09 Your questions answered!
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[00:00:00] And welcome to the scary goals club. I am your host, Hazel Robertson. And I believe that to make the impact that you know, you're called to make in the world, it requires setting bigger, scarier goals, and then becoming the person who creates them. That is what I am here to show you how to do. That's what we're diving into.
Mindset tools, tricks, really simple, practical, actionable steps. You can take and start applying straight away. Cause. Or whatever you believe, we have this one life that we definitely know about. Start making the impact you know you want to make in the world. Fear is not a reason to stop. We keep going. We work through the fear.
That is what we do in the Scary goals Club. So come on in, come join, hit subscribe, and let's get started.
Hi, and welcome to episode nine of the Scary Goals Club podcast. Hello from the spare room in my house. I have shifted [00:01:00] working locations. We no longer have the workspace and it just feels like such an amazing decision to have made. I've been doing a lot of work recently of thinking about like, okay, what is it really imagining what I want my life to be like, like my ideal life to be like, and making decisions and tweaks right now that will move me closer to that.
And one of them I was realizing it was like, Okay, I've worked so hard, like literally every decision that both Luke and I have made over the last, I'm trying to even think how many years, seven years, has been getting ourselves to the place that we can work from anywhere, which has been amazing because we've been able to work remotely and we were over in Chamonix last year and planning to go abroad this year and work remotely.
And it's amazing having that flexibility. And then I realized, wait, I am able to work from anywhere and yet I want to spend like so much of my time with Flynn, with Luke, like [00:02:00] hanging out, playing, and yet the days where I'm working, I'm actually away in The workspace, like I'm packing up my bag for the day, which it always takes me quite an effort to get my lunch and get all my snacks and get everything ready.
And I normally make my bag the night before, but like getting out the door in the morning, going to the workspace, getting set up, getting into it. We've had the workspace since I went back to work after having Flynn that was like well over a year ago and it worked really well and it was nice to have that separation of kind of being at home and then being at work.
But actually, now that he's a bit bigger and. I don't know, something has just shifted and it was like, do you know what? I want to be back home. I want to be working from home. I mean, him and Luke are out at the moment. It's like their day for hanging out. They're not even here, but even just this morning I got to like read extra books with him and then do a few more bits around the house and it just felt so much more chilled, so much more relaxing.
And they're going to be back at lunch. I'll get to say hi and then [00:03:00] get to see them, Um, like earlier at the end of the day, I'd have to like pack up and walk back home. I went for a walk with Maple this morning, I'll be able to like run from the house and then get showered and everything. So it just feels like it's going to be so much easier.
And already I'm like, Oh, this is such a good decision.
And really, it's just such a powerful, if it's not something you do already, just thinking like really dreaming, like what is it you want your ideal life to be like? And then you'll make these little decisions along the way that will like get you closer and closer to that. So that's been so that's been something that's just been so fun.
So hello from the spare room. And I've even this morning, if you're watching this on video, I've put up like the plants behind and the pictures there and yeah, it feels like a really nice space. So today's episode. First of all, thanks for sending in all your questions. I am going to dive into them today. Answering your questions. I've actually got quite a few questions, so I'm just going to do maybe half of them today and then I'll do another episode that will cover the other ones as [00:04:00] well. So we'll dive into them and if you have any questions, please like get them over to me and I will answer them in a future episode as well.
Before I start, there's something that I often do with my clients when they ask me a question is I will just ask it back to them. I will ask them to answer it first because often what we do is it's very easy to ask someone else a question and to defer to someone that we think has the right answer, quote unquote right answer or knows more than us or is an quote unquote expert.
And it's easy to. Like, lose that trust in ourselves that actually we know the right answer. We know what is right for us and really listening to like, okay, what is it that we know? Because every time we ask someone else , we're thinking that the answer lies somewhere outside of us.
Every time we ask ourselves the answer first and like, listen to that, and then maybe we ask as well. We're building that trust in ourselves. We are searching our own brain for the answer. We're listening to our own body for what it is telling us. Because oftentimes like with [00:05:00] the coaching sessions, like I don't know what is best for my clients.
I don't know what's best for you, dear listener, like I have no idea. I have things that I've tried in my life that work for me in a certain way. And the key thing is. Taking some of these tools, testing them out. Some things will work for you. Some things won't. Some things will really resonate and you'll be like, yes.
Other stuff you'd be like, no, that just doesn't work for me. The key thing is taking anything and testing, like, how does it feel for you? That is the most important thing with all of this work is trying it out. If it works and it makes your life feel lighter and more energizing and your goals feel more fun.
And you're just like, loving what you're doing. If you're more in that place, use it, take it. If it doesn't, if it feels really heavy and restrictive and like you're following rules, don't do it. Basically, I've gone through so much of the last few years unpicking. And even now I'm still in that process of thinking like, Oh, but someone else knows the right way to do it.
And it's like, they [00:06:00] don't, they have something that worked for them and it's taking it and trying things out you. So again, just if there's any questions that you're, I love to answer them and also I really suggest you answer them yourself first and like, listen to what is that wisdom? Like, what do you think?
And I'll kind of reflect on some of this and what I'm answering the questions, but just giving that different perspective as well. So also noticing if there's any time you're thinking someone else has the right answer or you're wanting to ask someone a question thinking they know more than you just pause.
Like let's really take three seconds. Five seconds and ask yourself the question and answer it yourself and then go and ask them. And it might be similar. There might be similar things. They might have some extra wisdom you can add in and be like, Oh, that's an interesting perspective, but you're adding it into your own perspective.
You're not just defaulting to some other authority and you do this, right? Like Growing up, we look to like teachers, parents as authority figures, there's rules that we're supposed to [00:07:00] follow. We're supposed to quote unquote follow and it's very easy to like not be listening to ourselves and thinking someone else knows more.
So just trusting yourself, ask yourself the question, then asking the question to someone else. Okay. So here is the first question. This is from Andrea. What do you do if you have too many goals? Okay, what do you do if you have too many goals? So first of all, a question back to you, Andrea, or anyone else who has too many goals,
, what is too many? Okay. So too many for one person could be two goals that could feel like too many, too many for someone else could be 50 goals. There's like some range in between, like what is too many? How do you know it's too many? And one of the key things to think is what, like checking in with how it feels, like what pattern of energy you notice, like what feeling comes up when you think I have too many goals.
Often, when I [00:08:00] know this from my own experience and from coaching others, when we think we have too many or there's too much or like too something, usually we feel overwhelmed, like there's too much to do. I have too many goals. We often feel overwhelmed. So just checking in, like if you think you have too many goals, what is that feeling that's coming up?
Probably overwhelmed. And. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about you, but often when we're feeling overwhelmed, we flit around between different things. We'll like start one thing, go on to something else, be like, wait, no, this is my goal. Do a bit on that and then be like, oh, wait, no, this, oh, wait, no, this. And our attention is scattered.
We're like jumping around from different things. Just not focused, not in a really like creative place where maybe not taking the scary action because we're just doing a little bit on this, a little bit on that. And so what will happen is we'll move forward everything like a tiny amount. And so when you have too many goals, it's almost like you may as well have no goals.
Like nothing's really moving forward. Your attention is just [00:09:00] scattered so thinly. It's the same with priorities. Like it's like I have too many priorities. It means you really have no priorities. Okay, so what we want to be doing, and I do recommend focusing on one goal at a time. The reason that I recommend this is to stop overwhelm, because when we have one thing that we know that we're focusing on, it's so much easier for a brain to be like, oh, okay, now I know the next step on that or like, okay, this feels scary, but I'm gonna do it because I can see where that's going.
And it's, Like, even when we're doing stuff that's not related to our goal, when there's one main goal we're focusing on, our brain is working away in the background, thinking about it. So, you don't have to. If you want to have more than one goal, a hundred percent you can. It's just watching, like, if you have multiple goals that you're then feeling overwhelmed or that you should be doing all these things, quote unquote should.
That's when it's a time to check in. It also depends, like it can [00:10:00] depend on your goal setting experience. So if you are new to goal setting and you've never really, like you've done things before, but you've never really decided intentionally, this is what I'm creating, giving it a timeframe, going after it, we're coming failure and setbacks and wanting to quit and going through that whole process and then creating it, like making the goal happen.
If you've never done that. Having one to focus on at a time is so helpful because you are having a shorter time frame is great as well because you're proving it to yourself. Okay, I can do this. I have the skills and you gain that confidence. The other thing is like once you're like quite used to goal setting and you're used to setting bigger goals, you can 100 percent have a bigger goal or multiple bigger goals and smaller goals as well.
There's no like right or wrong. It's just also thinking about what is your capacity for having multiple goals.
The other thing I will say about straining down the number of goals that you have is when you really focus on one goal on one area of [00:11:00] life that you want to change, that you want to grow in, that you want to shift, that you want to do something differently, like show up in a different way. It will have ripple effects on the other areas of your life, because we have the same brain as we go about all of our day.
And so if we're working on one goal and we're over overcoming like our limiting beliefs and old thought patterns and old behaviors that are maybe keeping us stuck or small or where we are. And we're putting ourselves out there and we're doing things that feel scary and we're learning about ourselves and we're growing and we're doing things we never imagined we could do.
Other areas of our life are going to change as well because we are having more belief in ourselves. We're proving ourselves that we're able to do something we never thought we could do before. And so we are showing up differently in other areas of our life. Maybe we have more confidence. Maybe we're.
Looking at other areas of our life being like, actually, I'm going to change that as well. Not that it has to be a goal, but we're doing things differently in other areas of our life. I'll give you some examples. So [00:12:00] a lot of my clients, they'll come to me, they're overwhelmed. They're so busy. They have way too many priorities, like so many things they're doing, like they're passionate.
They are purposeful, like they're making this big impact in the world. A lot of them are working like sustainability and climate change and it's like whatever they do it's not enough. And they are like close to burnout sometimes and just completely overwhelmed with everything that's going on and they're just trying, trying, trying.
And when we focus in specifically on managing their time, setting boundaries, helping them plan, helping them prioritize, overcome perfectionism, like have more confidence in themselves, reducing the negative self talk, focusing on the overwhelm in like purely in a work sense, completely changes the rest of their life as well.
They are showing up more themselves. They're more calm. They're more grounded. They're more optimistic. They have more energy outside with their families and their friends. They're suddenly like, oh, wait, I can do these [00:13:00] other things. Some of them have even built habits. That have been useful and helped them and energize them and they've lost weight as like a byproduct.
They've got jobs that they want to get, like dream jobs. They've spent time working abroad, like all of these things that were just not even on their radar because they were just so busy and overwhelmed with in this one area of their life. And when we focused and narrowed in on that, Suddenly everything else just felt easier.
Suddenly they were like, Oh, I want my life to be like this and I want to change this and like everything else changed as well. And they said other people are noticing that they're more calm, they're more confident, they're more grounded, they're more just like lighter. Like that same brain focusing on one goal, one area is changing in the other parts of their life as well.
So it's the same thing with any goal. We just focus like the more that you can constrain in and focus on one area at a time, you'll get so much deeper with the work that you do in that one area [00:14:00] that it's Going to then the ripple effects are going to be bigger on other areas of your life. Like, whereas the opposite is trying to do too many things.
Again, your attention and your focus is just spread so thinly. None of them are moving forward that much. You're not getting the same like huge growth, like really shifting things. And it's just going to feel like not much is actually changing. So I just want to offer that as a perspective, but with the caveat that you get to do whatever you want.
So if you want to have like five goals and that doesn't feel like too much and that feels amazing, do that. Like it really doesn't matter. And just watching if there's overwhelm coming in or watching if. You're finding your attention a bit scattered. And then maybe like, what if you like go off one and like reduce it down?
The other piece I will say is like, sometimes we, you know, checking in, like if you do have too many goals, really checking in why, because sometimes we, and certainly I have done this and I still sometimes do it and I'm just like, [00:15:00] really coach myself to change it. We can attach some kind of self worth with getting, like, achieving the goal.
So, and again, this all starts a lot of it from school. We get praised when we do well. We internalize that, like, we are good enough. We are worthy if we do well and we succeed. Even in our culture, like, think about it. It's like success is people like celebrate success and Achievement and getting things done is very much like coming in from all angles.
And so we internalize a lot of this stuff and we don't realize it, that maybe we're like, okay, when I do all of these things, then. Like, checking in if there's like, then you get to believe something about yourself. Like, okay, when I've done all of these goals, then I am like successful, I'm important, I'm good enough, I'm good at this thing.
I used to do that as well. It's like having goals as almost a way to prove that I was in some way like good enough. It was like, look at me achieving things. I'm X like overachiever. It's like the overachiever at school that just progressed [00:16:00] into like the rest of my life. And even now, like I can still catch myself being like, I have to do, and you can tell like checking in with yourself as well.
You can tell if that's the energy it's coming from because there's almost a heavier heaviness and almost like a rush. Like I have to do the goal. I have to do this. Like if there's any of that. Or I should, I should be doing this. It's not going to be much fun. Like, you're going to probably struggle, you're probably going to force it, it's going to feel really heavy, really hard, like this punishment, like, I have to do this goal because then I'm a good person.
If there's any of that, just really check in and try and just drop that. And like, No, you are you exactly as you are, you are totally enough goal will not change that the goal is purely because it's fun purely because you get to expand your mind and challenge yourself and grow and do scary things and see what's possible and actually move your life in the direction that you want to go.
That is the purpose of these goals, not as a way to beat yourself up, not as a way to like prove [00:17:00] something about yourself that you're okay or that you're worthy or that you're good enough. None of that. So really be honest with yourself. If that is coming in any of you just drop it and it's easier said than done, right?
So I just wanted to offer offer that as well.
So, okay, the second question, this came in through one of the questions you can ask on Spotify on the episode and it said, I love this episode.
The tips on how to set goals are super helpful. I think that was the one for essentials for setting a scary goal. If you haven't listened to it, go and have a listen. Okay. How do you balance setting work and life goals? Is it okay to have a work goal and a totally different life goal at the same time? So just back to what I, what I kind of said at the start, you can do anything you want.
Okay. So of course it's okay. If that feels amazing to you, Do it. If having like multiple goals feels you're just like, yes, this is what I want to do. A hundred percent do that. Okay. So it [00:18:00] is more than okay. It's just checking in whether that feels really good for you. And I just want to offer that there have been times where that has felt amazing for me.
I've had something I'm working towards like in a work sense or with my business. And I've had something externally to work as well. Other times, like at the moment. I have one goal. And at the moment this is to create 30 podcast episodes, like launch podcast, 30 podcast episodes. And. I'd been toying with actually, like, I've been getting a bit back into running since having Flynn and I was thinking like, okay, it'd be really fun to do like an endurance event again, maybe an ultra marathon, like train up for that and be able to do that.
And I was like, and I was thinking even last year, like in 2023, like, okay, maybe I'll enter an ultra. And I just didn't want to last year, I was like, I do not want to put that pressure on myself. I don't want to put that training pressure on myself. I want to just settle into like motherhood and. working out how to do that with running a business and we moved house and there was some other [00:19:00] things going on, life things.
I was like, I just don't want to add another thing in. It was a really conscious decision. And then this year at the start of the year, like, Ooh, that could be quite fun. Like maybe this is the year I feel ready to add in. An ultramarathon or an endurance event. And I thought about it and I had a look at different ones.
And I think just in the first few months of this year, it's literally been like illness, feeling okay, illness, feeling okay, illness, feeling okay for months since before Christmas. And so every time I've like got back to training and back to running again, there's like another nursery bug or I've got my status or something like I've got ill again.
Obviously my body is just not in a place of adding in the training load on top. Um, and it's taken a bit to make peace with it. I've made peace with it. I'm like, I'm just not adding it in. If I run, it's purely for enjoyment for me. Yes. I'll try and build it up just for me. I'll maybe have an idea of like, Ooh, it'd be fun to run like this hill, like a local hill or run this fine, [00:20:00] but not having like, I'm running this ultra at this time.
And I'm, you know, doing this many miles per week and like building up that training. Like it just is not something that I want at the moment. So I'm just keeping focus on the work one. So for me at the moment, Like, I know that having one is really important for me.
100 percent you can set as many goals you want. You can have one that's in work or your business and one that's outside of work. If that feels amazing and you feel like you have the capacity and that like lights you up and you're energized by it, go for it.
And also if like notice and this mind brain sometimes does this is like notice if having multiple goals again is a distraction to really make progress on one of them. If one feels quite scary, maybe the business one feels quite scary. And it's like, we'll do a personal one. And it's like a nice distraction to act than actually focusing on the scary one.
So just notice if any of that's coming up, there is no right or wrong, just like being onto your brain and watching it. Even at the moment, outside of work, there are things that I [00:21:00] am working on. I have like, they're just not hard goals. Like we want to move. House and that's like a kind of a loose goal at the moment.
It's like we'll keep an eye, but we're not like, okay, we definitely want to move by this point. Like we're happy where we are, but we want to rent somewhere a bit bigger. So there's that piece as well. It's like, they're kind of fuzzy objectives that I'm thinking about and I'm putting the effort into like imagining what it's going to be like and thinking where our house is going to be and what that is going to be like.
Like I'm spending time on that, but it's not like a hard and fast goal. Like we will definitely move this year. If something comes up, we will. And if not, like that's okay too. Whereas the business one, 100 percent is. So you can play with all of it, all of it. Like you want it to be feeling light and playful and just something that's going to energize you and support you.
So all of this, it's using it for you. It is a hundred percent okay to do whatever the hell you want. If it feels amazing. Okay. Not as a reason to beat yourself up, not as a reason to like [00:22:00] punish yourself by having. All of these goals that feel like big and heavy. We're not doing that here. Fun. Light. And enjoyable.
That's what we're going for. The enjoyable goals club.
Okay. So the final question is from Jenna, how do you progress scary goals while still working full time in a corporate job? Okay. So first I want to ask a question back to you and to anyone, if anyone is feeling the same, Like, has the same question, like, how do I do this ? I'm working full time, , whether it's full time in your business and there's some other goal that you want to have, like outside of that, why do you think you can't?
It's really like asking yourself that question and being curious, why, what do I think is standing in the way of me going after a scary goal while working full time and just checking in, like, why? Is it something around not having enough time? Like, that's a common one that comes up, like, which can be often an excuse, because there's an underlying fear, it's like, oh, well, I just don't [00:23:00] have time for this.
Okay, so even just checking in and knowing that, like, we all have the same amount of time in a day, we all have 24 hours, how we spend our time is a decision. So you can decide if you want to allocate time to a scary goal and there can also be a decision not to like you can decide actually I don't want to add this in right now.
If you have other things on, you can maybe decide now is not the right time for adding in a scary goal. I don't want to do that. Totally okay. Okay. But checking in, is there some fear or thought that it's going to take more time? Yeah. Like, what if it doesn't actually take that much time? What if, even if you look through, it's like, if you can be more effective with your time, you can free up so much time to be able to do other things.
Like, I guarantee that so many of us, me included, are on our phones, like way more than we would probably like. Checking things. It's like all of that time, like, it's amazing how much you can do in 15 minutes. , if you did 15 minutes every single day towards your scary goal, that's [00:24:00] hours a week.
You could be progressing things if you were like spending those 15 minutes, not procrastinating, not worrying about it, not like making excuses not to do it, actually just doing something scary, putting something out into the world, asking someone a question, whatever it is, moving it forward. Like it actually doesn't take that much time.
It just takes the courage to start the courage to keep going. So just questioning and really checking in. If there's some excuse around that, I don't know if there is, you haven't said about, um, Being like, I don't have time, but just checking in if there's something around that. And I also just want to offer that some of the bigger goals that I have created to date have been when I was working full time.
So, for example, like in 2017, Luke and I planned our entire three month expedition across Alaska, while working full time, we took a three month sabbatical, like we took time off and we went and did the expedition, but all of the planning, the like spreadsheets, the emailing people, the zoom calls with people, the logistics, the maps, the planning, [00:25:00] like So, yeah.
So, yeah. All of that, the sponsorship, the comms, like all of that stuff was done while we were working full time. It was just done in the evenings and the mornings. We were just so energized by the goal. We were so bought into the vision, so excited by it that we would like get up early and just be like working straight away and be like, okay, good.
I'm like pulling the stuff together for it. And like in the evenings after work. We would jump on our laptops and do that. And that felt amazing to us. So it's really thinking of it as being a decision. If you have a scary goal that you're like, I want to do that so much, you will find a way.
Okay. You will find the time you will find snippets of time. That will help you do it. And maybe you stretch the timeframe. If there are other things in your life and it's feeling like your life feels fuller than you'd like, and you don't want to add something in, but just knowing, like even checking in, what is that goal that you really want to do?
Like really imagining it really like sinking into that will drive that desire and that motivation, that energy to like, want to go and do it and you will find the [00:26:00] time I promise if it is something you really want to do, you truly want to do. Like literally you can do so much in 15 minutes. And then if you can like plan your time and be super effective with it and like stop procrastinating, like all of those things to be more effective with your time, you will easily find time every single day to do it if you want to.
So it's really checking in, like not because you have to, not because you should, but because you actually want to. So a hundred, a hundred percent, if there is something you want to do and create a hundred percent, you can do it. If you have less time to do the thing you will be so much more effective with that time it's like what is it parkinson's law that work expands to fill the time that we give it if you have 15 minutes and you're like this is all i've got to like move forward my goal today Like, you will do the most important thing.
Okay. There's maybe other things you could have done if you had an hour, a hundred percent you'll have done like the most effective thing and like move that forward if you're really focused on it. So it's not even about needing more time. It's just about being more effective with your time, assuming it's time that's stepping in, standing in the way.
just notice [00:27:00] like maybe there's the time piece or whatever like whatever excuses are coming up that are like standing in the way like limiting beliefs just notice at the moment like how much weight and power we give to like our job or our situation.
It's like, no, that is what it is. Now what? You can still go and create the scary goal. Like the corporate job isn't holding you back. It just is what it is. And if you still want to do this other thing, 100 percent you can.
You are in full control of that. So you get to decide. Okay.
But there might be something else and maybe it's energy or whatever. And then you could just get to decide like. Is it something you want to add in when you have a full time corporate job, but I just want to offer that a hundred percent you can. And I think you should just start, just try it, set the goal, do like a tiny little bit every day.
Like see where you get to see how that goes.
Well, I hope that was helpful. And there's some other questions I'm going to dive into in the next, well, not the next episode, but the next Q& A episode. So [00:28:00] if there's anything that has come up or any questions you have or anything on that, any reflections, please send them over.
I love hearing from you guys. I hope you have an amazing rest of the day and an amazing rest of the week, and I will see you next time. Bye.
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If this was helpful, please hit subscribe and leave a review. This helps get this work in the hands of more purposeful people. That is more people creating bigger, scarier goals, making an even bigger impact in the world. And if you want to take this work deeper and work with me directly, head to the show note and I put all of the information there.
If you've got any questions or if there's anything you're like, ooh, I'd love you to talk about that on the pod, please just get in touch. I love hearing from you guys. And I'll see you next time in the Scary Ghouls Club.
