Are you navigating the choppy waters of life post-divorce and wondering how to rebuild and set goals that resonate with your new chapter? Let's shatter the myth that change can't happen until the New Year, or on a Monday morning, and instead, decide that any moment is the perfect opportunity for transformation. In this episode, I revisit the poignant lessons from episode number 40, offering you hope and belief in yourself as you forge a path forward.
This conversation is a deep dive into the emotional core of commitment, the bedrock for reaching any milestone. We'll walk through a three-step process to ensure your goals aren't just wishes, but tangible realities. By envisioning your future successful self, you'll gain the clarity and motivation to advance with confidence. Whether you're selecting one desire to focus on or vocalizing your commitment to make it real, this episode offers the strategies you need to cultivate a life brimming with fulfillment. Join me, and let's embark on this journey of personal progress and goal attainment together.
To schedule your complimentary consult with Karin click here.
Make sure to follow and rate the podcast on your favorite podcasting app.
List to the full episode:
Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it show up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
Featured on this episode:
Interested in the Divorce Betrayal Transformation? Learn more here.
Are you lost and confused about who you are after divorce? Don't worry. I've got 51 Ways to Get to Know Yourself Again. Click here to download.
Want to work first hand with Karin so you can stop worrying about what your life will be like after divorce, and instead begin making it amazing today? Click here to schedule a consult to find out more about working 1:1 with Karin as your coach.
Haven't left a review yet? No problem. Click here to leave one.
Full Episode Transcript:
You're listening to episode number 143 of Becoming you Again, and I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. My friends, I am so glad that you're here this week because it is getting very close to the end of the year. I am going to be doing a throwback episode to episode number 40, where I teach you about setting and reaching goals after divorce. We all know that at the beginning of a new year, this is the time where it is almost exclusively what we as a society have used as kind of a time stamp reminder that, oh right, it's a new year, it's time to start anew, it's time to set and reach new goals, it's time to evolve and do new things, try new things, become a new person, change in some way. Now, I don't necessarily ascribe to this idea overall in the way that I believe you and I and every other person is very capable of, and should be, setting goals for yourself anytime you want. It doesn't have to wait until January 1st or 2nd. You want to wait that extra day after the new year starts, after you've had your fun and you've woken up out of your hangover from the New Year's Eve party or whatever is happening, and it doesn't have to wait until the Monday. Right, we always do that, like I'm going to start this new goal, but I'm going to wait until Monday because I want to start all new. We don't have to wait. There is no like arbitrary number or day or time of year that you need to or must wait to be able to set goals, to be able to decide that you want to change something in your life, to go after something that is important to you, that you're excited about, that you want to create in your life. But it just so happens that the new year is upon us, and so I'm going to give you some tips in this podcast episode on how to actually reach your goals, actually have them come to fruition, and so, as you are thinking about the new year and what it is that you truly, truly want to go after in this new life after divorce. Here's the podcast episode that's going to walk you through it so you can actually make it happen, and in this episode, I'm going to teach you how to tap into what it is number one that you truly actually want. Then I'm going to teach you how to guarantee yeah, that's kind of a powerful word, right? I am teaching you how to guarantee for yourself that you're going to reach your goal, no matter what, and I also want you to know that what I'm teaching you are not the SMART goals, the SMART goals that you hear all over the place, like set, measurable, whatever, blah, blah, blah goals. I don't even know what they are because I don't ascribe to them, because I don't think they actually push you or work all the time, and so I'm not going to be teaching you that. Instead, I am going to be teaching you a new way of goal setting and actionable steps that you can take in order to, as I said before, guarantee that you reach your goal. Let me go over that one more time. In this throwback episode that you're going to hear in just a second, you're going to understand why goals are especially important after divorce. There is a reason and it's important to you and you need to be listening to this. If you are going through a divorce, if you're thinking about going through a divorce, or if you're through your divorce and you still haven't reached the threshold of your life that you want to be at right now, you're going to learn how to figure out what it is they do actually truly want, because sometimes that's hard to find and we don't tell ourselves. We're not honest with ourselves. I'm going to teach you how to do that. Number three the one thing that's going to guarantee that you reach your goal. And number four, this simple three step process to setting and reaching any goal that you set for yourself. All right, I love you all. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy. I wanted to talk to you today about goals after divorce. Now, this is a topic that I have been wanting to cover, but I haven't really taken the time to figure out exactly, like what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. And then this week, I went to a class that was about goals and almost every single thing they taught in this class was like. I was like yes, that is how I would like to present it. Yes, that is how I work through my goals, yes, and so I decided it was time. I'm going to share with you a lot of the things from this class and a lot of the things that I use in my own personal goal development and growth, and I'm going to be sharing it with you so that you can apply it to your life right now, after divorce. Okay, and stick around, because this is not going to be a way of setting and reaching goals that you've probably ever heard before. I am not teaching you smart goals. We all know the smart goals, whatever. Stick with those if you want, but I promise you this is something that for most of you not all of you, but most of you have not heard before. When it comes to setting and reaching goals and this this way, it might be the difference between you actually creating what you want in your life and reaching the things that you want in your life than not. And the reason that I wanted to do a podcast on this topic specifically and again, as I said before, it's a topic I've been wanting to cover. I just haven't really done it yet until now is because we, as humans, we crave progress. I believe that part of what makes us inherently human is a desire to progress, to learn to evolve, to shed things, to grow, and one of the most basic ways that we have learned to do that is to set goals for ourselves and then try to figure out how to reach them. This desire to progress doesn't go away after we get divorced. We still have that part of us. It's seeking, it's that part of us that's seeking to do better, to be better, to evolve to a different, more expanded version of ourselves. Divorce doesn't take that away. That part of us is still present, and so I wanted to do this podcast for those of you who are feeling that desire once again. It maybe has been on mute for a little while as you've been processing through the negative emotions and grieving what was and you know dealing with so many of the things that we face as we go through a divorce, right, but for some of you, your human nature has reignited and has turned off the mute button with this goal, desire, and you're now asking, like now, what Well, we are going to talk about it today. I want to talk a little bit about commitment. What does commitment mean? Here's what commitment means according to the dictionary, commitment means a promise or an agreement to do something. Now, listen, I understand that many of us in this audience have felt let down by others in our lives when it comes to commitment. Right, I know who my audience is. I know that you're all women struggling through a divorce or after divorce. I get it. But today I want to use this word commitment in relationship to you and your own commitment to yourself. Think about it in terms of making a promise or an agreement to do something with yourself, to do something for yourself. And this is really important, because if you've been let down in the past by broken commitments from other people, then you are going to have to be the one to show up in your life doing what you say you're going to do, because the number one way that will guarantee you reach your goal is through commitment. So let's talk about what commitment really is. Now, I gave you the definition, but what commitment really is is the feeling. When we feel committed, we show up in our lives, we do things that will move us closer to what it is that we actually really want, because commitment means that, no matter what, no matter what, I am reaching that thing, I am creating that thing, I will get that thing Right. Commitment means I'm going to keep going until I reach it, because that is what I have decided and I will keep deciding it. So here's what commitment is not. Commitment is not wanting, it is not dreaming, it is not desiring, it's not inspired, it's not even motivation. Those are all amazing, beautiful things. Those are all positive feelings that I want you to feel along the way, along this journey of working toward your goal. Right? But those feelings wanting, desiring, inspired motivation they will not continue to drive you forward, like commitment will. There are three steps to guaranteeing reaching your goals, and I'm going to talk about each of these three steps. The first one is take inventory. The second one is get honest. And the third one make and honor the decision to commit. All right. So step one we're going to take some inventory. All right, this is where I really want you to have fun and play with this, because we don't allow ourselves to do that very often as moms, right? What does taking inventory even mean? Taking inventory means you are in a space of wanting. You have to answer the question what do I want? Because if you don't even know what you want, then what is even the point of setting a goal Right? We all have wants, even if you aren't quite sure what your want is because you haven't asked yourself or you haven't allowed yourself to answer it or be honest with yourself. I know that even if that is the case, you have wants somewhere inside of you. You just need to uncover them, and so that is your job. Your job right now is to uncover what some of those wants are. So do it now. Unless you're driving, please don't write and drive at the same time if you're listening to this, but if you're home or you're in a place where you can sit down and write for like five minutes, please do this. All right, take a couple of minutes and write out five to 10 things that you want. They can be big, they can be small, they can be ridiculous, they can be outlandish, they can be the tiniest thing in the world or anywhere in between. That is totally up to you. But give yourself permission to write down some things that maybe you've never told anyone that you actually want, or maybe you've been afraid to even say out loud that you even want, or maybe you've known for a really long time you want this thing, but you just aren't sure how to get it. Those are the things I want you to write down, and now is your chance. So write them down. There is no right or wrong here, and I want to remind you this is personal to you. It doesn't matter if this wouldn't be your neighbor's goal or your sister's goal or your ex-husband's goal. It is your goal, it is your want, and that is the only thing that matters. Okay, but you have to write them down, otherwise we have no place to start. So now you've written out your wants, you're going to want to pick one to be your goal, just one, just pick. No right or wrong here. They're all amazing, okay. Not one is better than the other. You just pick one. It doesn't even matter where you start, and that is going to now lead us to our next step in guaranteeing we reach the goal, which is get honest. All right, now, getting honest with ourselves can be uncomfortable, because it's where you get to ask yourself where you sit on the spectrum between wanting and committing. Now, wanting is very important, right? It's exactly what we just did Taking inventory, we found out what you want and now you have the opportunity to be honest about it with yourself. So I want you to picture a scale of one to ten in your head, and at one end is the number one, right, where wanting lies on number one. And then at the other end is ten, and that is commitment. And your job right now is to be honest and ask yourself where you're at on that spectrum at any given time. So, right now, ask yourself where am I at at my commitment level to reach this goal, and write it down anywhere between one and ten. Right, write that number down and just keep that for a minute. I'm going to come back to that. So, for example, if your goal was like I'm going to lose 25 pounds in 12 months, this is your want. Right, you want to lose 25 pounds in 12 months. That is at a one. That's your want right now. And then you ask yourself every day how confident am I that I will create this goal, that I will get to commitment and really go after it? Between one and ten. And then you're honest with yourself Okay, today I'm kind of feeling a four Like, maybe not super committed. I'm not quite there yet. Okay, we don't have to get mad about what number we said. Okay, it's not for judgment. It's just to give us information. That's how this goes when we are on our journey to reaching our goals. We don't want to beat ourselves up for how we're feeling. It's just how we're feeling, it's fine, it's just information. Okay, so we're a four. Then, when you know your number, then you ask yourself why did I give it that number Meaning? Why is that my commitment level today? What is going on in my head that's telling me I can't quite get to ten? This is maybe too hard. Right, that could be one. Well, it's just too hard. I don't know how to do it. I don't know the steps. Those are some of your thoughts. You're going to write down all of your thoughts of why you put down that number, everything that comes up for you. So you write it out. That could be one. It's too hard. I don't know how to do it. I don't know the next steps. Or it could be things like you know I write out my plan and then I just never end up sticking to it. Or I don't know if I'm going to have time to go for a walk today, or I really hate drinking water, and so I know that's going to be a big struggle for me, or I really do want to lose weight, but there's a lot that goes into that and I'm just not sure I can get there, okay, so those are some maybe thoughts that might be going on, maybe the reasons why you wrote down a four. I want you to just write them all out. We're just using this all for information. It's not to judge what's going on in your brain. Thoughts are just thoughts. They are not you. Okay, I really want you to understand that. Just try to get the information out, because we have to understand what's happening for us to be able to problem solve, for that as we move toward our goal. All right, so you write out your thoughts. You now have a roadmap of all of the obstacles that might get in your way to committing and staying committed to reaching your goal. So you take a look at all of these obstacles and then you write out your strategy to overcoming that obstacle for yourself. Pretty smart, right? I think this should be the smart goals, because it seems like pretty obvious that you have an obstacle. You want to figure out how to get around that obstacle, how to make it work for you, Okay, so in the example that I gave, one of the obstacles was I just might not stick to my plan because I haven't in the past. Well, the strategy might be. Okay. I'm going to start with a plan that I know I will stick to. That is like a no brainer. I am going to make my plan so easy that I'm not going to break my promise to myself, and I'm going to start there and get really good at doing that, and then I can slowly start changing my plan little by little, instead of trying to do it like cold turkey eating. Perfect, if all you've been eating is like cookies and cupcakes, which is what I want to eat constantly, all day long. Right, I'm not going to just go to eating salads every second of the day. No, of course, you're not going to keep that promise to yourself. So we're going to make it easy. Our strategy is to write out our plan to something that we're going to keep, so it will be very easy for us to keep our word to ourself. Right, we're going to start there. Another obstacle was I don't know if I have time for a walk today. Okay, so maybe a strategy could be I'm going to put it in my calendar and when that time comes up in my calendar. I do it because it's on my calendar and I honor my word to myself. So if I'm going to go, I have time at seven o'clock. Hey, I'm going for a half hour walk at seven o'clock, and it's in my calendar and it's, and it pops up on my phone time for a walk. And I'm like, oh, I just don't really feel like doing a walk. And then I'm like, but I committed to doing a walk at seven o'clock. It's in my calendar, let's go. We now have our roadmap. And you do that. For all of the obstacles that come up, all of those thoughts that came into your head, or I don't know how I'm going to do this Okay, what's the next best step that I can take? Figure that out, take that step right. These are all things that you can do. You just have to make your brain work. I promise you you're capable of doing this. It might seem scary, but it's not. Just write down your thoughts, figure out a plan, write down your obstacles, figure out your strategy, and that leads us to the final step, and that is to make and honor the decision to commit. This starts with vocalizing it to yourself or to others, if you're brave. Okay, so you have your want, you wrote it down. Now I want you to commit to it. Say it out loud to yourself, say it on video, tell a friend, your kids, whoever you want, but vocalize it to the universe, okay, and say it like this I am committed to dot, dot, dot, right. And then you get to fill in that blank of whatever it is that you are committing to do. So that is the first step in honoring the decision to commit. The next step is to begin to think differently so that you can create that feeling of commitment more in your life. So remember the skill right, our skill at one to 10, side one, we've got wanting, side 10, we've got commitment. And every day we're going to ask ourselves like, where am I at In that scale? We're going to write it down. And then I want you to go back to that skill and I want you to ask yourself this question what would I need to think to be a 10 out of 10? What would I need to think to be fully committed? All right, now, the way you do this, you might be like I don't know. I don't know what I would be thinking if I was fully committed. Like, if I was fully committed, I would already probably have it right. Yes, you're right, but this is the little tip, the little hack that I'm gonna give you on how to figure out what you would be thinking. Okay, you picture yourself having already met your goal, or having already met a milestone, even along the way. Okay, what is that version of you thinking about your goal? Once you've met it, once you've got to that place, what are you thinking in your head? Cause you're not having any of these thoughts of like it's too hard, I can't do it, I don't know the steps, I can't go for a walk today Like you're not having any of those, right? So what are you thinking as that version of yourself? I'm gonna give you some ideas, but you do this on your own and I promise you you will amaze yourself with the thoughts that come into your head. Okay, and write them down. So let's go back to the example, right, and let's picture this woman. She's lost 25 pounds within the year. What is she thinking? She might be thinking something like I can trust myself to do what I say I'll do, and that feels so good, or that was so much easier than I thought it was gonna be, or I love feeling in control of what goes into my mouth or there's so many other things that could come up right but you write down whatever comes into your head of what you will be thinking as that person. Write them down, because those are the thoughts you are going to use to help you feel committed to your goal all along the way. And once you feel committed, you will start taking the actions. And this is key, guys. This is where it happens. Once you feel committed, you will start taking actions that you need to take to get you, step by step, closer to your goal finally reaching your goal, to the thing that you want. I'm getting so excited about this An amazing topic. I love it and I really I know, I believe with all of my heart that if you follow this recipe for reaching your goals, if you stay committed and show up for yourself every day, asking yourself these questions and doing this work, you will reach your goal because you will have the action plan. You will feel so committed that you will take the steps, even when they're scary, even when it's hard, even when you don't know. You will take the next best step and you will get to your goal and make sure that you check in regularly with yourself during this journey. I personally do the scale of one to 10 on a daily basis. I learned that scale from my business coach and I use it in my business goals and in my regular life goals because it is so smart and so easy to implement every single day. And so I asked myself, on a scale of one to 10, where am I today right, what am I thinking and why? And then I write out all the reasons why, like what's going on in my head, and I just take a look at them. And then I ask myself that very important question what do I need to be thinking to be a 10 out of 10? Because that is what helps me continue to create that feeling of commitment on a daily basis for the thing that I'm working toward, and it will help you too. That is how you guarantee for yourself being able to reach your goals. I want you to know and hear me when I say this your wants and your desires are worthy, they are personal to you and they are valid. You have every right to create a life full of your wants and your desires, and these three steps will help you create that in your life. That is what I have for you today. Go set some goals. I love you all so much. I will be back next week. Hi friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to KarinNelsonCoaching dot com. That's wwwKARINNELSONCoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.