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, hello, friend. Our topic today is going to go unnamed for a moment. I will tell you that what I wanted to talk with you about today is something that you very likely
do not think is a problem on your goal getting journey. In my many years of being a life coach, I have seen this thing that we are going to talk about the, the topic that shall be unnamed for [00:01:00] at least a couple more minutes here. We, I have seen this so many times and it has been one of the things that I have really spent a good, fair bit of my...
My thinking time, my pondering time, my my "how can I help people" time in my own brain really working around like what is the solution to this problem. And I will tell you that I will, I'm gonna tell you the problem. I'm gonna tell you the solution. I'm not gonna name it just yet, but I am gonna tell you what you very likely have noticed on your goal getting journey that you have probably attributed to something else.
And I will tell you a little bit behind the scenes here. I really struggled with what to even name this podcast. I mean, I finally came up with, you know, this could be silently stealing your success because, because again, I don't think you will necessarily hear when I name the problem as something that feels
troublesome [00:02:00] for you. Uh, there's a, there's a good chance that you actually think that the thing that I'm gonna talk about is not only not a problem for you, but definitely not the thing that could be slowing you down or causing you to take, I'm gonna say extra time on your way to your goal. But I promise you that this particular thing,
when you, when you see it for what it is, can actually change the trajectory of you being able to get your goal. So let's talk about what you probably do notice that you may have attributed to other things that I think that this particular issue will actually cause you to feel low grade, [00:03:00] constant struggle throughout your goal getting journey in ways that are both subtle and very, very obvious.
You will in fact, struggle with almost everything, except very likely you will not have a difficult time doing the tasks. Here's, here's what I mean. Defining your goal will actually feel relatively easy, but also you won't quite resonate with it in a way that's gonna feel really hard to articulate for you.
Like, you know you want the thing, you know, you wanna write a book or run a race or lose weight or start a business or navigate through grief. Like, you know you want the thing in the broadest sense, but every time you like think about it or talk about it, if you do even talk about it, but every time it comes up for you, there's like this little bit of hollowness that you feel.[00:04:00]
Like, for example, let's say that you have a goal weight and you know it's a good number. You know the BMI is right, or it's right there in your, your goal weight range. Like, you know that it's good on paper, but also you don't really know what it'll feel like. Like you don't necessarily remember weighing that before.
Or if you do, it's not really attached to like, oh, this was the best time in my life, or that weight felt amazing. It's just like, oh, well, I mean, I kinda, I know I could get there, and you don't really feel connected to it. It's a, it's a good number. It's good on paper, but, but your goal just won't evoke feelings for you.
This, as you may know, can cause some unnecessary struggle because if you have a hard time picturing your goal, you will have a hard time [00:05:00] getting your goal. You'll also have a particularly difficult time picturing yourself with that finished goal. And I mean that in the, the most specific sense of like using your imagination and, and being able to evoke your goal.
You'll say the words, for example, and this is something that I actually see a lot when I'm working with women inside the Get Your Goal Membership. We'll talk about doing the Daily 3, you know, with Future Self. And what I, what I hear them saying is that they're doing a lot of writing. They're writing the words, they're saying the goal to themselves, but having a hard time imagining it.
There's a, there's a very different sense that you bring up when you actually imagine your goal. When you are imagining something, you are evoking, you are creating for yourself the feelings of that thing, and that is part of [00:06:00] why it's the part of the Daily 3. So if you have a hard time picturing yourself with the finished goal, you'll be saying the words or writing them in your journal.
And again, it'll make sense in your head, but it won't, it won't conjure anything for you. It'll be very much like, like reading, you know, a manual of how to put together furniture or something. It's like, okay, well these are the pieces and this is what I do, but it won't bring up any, any feeling for you. So let's say for example, like if you have a business revenue goal, that's a pretty big number,
and this is something that I have definitely struggled with in my own business goals. A business revenue goal kind of feels like, like pixels on a screen when you go look at your bank account, like it doesn't bring up any evocative images in my imagination. And this might be something that you've noticed too, like.
Let's say for example, [00:07:00] that you have a business goal that it's like, it's a pretty big revenue number, but it also won't really necessarily change your lifestyle all that much. So it feels very easy to like not really imagine anything different. Or if you do try to imagine like how it would be different,
mostly what your imagination brings to you is like how much more work it's going to be to hit those numbers. Having difficulty imagining your goal and evoking the good feelings that you associate with your goal will make it unnecessarily difficult to get your goal. Now here's the thing. Defining the tasks will actually be, I'm gonna say incredibly easy, and that may or may not ring true for you.
Generally speaking, when you have the problem that is still unnamed. It is. It is actually pretty straightforward and I [00:08:00] think maybe you're already noticing what I'm saying here. Like this has all felt so far like an intellectual exercise. You have the words of the goal, you know what the, like the mechanics of it are.
You have a sense of what it will bring to you. There will be this thing. It all feels a little bit... Not robotic. That's too big of a word, but it feels like an intellectual puzzle, and therefore an intellectual puzzle has an intellectual answer. And that's why the tasks might actually feel incredibly easy for you.
Like you know what to do to be able to get the thing. It's again, just like reading a manual. It's like, step one, do this, step two, do that. Step three, do that. So therefore, you very likely won't necessarily struggle to execute on those tasks. They'll be so straightforward in your mind that you'll be [00:09:00] able to do those things right up until at some point you will come to an absolute grinding halt.
And it will feel almost like falling off a cliff. It'll be like, but wait a second. I was doing that. I was making some progress. She says, with a giant question mark at the end of that sentence. What, what happened here? Like, why did I stop? And this is where a lot of people like fully just quit and give up and pick a new goal.
Like I've, I've seen that happen so, so, so many times. In fact, I've even had that happen in my own life. But here's an example. Like, it's been going great. You, you know, you've had this running goal, you've been running for like a while, you have no injuries, you have no real complaints. The running has felt pretty easy until one day,
you had a perfectly valid reason to skip your run. Like it, it was not, it was not self-sabotage, you [00:10:00] swear. It was just okay. You know, today it's gonna be inconvenient. I'll get back to it tomorrow. And then. Then like literally all of a sudden you feel like you blink your eyes and then it's been six months since the last time you laced up your shoes and you literally have no idea what happened.
But, uh, apparently you're not ever gonna run that marathon that you had in mind. And, and yeah, I guess it just makes sense to like move on to something else. It's very, it's very common for this to happen. I actually really wanna, like, offer you that. I, I hope that you can hear in my tone, unless of course you're reading the transcript, but I hope that you can hear in my tone
that I have absolutely no judgment for this problem that is still unnamed, but I'm gonna get to it here in just a moment. That this is something so common and so [00:11:00] I'm gonna say easy to just fall into that it doesn't, again, it doesn't seem like a problem. It just seems like, oh, you know, I had this goal. It was kind of hard and well, okay.
Now, here's the thing, you will also really struggle to keep records of any sort. You will complain about like, well, my goal isn't really all that straightforward, even though you have numbers for it, even though you have parameters for it. Even though you know, again, on paper there's this, you know, mechanical, this is what I want and this is what I'm gonna do and this is how it's gonna be, but
when it comes to like the real world, all of a sudden it feels very squishy, very soft, very fluid, very well, I want this thing, but also it's important that I have all these conditions on it. It's all very subjective, so [00:12:00] I can't really track my progress. I can't really keep records. I can't really write down what I've done and how I'm doing it and how I'm moving forward.
I mean, for example, let's say that like you're writing your novel and it would certainly make sense to keep track of how many words you've written each day in order to be able to see your progress. If you know that you want, you know, X number of words for a finished product, it would make sense to track your, I'm gonna say daily progress.
If you're a writer, you know you don't write every single day, you write most days, but. Unless you actually write every day. I'm like, okay, maybe some of y'all write more than I do, and I do actually write every day, but I don't necessarily like write towards my goal every day. I write, I write something every day, but I don't necessarily write towards my goal every day.
In any event, that's, that's a point to the side, you know, that it would make [00:13:00] sense to track your progress. Every goal, like here, here, let me actually distract myself briefly on this one. Every single goal in the world benefits from collecting data and tracking your progress. And it really truly does not matter how squishy and soft and subjective your goal is.
There are qualities about your goal that you can nay, I dare I say you should track, and I'm not gonna say should. What I'm gonna say is you can, because the tracking of the goal is part of the getting of the goal. And actually, you know, here, I'm gonna refer you to, uh, the podcast that I made very recently.
I don't even remember if it was the very last one or if it was one. It was the one before that, where I talked about if you're having trouble seeing progress, troubleshoot these six things. And I talk a lot about collecting data, keeping records. Anyways, here's what would happen here, I'm giving you [00:14:00] this writing example.
I'm still in the middle of an example and I've gotten distracted twice. Don't mind me. Thanks for coming along on the ride. So let's say that you want to keep track of your progress, but also you try really hard to like qualify it with whether or not these words will actually make it into the finished novel, or if these are like rough draft only words.
And since you don't know for sure if they're really gonna make it into the final cut, you spend a lot of time debating about what counts and what doesn't count. And mostly you err on the side of not counting. I feel like this example is a little bit more obvious in terms of, especially just the way I've characterized it here, in terms of being able to kind of see through some of the shenanigans that your brain will do
in order to stay the same. Your brain will offer you this argument that when I am telling the [00:15:00] story as an example, it sounds, I'm not gonna say ridiculous, that's very judgmental, but it sounds... It sounds like your brain's shenanigans. When this is in your own head, it will sound like logic. It will sound like the best idea you've ever had.
It will make all kinds of sense in the world. You will sound like you are absolutely keeping yourself in this lane of, yeah, I know exactly what I'm doing and here's how I'm doing it. But as I offered as an example, you can see that words would always count. I mean, if your, if your goal here is to write words, and then eventually, of course you're gonna edit them, and some of them will make it, some of them won't.
But if your goal is to write words and you wanna see progress on writing words, you just count all of them. You just do. Let's say, let's say that this is unnecessary struggle, right? You can kind of see how all of my examples have [00:16:00] been, not just like the challenge of getting your goal, but that extra layer of your brain not really allowing you to move forward.
Now, here's the thing, you may not actually struggle to get the result that you want. In fact, lots of us, and I am absolutely raising my own hand as a person who has done this exact thing that I didn't think was a problem until it was. You will probably not struggle to get the result that you want. Some of you will, some of us will, some of I will.
That's a terrible sentence, but there we go anyways. I have indeed struggled to get results, but also I have 100% gotten my goal, gotten the result that I wanted, and then not been able to have that result. And here's what I [00:17:00] mean. You'll gain the weight back. Or you'll lose the running speed that you had worked so hard to gain. Or that book that you've taken 10 years to write will sit in the drawer unpublished, or, and here's where we're talking about me,
you'll take that super successful business that you had worked on for a decade and you'll burn it down all the way to the ground and start over from scratch. So this, this thing, this thing that I did burning my business down after I had spent 10 years building exactly what I said I wanted was what really led me personally into.
Well, the pondering of course. I mean, I, I watched myself, I watched myself walk away from a very successful YouTube channel making the kind of income that I wanted [00:18:00] to be making, working with the kind of people that I wanted to be working with, doing the kind of thing that I wanted to be doing. I watched myself walk away from that and really,
really burn it down like, like burn some bridges behind me in a way that like on the one hand was like deep emotional agony. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can talk about it now. First of all, 'cause it's been four years, and second of all, because there was a part of me that was like absolutely in agony.
Like I felt burnt out. I felt exhausted. I felt so emotionally overwrought about being where I was that I had to get away from it. Like there was. I felt compelled. I could have, I could have continued. I think about that sometimes. Like I could have continued, but also in a very real sense, I, I really don't think I could have.
But there was also, this is what I'm saying, this [00:19:00] simultaneously, there was this part of my brain that was so curious. Like I was watching myself do this like, damn, that's really interesting. What's going on here? And it took me, it took me quite some time to really get the perspective to understand what had happened, and here is where I am finally going to name the problem that you might not think you have.
The problem is that it is very difficult for you to acknowledge your success. The problem we are talking about today is this thing that we do where we dismiss ourselves, we dismiss our wins. We try to fly under the radar. We try to like have our success, but also in a very real sense, not ever talk about it or look at it directly or live in it, or [00:20:00] frankly have
the thing that we want. And here's where we started the podcast, where you're like, that's not really a problem if I don't acknowledge my wins. I know. I know you think that. And also I feel like I have built my case. I'm not here to convince you, but I do feel like I have built my case that getting your goal is a challenge.
A hundred percent. I am never gonna tell you otherwise. And girl, you and I both love a challenge. What you and I don't love is the added suffering. It's that extra layer of making it harder for yourself. It's completely fine if getting your goal is hard. You and I are both up for that. We love it. This is why we do what we do.
We are goal getting girls. And also, that layer of suffering, that layer of feeling constantly indecisive, that layer of constantly second guessing [00:21:00] ourselves, that layer of constantly having that internal debate of, well, if I do it this way, I could have that, and if I do it that way, I would be able to, I mean, frankly, stay the same.
Your brain's shenanigans behind the scenes is the layer of suffering that I'm going to offer you a solution to. Now, I've already mentioned a couple times the Daily 3, we've, we've talked about this. I talk about it on the podcast a good fair bit. If you are new here or if you haven't watched the masterclass yet, I'm gonna point you in the direction of watching the masterclass. Here on the podcast
mostly what I talk about is like how to use the Daily 3, how to like think about it and you know, put it into your life to help you get your goal. The Masterclass that I offer -completely free, takes about 20 minutes to watch, and it really explains like the nuts and bolts of it. Like here are the three kinds of [00:22:00] journaling that actually rewire your brain for success. Because right now, right now, left to your own devi, left to your own devices.
Your brain's just gonna keep being the same. Like that is a biological imperative. Your brain will stay the same unless you intentionally act upon it to help it change. The three types of journaling that I offer in the Daily 3 are the three crucial types of journaling that work together. Any one of them is lovely, but all three of them actually work
together synergistically in order to help you rewire your brain for success. Here's why I even created the Daily 3, was watching myself burn my business to the ground. Watching myself walk away from something that I had been saying for years was what I wanted. What in the world? Why in the world rather,
would I [00:23:00] walk away from that? And I'll tell you why, because I could not, in the moment, take on and feel the identity of a person who had that kind of business success. This is, I'm gonna say the final stage, even though... even though there's work to be done throughout the goal getting process, but the final stage of getting your goal isn't just getting it.
It's not just like ta-da, the moment you step on the scale or the moment you cross the finish line. The final stage is actually having the goal, even if it's a one-time goal. Even if it's like, okay, I really only wanted to ever write one book and publish it and put it out in the world and create the kind of success that I wanted from that one book.
Like even if it is a one time only goal, there is still the having [00:24:00] of the goal afterwards that so many of us do not create for ourselves. And with some goals, it is very obvious that you did not create that identity. I mean, again, coming back to my examples of gaining the weight back or losing the running speed, like when, when you do not step into the identity of the person who has that thing that you want, that thing that you want will in some manner
fade. It will go away. It will be, I'm gonna say lost to you.
The solution, the thing to do in order to step into the identity of that person is one of the types of journaling that I offer with the Daily 3. There are three types. Again, watch the masterclass for all of the nuts [00:25:00] and bolts. The, the how's, the why's, the what it does, and you know how it works. There are three types though.
There's future self journaling, there's metacognitive journaling, and there's this, what we're talking about today, success journaling. I will tell you, I'm laughing at myself before I even get this out. Success journaling is literally journaling about your success. Like it's, it's very obvious. It's very simple.
I, here, let me tell you a quick story. The other day I was, what was I reading? I was on Amazon, or in my library app. I was somewhere where I was looking at self-help books and I was, I was looking for a very specific one and I was reading reviews and sometimes that's just a really bad idea. Actually, the reviews for my book are really nice and I'm always grateful for that.
But like the reviews for most books, even good books, even helpful books, especially self-help books, and this is where I'm [00:26:00] going with this story. Self-help books tend to have lots and lots of reviews that say things like, I really thought this one was gonna be different, but this is all just the same recycled crap.
This is, you know, this is super simple. Anybody could tell you this. Why did I take, you know, 270 pages to read that? And, and I'll tell you why. Self-help is simple. It is, it's incredibly straightforward. Like it's shockingly simple, which is great news because that means it's not hard to understand. But also,
the execution of it, the actual implementation of any self-help, all of it, no matter how simple it sounds on the surface, it's the implementation is where you find the nuance. It's where you find the depth, it's where you actually, you know, your rubber meets the road and you realize just how much your brain is wired currently to [00:27:00] stay the same.
So yes, on its surface, success journaling is just journaling about your success. Like it actually is that simple. And also there are complexities to it. There are nuances to it, and that's really what I wanted to bring to you today here in this podcast and really offer you not just like, okay, if I success journal then all of this will be easier, but like when you success journal, here's really specifically what it will be like and how it will help you rewire your brain and why that is so important.
The truth of it is so many of us have been socialized to.... not just like, not journal about our success or not talk about our success, but to actually avoid it. Especially, and here I could get on a soapbox for a quick moment. Especially those of us who are women of a certain age, we [00:28:00] really, really have been taught
from the moment of birth to downplay our successes, to stay in the shadows, to fly under the radar, to keep it quiet, to not brag, to not be arrogant, to not, you know, be too big for our britches, to not talk about our successes, to let somebody else shine, to stay in the background, to just take care of other people.
This is why it feels so hard to journal about your success. Here's the thing about journaling for success. There are actually like three layers to it, which again, presented in the Daily 3 presented as, here just journal for your success feels very simple. But what you will find as you implement it is that the, the first layer
is really learning to trust yourself to follow through. And I know that that's not necessarily a problem for everybody. It was a big problem for me for a very long [00:29:00] time. I thought of myself as a procrastinator. I thought of myself as a quitter. I thought of myself as somebody who started things and didn't finish them.
And I had worked through a good, fair bit of that, but through the use of the Daily 3, literally every day, I started to change my self concept. When I watched myself every single day actually enumerate, oh, that thing that I asked myself to do yesterday, I did it. Asking your brain to see yourself as a person who follows through is that first layer.
The second layer is where you actually see your efforts adding up. And this one could be an entire podcast. In fact, all three of these layers really could be a podcast in and of themselves. Where, your brain left to its own devices will absolutely be able to see, [00:30:00] okay, I did. You know, I asked myself to do that, and then I did it.
I asked myself to do that, and then I did that. But even though I've been working on this for, you know, weeks or months or years or whatever, I'm just not getting where I wanna go. I'm just not making any progress. I'm not losing the weight. I'm never gonna publish this book. I'm never gonna be able to get where I want to go with my goals.
That is the second layer of asking yourself for evidence of progress. Success journaling isn't about looking at what you've done and being able to automatically see it as a success. It's asking your brain intentionally to see your successes. That is a slight difference from just sitting down and thinking that it's gonna come to you naturally.
It is... Well, it is work. It is a challenge. It is you asking your brain to focus. [00:31:00] The third layer, and that really is the one that we're talking about today, is becoming a person who has your goal. Now I will offer you that this can sound like it almost bleeds into like just imagining yourself with your goal, which is technically speaking,
that is what I call future self journaling. What I'm offering you here, the layer, the depth, the nuance is that you actually feel the feelings of a person, who is you, who has your goal in hand right now. What I mean by that is that yes, you've been watching yourself follow through. If you've been doing the Daily 3 for a while, you've been watching yourself ask yourself to do a thing and then do a thing.
And then you've moved through that layer where you [00:32:00] can ask yourself to see the pieces adding up together, and then it's clearly inevitably forming the path to your goal. And this third layer here is feeling the feelings of you yourself right now, today, having the piece of your goal that you have. Hear me out on this one.
Well hear me out on a couple things. First of all, the Daily 3 is a feelings practice. That might not have been obvious when I call it journaling. You have probably been taught that the daily, that any kind of journaling rather, not just the Daily 3, but that journaling is an intellectual thing that you do with words and your brain and a pen and a piece of paper.
And I really offer you that the path to rewiring your brain for success is feeling the [00:33:00] feelings of success. In small doses every single day, you can practice those feelings of a person who has your goal. You having currently your goal. Feelings like pride, accomplishment, actual success, confidence, self-worth, importance.
Decisiveness, spaciousness, generosity, the feeling of, and yes, this is a feeling, the feeling of being open to change, focused, visible, admirable, relaxed, strong, beautiful, deserving. I know some of you who are paying attention right now can already [00:34:00] feel how yucky some of those feelings feel. And I'm laughing.
I'm laughing because we all want our goals because we think it is our goal that's going to help us feel these feelings in a way that feels good. We all think that confidence is going to feel good just kind of magically, even though currently we don't feel amazingly confident. Even though currently we don't feel focused, even though currently we don't feel open to change or generous or decisive. We think that the getting of our goal will just magically change our feelings.
And what I lovingly, gently offer you is that you personally will change the discomfort of your feelings by practicing feeling them in small doses. Every single day. That is the real magic of Success [00:35:00] Journaling. Here's, I'm gonna say the problem of success journaling, it's not a problem, but here is, here is what you are up against.
You are up against deep socialization again, to fly under the radar, to not brag, to not be arrogant, to not talk about your accomplishments. And just side note, I am never telling you that you have to talk about your accomplishments. That is not where I'm going with this. You do not have to ever. Ever. Well, first of all, you don't have to do anything, but you do not have to ever, ever, ever, ever talk to another human being about your goal ever.
Even if you do decide to come and join my membership, which is what I'm gonna offer you here in a second, because being inside a group, a community, watching people do this work can be immensely helpful, in order to, I'm gonna say work against nature. The truth of it is your brain is hardwired to stay the same, and it is [00:36:00] also in, in a biological imperative to change when acted upon.
It's the acting upon that can feel difficult. It is the acting upon that is what I offer inside the Get Your Goal membership, the support to help you act upon your brain. Left to your own devices, left to all of our own devices, all of us would simply stay the same. Given the, the, the tools. I mean, I give you the Daily 3 for free.
Please use it. Please, please, please. It works. I give you these tools. You are capable. You are actually imminently, 100% capable of using the tools. And it's easier to use them in concert with other people. Watching somebody else use [00:37:00] those tools makes it easier for you to use the tools. Being in a place where everybody is using the same tool makes that tool feel easier and more natural, and frankly, more fun and more interesting.
You will learn more about how to use the tool. I mean, this is, this is why trade schools exist. I mean, thinking about it as a tool. Yes, you could figure out how to use a hammer and a screwdriver and a saw all on your own a hundred percent. But being in a place with somebody who has not just used the tools but has mastered the tools and being with other people who are learning and mastering the tools themselves makes the whole process easier.
And that is really what I am looking for here is that sense of ease for you. Your goal is going to [00:38:00] feel like a challenge. It is. It's why you're here. It's why you love it. We are challenge girls. And that doesn't mean that it has to be a struggle. Right now, there's an excellent chance that you are struggling because of this, this silent thief of your success, this, this persona, this socialization that you have, to fly under the radar and not acknowledge your success, not feel your wins. When you practice
success journaling, you can take away that unnecessary layer of struggle and simply enjoy the challenge of getting your goal, of having your goal, of being a person who gets goals. [00:39:00] My friend. I really hope this was helpful for you today. Always. That's what I'm here for, and thank you so much for listening.
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 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.
