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Creating Your 2025 Vision: Intentional Goal Setting for Sustainable Change
29 Plays10 days ago
Happy New Year! In this energizing episode to kick off 2025, we embrace the spirit of new beginnings and intentional goal setting for the year ahead. Leanna shares some of her strategies to help high achieving women reset, refocus, and realign their lives for the year ahead.
When we take a step back, we can identify what’s working, what needs adjustment, and how to cultivate balance without striving for perfection. This episode emphasizes starting small with actionable steps to build consistency over intensity, ensuring sustainable growth and progress toward your goals.
Join us for inspiring insights, a reminder that life is a marathon (not a sprint), and details about Leanna’s upcoming January Reset and personalized 2025 Vision Calls. Let’s make 2025 your year of clarity, balance, and fulfillment.
Sign up for your 2025 Vision Call here.
Join the email list to get all the info for the January Reset Jan 6-10 here.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home.
Meet Leanne Alaska McGrath
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm your host, Leanne Alaska McGrath, former tech exec turned full-time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Happy New Year.
New Year Optimism
00:00:35
Speaker
I love this time of year. I love the energy that the new year brings. I just, I love it so much.
Self-Assessment and Career Check-In
00:00:42
Speaker
I feel like a new year brings a lot of hope and optimism and possibilities for positive change. And I think the beginning of the new year always feels like a natural time to stop and check in and much like performance reviews at work. I don't believe that that should be like a once a year thing.
00:01:00
Speaker
But I also know how difficult it can be when you're just like in the grind and you feel like you're head down and you can't stop and look around at all because you just got to keep going. And so if you haven't done this in a while, please like no judgment of yourself. But I just would invite you to spend some time checking in and seeing how life's going, how your career is going. Are you in the place you want to be? Are you happy where you are? Are you wanting to make changes? What kind of changes?
00:01:30
Speaker
that kind of thing. I think that this time of year is a great time to do
Setting Intentions and Priorities
00:01:34
Speaker
that. And every year I like to get really clear on my intentions and priorities for the upcoming year. So I've gone through some exercises myself to get really clear on what do I want 2025 to look like next year at this time when I'm looking back on the year? Where do I want to be? Who do I want to be? How do I want to be? And I want to help you do that process too if you would like to participate in it. So I'm going to be talking about two ways to
Upcoming Events and Vision Calls
00:02:04
Speaker
do that. One is going to be I'll be sending something every day next week, January 6 through 10 of kind of the process that I go through the questions I ask myself and I'll have some videos and worksheets just to kind of help guide you through checking in resetting and setting yourself up for success in the new year. So I hope you'll join me for that. I also am offering 2025 vision calls. So if you would like to have a call with me, we will spend an hour talking about what do you want 2025 to look like? What are your goals? Where are you now versus where you want to be? And also talk about how I might be able to support you in that. So two great opportunities to kind of reset and step back and check in on what you want 2025 to look like for you.
Using the Wellness Wheel for Balance
00:02:54
Speaker
but I wanted to share a few quick tips here so you can get started. The first thing that I always recommend is just to kind of check in, like just do an assessment of where are you now? And if you like a process for this, what I recommend is just grabbing a wellness wheel. If you haven't seen a wellness wheel, just Google it. There are tons of examples out there, but it's like six to eight different areas or categories of our lives, such as,
00:03:23
Speaker
occupational, social, financial, physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, environmental. So there's some combination of those. um There's no like right wellness wheel to find, but really it's just like, what are the most important things to you? What are the things that you focus on in your life that are big components of your life? And I like taking a look at each of those areas and just checking in on them. Maybe rating from zero to 10. How do I feel about that area of my life?
00:03:51
Speaker
And just getting clear about what changes what I want to make, if any, in each area. And also what is going well. I think it's so important. I think so often whenever we do check-ins with ourselves, we only look for what's wrong or what needs to change, but also what's going well. What do I want to make sure to keep focusing on? What do I want to make sure that if I do make a change, that I take this thing along with me because I'm really, really enjoying it.
00:04:17
Speaker
If that feels a bit overwhelming for you because it's, you know, six or eight areas, then just pick three. Just pick your top three or one or two and just look at how are you feeling about those areas? I like the wellness wheel just because I think that it's important to strive for balance.
00:04:37
Speaker
And please know that when I say balance, I do not mean a perfect balance ever, but more just that we are looking to have a bit of balance and that we are able to get fulfillment in multiple areas of our lives, not just one. And usually that one being career for us high achieving women.
Crafting a Life Vision
00:04:54
Speaker
Okay, so that's the first question is just kind of Where are you now taking stock of what's going on for you in your status quo? And then the second thing is to look at your vision, your ideal life vision. What do you want your life to look like? And it might be in either of those areas or any of those areas, or it might be just overall. There was a time for me where I would have rated both occupational and family pretty highly. I was feeling good about both, but I wasn't really feeling good about both of them at the same time. And I wasn't kind of feeling good about like my overall experience or kind of the balance in between them. So you can also kind of step back and take a macro view of that wellness wheel and just kind of like
00:05:42
Speaker
The balance of all of it and how you're feeling about that so in this vision It's just like what do you want your life to look like or what do you want this one area to look like? And then I think sometimes we create visions for ourselves But I think then we have to ask ourselves the question of like do I want that for myself? Do I want to do what it takes to create that a lot of times? We just write it off and assume that it's not possible because of our current circumstances and that's fine that's an option. We can certainly do that. And when we do that, we are then choosing our current circumstances that they will continue or that some external force will change it for us. Or we can say, actually, this is the vision I have. And this year, these are the steps I want to take toward it. This is what I want to do to start working toward
Actionable Steps for Goals
00:06:31
Speaker
it.
00:06:31
Speaker
So that's kind of the next step is to think about what are just like one to three steps that you could take this year to move closer to that vision. So that might be in a specific area of your life, or it could be a macro thing, or it could be three different things in three different areas. But I would definitely recommend no more than three actionable steps that you have decided that you're going to take this year.
00:06:56
Speaker
to move closer to that vision. And I think when it comes to making changes or setting goals, it's so important for us to remember that it does not have to be all or nothing. We do not need to go from zero to 100 overnight. I think so often this happens with New Year's resolutions where we think I'm gonna wake up on January 1st and be a totally different person. You know, maybe I get up early every day and work out even though I've never done that in my lifetime or I'm going to be 100% present with my family and always prioritize them even though that's not how I've been living my life at all. And so what I recommend is that when it comes to making changes instead of that thing that we default to as high achievers where we're like, we have to go all the way or it's just not even worth doing that we break it down and just take small steps every day that we walk towards that goal instead of like going straight to it and then burning ourselves out
00:07:59
Speaker
kind of like I guess if I think about in the gym and I think a lot of times that probably is the best metaphor or example because so often we make resolutions about working out more or eating healthier or things like that but you wouldn't just say like if your goal is to bench 250 pounds you wouldn't just like walk into the gym on January 1st and bench 250 bound If you've never benched before,
Consistency Over Intensity
00:08:26
Speaker
right? You are going to want to take small steps toward that. And I think that whenever we have a goal and we give ourselves a timeframe. So if we say by the end of 2025, I want to be able to bench 250 pounds.
00:08:41
Speaker
Then we can break it down into more, you know, smaller and actionable steps. We tend to love intensity. I tend to love intensity. And I think the real change comes in consistency. So one of my goals for this year and something I've been actively working on for the last several years is consistency. over intensity. Not that intensity doesn't have a place, of course, again, it's not all or nothing. But it's just like if you're setting a fitness goal, rather than like going for perfection and intensity and starting off January 1, working out every day really, really hard and making sure you never never miss a day or you know that you're working out six days a week or something like that. And then you do that and you burn yourself out or you miss a day and you're like, Oh,
00:09:28
Speaker
Well, I broke my streak, so you get all defeated and quit. Rather than doing that, it would be so much better if you just spent like, like committed 10 minutes a day of movement. Or, you know, if you're trying to build your upper body strength. And my earlier example that you commit to a hundred pushups a day that you do throughout the day. And then the goal is to like. be able to do 100 at a time but at first maybe you do five of them like 20 sets of five throughout the day so if you do that every day if you do some kind of movement some kind of strength training or some kind of exercise every day for the next 365 days that's going to be so much better than going really hard for two months
00:10:13
Speaker
getting tired of it, burning yourself out and quitting and not working out the rest of the year. So that is the biggest thing I want to remind you of today because I think it is one of the things that so many of us high achievers tend to struggle with.
Small Steps, Big Changes
00:10:27
Speaker
Small steps lead to big changes. I'm going to say it one more time. Small steps lead to big changes. The change that you are making, you might have the vision out there in the future,
00:10:39
Speaker
but what you're doing today, the action that you're starting to take today should feel really insignificant. So it's like a super low barrier to entry. So you might not even feel like you're really doing anything at first. And you're like, oh, you know, the new year I have all this energy, I should be like going all in and going all the way. And that's an option. But I mean, I would just encourage you to think about how has that worked out for you in the past.
00:11:05
Speaker
because I know for me, it doesn't really work out for me. it does It does work for a little while, but it's not sustainable. So if you're wanting to make a little while change, maybe that's great to go all in, go all intense. If you're looking for lasting sustainable changes to your life where you're making changes that are going to continue into the future, then I would encourage you to break it down into smaller actionable steps that feel really, really attainable and not overwhelming and scary. And then before you know it, you will have achieved that big goal if you stick with it and you you make it sustainable.
00:11:43
Speaker
It is a marathon, not a sprint. I think that's something that we have to remember because I think in our twenties and probably much of our thirties, we are doing life at a sprint pace. And then at some point along the way, we realize, Oh, this is a marathon. This, this life is a marathon and we can choose to keep going on a sprint pace. And some people love that. Some people love the thrill of that. but also we have the option and for me my my choice is to slow it down a little bit and pace myself and prepare myself for the marathon. So I hope that's helpful for today. I'll be going live every day next week January 6th through 10th and if you're listening later those videos will be available if you just reach out to me or sign up for my email list.
January Reset Challenge
00:12:30
Speaker
And really the goal is to help you map out your year. Last year I did something called the January Reset for High Achieving Women. And we were a group who got together every week and we had an online community and it was so wonderful and so rewarding. And I decided for this year I want to open it up to everybody and make it more available more widely. So that will be available to everybody who is on my email list.
00:12:57
Speaker
So I hope to see you in those. And then also I would love to invite you to do a 2025 vision call with me so we can talk about your vision and goals for 2025. If you feel like, ah, I want to change everything, or there's just so much swirling around my head. I can't seem to get a handle on it. Don't worry. I've got you. We will go through.
00:13:21
Speaker
it together and I'll help you get so much more clarity and we will break down those big goals into actionable steps so that you can actually make those changes that you want to
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:13:32
Speaker
this year. So I hope you'll join me for one of those 2025 vision calls. All of the information will be in the show notes and I hope to see you next week for the January reset challenge. Thank you so much. Have a great week everyone and happy new year. I'm wishing you all the best in 2025.
00:13:53
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.