We're back with our New Year goal setting series for 2024! Let's chat about the power of intentional goal-setting, and how it can shape your year ahead. As your guide, I will be sharing my own journey of reflection and goal-setting, underlining the importance of aligning your goals with what's truly meaningful to you. We're talking about the importance of acknowledging how we aspire to feel in various aspects of our lives, and how this emotion-driven approach can lead to more aligned and intentional goal-setting.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
We're back with our New Year goal setting series for 2024! Let's chat about the power of intentional goal-setting, and how it can shape your year ahead. As your guide, I will be sharing my own journey of reflection and goal-setting, underlining the importance of aligning your goals with what's truly meaningful to you. We're talking about the importance of acknowledging how we aspire to feel in various aspects of our lives, and how this emotion-driven approach can lead to more aligned and intentional goal-setting.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
Before we get into today's episode, I want to share a special announcement that we are doing with the Love your Body Now brand. As you may know, we launched an Etsy shop a few months ago just to test out some items that we wanted to create for the brand and represent our community. So if you've gone and explored on the Etsy shop, you may have seen some popular sayings like growing in progress, love your Body Now. I Defined my Dream Body. We have those on t-shirts, sweatshirts, stickers. If you haven't checked that out, be sure to go check that out. However, with the new year approaching, we wanted to launch a few new items to our shop, specifically on our own website. So we are opening up our own website with our own items to launch in there, and they are for the people who are going into 2024 and want to have the mindset of this is my year, but I want to do it the right way. We've all gone into the new year before with the new year's resolution focusing on weight loss, focusing on trying to get back into our fitness routine, and these sweatshirts are perfect for you if you are looking to go into the new year with a positive mindset and one focused on self care and becoming the best version of yourself. I think that you are going to love these items if that is what you are focused on for the year of 2024. We are launching three new sweatshirts as of right now and they are embroidered sweatshirts. So if you have been on the Etsy shop, you know that we don't have any embroidered items. So we are super excited to launch these and we actually had a few friends of mine who were willing to order these ahead of time, kind of test out the product and also represent the products to be featured on our Instagram pages and our website, and we've got nothing but great feedback. Everyone loves them. They say they are so cute. So I think that you're really going to love these items and if you haven't seen them yet already, be sure to go to the link in the show notes and check them out and make sure you get your orders in before the new year so that you can wear them into the new year of 2024.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self love.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I debated even recording a podcast episode today to release this week because I am sick and I mean I can hear it in my voice. But I also have been hacking like nonstop and really didn't know if I would even be able to make it through a full episode, Probably going to have to pause a lot throughout this episode because I have just been coughing nonstop. But I didn't want to skip a week because of the series that we're doing for the end of this year and into the new year of 2024. So this may be a shorter episode, I may break it up into two episodes and if you haven't listened to last week's episode, we talked all about the power of reflection on the past year. So if you are someone who is planning on setting goals in the new year maybe you want to create a vision board for 2024, then I highly recommend that you tune into this series that we're doing here on the podcast, because I'm going to walk you through my whole process of how I do it, all of the different steps that I take, because there is a lot that actually you can really incorporate into this process to make it way more intentional and aligned with where you are really trying to take your life.
Speaker 1:I suppose to you know, sometimes if you're just going to say, hey, I'm going to do a vision board this year or for 2024, and then you just go on Pinterest and pick some random photos that you think look cool and you know you think that will make the vision board look a certain aesthetic, it's not really as effective and a lot of the times, if you do it that way, your vision board isn't even going to be. You know. It's gonna end up in a closet somewhere within a few weeks of the new year because it doesn't really have any meaning to you and it doesn't. It doesn't remind you of what really matters to you and that's why it really is important to have this intentionality behind reflecting on the past year what worked for you, what didn't work for you, what opportunities came and just having Gratitude towards that and just reflecting on it and what it means for you going into the new year. So if you haven't checked out last week's episode where we talked about the power of reflection From the previous year before even starting to think about 2024 and what we want to achieve, make sure you go back and tune into that episode.
Speaker 1:Today I want to talk about how you can start to get your mindset in the right place before you even set up goals for the new year and what what really needs to happen in order to Make sure that the goals that you set for next year are really aligned with what you truly want. And it's not just you saying that you want it and You're. You're just saying that you want it because you think that that it's expected of you. So the way that I like to do this is I I actually like to start by journaling, and Even if you're not someone who journals, I highly recommend doing. This Doesn't have to look how you think it should look right. It's just more about writing down things that we could better articulate if we actually spent the time to like write them down. And and that's what I like to do is I like to truly start by Talking about the way that I want to feel in my day-to-day when it comes to thinking about the new year and the direction that I want to take my life and who I want to become.
Speaker 1:And this does really help, especially if you already did the first part that we talked about, which was reflecting up About the whole past year, like really reflecting on everything that happened, but like taking it a step further, of not just saying, oh yeah, this happened, this happened, but like Asking yourself did I like that? This happened? How did this make me feel? What did I think about this? You know, maybe I didn't achieve the goal that I thought I would. Why didn't that happen? How did it make me feel? What do I want to do about it? Moving forward, what did I learn? Like really trying to gather that information and understand what it means to you and what it meant to you, and Whether or not you want to take that with you moving forward.
Speaker 1:So really taking that extra step so that you can start to talk about the things that are Actually important to you and that you want to achieve in the new year, and the reason that you need to start off by saying, like writing down things about how you want to feel on a day-to-day is because you're getting more in touch with yourself and starting from the like, starting from the top, of just becoming super aligned and Centered with what really matters to you. Because, again, a lot of the times we set goals that don't actually mean that much to us, but we set them because we think that we should or we think that it means success and it looks good on paper, whatever it may be. But if you're really trying to Stay aligned with what really matters to you, then you do need to start to analyze, like, okay, what are the things that are super important to me, like, how do I want to feel on a day-to-day basis? And you need to describe these. And I don't necessarily mean like the goals or anything, but if you, let's just say, start off very broad, you say that you want to feel your healthiest self in 2024. Well then you need to take it a step further and really start to describe what that actually looks like so that when you do achieve these things, you know that you are always in alignment. Or if you're trying to decide whether or not to try a new diet or start a new workout plan, you can always come back to that day today or whenever you decide to write this down of well, what does feeling healthy look like to me? And because you'll have that answer, you'll know whether or not the next workout routine that you decide to take on is aligned with the direction that you're looking to take your life.
Speaker 1:A perfect example of this could be you know, if you define health as you being able to do workouts that make you feel good and like being able to listen to your body. You know, if you're a woman and you maybe want to do workouts based on your cycle and wanting to have that flexibility and that freedom and to kind of let go of this idea that you have to go to the gym and do specific workouts in order to be healthy maybe that is what you want healthy to look like for you Then you know that if a friend were to ask you later on in the year, hey, do you want to join a gym with me? And maybe they say something like Orange Theory or like F45 and they say, hey, do you want to join? And for you that can be something where you get to say, okay, if I join this gym, what does that? You know, how does that fit in with my way of viewing what health looks like for me, which is, again, that flexibility and that freedom to do workouts of like what feel good for me and like what my body needs at that during that day or that time? Then it's like, okay, well, if I join this gym like Orange Theory, where they do these specific workouts every time and you I think they're pretty high, intense workouts that you go and do, it's like okay, how would that fit in with what I'm trying to create for my life? Does that align? Maybe you can make it work where you only commit to doing it I don't know a couple times out of the month. So then that way, it's not something that you're trying to commit to for every single workout and then all of a sudden, you feel like you're overworking your body and you're no longer listening to your body's needs. So that is just like one example and there's no right or wrong to that. Every person's different. So that's why it's really important to get super clear on what that means to you, so that when you face challenges throughout the year or new opportunities come up, you can really give yourself that space to understand if it's the right choice for you or if it's going to bring you even closer to where you want to go and take your life and how you want to feel, because sometimes the answer is yes but then also sometimes the answer is no and for the people pleasers it can be very hard to say no to people or disappoint and let others down. And when you can take this time to really create that space for yourself and understand yourself and just ask yourself these questions of what matters most to you, then you can learn how to honor them as we go through these different seasons and different things that come up in life. So I typically don't just do this for my health.
Speaker 1:Obviously, on this podcast we're always going to be talking about health, but when I'm talking about writing down how I want to feel on a database, day-to-day basis, I like to talk about all of the different areas of wellness and if you don't know, like the whole circle of wellness, like the different components of it, go ahead and just look it up. But I like to, you know, talk, like, talk about. Okay, what do I want my health life to look like? What do I want my um, like my financial health, to look like what do I want my relationships to look like? I just like to talk about, you know, even my career. I'm like what do I want my career to look like?
Speaker 1:Um, so I like to go over all of the different areas of my wellness to really have that balance and make sure that my goals aren't just centered around like a fitness goal or something super specific. I personally like to set goals that are going to create more balance in my life and not just so heavily focused on one thing. But this is also an opportunity. If you do like the reflection of the past year and then you start writing these things down, it does give you the opportunity to recognize the areas of your life that maybe you are lacking or not prioritizing as much as others, and it makes you realize that you do need to start prioritizing them a bit more into the new year, and so then you can set your goals accordingly. But that's what I like to do. I like to analyze all of the different areas of my wellness and wellness and again just reiterate what each area like, how I want it to feel and what matters the most to me, and I really try to get away from writing down answers that I think are like expected or what I think other people would want me to put. I know it can be super easy to write down the things that we think we should want in our life, but the better that you can honor what really matters to you, the better off that you'll be.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you can tell, but I have been pausing every so often as I'm recording because I've either had to cough really bad or sneeze. I'm trying to do it so you can't even tell on this audio. But that's how bad my cough is. It completely like? Interrupts me as I'm trying to talk. Because our house we live in we have three animals and they all shed like really bad and I've been. You'll never be able to keep up with the dog hair and obviously the cat hair too. But I've noticed with being sick, how much it impacted like how much has been impacting, my breathing and my congestion.
Speaker 1:Like we left the house on Saturday and we were gone for a good chunk of the day and I felt like I thought I was getting better, like I felt better From the night prior, because the night prior was like a nightmare. I was Up all night like coughing, wheezing, like I felt like I was going to die, not literally, but like I just could not catch my breath because every time I took a breath it reacted and I needed to like cough. Every time it was awful. And then I left for on Saturday and we left the house and I was like, oh my gosh, like I think I'm getting better, like I'm starting to feel better. And then we come back to the house and Gradually, as the longer that I'm at the house, I start coughing again. It just starts acting back up again. Granted, it didn't get as bad as it did the night prior, but it's still been pretty, pretty miserable. So, with that being said, I'm actually going to wrap up this episode.
Speaker 1:Today and Next week we'll really talk about how to properly set your goals, but go through this process of writing down how you want to feel in the different areas of your life, whether it's your relationships, your health, your Emotional, your mental, your financial. Start to write those things down and really just like, allow yourself to just kind of go into flow and write whatever comes down and really try not to allow it to be. You know, what would my husband want me to write down or what would my parents want me to write down, like, really, just try to write down what feels good for you, and Then we're going to use that as our way to set goals for 2024. And this has always been the process that I've taught, for anyone who's trying to set goals is Really tapping into that whole Reflection and understanding ourselves and how we want to feel before even setting goals, because goals are really just a tool. They don't matter that much. I know like that sounds kind of bad, but goals are just. They're just a roadmap for you to get closer to the things that matter most to you. And that's why we're spending this week writing down the things that matter most to us and how we want to feel, what we want our life to feel like.
Speaker 1:Because if you don't know that, then when you go to set goals, you're kind of just it's like going towards something that you don't even know what you're going towards and it's like so counterproductive because you may achieve the goal. And then you get there and you're like, oh, that didn't feel the way I thought it did, or maybe it didn't, it didn't make you feel Like. It felt cool at first and then after a while you're like that was like, actually not that important to me. So we never want to get to that point where we're going in a direction that we think is what we're supposed to be doing and then we get there and all of a sudden we realize that it doesn't mean anything to us. So Take that time this week to start writing down what matters to you and how you want to feel.
Speaker 1:Reflect on the things that happened this year, how they made you feel what you want to change, what you felt went well or why it went well or why things didn't go well. They really start to analyze it and reflect on it and then write down what you would change, what we, what you would keep the same and what you would start to prioritize more of In 2024 and then next year, next year, next week, I'll walk you through how to set up these goals so that they are completely aligned with this and also super intentional and Are setting you up for success, so that you actually stick with this, and then we'll get into how you can create a vision-born In a way that Allows you to like, tap back into that emotion that you're going to feel this week of writing these things down, because ideally, you want to. I'm not saying you've got to cry, but like, ideally, you want to feel some kind of emotion as you're going through this. You want it to Kind of pull on your heartstrings a little better, like make you like really feel abundant and like feel like you can bring these things into your life and Understand, like, the impact that they can have on your life when you feel this way every day of your life. So Start there and I will chat with you next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in today. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the love your body. Now listeners, if you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right. Talk to you soon, friend.