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Hazel Robertson: Hi, and welcome to the second episode of the scary goals club. , this podcast has gone live. I recorded the first episode yesterday. I edited it. I put it all together.
[00:01:00] Decided last night that I was just gonna go through the whole process and get it uploaded. And then it was live on Spotify. It was the craziest thing seeing it. Like being able to go on to Spotify where I I listen to my podcasts and I listen to other people and I listen to music. And it was like, I'm there.
The artwork I've created is there. And the sounds the words I've sent to the world are there. It was the craziest thing. I got really emotional just in that moment. I'm getting a little bit emotional now just thinking about it.
Like, thinking back to myself 3 years ago when I had such a dream even before that to record a podcast. And I even recorded episodes and I edited them, and I just never published them. I never took that next step, the scary bit of actually putting it out into the world. And I just felt so proud of my past self for starting and for keeping that dream alive and moving it forward. I'm just so proud of myself for actually [00:02:00] doing it because I felt so scared, not only just recording it.
I go home and have dinner. I was like, nah. I'm not doing this podcast thing. No. I'm not putting it out into the world.
It's just a nice little pet project. I'm not gonna press publish. And then I sat with those feelings. I sat with the fear and the discomfort and just let it be there. I was like, okay.
No. I'm doing it.
We do it anyway. The fear is always gonna be there because we're doing something new. It was there. And then I pressed publish, and it was in the world. And just so proud of myself.
And also nothing changed. Like, cool. I got this wave of emotion. I like sat with it. I celebrated.
And then Luke and I had a conversation about who's looking after a dog when we're going on holiday. Like, we get back to our life, and that's just how things are. And just because we and I know this, and it's something I'll talk about in a future episode that, like, what it's like when you actually create a goal and and make something happen. We think it's gonna be so different and drastically everything's gonna change. Doesn't really change.
We're still kind of the same [00:03:00] person because we've been changing all the way to get that goal. Like, by the time it was actually published and I could see it and get on Spotify, I'd already done everything to create that. Like, I'd already become the person who had a published podcast. So then it was just like, oh okay. Yeah.
This is this is what it is now. Cool. This is so fun. Like everything's different but also nothing is different. It's the, it's the craziest thing.
And what I've loved about this whole process. What I would encourage you guys to think about as well, whenever you're going after a scary goal, like why you wanna go after 1, we'll get onto that. Wanna sell you on it. If you're not sold on having a scary goal, I'm gonna sell you on it today, is just enjoying the process. And even this whole process has been so fun.
For this year, I've set an intention. The whole year is gonna be play in my business. I'm playing. It's gotta be fun. I could have fun doing it or make it fun or I'm not doing it.
It's like life's too short. Last year, I pushed on a program that I wanted to [00:04:00] deliver, and it felt really heavy. It was coming from a place of having to prove something and having to think that it was gonna be better when I had this program created. It was really heavy. I had time away from Luke and Flynn that I didn't want, I stepped out of my priorities. And reflecting back this year, I'm just like, it's not happening. 20 24 is the year of play. And so this whole process of creating a podcast has just been so fun. It had been so playful.
Even coming up with the theme music, I was, like, having a little dance to it was so fun. And well, the original theme music, I was downloading a few few options, and I asked Luke like, uh, they sound a little bit like the soundtrack you'd have on, like, a corporate video like pulling twinkly music in the background and listening to them back. I was like, oh my goodness. That is so true.
Okay. You choose some tunes. So he took a few, got a few downloaded. And even just playing them I was holding Flynn and we were dancing around the living room [00:05:00] dancing to the tunes. And I was thinking, like, 1 of these is gonna be the intro and outro music for this podcast.
How fun is that? And just enjoying the whole process knowing that it's not gonna be better when it's suddenly published. Things are not magically better because I have 1 episode out in the world. In some ways, nothing has changed, but it's the whole journey as you go along. And this is why, like, setting big scary goals is so amazing.
It's not the reaching the goal. Yes. It's fun. Like, it's super fun listening to myself walking into the workspace being like, this is pretty cool. This is something I dreamed about for ages.
How amazing. But it's it's the whole process getting to that point. It's the journey. And the reason you wanna set these bigger, scarier goals is to challenge yourself for what you think is actually possible. Like, oftentimes, we're looking around.
We're told stuff as we're brought up, what is possible. We actually think we're capable of way less. Certainly, I find [00:06:00] this to be true with a lot of clients as well. They think, like, this big, I can see, like, this big for them. And it was the same with me.
Before I discovered coaching and before I was coached, I could see, like, this much. I was like, okay. Cool. I could do these things. I was thinking very like, well, I've done this before, so I guess I could do that.
Not thinking in this bigger way. And it just challenges your brain when you think of something that brings up fear that feels big and scary. It's like, oh, but also that is something that you could go and create. And it challenges you to think in a bigger way. It also challenges you to then shift your perspective, shift how you are thinking, how you're feeling about yourself to become that person, to take the action that's gonna make that goal happen.
And it really doesn't matter whether you create the goal or not. It doesn't matter the time frame you create it in. It's everything you're gonna learn along the way. And really, the first time I had properly set a goal I guess there was exams at uni where you have a result that you want. [00:07:00] But, really, it was after uni starting to get into running and endurance running and having a goal that I wanted to complete this race and then doing all the training, getting out when I couldn't be bothered, getting out in the rain, getting out in the dark, running with a head torch.
I remember the first marathon I ever did, and I I can't remember what mile it was. It was a few miles from the end. I literally felt like everything had gone from my legs, and I so wanted to walk. And my brain was like, just walk. Just stop.
Just walk. You can't do it. I'm just, like, hearing all the brain chatter, being like, no. I'm doing this. I'm gonna keep moving.
That is the power of having these goals , it helps you overcome all of the crap that your brain will throw at you. It, , helps you see yourself in such a different way because there are setbacks. There are failures. It feels really hard.
You want to stop, and you keep going anyway. That is the power of these big goals. So if you haven't set a goal before, maybe [00:08:00] you're afraid of failure or you just want to kinda see what happens or say yes to things as they come up, I wanna encourage you to really think about setting a goal. It's completely up to you. I just love them because the other amazing thing about goals is they give your brain direction.
So our brain is constantly scanning trying to make sense of the world. And it's looking. It's interpreting. It has a filter for what it is looking for.
Our brain has this amazing thing called the reticular activating system.
Hazel Robertson: So it's like a filter. You know when you're looking for something new, for example, if you're looking for a new bike and suddenly you see bikes everywhere or a black bike. You're like, how does everyone have a black bike? And it's not that they do. There's always been the same number going around.
It's just that now that you're looking for it, you have a goal. Your brain is filtering for that information, and it's pulling it in. It's the same with a goal. When you decide what it is that you wanna go after, your brain is narrowing in, and it will [00:09:00] find opportunities that you would never have seen before. It's almost like opportunities present themselves.
They were always there, but now that you've decided where you're going, your brain's like, oh, here. You could try this. You could do this. Speak to this person. Suddenly, the ideas keep coming.
Suddenly, all these things happen that give you the momentum to move towards the goal. So it helps you move where you wanna go. It's like a a GPS for your brain.
If you don't, it's very easy to jump around from thing to thing, not really decide, be busy, fill your time with stuff that you're like, is this actually important?
And if you don't know what you want, that's okay. Again, we'll get into that.
This is something I never knew. We don't really ask ourselves. We're not taught to really ask ourselves, what do I want? I used to always always just say yes to things. I was like, that's a cool idea.
Yeah. I'm up for that. I prided myself in saying yes to things. Other people had ideas, and I said yes. I was the 1 that was like, yeah.
Let's do it. Rather than the 1 going, wait. What is it I actually want? Do I actually want to do this thing? Is this the [00:10:00] direction I want to take my life?
Is this important to me? I never asked those questions until I was probably my early thirties. Like, I still even remember when Luke and I got together, and we were talking about different career things and moving different places. And he was like, well, what is it you want? And I literally couldn't articulate it.
I didn't know. I had never asked myself. I had just busied myself, gone from 1 thing to the next, filling my time, saying yes to what other people wanted, which was I had the most amazing time. Like, don't get me wrong. Things were really fun.
Went on some cool adventures. Did lots of things. I never actually asked, okay, what is it I actually want? I never gave myself the space or the permission to answer that question. So if this is you, it's totally normal.
We don't give ourselves permission to really ask ourselves what we want and then decide that it's okay for us to go after that. If this is you, I'm gonna give you permission right now. It's okay to go after what you want.
So if you haven't set a goal before, I wanna encourage you to do that.
And [00:11:00] here are the 4 essentials. So when you go to setting a scary goal or any kind of goal, there are 4 things that you wanna think about.
So I'll read them out, and then I'll chat through them. So the first 1 is you wanna set any goal from a place of enoughness. So I'm gonna get into what this means. Like, the goal is purely for fun, purely because you want to, not because you have to or need to.
So we'll get onto that. The second 1 is to choose a goal that's scary, but not so scary that you completely shut down. So it's like a little bit of a stretch outside of your comfort zone, but not so much that you're like. The third 1 is only pick 1 goal at a time. That's gonna reduce overwhelm.
The fourth 1 is to be really specific with the goal.
So the first essential is to set goals from a place of enoughness. Now what do I mean by enoughness?
It sounds like this coach speak. Enoughness is believing that you are enough right now exactly as you are. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to achieve anything.
You [00:12:00] don't have to create anything. There's nothing you can do or not do that's gonna make you any more enough. It's like you are completely worthy. You are you. And I truly believe this.
And when I first believed this, it shifted everything for me. Because before that, I'd always used goals, and a lot of these were I got straight As at school. I did alright at uni. I got , a distinction in my masters. I would do endurance events, and I complete them like ultra marathons.
I would do expeditions and go after them almost as a way to prove that I was somehow good enough, that I was confident enough, that I was the person who could do this thing. And I was attaching my self worth. And if you do this too, like, nothing's gone wrong. We are fed this from school.
It's like, do these things get any? Well done. You're good. A fail is bad.
We get praised for our results. We get praised when we do well, and so it's easy to attach. Okay. If I do this thing, then I'm good. So I'll do [00:13:00] more of these things to be good enough.
But the thing is, if you are not believing that you're good enough right now, there's no amount of result you can achieve, clients you can have, podcast episodes you can create. There's no amount of thing you can do thing you can do goal you can do that will ever make you feel enough unless you decide that you are. And if this feels like a stretch, don't worry. We'll get there over the course of this podcast.
But it starts with just, like, being open thinking, okay. What if I am enough exactly as I am? Like, me, truly me, what if I give myself permission to be enough? And when you can get to that place of knowing, like, you have enough, you are enough, it's so much easier and more fun to create goals. Because then you are creating a goal.
You're doing something new not because it's you're trying to prove something about yourself, not because it's gonna make you any better, just because you [00:14:00] want to. Because what happens is when you're attaching yourself worth to another goal, it's that, like, always on to the next thing, always on to the next thing, always on to the next thing. And it becomes this rush, and we stop enjoying life as is right now. We think, okay.
But when I get to the goal, then I'm gonna feel confident, then I'm gonna feel good enough, then I'm gonna feel worthy of this, then I'm gonna feel okay, then everything's gonna be okay, and everything's gonna be different. And it doesn't work that way. It's okay. So it comes the other way around. You wanna believe that you are okay now without any goal.
Like, you don't need anything else. You could just do nothing, and you would still be enough. And when you give yourself permission to do that, the most amazing thing happens. It starts to bubble up. Oh, but I want to do this thing.
I want to create that. Like, for me, I could easily have been like, well, when I have a pod and I think this probably was 3 years ago when I was thinking about the podcast. It was like, oh, I should have a podcast. I initially wanted to have 1 and then [00:15:00] became a coach. I was like, oh, I should coaches have podcasts.
I should have 1. And it was just the wrong energy, the wrong thought and feeling that it was coming from. I was using it as a way to be like, okay. Once I have a podcast, then I'll be a good enough coach, almost a way to prove myself. And it just doesn't work that way.
Whereas now, I'm like, I know that I am enough as I am, a good enough coach. I am complete. Sometimes my brain comes in and I can slip into the not enough, but I can bring it back. I know that I'm enough right now, and I'm doing this purely because I'm like, oh, I really want to do this. This would be so fun.
It's such a different place to create from. It also makes I'm gonna get we're gonna get into this in future episodes. It makes the failing because there will be failing, there will be setbacks. It makes it so much easier to move through failure to keep going when you've not attached your self worth to the goal.
So , get in a place of enoughness that you are enough right now, and then you choose a goal just because you want to. So that's the first 1.
The [00:16:00] second essential for choosing a scary goal is to choose a goal that is scary. So it brings up a little bit of fear, also a bit of excitement. Sometimes I think fear and excitement, they're almost there's like they're kind of the same.
You get that, like, rush that, like, you want a bit of that. That means you're on the right track. There's the desire to wanna do it, want to create it, but the fear as well because it's a little bit new. It's a bit stretchy. You're gonna have to become slightly different person.
You're gonna have to let your old identity die a little bit. , there's all this change, and it's not so big enough that your brain completely shuts down. So something that feels stretchy, that feels scary, but not so big that you're just gonna be like, well, I can't even take any action. I'm not even moving forward.
For example, say you wanted to do public speaking. The first step, like, a scary goal might think, okay. I'm gonna do public speaking in front of, like, maybe on Zoom in front of 10 people or in front of an in person thing with 20 people there.
But the thought of standing in front of a [00:17:00] huge stadium and doing it to, , 10000 people would completely shut you down. Don't have that as your scary goal. Maybe that's where you wanna get to, but that's not the first step. You want something that feels exciting. You feel energized but not so big that your brain's like just wants to hide.
So that's not what we're doing. So scary, but not too scary. And I just wanna offer, if you haven't got in the process where you've set goals and you've achieved them, start a little bit smaller and start with a shorter time frame as well. I often recommend doing, like, a 30 day goal.
30 days is such an amazing length of time to have something you're focusing on, go through all the self doubt, go through all the overcoming, and then have something at the other side. And I have that kind of quick feedback loop. You're like, oh, cool. I have completely shifted something in 30 days. You can do so much in 30 days, and it doesn't feel too big.
And then you can start building this up, this muscle of setting goals, going after them, builds your confidence. You can set bigger and bigger goals. That's what we do. So it's [00:18:00] setting it a little bit scary and then a little bit more and a little bit more, and you begin to expand your what's known as, like, your capacity for what you're capable of. For fear, you get used to fear being there.
That is what this is all about. The fear never goes away because we are always setting bigger scary goals.
The third step. So the first 1, setting the goal from knowing that you are enough exactly as you are. The second 1 is to choose a goal that's scary, but not too scary that you're gonna completely shut down and not take action. And the third 1 is to focus on 1 goal at a time.
Picking multiple goals is just gonna scatter your attention. When you have multiple things you're working towards, it's gonna take you longer to get there. Your attention's gonna be more scattered, and it's gonna be harder to move everything forward. You're not gonna be seeing the same progress, so picking 1 at a time just reduces the overwhelm.
And I wanna offer the most amazing thing happens when you start working on 1 area of your life. And so picking 1 goal, for example, and you start taking [00:19:00] action, you start overcoming fear and generating courage, doing bigger things, you're essentially rewiring your brain. Your brain before where fear would maybe mean stop, and it was like, oh, don't do that thing, and you just wouldn't do it. You're now saying, come on.
We're gonna do it anyway. Like, we're just gonna try this next thing. Keep going. You develop this resilience and this relationship with your brain, and you bring your you bring the fear along with you. And when you start doing that in 1 area of your life, other areas of your life change as well.
It's the most amazing thing. You don't need to be focusing on all areas, then they change less. If you focus on 1, we have the same brain as we go about all parts of our day, all parts of our life. The same thought patterns come up.
Thoughts are habitual. We don't question them, and we'll get on to thoughts in a future episode and and really diving into that. But once you start really focusing on 1 area and shifting your mindset and shifting your perspective and rewiring your brain essentially is what you're doing, all other areas of your life will start to change as well. So [00:20:00] don't worry about what I wanna do, all these different goals. Just pick 1.
And, also, it doesn't matter which 1. There is no right or wrong 1 at a time, and you can easily create the other ones after. Or maybe you lived on this 1 goal and you're like, this is what I wanna do next, and just it'll be something completely different. So 1 goal at a time, that is the third essential.
And then the fourth essential is do you wanna be really specific with what the goal is?
So you want it specific, measurable, and time bound. So specific meaning, you know exactly what it's for example, my goal, it's not launch podcast. Like, what does that even mean? But it's by 30 first of December, I'll have launched my podcast, and I know I'll have done it because there will be 30 episodes available to download.
So it's specific. I know when it is done. It's measurable. I know how I'm gonna measure it.
There'll be 30 episodes. Then I can say, okay. My goal is complete. It's time bound. I have a date.
30 first of December 20 24. So whatever your goal is, make sure it's really specific. It's not vague Because when it is vague to our brain, we [00:21:00] don't know when we're done. We don't know what we're actually working towards. So the more specific that you can make it, the easier it's gonna be to take action towards it, to move towards it, to know what you're focusing on.
You don't want it vague. You want to know exactly what you're working towards and exactly how you're gonna know you're done and when it's gonna be done. So even pause the podcast and write this down even in your phone notes. What is your goal?
Make it really specific. How will you know it's done? Again, how will you measure that it's done? And then when are you doing it by? Pick a date.
Write that down. Hopefully, you've come back.
So just to recap, the 4 essentials for setting a scary goal, set goals from a place of enoughness. You are enough right now. You're doing the goal just because you want to, not because you're proving anything about yourself. Choose a goal that's scary, but not so scary that you're gonna shut down. Choose 1 goal at a time.
And then be specific, measurable, and time bound.
And that's what I have for you today. So I hope that was helpful.
Let me know if you've got any questions or if there's anything you wanna hear. Please reach [00:22:00] out. Let me know what your scary goals are. I love hearing from you guys. I wanna hear what they are.
I wanna celebrate with you and help you in any way I can. Getting everything I know out of my brain and into this podcast so that you can use it too. Have an amazing rest of the day. See you.
