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 3 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 are talking about how to make steady progress towards your goals. Because I mean...
That's the dream, right? Like, like that's what we are all here for. And, and yet right now your results feel like super inconsistent. Like some days, some days it feels like you are totally on your way to, you know, your goal weight or your published novel, or your successful business, or your dream race. And some days you [00:01:00] feel like you are a million miles away.
And girl, I get it. I suffer from this exact same thing when I am working towards my big goals. It just feels like it would be so nice to know every single day, like, okay, if I do X, Y, and Z, that I am going to make consistent and steady progress to towards my goals. And yet. And yet every day it seems like my results are fluctuating or changing.
It feels like my emotions are fluctuating and changing, and then I spend, you spend, we all spend so much, I'm gonna say unnecessary time trying to figure out if it's what we're doing or trying to like rethink our plans or just being kind of low grade frustrated. Or if we have like those days every now and again, or more often than [00:02:00] every now and again where we're just ready to give it all up because it feels like we're not
making progress. And so what we do is we kind of double down on willpower. Like, you know, everybody says that in order to lose weight, I just gotta really buckle down and focus on calories in and calories out. Or everybody says that if I'm, you know, gonna write this book, that I just gotta get my butt in the chair
every single day. Everybody says that if I wanna have a successful business, I gotta make sure that I am everywhere all the time. Super visible in every channel, on every social media, and just keep going, keep grinding. Or, you know, for your dream race, you know, everybody says you gotta just get those reps in, get those miles in, make it happen.
Uh, I can't think, oh, um, no pain, no gain. [00:03:00] That would've been really funny if I would've been able to come up with it faster. Instead it's just funny that I couldn't come up with any of the platitudes that I used to tell myself all the time. I'm gonna pause here for a very quick story. Once upon a time, like way back in the day, way, way back in the day before I had anything like really substantial to say myself, I, on my Facebook business page, when I was a personal trainer, I used to post
like inspirational moti-quotes and memes all the time. Like that was the entirety of my content. It was just reposting other people's stuff because, 'cause I didn't have anything to say and so it's super funny. That's why I'm telling this story, it's super funny to me now that I literally can't think of a single one of them because now, because now my brain is so full of ideas that can actually help you instead of just like motivational quotes that sound nice and don't do anything.
So, so here is what you are currently doing. [00:04:00] You are probably... Probably just trying to use willpower. Like you are tracking your calories with vigor. You are writing your 500 words every day. You're running your three miles like clockwork or posting on social media constantly, and you're really, really like weighing and measuring every single bite or editing and perfecting every single word, or trying to run harder and faster
every single time you hit the streets or posting every single day, multiple times a day on every platform. And, and I don't know if you've noticed, but it's kind of not really helping. Willpower. Willpower sounds so nice. It does, and there have absolutely been times in your life when you have gotten something from willpower and you certainly absolutely get all kinds of socialization.
You get all kinds of feedback that willpower is the way to go. But I want you to know [00:05:00] gently and lovingly that willpower only takes you so far. It can. It can take you all the way to your goal. And that is not actually what I am talking about here today. I am not just talking about getting your goal, I am talking about, you know, how to make steady progress towards your goal, but for the purpose of having your goal.
That is something I am consciously reiterating on every single podcast and basically in every piece of content that I am creating now. I really want you to know that I am not the kind of coach who will just tell you to put your head down and grind it out, that I am the kind of coach who tells you that the reason you have a goal is to understand and heal something inside of you that you have no
other access [00:06:00] to. That this process is not just a process of putting your head down and doing the work. It is a process of beautifully understanding yourself so that you can not just get your goal, but have your goal and be the person with your goal, because that is how you are step by step beautifully
creating the life of your dreams and becoming the person that you've always wanted to be. Not just weighing a certain amount, not just having a book on a bookshelf, not just having that medal around your neck and then hanging on your wall. Not just the thing, but becoming the person who has that thing.
My friend, let me tell you something that the way there is not, well, it's not just willpower, but also the way there isn't really only about making [00:07:00] steady progress for the purpose of steady progress. It really is about untangling the way your brain is designed to work, and here's what I mean, because what's really going on here when you are like trying to double down on willpower and thinking so hard about the tasks and trying so hard to do the tasks perfectly so that you can make perfect progress so that you can get your goal even faster.
What's going on here is just that your brain is being a brain and it is actively trying to stay the same. Your brain, my love, will not change unless you ask it to. So your brain right now is telling you what you already believe about your progress, and it's paying way more attention to the gap than the gain.
This is called negativity bias, the whole thing where it pays attention to the gap rather than the gain, meaning it pays a lot of [00:08:00] attention to like the bad stuff that's going on. The, the distance between you and what you want, how far you are from creating what you want. And it's called confirmation bias when it tells you a story
about that alleged progress, about how far you are away from your goal based on what you already believe about yourself. So what's going on right now, like in the real world, like the things that are going on in the three-dimensional world that you can actually see, and well maybe not see until I point this out.
What's going on right now is that you are unintentionally tracking numbers that don't matter. You are unintentionally trying to analyze them for meaning on the fly, practically every day or however, however often you are tracking a thing. And then unintentionally. Well, intentionally probably you're looking at the big picture at least once in a while, but [00:09:00] unintentionally, your brain is telling you a story about your progress that simply isn't true.
So, for example, you are comparing yesterday's weight to today's weight. This is something that I used to do all the time. In fact, let me be very, very clear. I'm about to offer you different examples for different kinds of goals. And yes, I see these examples with clients that I have worked with over the years, but I, I pulled these fully out of my own life.
I really like to offer that because sometimes I think, sometimes I think when I'm giving these examples, especially if my experience has been so very close to yours, sometimes I think you're like, oh my God, Pahla's talking about me in a way that doesn't feel good. I am talking about you, but I'm also really,
really talking about myself. Back in the day when, back in the day when I didn't really understand how weight loss works and I was making the numbers mean so, so much about me, I would compare yesterday's weight to today's weight [00:10:00] and then inevitably take a look at how far I was from my goal. Like, oh my gosh, if I weigh this
today and what I want to weigh is, you know, that number, I'm this many pounds away and that many pounds is gonna take me so long to get there. And the thing is, when your weight inevitably fluctuates from day to day. Because, I mean, your weight inevitably fluctuates from day to day. You have billions of processes going on every single day.
Of course your weight is going to fluctuate, but what's happening is your analy, analyzing is the word I'm trying to say there. I'm trying to read. And I just fully mispronounced analyzing, you're analyzing what you ate yesterday or what you did yesterday, and you're really digging through the scraps of like the most [00:11:00] immediate things that you've done, and you're crumbling into despair about how far you still are from your goal.
And then like once a month or if you're me, like once a year, once in a while I did not use to, I did not use to keep very good records for one thing, and I definitely did not really look on a regular basis at any kind of like progress I was trying to make. But once in a while when I would be like trying to look at the big picture, I would like halfheartedly look over and by look over, I mean,
try to remember because I was not keeping records at all. But you might be keeping records and you might be looking over the numbers and just having that big, deep sigh and telling yourself, oh my gosh, I am not losing weight. I have these charts. I have these graphs. Look, the chart is going up. The numbers are staying the same or going up, like I'm not losing weight.
Or this is a different example. You're looking at [00:12:00] yesterday's net number of words. I did this every single day for literal years before I was even really writing my book. But I would look at my net number of words because I am the kind of writer who actually edits out, um, while I'm writing. I. I know that best practices, and this is not entirely relevant for our example, but I'm just gonna get in the weeds here as I do.
I know that best practices generally speaking is like just get out your first draft, get it all out of your head, and then you can go back and edit later. I am not that kind of a writer, and just in case you are not that kind of a writer either, I really want to offer you that your way is the right way.
It is completely okay to either be the kind of person who does a first draft and then edits and edits and edits until it, you know, polishes up into the shiny, beautiful diamond that you've been looking for. Or it's okay to be the kind of person who writes one or two or three sentences at a time, and then revises, and then makes a a different [00:13:00] outline, and then kind of sees where it goes and then writes again, and then edits again.
I, generally speaking, my first draft is almost like almost completely my final draft. I very rarely edit after a thing is finished. When it's finished, it's actually finished. Anyways. You're editing out, you know, more than half of your words. So every day you're sitting down and you're like, oh my God, my net number of words is, you know this, whatever this number is, and then you're comparing that net number of words to your desired total.
When I was writing a book that I knew my publisher, I mean, by the time I had a publisher, I knew anything about it. They wanted 70,000 words from me, and so every single day when I was writing and editing, I very often ended up with a net negative over yesterday, which meant I was even farther from my desired total.
So when your productivity is inevitably different every single day, I mean, for [00:14:00] all kinds of reasons, you are unlikely to be the sort of machine unless you are using a machine, and that's a different conversation. But unless you are a machine cranking out your, you know, 500 or a thousand or 1500 or whatever, you know, whatever your, your task for yourself is, you are inevitably not going to crank out that exact number.
Or if you do. If you do, you may or may not be satisfied with the words that you wrote. Like no matter, no matter what you are doing, there will be some fluctuation in either the quantity or the quality of your work. So you will analyze your creative process and then freak out about like how much more you have to go in order to get to that finished product.
And then once a month or so, if you are doing such a thing as looking at the big picture and looking at your manuscript, or your outline, or your query or whatever it is that you're trying to produce, you're telling [00:15:00] yourself that you're never gonna finish this book. And yes, I'm using my dramatic voice because that is what my brain sounds like more often than not, and I imagine that yours
does sometimes too. I mean, that's, that's why we're here. That's, that's why we wanna make steady progress, is to get away from that drama in your brain that's telling you, I'm never gonna lose weight, I'm never gonna finish this book. Or, here's another example. This is me from many, many, many years ago.
You're clocking every single run you go on for speed because you wanna get faster and you're comparing it to the pace that you want to be running for your PR race. And for those of you who don't run, just so you know pr, it means personal record. Even though we actually say this was my personal best. People in...
People in, I think like Europe and Canada and other places as well actually say pb, but weirdly here in [00:16:00] America, even though we talk about our personal bests, we call them prs. Don't ask me to explain that. It's just a convention and I am an American, so I say pr. Anyways, when your speed is inevitably different on each run.
I, I do not care who you are. I have known some very, very, very consistent runners who do not run consistently, and we're gonna get to it in a moment, you actually don't wanna be running exactly the same pace on every single run anyways. But if you are looking for, you know, I'm trying to get faster, so I wanna be getting faster, but oh my gosh, today was slower than it was three days ago, or whatever.
And then you find yourself like analyzing the weather outside and how that affected you, or the amount of sleep that you got last night, or what you ate or didn't eat before your run and, and then you just end up feeling so defeated and disappointed when you look at how many minutes per [00:17:00] mile or kilometer, if you're one of those who measures that way.
But again, I'm an American, so I talk in miles and prs, but you're looking at how many minutes per mile faster you want to be running than you actually are. And then, yes, once a month or so, if you even do such a thing, you know, you scroll through your Strava and you announce to yourself quite dramatically, ask me how I know, that you can't possibly hit a PR at your next race because you're just not getting faster.
Or, and yes, this is another one that I did for years, for years and years until I finally deleted my Instagram. You're looking at the views on your most recent Instagram reel and or your number of followers and or the number of people who have looked at your profile and or any number of analytics that you can have on Instagram now, which purports to be helpful.
And I, it's not, but that's an opinion. And I'm gonna get into the weeds of that in just a little bit, [00:18:00] not right this second, but anyways, you are comparing your Instagram, uh, views or your followers or whatever with that other person, ah, that girl who makes it look so easy, that woman or that man or that whatever, who's in your niche, who is doing exactly what you do and they're not even as good as you.
Ah, but they just went viral with over a million views on a single piece of content. Ugh. And then when your views and your followers inevitably, inevitably go up and down, you find yourself just going around and around and around analyzing the algorithm and trying to figure out how to hack it, and thinking about your strategies and looking at your reels covers and overthinking your captions and wondering maybe if I use this font that will get me what I want.
Maybe if I promise something different, I'll get more eyeballs. And then you're [00:19:00] telling yourself that you are never going to make it big. And once a month or so, if you are in fact looking at all of the data that you can get from all of the different social media, because now they really do offer you a lot of analytics.
You can dive deep into all of those numbers and get all of that analysis that tells you, um, well, it doesn't actually tell you anything. And, and all those numbers, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, you just get super overwhelmed, right? And then you tell yourself, well, none of it really matters anyways because you're not making the money that you wanna make.
My friend. My friend, I have been there. I have been there. And I actually have a solution like I'm not just leading up to and well, good luck. Good luck. I was gonna say sucker, but that doesn't sound very nice. And what I actually also was gonna say was, good luck, Chuck, because for whatever reason, that's like a thing that I'm saying a lot lately.
Do you do that where all of a sudden for no [00:20:00] discernible reason, maybe you heard it somewhere, maybe you didn't, but all of a sudden you just find yourself saying like a catchphrase, almost like you're in a sitcom or something. Well, good luck, Chuck, is my, the thing I've been saying lately, and my kids will attest to this because I said it to them quite a bit over the last couple of months.
Anyway, here's the thing. There is a real solution. It's not willpower, it's not doubling down on what's not working. It is, it is the Daily 3. My friend, there is a way to actually see steady progress. The steady progress that you are looking for only comes from knowing what you want, like knowing what you really want, what you actually truly want to create.
Untangling what is slowing you down and rewiring your brain to see success instead of failure. When you are using the Daily 3, [00:21:00] which by the way by the way, I didn't explain to you what the Daily 3 is. The Daily 3 is a journaling framework that helps you get real clarity on what you want, untangle what's slowing you down and rewire your brain for success.
It is a journaling framework that uses three different kinds of journaling, which by the way, I call it journaling. There's a lot of it that's like just using your imagination and all of it is actually feeling your feelings. There's not a ton of writing, which is why the whole process itself actually only takes a couple of minutes, and why I recommend doing it every single day for that incremental
progress you are looking for. I have an entire masterclass that actually explains the, the full where, what, when, and how to do the Daily 3. There's a link in the show notes or the description box, depending on where you're watching or listening or whatever. Worst case scenario, if you do not have access to such a thing, you can go to my website, getyourgoal.com, and it's the [00:22:00] top button on the top page, and there's even a, a tab at the top that says Free masterclass.
It's the Daily 3 masterclass. What we're gonna get into the weeds of here today is a part of the Daily 3 that I don't actually talk about with the Daily 3, it's a little bit more in the weeds of the tasks of what you are doing. The Daily 3 helps you actually rewire your brain. It helps you get clarity on what you actually want.
It helps you untangle what's slowing you down and rewire your brain, but none of that directly informs what you're doing. And today we're gonna talk a little bit about what you're actually doing, and even more specifically, the metrics you're tracking, that can help you see steady progress. Because what's probably happening right now is that you are tracking metrics that don't matter.
And in fact, here, let me give you the, the specific solution, the Daily 3 is the solution, and in [00:23:00] terms of tracking and measuring your progress, you want to track the daily or weekly metrics that actually matter and you want to track them without judgment or analysis. It is literally a recording of information. Then you want to analyze your efforts and your belief, and this is really significantly important,
so I'm gonna say it again. Your efforts and your belief. Once a month or so, you can set your own timeline on that one. Once a month just tends to be convenient. It's why I offer it as like, Hey, track your stuff once a month. You don't have to. You get to choose. This is yours. This is yours to do with as you will.
My suggestion is once a month because once a month gives you enough information to actually analyze. To truly take an objective look at, as opposed to what your [00:24:00] brain does naturally. You could, you could analyze more often, but when you are analyzing more often, such as every day, you don't have as much information
as can be useful to see your progress. You could, if you choose, depending on what makes sense for you and for your goal and for your deadlines, if you have any. If you are, you know, writing on a deadline depends on your very specific situation. You could analyze once a month, once a quarter, once every six weeks, once a whatever time period makes the most sense.
You get to decide that. For the purposes of our podcast today I'm gonna talk about monthly and the word, I can't say analysis. I wasn't even reading that time. I just couldn't get it outta my mouth.
Oh my friends, you know, you know what? Here [00:25:00] is my real gift to you here has always been my gift to you. It will continue to be my gift to you. I am never trying to create a perfect product for you. I always want you to know that you get to be you. You get to make mistakes, you get to be silly. You get to be distracted.
You get to have words that don't come outta your mouth. You get to occasionally forget what you're talking about in the middle of a sentence. And those silences I do edit out. But I don't edit out anything else because I want you to know that who you are right now is perfect for getting your goal. You do not have to be perfect.
You already are. You are the person exactly as you are, and also with the gentle rewiring of your brain, the person you want to be, who is doing the things that is getting you where you want to go. Anyway, here's what I'm saying. Let me just start again. You wanna track the daily. You wanna [00:26:00] track daily or weekly, the metrics that actually matter without judging them or analyzing them.
And then you want to analyze your efforts and your belief once a month or so for the purpose of seeing your steady progress. I'm gonna get into the weeds of that one a little bit later. Here's what I'm gonna tell you. Step one is knowing the actual mechanisms that create your goal, and you cannot know that unless you do Future Self Journaling and know what your goal truly is.
Really specifically when you know what your goal is, it informs what you do to get there. There is all kinds of information in the world about everything that could be even remotely tangential to your goal that can seem really, really important. I mean, everybody and their mother talks about tracking calories to lose weight.
You don't [00:27:00] have to track calories. When you understand like the actual mechanism of weight loss, and I'm gonna get into that in just a moment because I do have something else to tell you that's even more important that, but when you understand the mechanism, you may or may not track calories, you may or may not do all kinds of things that quote unquote, everybody says you should track when you know what you personally want.
For the purposes of my examples here in the podcast, I do talk about tracking calories. I find it to be simple. And more or less universal in a way that feels helpful to me, doesn't mean you have to. I'm gonna talk about your goal for running as though you'd like to get faster and you might not. If you don't wanna get faster
don't track any of the metrics that are surrounding getting faster and really know which ones are about getting faster and which ones are not. Really [00:28:00] understanding the mechanics of your goal is so important, so that you can track the numbers that matter. And here's what I'm gonna tell you. The number one metric that matters, which I say metric, and really it's very subjective, but the number one mechanism of any goal,
every goal, every time is your belief. Do you believe, like on a scale of zero to 10, do you believe that you personally can have the thing that you want? On a scale of zero to 10, do you personally believe that you can create the thing that you want. And on a scale from zero to 10, do you personally believe that you are in charge of slash have responsibility for slash have [00:29:00] agency over creating the thing that you want?
When you answer those questions like and really feel into your body about whether or not you believe that you can have the thing that you want. Again, this is future self journaling. Imagine yourself with your goal. Does it feel real or do you skitter away from it instantly? Do you believe that you personally can create the thing that you want?
Do you think that you can do the tasks to get there? Do you think that it is within your scope of abilities to do what you need to do? Or do you think that the tasks are beyond you? Are something that you can't do for one reason or another. And do you personally feel deep in your bones that you are the one really, truly [00:30:00] creating it?
Or does it kind of feel like a roll of the dice, like it's out of your control? Like, well, we'll just see what happens when I do these things. Maybe it'll all come to fruition. Maybe it won't. That sing songy voice, that maybe energy. My friend, on a scale of zero to 10, I'd call that a three. When all of those beliefs line up that you can have the thing that want, that you want, that you are the one creating it, that you can create it, when those are all 10 outta 10, that that's the metric
that really moves the needle. And because I know you're gonna argue with me because everybody argues with me, but Pahla, I have to do things. Yes, you do. I'm not arguing against doing things. I'm not just saying sit in a chair and believe, because obviously that's not how [00:31:00] you do stuff. You do have to do stuff, but the thing that actually gets you moving to the doing of the stuff is your belief in yourself.
My friend. When you track the metrics that measure the mechanisms that create your goal, it means that you are tracking things like, okay, for example, the mechanism of losing weight is to eat in a slight caloric deficit over time while supporting your metabolism to do so. Those of you who have been around a really long time in a former lifetime, I used to be a weight loss coach.
I had, I had a, a framework, a method, a thing. I called it the five oh method. There are five things that we do every day that make you say, oh, I didn't realize weight loss could be this simple. And I can't do the whole sing songy thing if you, if you know it, feel free. But the things that you do, you eat in a slight caloric deficit over time.
You eat the, I think I used to [00:32:00] say, you eat the right number of calories, you drink the right amount of water, you get the right amount of sleep, which means that you go to bed at the same time every night, you get up at the same time every morning and you don't worry about how much of that was actual sleep.
You, uh, exercise in ways that feel like love. And you manage your mind. It's been a while since I've given that little speech. I know some of you can give it way more than me if, especially if you are still watching my old exercise videos where I talk about that every day. It's super funny though. When I was giving the little part about the sleep, that's the part where I always switch from the arm crossers to the, the next exercise, the next warmup exercise.
I used to, um, give this little speech essentially the same time every time while we were doing the warmups to the workout. And it's funny how much muscle memory those words have with my body. Like my body absolutely wanted to change what kind of exercise I was doing. I was just gonna go into welcome to my homes.
Okay, anyways. [00:33:00] Notice that the mechanism of losing weight is to eat in a slight caloric deficit over time, which is why you do not analyze every single day because you do not have enough information to analyze. The mechanism of writing a book is to produce a total number of words over time that tell a compelling story,
yes, even if you are writing a nonfiction book, that connects with and or helps other humans, and those are not mutually exclusive, by the way. You can connect and help whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. Notice that when you are analyzing your words on a day-to-day basis, that you are not looking at the total number of words over
time. The mechanism of running faster, if that is your goal. Again, don't take any of these as like the word of law. If you don't wanna run faster, don't worry about it. But the mechanism of running faster is progressive overload, paired with adequate recovery over time, [00:34:00] while refining your efficiency. And that means things like mobility and core work and strength work.
And by the way, progressive overload, paired with adequate recovery is not only talking about running fast and not running, it's actually talking about occasionally running slower than intended for biological purposes, I'm not gonna get into the weeds of that. The mechanism of running a successful business means that you have a product, you tell people about that product, you exchange value for that product, AKA, make money, and then you deliver that product in a way that scales over time to your desired revenue goal.
My friend. Notice that every single one of these required a time element, and that really is the thing that I am slowing down and really honing in on here. Your brain naturally [00:35:00] is always, literally always like every single second of the day, and sometimes you're more consciously aware of it than others, but it is always analyzing.
Some of us notice it, those of us with a little bit of anxiety in our lives notice that we are constantly scanning the horizon for threats, but like your brain is constantly scanning your circumstances, your environment, to figure out what it all means. Your brain upon looking at one single solitary number is going to try to make it mean something.
It is your job to not make it mean something, to really hear yourself making meaning of nothing. Well, not nothing, don't let me overstate that. Each time you are tracking a metric, you are tracking information. It has meaning when it is paired [00:36:00] with or in a group with rather all of the other information.
Any single point of data does not have meaning, but your brain will try and make it mean something. And when your brain does try and make it mean something, here's step two. While you are tracking, make a note of your brain's, quote unquote analysis. What you think is analysis, what the you are telling yourself, and use it for your Metacognitive Journaling. Every single time you're stepping on the scale and your brain says, oh man, it must be something I ate yesterday. Don't just take that as law, first of all, because it's not true, because your body is doing billions of processes that affect your daily weight. Any one number of your daily weight is
literally meaningless. You can only know whether or not you are making progress over time. One day's [00:37:00] number first of all, has nothing to do with what you ate yesterday, but second of all, your brain will tell you that it does have to do with something you did recently and you can look at that metacognitively.
You can ask yourself during your Metacognitive Journaling with the Daily 3, what do I think about what I ate yesterday? And just really quickly, I'm gonna stay on this for a moment. Let's say that your weight went up even incrementally today. It fluctuated, weights fluctuate. Your body is always, always, always, always fluctuating.
And when you ask yourself that question, what do I think about what I ate yesterday? If your weight was up today, there is almost certainly some thought in there about how you're doing it wrong, about how it's your fault, about how you don't know what you're doing, about how you ate the wrong thing, how you're doing the wrong thing, how you're never gonna get there. And you hear how soft my voice is, [00:38:00] my love.
I have so much tenderness and compassion for you, and I want you to know that that is a story. It is not true. What you ate yesterday is taking you to your goal weight. It is, and metacognitive journaling is how we untangle ourselves from the useless, not helpful, waste of time, terrible, awful, no good stories that we are telling ourselves.
Feel the feeling of whatever you are telling yourself so that you can release yourself from it. So that every single day when you step on the scale, you can be like, that is today's number. I am so excited to see how this is getting me to my goal weight. That probably doesn't sound realistic or true right now because of the stories you have
by the way. It sounds very like affirmation, a very moty quote, doesn't it? It sounds like every [00:39:00] day in every way, everything is working in my favor, and that's a sing songy voice, if ever there was one, because right now that just sounds like absolute bs. And the reason it sounds untrue is because the story you're telling yourself sounds true.
That's why we do metacognitive journaling, to untangle ourselves from stories that sound true but aren't and are slowing us down. So every single day when you open up your Scrivener and your brain says, Ugh, I didn't write enough yesterday. Actually hear that as a thought and not a fact. That is the essence of metacognitive journaling, by the way.
It's stepping out of your thoughts, stepping out of living in them, and really recognizing, oh my gosh, this is only one option of the millions of things I could be telling myself. And the reason I'm telling myself this is because it feels true. That is how we untangle ourselves from it, is we feel the
feeling of it. [00:40:00] Ugh. And release that emotional resonance. Right now the story I didn't write enough yesterday sounds true because it feels true. When you feel that feeling, it won't feel true anymore. When you finish your run every day, or not every day. You don't need to run every day, but when you finish your run every time you run and you, you know, you push stop and you save it and ah, and then you see the pace on your Garmin and you get that immediate flood of disappointment, actually feel that.
Don't talk yourself out of it. Don't push it aside. Don't pretend like it's not there. Like literally just take one minute or three. If you're doing the Daily 3. I, I prescribe that it takes approximately three minutes to just feel a feeling instead of squishing it down or trying to talk yourself out of it.
Just feel it and listen for the actual thought that created it. Because here's the thing, every single day when you are finishing your [00:41:00] run and you are looking at that number and you feel that disappointment and you try and talk yourself out of it, what you are missing is the story that you are telling yourself that you can untangle your yourself from. What you're missing is that quiet little subconscious whisper of, Ugh, I am so slow.
Hear that. It's a thought. Don't hear it to like live into it and believe it, and like, oh my gosh, that's true. No, it's not true. It's not true at all. But your brain right now thinks that it is, and you can let it go. Not by arguing, but by feeling. Every single day, sometimes 10 times a day or more, when you open up your Instagram app and you see that your number of followers has gone up.
That sounds so good, right? But ask yourself, what do I think about 97 more people watching my reels? I chose that number at random. I have never, actually, no, have I ever actually picked up 97 people in one day. Probably, I don't [00:42:00] remember when, and that's irrelevant. But what I'm saying is actually ask yourself, what do I think about this?
So that you can feel the feeling of whatever that is. Because if you're me, all of a sudden 97 more people... kind of feels like panic, feels very visible, it feels very vulnerable. Because there's a thought in there, some version of that's a lot. That's a lot of responsibility. That's a lot of eyeballs.
That's a lot of people. That's a lot. Really hearing what you are saying to yourself instead of analyzing the number, hear what you are saying, feel the feeling so that you can release yourself from the stories that are holding you back. The stories that are making your progress unsteady and inconsistent.
And then step three, my love is actually analyzing. Finally, finally here, we get to analyze and we get to analyze at a time when your [00:43:00] brain doesn't want to. Your brain wants to analyze every single minute of every single day, and it doesn't want to analyze when you are looking at the big picture. When you are looking at the big picture, your brain wants to tell you a story.
But here's where we analyze your efforts and your belief once a month or whenever to truly understand yourself and your progress. Because here's the thing, right now you're calling it analysis when you're looking for a reason why the number is what it is today, why your weight is up or down, why your number of words is good or bad. You're looking for a reason and that's in air quotes, why the number was what it was.
But that's not what we're doing here. You already know why your numbers over the course of the last month are what they are. It's because of you. And I say that with zero judgment. I say that with zero [00:44:00] blame. I say that with no pointing fingers. In fact, if you could see me right now, my hands are wide open.
I'm offering this to you like a gift. This is where you take agency. It's where you hold agency. It's where you have agency. What you are looking for, what you are analyzing, what you are noticing, observing. Because by the way, that's what analysis is. You are observing that your efforts and your belief actually lined up with your over time results.
Because my love, they always do. This is not blame. This is not shame. This is not pointing fingers. This is not saying, well, you just didn't believe enough. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that you can see. You can see yourself, you can look at your efforts and you [00:45:00] can see that, yeah, you really actually only hit about 30% consistency and that yeah, your belief, it was like, okay, but...
It wasn't great. You really, really, really want to give away your runs to the weather. You want to give away your number of words to the circumstances of there was too many people around and I didn't have any quiet time. You want to give it all away to other people and places and things and circumstances outside of you and my friend,
the belief resides inside of you. If your efforts are, and I say this with love, mediocre, and your belief was, ugh, that's not a word, and it won't transcribe. So if your effort or your rather, your belief was also mediocre, that is why your progress is inconsistent. And listen, here's what we're gonna do.
We're just gonna see that. [00:46:00] We're gonna see that for what it is. We're gonna recognize that there are improvements to be made, and it's not a fix. You are perfect. You are making perfect progress, and what you can do is choose tasks that are actually moving you forward. Choose tasks that you can actually do from day to day,
sustainably, every single day, week, month, or year, however often you do them. Choose to see your belief where it is right now and actively, gently work on it by doing this exact thing. Because by the way, analysis is Success Journaling. It's not looking for a reason. It's not looking for blame. It's not looking for shame.
It's not looking at all the things you didn't do. It's not looking at the gap, it's looking at the gain. It's looking at [00:47:00] your efforts and your beliefs and truly feeling your progress, feeling yourself that you are, every day in every way, but without that weird, I don't actually believe that, but every day in every way that is available to you right now, you are doing what you believe you can.
And in order to believe that you can more than this, you feel the feeling of agency. You feel the feeling of inevitably being the one who is creating your goal and having it and holding it and being it. That's how you create it. By feeling your success. Here's what's gonna happen when you do this, when you do the Daily 3, not just daily, but doing this [00:48:00] consistent
analysis when it makes sense to analyze and releasing the analysis from things that aren't analyzable. And I think that is a word. We'll see. I pronounced it correctly, whether it was a word or not. When you use the Daily 3 in a way that serves you both on the daily and over time, oh my gosh, my friend.
You will stop getting distracted by numbers that don't mean anything. And let me just stand on a soapbox really quickly and tell you that going viral on Instagram does not put money in the bank. It doesn't, unless it was a brand deal. Even then, even then, it's not a one-to-one today's effort creates a specific result.
It's results over time, and the only way to see that is to see it. You won't get so distracted by nonsense, by your brain [00:49:00] casting about for reasons why today's numbers are the way they are, and you will rewire your brain, on purpose, intentionally, to stop analyzing things it doesn't need to analyze, and actually observe, gently, for your good, the kind of steady progress that you want to be making.
Because my friend, you'll be making it. You'll see it. You'll feel it. Thank you so, so much for listening today, for taking this on, for taking this in. I'll 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 simple journaling framework that rewires your brain for success.
Move forward with confidence at your pace [00:50:00] 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.
