How to Use Goals to Support Personal Growth

Cecelia Baum Mandryk (00:01.314)
Hey, and welcome to Calmer Conversations, episode number 29, using goals for yourself. Okay, so last week we talked a little bit about goals and I brought up this whole part in the beginning about how sometimes we don’t use goals to support ourselves in growing. We instead use goals as a way to feel a certain way.
 
to kind of be more perfect, to be the person we think we’re supposed to be. And in this episode, we’re going to look at goals kind of the opposite of that. So how to use goals as supportive ideals rather than another way to beat yourself up. This is something that I would have needed or really would have appreciated a long time ago. I very often use goals as a way to think of how perfect I should be and thinking if I got there, I’d be okay.
 
So if you’re somebody who uses goals really beautifully in your life, maybe this episode isn’t for you, if you’re anyone else, then this might be worth a listen. And it’s really how to use, whether they’re New Year’s resolutions or any other time in the year, how to use goals for you. Okay, so tell me if this sounds familiar. You generally set unrealistic goals knowing that, knowing, like knowing that when you attain them, you will have successfully become a new
 
more perfect version of yourself. And that you know inside of you that you’re not complete or okay until you reach some goal. And this goal could be around your body, it could be around how organized you are, it could be around socializing, it could be around getting degrees, it could be anything, right? But at some goal that you absolutely are certain that when you reach it, you will be a new different person. This, when you use goals like this, and I will raise my hand, I definitely did that.
 
This makes the goal responsible for how you feel. It also says, I’m not okay right now in this moment without this goal. So let’s say socializing a certain number of times every week or having a certain number of friends or something like that. If I don’t reach that goal, if I don’t somehow get there, I am not okay right now. I won’t be okay until I’m there and that a perfect person or a perfect version of me would already be there.
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (02:26.392)
The sort of messed up thing with this is that even if you manage to attain this goal and become this new somehow perfect version of yourself, you will still feel lousy. And the reason you’ll still feel lousy is because you’ve trained your brain to believe that right now you’re not okay, that you’re not okay at that, in this moment you are not okay. And the interesting thing is even though you will have attained something, like maybe your outside circumstances have changed, like you’ve gotten a degree or now you do have.
 
10 social interactions every week, your brain is learning every time you tell yourself you’re not okay until some future point, you’re telling your brain, I’m not okay until some future point. And that future point never actually gets here. And so you’re always kind of looking for the next thing. So for instance, with the socializing example, then you’d say, well, maybe I need 11 social interactions every week and then I’ll feel okay. And so the goal and the ideal keeps changing because you end up reaching the goal if you do end up reaching it.
 
and you feel you still feel the same as you did before. Alternatively, you don’t actually end up reaching the goal because it’s so high in the sky out there asks you to be inhuman in terms of like how you behave in your life that you never get there. And then you feel like a failure because you’ve never reached it. And the thing that’s happening here is you’re measuring yourself against some ideal.
 
and you’re thinking, you’re making this ideal responsible for how you feel. I said that, right? You’re making your goal responsible for how you feel and you’re saying that this is the thing that makes me a perfect person. This is the thing that I need to attain or achieve to become a different version, to be okay in life. And no outside circumstance, no achieving of goals, no accolades, no degree, no number of social interactions, no body weight or shape or size.
 
10 will help you feel a different way. There might be some momentary excitement when, for instance, you get the degree or you realize, I had 10 social interactions this week, but you won’t actually feel different or see yourself differently because those are all based on thoughts you have about you. And the thoughts you have about you don’t magically change because something outside of you changes. I’m gonna say that again.
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (04:47.234)
The thoughts you have about you don’t magically change when something outside of you changes, like you have a degree, right? So you are still you with all the lines of code, no matter where you are along this goal spectrum. Now this doesn’t mean don’t have goals, right? As I said this in the last episode, this doesn’t mean don’t have goals. Goals are actually, think, really important. I think generally we are growth-oriented beings and so we are always kind of continually…
 
growing and changing and shifting. And that doesn’t mean you have to be a continual self-improvement project or you always need to be reaching for the stars. I don’t mean it in that kind of overbearing way, but I mean that as humans generally we’re interested in things or we want to be doing something. Most of us left to our own devices, but not just lie on the couch for years at a time. You might do it for a month or two if you’re really tired to kind of rest and recuperate. But eventually you’d remember, right, I wanted to learn how to play the violin.
 
That would be pretty neat. I wonder how I can play the violin. So I’m not saying don’t have goals, right? But we need to use them in a different way. So what does it look like to have goals that actually support you and growing? Well, they might actually look kind of similar, right? So for instance, it might be, I would like to have more social interactions in our life. But instead of saying, I’m gonna force myself to get there through willpower. And once I get there, I think I’m gonna feel okay.
 
What I want you to do instead is to ask how now, right? Wherever you are now, you can have like a practice of self-acceptance too, which that’s a whole another episode. Cause you are okay right now, right? Even though you haven’t reached your goal. You are okay, you’re totally worthy, lovable, all these things. You don’t have to achieve anything to have those. Those are inherent in you as a person. So in case nobody has said that to you today, you are entirely worthy and lovable.
 
and amazing exactly as you are, even if you never reach or attain another goal in your life. So we start from that place and then you ask, okay, if I do maybe want to change the shape of my body in some way, why do I want to do that? And how do I think I’m going to feel when I get there? And maybe in that case, it’s strong because you’ve been lifting weights and you want to put on muscle of some kind. And so your
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (07:00.332)
you’re thinking, okay, when I finally get there, I’m gonna feel strong, I’m gonna feel proud of myself, and maybe I’m also gonna feel successful or confident in how my body looks. Those are really crucial. Those are actually one of the most important things about your goal, right? So you take those, you have your ideal, that’s the goal. So maybe it’s like, I don’t know, it’s been a while since I’ve lifted weights, but maybe it’s like putting on a certain percentage of muscle mass or certain amount of pounds of muscle mass.
 
Or maybe you want your arms to look a certain way, which sometimes that’s harder to attain given your own physique. But let’s say it’s like pounds of muscle mass, right? So you’re putting on, that’s what you want to do. And you think when you get there, you’re going to feel proud and you’re going to feel strong. Okay, we have the ideal. That’s the amount of pounds you want to put on of muscle mass and maybe how you think you might look. And then you have how you think you’re going to feel. And that’s proud and strong.
 
And then you need to think about where are you starting? And so for this one, it’s easy because you can say like, well, I weigh this or my muscles, you maybe you can do some measurement of your muscle mass. That’s where you’re starting. Now, as you go along each day, you’re setting goals, this goal that you’re working towards, and you might even ask yourself, how do I want to start to reach that? And maybe it’s working with a trainer, maybe it’s signing up for some program that you found online, maybe it’s, you know,
 
digging up all your old college weightlifting manuals and using those, whatever it is, having your kind of process of how you’re gonna get there. But then instead of relying on that process to make you feel a certain way or change how you think, you’re going to intentionally start thinking thoughts about who you might be when you’re already at this goal. When you already feel proud and strong, how would you talk to yourself? What would you say to yourself? How would you feel at the end of each lift? How would you feel at the end of each day? How would you report on your workouts?
 
and you’re going to start practicing that now. So you’re going to start to bring the feelings of proud and strong into your life in this moment where you are right now so that you can start to feel proud and strong all the way up to your goals. The flip side of this is you have to look at your nervous system states and your old thoughts that are getting in the way of you feeling proud and strong. That’s kind of beyond the scope of this podcast, but that’s something that you could do in coaching. It’s something we can approach in another episode.
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (09:20.568)
but really it’s understanding, okay, how would I talk to myself if I already had, if I was already at that goal? And if I was already there, what would this goal look like? If I knew that I wasn’t gonna be a brand new person magically on some day in the future, but I could actually live into becoming a new person every day along the way, how would I talk myself, how would I talk to myself, how would I treat myself, how would I be showing up in this moment?
 
And if you can start to bring those feelings of pride and those feelings of strength into your everyday and perhaps, for instance, look at, look back at your day and tell a story of feeling proud and strong, really feel into those feelings. You’ll shift how you see yourself and how you feel about yourself. And it’s very likely that you will reach the ideal. Maybe you won’t, maybe you can’t put on 20 pounds of muscle mass. Maybe that’s just not physiologically possible for you. I don’t know, I’m not actually a weightlifter.
 
But you might, but if you, what you do when you do this is you’re, instead of looking at your ideal and saying how you’re falling short every day, you’re looking at where you started, you’re talking to yourself as if the goal is inevitable. And in that way, you’re changing who you’re showing up as every day, but you’re using those feeling words way more than you’re using the actions or you’re using the results to guide who you’re becoming, right? So on day one, when you’re,
 
technically very far away from your goal, right? Potentially as far as you could be away from your goal. You’re going to start to ask, how could I feel strong and proud today? And it may be telling the story of I showed up at the gym, even though there was a lot going on at work, I really prioritized my health and I started the program that I chose to do, right? I did day one or I did a portion of day one and I’m proud of myself for showing up. Pausing feeling into that sensation of pride and telling that story of now I’ve…
 
I’m further along from where I started. And I feel proud of myself for that rather than I’m measuring myself against this ideal and I’m not there yet, therefore I am still a failure. And I know that this has some overlaps with last week, but I think the way we can use goals against ourselves is really saying like, have to attain this thing to be a different version of myself. And if I’m not a different version of myself, then I’m not worthy in some way.
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (11:43.022)
that always comes back to bite you. The goal then is not supporting you in growth, but instead it’s a way to measure your failure and a way to show you what you’re not doing. And if you’re using goals in this way, ultimately you’re training your brain to fear failure because it feels, fears being beaten up after you fail, right? The failure is never a problem. It’s how we treat ourselves after the failure. It kind of sees the goal as impossible because you’re always saying, I’m not there yet, I’m not there yet. it’s like,
 
does this weird mind thing where your goal is almost unachievable because you’re never there. And you’re practicing feeling bad along the way. So you’re just training your brain in a way that ultimately won’t serve you in this goal or ever versus this other approach where you’re actually training your brain to see a goal, to work towards it, but you’re saying, get to feel that way now. And when I practice feeling that way, it actually makes the goal more inevitable and it’s more fun along the way. And then I will actually feel proud and strong if and when I get there.
 
but getting there actually matters less because you’re becoming the person along the way. And let’s just remember that the destination feels like the journey. And so expecting the destination to feel different than the journey is where it’s kind of a thought error and it’s where we get caught up. It’s this thinking that, suddenly I’ll be happy and proud and strong.
 
after I’ve put on this many pounds of muscle mass, but really you’ll put on that many pounds of muscle mass. And if you haven’t done this thought work around it, this mindset work, you’ll just think, I need five more pounds of muscle mass and then I’ll feel strong and proud or I need 10 more pounds and then I’ll feel proud and shrunk. So it’ll keep shifting that ideal if you don’t work on creating the feelings now. So again, I know that there’s overlap with last week and there’s just a lot around goals and how we set them and why we set them, what we think we’re gonna get.
 
If you wanna kind of take some things away from this, whenever you’re setting a goal, I would ask, why am I setting this? How do I think I’m gonna feel at the end of it? And how I think I’m gonna feel the end of it is really, really key. Because that tells you why you think you wanna do this, right? I think I’m gonna feel successful. I think I’m gonna feel lovable. I think I’m gonna feel beautiful, right? And those are the words that are keys and what you’re gonna start to try and create now, both by actively bringing them into your world.
 
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (14:02.402)
but then also working with someone like a coach or a therapist or somebody else that can look at your thoughts and help you understand the thoughts that are keeping you from feeling that now. So for instance, why does it feel dangerous to feel beautiful or strong now in this moment? What is keeping you from feeling that? So you can undo those patterns at the same time. This is also what the 21 Day Challenge is all about in many ways. It’s about creating self-acceptance and creating goals from this place of feeling into them.
 
And even though it’s probably drawing to a close as this episode comes out, if you join the Life Lab, which is a year long program that I run, this is kind of what the Comma Brain Club turned into, then you should join the Life Lab, right? You can go through the 21 day challenge on your own time. You can go through all the exercises. You can start to set goals in this way. And this is what we do in this program. So.
 
join if you want to do this work or reach out to me, talk to me about coaching one-to-one, but know that when you start to approach goals differently, they actually start to serve you in your life and serve you in your growth instead of making you feel like a failure for one of many different, many, many different reasons. Okay. Thanks so much for joining. I will see you. I’ll see you next week. Bye.