Welcome to the Get Your Goal podcast, the place where ambitious, deep-thinking women chart their own course, exploring the mindset, emotions, and daily practices that help you get your goal your way by being unapologetically you. I'm your host, Pahla B, master certified life and goal coach and creator of the Daily Three journaling framework.
On this podcast, you'll learn to navigate your unique path to success by using the most powerful tool in your kit, your own internal compass. Ready for the adventure? Let's go. Hello friend. Today we're talking about how I stay motivated and prioritize my big goals. This is a question that I have been asked many, many, many times over the course of my career as both- not both, all three of the things that I have done in the last 14 years of running my own business.
I have been a personal trainer, meaning I did like in-home literal personal training with individual clients, helping them exercise and reach their goals. I turned that [00:01:00] into a YouTube career where I became, uh, an exercise coach/life coach, motivational coach, weight loss coach, and now as a life and goal coach, talking with women about any kind of a goal you might have.
I have been asked many, many, many times about how I stay pri- motivated and prioritize my big goals. Most recently, I actually, I think I mentioned this in the last podcast, that I sent out an email survey to my email audience and got lots of great feedback about things that you are struggling with, things that you want to prioritize, questions that you have for me about how to get your goals, and this was one that once again came up several times, and I love answering this question.
I will tell you that the first answer that I have for you is short and sounds a little bit flip, but I really truly want you to hear this, which is why I'm taking the time to answer it like this. I don't stay [00:02:00] motivated, and I think that is so important for you to hear on so many levels. Number one, don't compare your feelings constantly 24 hours a day with the little bit of access you have to mine during a 30-minute podcast or on Substack, or if you are a member of the Get Your Goal membership.
Like, the access that you have to me, I bring you the parts of me that are motivated. I mean, right now, I'm literally at work right now. I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but like when I'm recording this podcast, I am at work. I am here for the purpose of my own business. So right now, yes, I actually do feel motivated.
So you have access to hearing that in me in, like, social media posts or on YouTube, if you still watch some of my old exercise videos. Like, you have access to a version of me that is accessing the feeling of motivated, [00:03:00] which means that you might think of me as a person who always feels motivated, that I stay motivated, and I think it's so important that you understand that that is not how I feel 24/7.
Because First of all, motivated is a feeling, which means that, I mean, by its very nature, it is literally temporary. Your feelings are created from your thoughts, and also they are just hormones in your bloodstream. They are meant to be temporary. They have a job. They, they help you move into some sort of action, and we're gonna talk about this in just a second.
But your feelings drive your actions. So once you have done something or not done something, your feeling's job is done, so of course they dissipate. Also, I mean, part of this is that you have 60,000 thoughts a day, which means that you have 60,000 feelings a day. You don't notice all of them, let me be very clear about that.
So many of your thoughts are subconscious. So many of your feelings are deeply below the surface, [00:04:00] very small, not a lot going on there. The ones that you do notice, though, you probably notice, let's say, a handful of them if you are, like, really paying attention. So the ones that you notice might seem bigger or like they are last a little bit longer or like they are very fleeting.
Uh, your experience of your emotions might be a lot of different things. What I'm telling you, though, is that your feelings are supposed to be temporary, which means that I don't stay motivated, and that means that I don't constantly do things for my big goals. What I do, however, is prioritize my big goals.
There's a common misconception, I think, that motivation is necessary to move you into action, that you are supposed to feel motivated, and that that feeling of motivation is going to drive the actions that you feel obligated to do, let's be [00:05:00] honest, in order to get your goal. And what I really wanna offer you here today is that the feeling of motivation may or may not spur you into the actions that you think you are supposed to be doing to get your goal.
But what motivation will do is help you make decisions about what you want to do So let's talk about how I do not stay motivated, but how I create motivation, the feeling of motivation for myself, and how I allow that feeling of motivation to help me make decisions to prioritize my big goals. And I will tell you, I have a shockingly simple, I'm gonna call it a daily practice because it's something that I do every day, but it's not something that I do only once every day.
And I'm actually gonna qualify that before I even tell you what it is. It's something that I used to do very rarely, which is why I [00:06:00] did not feel very motivated very much of the time, which is why I did not make decisions about prioritizing my big goals very often back in the day. The more I got into this habit, the closer and closer together I started doing it.
So it used to be, like, once in a while, then it was, like, maybe a couple of times a month, then it became maybe a couple of times a week, then it became daily, and now it is something that I do so frequently that I honestly could not, when I was doing my notes for this podcast, could not even come up with a number of times that I practice this during each day.
I know it's many times, and what I will tell you is my simple daily practice that creates a constant, renewable resource of motivation for me is that I ask myself what I want, and then I take the time to not just answer that question in words, but to feel the feeling of what I [00:07:00] want Let me give you some examples, because I know that you're like, "Okay?
Like, I kinda get that." And even that in and of itself, if that is what you take away from this podcast, that simply you can ask yourself what you want, and asking yourself that question, taking the time to, like, hear the question, hear the answer, and dip even briefly into the feeling of what you want, that that is how you create motivation, and how that motivation can help you prioritize your big goals, let that be the answer.
Roll credits. We're good here. If you'd like some more nuance to it, I'd love to share with you that it's not always the, the very straightforward question of what do I want, because sometimes that question leads me to a big blank page in my brain of, "I don't know." We actually just talked about... We actually just talked very recently on the podcast, if you are listening in, like, chronological order.
[00:08:00] If not, if not, hey, I'm gonna make a little mental note for myself, and not even a mental note. What I'm gonna do right now, you're gonna hear the clickety-clacking of my, uh, not my typewriter, my laptop, while I try and both speak and type at the same time, where I tell myself, uh, grab the link for the podcast about I don't know.
'Cause you know what? I really don't like listening to podcasts where they reference a recent podcast that they talked about something or other, and then there's not a link in the show notes for you. So I am going to link the podcast that I just referenced about I don't know, and it'll be in the show notes for you in case you'd like to listen to two podcast episodes today.
So here's the thing. I don't always ask myself what I want like that. I ask myself several different versions of that question that help me Help me actually hear [00:09:00] the answer. And here's what I mean. One of the questions that I ask myself, and I ask myself this, um, every single morning while I am doing my daily journaling.
I, I journal myself with my own journaling framework, The Daily 3. It is the thing that I offer you here on the podcast out in the world. No matter where you are, where you're listening, how you found me, every single place I am, there is a link for you to watch the free masterclass about The Daily 3 journaling framework that I offer.
It is how to rewire your brain for success with journaling. It is very specifically goal-getting journaling. It's not feel better journaling. It's not... Well, I mean, it does help you feel better, and it does help you, like, with your life and with your mental health, but it is through the lens of a goal that you have, you being an ambitious woman with a busy brain who, I say this with love, tends toward overthinking.
[00:10:00] And I say that with both love and laughter because that is how I would describe myself also. I am a person who likes to think, think, think, think, think, which is why so much of my advice here on the podcast and out in the world is, "Hey, interrupt your thinking and feel your feelings too so that you can get your goal."
That is the crux of what I offer inside the Daily 3 journaling framework, is that you are asking yourself specific questions and taking the time to feel the feelings because it's the feeling of your feelings that rewires your brain for success. So every morning while I personally am doing my own Daily 3, I ask myself really specifically, "Who do I want to be?"
This question helps me, like, hear what I want as... I'm gonna call it a job title, and I don't mean it like that liter- literally. It's a little bit more metaphorically. It's like, what word would I use if this were a job, as [00:11:00] a title that is the kind of person I want to be. And let me tell you really specifically my own...
I use I am statements, meaning that it, it sounds like, it sounds like I am describing myself currently. I use this as part of, like, future self journaling to help myself see who I want to be in the world that I am not necessarily right this second. One of my I am statements, my goal statements, is, "I am a Boston marathoner."
I have not currently run the Boston Marathon. I have qualified for it many years ago. I am currently training to qualify for and then run the Boston Marathon. But when I'm asking myself that question of who do I want to be, and I answer it with, "I am a Boston marathoner," for me, that question and answer really helps me step into who that person is, like the kind of person who runs a Boston marathon, in my mind.
This does not necessarily need to [00:12:00] apply to you. You don't necessarily need to agree with me. But what it conjures for me is a person who is dedicated and talented and fast, who is determined, who is willing to put in the work, and not just the, the obvious work of, like, running, but the, the secondary and tertiary work of thinking about my mindset and prioritizing rest and hydration and fueling, uh, prioritizing core work and strength work and mobility work, the kind of person who can think ahead over the course of months and even years for, like, training plans, the kind of person who understands their body, understands how adaptations are made.
Honestly, for me personally, a person who is a Boston marathoner is smart and dedicated and fast And [00:13:00] the word that's coming to me is, is spectacular. Like, like it's this, this conglomeration of a lot of different skills that all align for, well, e- eventually two performances. One, the qualifying, and then the secondary time at the actual Boston Marathon.
So for me personally, that question of who do I want to be, and then the way that I answer it with an I am statement, helping myself not just, like, hear the words of I am running the Boston Marathon, I am a person who, you know, is gonna qualify for and run the Boston Marathon, that, that could come out of my pen or onto my page easily enough.
But when I take the time to, like, hear that sentence, I am a Boston marathoner, and feel the feelings of that kind of achievement, that kind of accomplishment, that is what [00:14:00] I'm talking about when I'm saying that I create motivation for myself. When I feel that particular combination of smart and dedicated and long-term planning and spectacular athletic performance, the ability to perform at will, on purpose, under my own steam, for the purpose of creating something specific, like a specific time that I would need to run in order to qualify for Boston, that feels intensely motivating and helps me ask myself another what do I want question, which sounds like, what do I want to do?
Now, really specifically, again, in my own Daily 3 journaling, I go from the big picture of what do I want, like, who do I want to be, into and what do I want to do for that today? [00:15:00] Because the truth of it is, there are lots of things that I could do, can do, should do, would do, and very likely will do in order to qualify for and then run the Boston Marathon to become a Boston marathoner.
That doesn't mean that I'm going to do every single one of those things today. I am not going to do core strength and strength training and flexibility and run a long run and run speed work and run a recovery run and all of the other things that I'm trying to come up with, like drink a certain amount of water and/or Gatorade and, you know, get X amount of sleep, although those are the kinds of things that I would do anyways.
But here's what I mean Having that motivation of the big picture helps me narrow down and prioritize and make decisions about what I wanna do today. Now, you can hear that question actually in a couple of different ways. I very often ask myself, "What do I wanna do today?" And sometimes I allow that [00:16:00] to spread out, is how I think about it.
For the things that I'm not gonna do today, is there another time on my calendar, either tomorrow or later this week or later this month or later this year or next year or in the next five years or whatever, that I want to do something that I am not prioritizing today? Having both the big picture of who I wanna be and then that smaller micro what do I want to do Is a combination that helps me feel motivated and prioritize today's activities.
Because coming back to that, that misconception that... I, I, you know what, it's not necessarily a misconception. I think it might be an oversimplification that if you feel motivated, that you will do the things you need to do in order to get your goal. I agree with you, and also the nuance here [00:17:00] is this prioritization, this decision-making of knowing who I wanna be and what I wanna do, and then making the decisions of when I'm going to do them.
Putting something on my list today, when I'm already in that space of being able to feel myself as the person that I am stepping into with my goal, and I've asked myself what I wanna do today, and I've taken the time to really, like, think about what my day looks like, where is my energy today, you know, what do I physically feel like, and what do I believe I will have the time for?
What do I believe I will have the, the space for, the creativity for, the, the time, the space, the energy for? If there is something that is not on my list today that I ask myself to put on tomorrow's list or this week's list or this month's list, I already know, because I know how this works, that I'm [00:18:00] gonna need to conjure this kind of motivation again, that making that decision of not prioritizing it today but prioritizing it at another time doesn't automatically mean that that put-off thing, that put-off promise, is going to have the motivation behind it.
I'm going to ask myself to create this motivation again and again and again and again and again. And I offer you what I've already said about how I didn't used to do that every single day. Please don't hear this as when you start this practice of asking yourself what you want, that you should be able to do this constantly every minute of every day, and that this will help you feel like you are always motivated and always prioritizing.
I really do offer you that this is a practice. It took me a long time to get here. It took me a long time to even prioritize asking myself the question of what I want I offer it to you [00:19:00] as something that you can start practicing in a way that really makes sense for you. And I also have a third example for you, because there are plenty of times where I have made promises to myself, and I get to the point of my day where I'm going to follow through on the promise, and also I might very well not. Where, where there's the very real possibility that the feelings that I had earlier in the day when I was making these promises are not what I am feeling currently, because again, I come back to that whole 60,000 thoughts a day equals 60,000 feelings a day.
And during my daily three, uh, journaling f- uh, practice, what I asked myself to, like, untangle, like, what thought is slowing me down today, that's a, a second part of the daily three is untangling what might slow you down. That was a guess. What might slow me down today that I worked through this morning might not be the thing that is slowing me down currently.
And also, and [00:20:00] also, 'cause this is another question that I get asked a lot, what do you do when you have great intentions at the beginning of your day and you get interrupted? Other people have needs. Other people have demands on your time or your attention or your energy, or you know, life is life-ing. Here is a question that I ask myself that helps remind me of what I want, that can help me feel the feeling of motivated and does help me ask myself, "What is my real priority here?"
Here's the question: How do I wanna show up? Now, I love this question, and have for a long time, and I will tell you a seemingly unrelated story, but it is the, the reason why this question feels so vital and visceral to me. One of the things that my sister used to do was she showed up. She was always there.
That was one of the things that I really missed about her a lot when she died, was I, I thought about how she was always there. [00:21:00] Like, birthdays, any kind of celebration, graduations, uh, literally everything. You know, random Tuesday night, she was there, and my sister also did not always want to be there.
There was, there was often an edge to her that you could tell that she was showing up because she decided to show up, she thought she was supposed to show up, but also she really didn't wanna be there. I'm thinking very specifically, I, I had a lot of, like, seemingly good things going on in my life at a time in my sister's life that was really hard for her.
Like, she was going through a divorce. She was really... It, it was not a good divorce at all. She was really struggling with a lot of different things, and I was pregnant and bought a new house and had some good things happen in my life that she wanted to be there for, and she was, [00:22:00] really specifically, the day that I showed her the house that my husband and I bought, our very first house.
I was very excited. I had just had my second baby, and she showed up, and she kept her sunglasses on, and she walked around the house with her arms crossed, and she was like, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Glad you bought a house, Pahla." And for those of you reading the transcript, I had a very, like, terse sounding voice when I said that sentence because it was how she sounded.
When she was walking through my house, she absolutely 100% could not possibly have been happy for me. There was no way. There was no way. She was so bitter and so unhappy in her own life, but she wanted to show up. She wanted to be there, and she was, and her energy, and this is why I ask myself this question of how do I wanna show up, what kind of energy do I want to bring to this?
This is, this is not a dig on my sister, uh, in any manner. I, if [00:23:00] I, if I had been a life coach then, could I have helped her with it? That is always going to be a question in my mind. I am a life coach now, and it is a question that I ask myself. If I'm going to show up, how do I wanna show up? What kind of energy do I want to bring to my tasks?
If I'm going to come to your house, do I really, truly want to be wearing sunglasses and crossing my arms and saying words that I very clearly do not feel? My answer is no. My sister's answer was apparently yes, and I give her credit for that. She did show up. That can be the hardest part, is showing up at all. And the question that I ask myself many times a day is, how do I want to show up? So that I can really see myself.
How do I wanna show up? How do I wanna show up for, for example, this [00:24:00] podcast, was a question that I asked myself because okay, true story, I asked myself this morning, who do I wanna be? You know, I'm the CEO of a thriving, profitable business that has lots of interaction. That is... I don't know if I've talked about this, and don't mind me, like, distracting myself very briefly here.
That is one of the things that I am currently, like, moving through in my business. I am deeply craving a lot more interaction than I did for a while. I have talked about that part, about how, you know, at the height of my, my YouTube experience, how there was an amount of interaction that felt like a struggle for me.
And so I burned my business to the ground because part of... I mean, part of the problem. There were lots of problems, but part of the problem was that amount of interaction. And I have discovered that there is something between virtually zero after I burned my business to the ground, and what [00:25:00] felt like, quote, unquote, "too much interaction," too much access to other people's opinions.
There's an amount of opinions, an amount of conversation that I am deeply craving, and it's very difficult to get that with a podcast. I mean, I'm just talking here. There's, there's really no place to, like, leave a comment on a podcast. You can on YouTube if you happen to listen there, but if you're listening in your podcast app, as I frequently am, there's no real way to, like, talk back.
So one of the things that I am doing, and I think I mentioned it earlier, that I am on Substack now, and it's not entirely related to the podcast, but it's related to my business. There are places where, where I am slightly more teachy, and that's how I think about the podcast. Like, I'm here to teach you.
I'm here to talk about a concept. I'm here to give you something. And there are places where I am more interactive. I do think that you, I mean, you can always, y- you can always email me. I am aware of this. [00:26:00] How much email do I want? That's a question to TBD. I'm still working on exactly defining how many emails do I really want.
Let's see, let's see. Feel free to email me, and let's just see how this goes for my own boundaries. In any event, one of the questions that I was asking myself this morning, like I wanna, I want to... You know, I am the CEO. That was my who do I wanna be, and then what do I wanna do? I wanna record a podcast today, and then how do I wanna show up is actually the question that I asked myself right before I turned on the microphone.
How do I wanna show up is with generosity. I want to be here to teach you something. I want to be here to share my experiences with you. This is why I stopped scripting the podcast, and why it is all just freeform me rambling these days. Because I really am here to share, to interact, even if it is deeply [00:27:00] asynchronous, and sometimes, most of the time, 99.999% of the time, you are, I'm gonna say just listening That, that energy that I want to bring of showing you myself, my process, informing you in a way that can help you maneuver it around in your own brain to help yourself.
Yes, I have a framework. Yes, I have, you know, a membership where we can interact. Yes, I have things to sell you, and also what I have are ideas that I wanna share with you for you to make your own. I want to show up with my hands open, with my heart open, with my sunglasses off, and my arms open wide.
Welcome to my home. Welcome to my podcast. Welcome to my life. Welcome to my process. You are [00:28:00] welcome to all of the things that I offer. That's the energy that I want to have. That's the energy that I created for myself with the question, how do I wanna show up? Because, and this is the part of the story that I was about to tell you, because I got into my office, I was like, "I'm gonna record a podcast today," and that was two hours ago.
I sat at my desk. I checked email, and there wasn't any, and that was deeply disappointing because I wanted the interaction. What I wanted th- was distraction, actually. I had a lot of self-doubts about what the topic was that I was really gonna talk to you about today. I came up with a couple of other ideas that I rejected.
I started to go down the rabbit hole in my brain of maybe I don't really have anything to say, maybe nobody wants to hear what I have to say, all the things that... Yes, I untangled something in my daily three this morning, in my metacognitive journaling, and it wasn't the [00:29:00] thing that did indeed slow me down while I sat at my desk.
This is why I offer you that when you give yourself one version of motivation, it doesn't necessarily stick with you. Having a couple of tricks in your bag to create motivation for yourself again and again and again is where you can, with time, with practice, create a renewable resource of motivation that helps you prioritize.
When I ask myself how I wanted to show up- It was very clear to me today, with today's energy, that I wanted to tell you stories, that I wanted to offer you a little bit more personal. What I had been, what I had been ideating for the podcast was a lot more, I'm gonna say [00:30:00] teachable, but a lot more, um, like pointed finger authority, here's what you're doing wrong, which is not something that feels amazing to me.
That is something that I am moving away from and moving towards sharing in a way that shows you that I have expertise, that shows you the behind-the-scenes. These are, you know, this is the scaffolding, this is the framework, and this is how I use it in my own life so that you can see, rather than just taking my word for it, like do what I say, it's like, oh, you can see that it works for me in my own way.
When I ask myself these questions, I create motivation for myself. You might ask yourself these exact questions: Who do I wanna be? What do I wanna do? How do I wanna show up? Or you might take this information and run with it, because [00:31:00] I have shared myself, my my inner workings, my own drama as I so often create for myself, and the way I dig myself out of my own drama.
When in doubt, have a good question in your pocket so that you can pull it out and ask it. When you interrupt yourself with a question, my friend, you can help create a feeling like motivation that can help you make decisions that prioritize your big goals. This is how I do it. I ask these questions. I notice when I am drowning in the self-doubt and second-guessing and maybe, maybe today's not a podcast day.
I pull out another question so that I can create the motivation that I want and show up the way that I want to I am gonna wrap this up now. I feel like I am done [00:32:00] with my stories. I really hope this was helpful for you. I always, always hope that what I have offered and shared with you is helpful. I would love to hear from you.
I am making the offer. Here we go, man. It's who I am today. It's how, what I wanna do and how I wanna show up. I would love to interact with you. You can email me. You can. I'm so laughing. We'll see. We'll see how this goes, my friend. Thank you so, so much for being here, for listening, for being part of my world.
Now I'm gonna start singing a Disney song. I'm gonna say something else there instead of part of my world. For being here, for being you. Oh my gosh, thank you for being you and us together, making the space for each of us to be who we are. My friend, I will talk to you again soon. No matter where you are on your goal-getting journey, I'm here to help.
Get started by watching the free Daily 3 Masterclass to learn the [00:33:00] simple journaling framework that rewires your brain for success. Move forward with confidence at your pace with one of my goal-specific guided journaling experiences. And when you're ready for immersive exploration with fellow travelers just like you, you belong in the Get Your Goal membership.
Find it all and join the adventure at getyourgoal.com.
