writing goals down keeps you in integrity with yourself, it keeps your goals conscious and top of mind. All this attention helps you bring your vision to life. I know for most people they have a rough idea of what they want and they think it’s good enough to just keep these ideas swirling around in their head, but it’s not. You have to make it real by extracting it from your head and putting a stake in the ground that this is what you’re going to do.

Let’s recap this segment with the Oprah quote:

People get to where they want to go because they know where they want to go.

SEGMENT 3:

Now I want to share details of my top goal for 2024

And before I dive in I’d like to share a Trigger warning - this segment  shares stories of my cancer journey and may be upsetting if you or a loved one has dealt with chronic disease.

As we’re on the cusp of 2024, I’ve naturally carved out time for my personal goal setting for the year. My #1 goal is to heal all cancer from my body. Yes, I’ve been on a cancer journey since last year and I’m ready to share the details with you. As with most challenging personal situations, there isn’t a playbook about what to share, when to share and how to not overshare. But what I do know is that I’ve always committed to being 100% authentic and telling the truth about what and where I’ve been and who I am becoming – so it feels important to share that with you now, as I start releasing this podcast again.

So, two and a half months after Mary was born, I received the scariest and most devastating plot twist of my life. A lump in my stomach was confirmed as cancer in my right kidney. I had to have surgery to remove the tumour and my right kidney. It was terrifying, and shocking, and my ego was in overdrive. Me with cancer? Seriously? I meditate, do yoga, am vegetarian and don’t drink.

After the surgery I spent 6 months normalizing life with Mary, then through a scary incident I discovered the cancer had spread. Next steps were radiation treatment and in Feb of this year brain surgery to remove a tumour.

Since then, my treatment has looked like drug therapies, immunotherapy, natural treatments like Vit C therapy and mistletoe, supplements, and lots of metaphysical work to clear trauma. Louise Hay would be proud. My typical A Type researcher tendencies & desire sprung to action.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far is EQUANIMITY, because resistance only brings more pain. In most cases, our suffering doesn’t come from WHAT we’re going through, it comes from our resistance to accept it.

I’m sure in the future I’ll share more details, but for now I wanted to be authentic and get you up to speed. My imposter syndrome was telling me I couldn’t return fully to work and the podcast until I had all this disease wrapped up in a perfect hero’s journey with a picture perfect ending. But I can’t control how long that’s going to take, AND I also know that others receive tremendous value when we share our Messy Middle  - more than when we share our perfection. So fuck perfection and predictability, that never made anyone more interesting.

I want to share an enormous thank you here to all my friends and family who have helped me in countless ways on this healing – helping and supporting me and Mary and being so positive and supportive in all of my decisions along the way. I am a friend and family millionaire, and have been blown away by all the love and support.

So far as I know, there’s no playbook for navigating these plot twists, but I have the greatest reason for driving forward. My beautiful daughter needs a healthy strong Mama to teach her strength, courage, positivity, and love. I’ve always known that kids pick their parents, & she knew this entire shit storm was in my path and signed on despite it. Thank you for choosing me Little One, we’re stronger together and I won’t let you down.

I’ve shared more details and perhaps too many pictures on in an Instagram post on December 13. It starts with a picture of me power posing over the ginormous Cyperknife radiation machine. And shows my surgery progress and healing, you can follow me @thecorporateyogi.

And if my story resonates with you and you feel compelled to reach out and share your story or experience, I would love to hear it. This disease is hard, scary and a big blow to the ego. When you think you’ve invested in health, it humbles you in many ways and challenges you to hold on to what you know is true and what you’ve been learning metaphysically your whole life. As a good friend said to me after my diagnosis, you’ve been preparing for this your whole life Julie – I feel like this is my Rocky moment – running up the stairs and believing in myself at a level like I never have before.

SEGMENT 4:

And now it’s time to talk about HOW the goal setting program works. And I want to point out that I’ve been doing this process with clients for over 10 years, so goal setting is kind of my thing. The program is broken up into 3 different sections. As I talked about, we start off with Reflection, and I’m going to warn you, its thorough. There’s more than 6 pages of reflection that happens. The reflection is just as important as the goal setting is. We reflect in a bunch of different ways. We reflect on which goals from last year you accomplished and which you didn’t. We reflect with questions like – how were you brave? What are you most proud of? What sucked your soul? What do you wish you’d done differently?

We reflect with a personal report card where you rank each area of your life and how satisfied you are with it – your career, money, health, fun and more. We reflect on your Core Values to see if they’re still accurate. We reflect on your life purpose, and we reflect on your theme that you entered the year with. Did it play out the way you intended or were there lots of plot twists? 

In the 2nd section we actually set the goals. And to do this it’s necessary to check in on your 5 year vision. Remember the GPS analogy. You can’t just get in the car and randomly drive around, you have to know where you’re heading. Then we do a goal brainstorm where you right down everything you think you could do. This is important because I know we all start off with too many things we think we need to be doing. So write them down and then start sifting through them.

Then based on the vision of where you want to be, you set a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 goals. This is a hard process for most people, because like I said earlier, we are programmed to think that more is better. But more just dilutes our attention.

Then section 3 is the implementing section where you take time to think about the habits, beliefs and behaviours that will help you accomplish these goals. This is important because this is the personal growth part. This is about asking yourself – who do I need to BECOME to bring these goals to life. Or in the case of limiting beliefs – what do I need to let go of to accomplish this goal. Then we update our Core Values and Purpose statement, which sometimes needs to be updated based on changes in our life and lastly, we pick a theme for the year.

There is also a feature of long-term planning where you can make additional notes and capture important things. For example you address your long-term goals, things like your bucket list items, your travel wish list, training and education you want to take part in. This is essentially your long-range planning.

That’s it – that is the 3 step process for goal setting

Reflection, goal setting and...