Why You Should Embrace Embodied Goal Setting Over Traditional Goal Setting
I used to do traditional goal-setting for my business around this time of year. Some years, I’d reach my milestones and in others, I’d come up short in the first quarter.
Three years ago, I discovered a new way of goal setting that literally turned things on their head. In this episode, I talk about embodied goal setting and how it’s different from traditional goal setting.
4:08 - What you focus on with the embodied goal-setting framework
5:40 - How I use the saying “not all money is good money” in my life
7:32 - The surprising thing you might discover with embodied goal setting
9:48 - Where to start with the embodied goal-setting framework
10:50 - An example of how this would work in real life
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Transcript for Why You Should Embrace Embodied Goal Setting Over Traditional Goal Setting
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people. It’s Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How y'all doing? How was your Christmas? I know by the time this airs, it'll be the day after Christmas so I'm hoping that your holiday was amazing and that Santa got you everything that you wanted on your list. I also know that this is the time of the year once we get past the holidays that we start to set our eyes on 2023. As small business owners, we start setting our goals for ourselves, for our team, for our business.
This is the time of the year that we start reflecting on what happened last year. Those year-end reports are making their way in from your bookkeeper. You're like, “Okay, what do I need to do for 2023 goal-wise?” Now, I used to be probably like many of you and I just did traditional goal setting where, especially on my business side of things, I would set a goal and say, for example, I want to make $500,000 that year, and then I would start to reverse engineer how I would go about making about $500,000.
That meant I will start to look at the packages that I was selling. Was there anything that I needed to do with pricing? How many clients did I need to see to make that goal? How many clients do I need on retainer? My mind would start going to all of these number places. At the end of my time, I'd have five-six annual goals that I would put down that I was committed to making happen to reach that $500,000 that year.
With that being said though, there will be some years where I didn't meet all those goals on that piece of paper. There will be some years that by the first quarter, some of those goals that I had written down I had already abandoned and was trying something else. It was just until three years ago that I was introduced to this new way of goal setting, for me, it literally turned things on its head. It's what I call embodied goal-setting. It's not as linear as “Here's my revenue goal. Here's my fitness goal. Here's my community goal,” because we all have these different domains in our life and you may be setting goals in those different domains.
For me, I've got my business goal, but then I also have my relationship goals. So that means what do I want to do in my marriage? What do I want to do as a parent and as a grandparent? What do I want to do in my friend circle? There are goals around that. Then I have spirituality goals, like how do I want to grow deeper spiritually this year? Educational goals, what do I want to do differently? So you've got all these little domains.
You might have health and fitness goals. You may want to run a half marathon in 2023 or you want to lose 10 pounds. Whatever it is, these different domains in your life, you can set all types of check-offable goals. But what's different about embodied goal-setting versus just traditional goal-setting is we stop chasing the goal and start chasing what does the goal make us feel like? So we stop saying, “I want to make $500,000 a year,” because really, we know people who make $5 million a year who are very unhappy individuals. There are people who unfortunately jump off of buildings and end their lives all the time, sadly, who have tons of money.
Is the money the goal or is there a feeling that we believe that the money will get us? I've shared with you guys before that when I was making quite a bit of money in corporate and how my family life was just imploding, just dissolving in the process, was the money really worth it? Nah, it wasn't. But what did I tell myself that kept me going down that toxic path was that this is what was going to be good for me and my family.
Again, re enter the embodied goal-setting framework. What you decide is how do I want to feel? Making money for me gives me a feeling of freedom and abundance. We've all heard the saying that all money is good money. This is how I use this in my life. If taking money from this customer makes me feel tied down, shut in, constricted, I don't want that money. I'm not going to work that way.
What would that look like? Here's an example. When I'm going after a corporate contract, for example, I would never take a corporate contract that meant that I needed to be on-site with them every week on a certain day or a couple of days out of the week. I would never take that type of contract because that would feel like a job for me and that would feel like a constraint. I need to be able to move freely. Knowing that I'm committed every week to a certain day in time, I wouldn't want to commit to that.
Even if the contract was paying me good money, knowing that my presence is required weekly would make that a no-go for me because my core desired feeling is freedom. I need to be able to feel free. I hope that makes sense. Another thing that making X amount of dollars may make you feel is abundant. I'm chasing the feeling of abundance, I'm not necessarily chasing that dollar amount. When you start looking at how you want to feel, it will literally give you the desire to chase after those goals and to go after those goals even more so because now you've given purpose to your goals.
I always tell people, “Just paying bills and saving money, all of those things are necessary things to do in life, but they aren't highly motivational things for most people.” Even if you're a big saver, let's say that, let's say you set your goal and you're like, “Man, this year I want to save $100,000,” there's a joyful way to save $100,000 and then there's a way that will feel constricted, smothering, and not very aspirational, which will make you give up on that goal of saving $100,000 because the sh*t just doesn't feel good.
As humans, our brains are wired to do things that feel good, so you will stop sabotaging yourself because it just doesn't feel right. If you're thinking, “Man, I just want to save this money because I want X amount of money in the bank because I want to feel safe. I want to feel secure,” when you open up your heart to how you want to feel that feeling of safety, that feeling of security, you might find out you don't need as much money as you think. You might feel very secure if you had $30,000 in the bank this year additionally, and maybe it's not $100,000 if that means you're gonna have to work on weekends and not spend time with your friends.
That feeling can be satisfied in a multitude of ways. When you go after the feeling of things, the how becomes kind of loose and your goals don't feel so constrictive, punitive, or all or nothing, because you're going after ultimately how you want your life to feel and to be and how good you just want to live, how you want your life to be, how rich you want your life to be. Going after those feelings will allow you to create some space around what your actual goals are.
Here's what I want you to think about, something you could put into action yourself. At the core of the embodied goal-setting framework is to start off with your desire. What is it that you desire to feel? Like I said for me, it's always freedom. It's always abundance. Those are two that are typically staples for me but for you, it could be joy, it could be peace, it could be ease, it could be softness, it could be calmness, but what is the overall feeling that you want to have in 2023?
What are some of the things you desire to do? Things that even may seem like a stretch, don't let your practical brain get involved in it. For you, it could be something like, “I want to spend three weeks in Bali.” What's the desire behind that? If I were doing this with you in person, that's what I wouldn't be asking you. I’ll be like, “Awesome. Susie, you want to spend three weeks in Bali. What will that make you feel like?” You might come back and say, “Ooh, it would make me feel calm. It would make me feel clear. It would give me space. It would make me feel peaceful. All of those things.” I'm like, “Ah, so that's a core value for you is peace, ease, freedom, joy, whatever that is.”
Then I will start to say, “If Bali is the thing that we want to put on there, what other areas in your life could we start to feel this peace, this joy right here in Chicago? What other things could we do this year that would give you that feeling?” Here's the truth of the matter, and this is going to sound really anti-goal setting, but it may or may not be in God's will for you to spend three weeks in Bali. However, it is God's will that you have joy, space, and abundance in your life.
If you're chasing that feeling at the end of the year, and you're sitting down in this like, “Man, I didn't get to spend three weeks in Bali,” but if you can compare and say, “But man, look at all the times where I felt spacious, all the times where I felt peace, all the times where I felt ease, that's a win.” As the kids say, a win is a win. So it takes you away from that clingy, linear, “I gotta check this box off or I'm a failure” kind of goal setting. It's like I am pursuing a feeling and I'm open to that feeling being met in a variety of ways. Three weeks in Bali is just one way that that can be met. But I'm open to experiencing that in other ways.
At the end of the year when you sit down, you're looking like, “Yes, I fulfilled how I wanted to feel and that's what's most important to me. I’m living the type of life that I want to live because I feel satisfied.” I hope that makes sense. I'm not saying we get rid of goals. I'm not saying that you don't have any revenue goals or any goals for your family or whatever. I'm not saying that at all. So please don't take it that way.
What I'm saying is to sit down and figure out why those goals matter to you and what those goals represent as it relates to your feelings. It will get you a lot further along and you'll feel a lot more freedom around your goal-setting process if you search out “How do I want to feel?” as opposed to “What do I want to accomplish?” Give yourself a break in 2023. I'm not saying become a hedonist and just pursue pleasure at all costs. But I am saying pursue what matters. I am very much so about being values-led in everything that you do.
Pursue your values, pursue those feelings, and you will have a good 2023. Hit me back. Tell me what are your feelings? What are going to be your core desired feelings for 2023? You know my list is always going to have freedom and abundance but I want to think it through because there are some other things I want to feel in 2023. What do you want to feel? What do you want your life to feel like in 2023? Hit me up. You can find me on IG @lesliedlyons or you can always email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com. Until next time, have a great week and a happy new year because I don't think I'll speak to you again until we're in 2023. So happy new year and I will talk to you soon. Grace and peace.
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