Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 20: Why SMART Goals Don't Work for Women & How to Set Goals Better (with Lisa)

Transcript

20: Why SMART Goals Don't Work for Women & How to Set Goals Better (with Lisa) · SisterSmart Leadership

0:00
Years ago, I stopped setting goals altogether because I felt
0:03
like I was on a goal treadmill.
0:05
I set goals and achieved them over and it wasn't making me happier.
0:08
So I stopped for years and just worked on what I felt inspired to do.
0:13
Only that took me in so many directions that I ended up in the busyness trap
0:17
that you heard about in episode 14.
0:19
So I've been interested in how to set goals in a way that leaves you
0:23
feeling fulfilled and takes you in the right direction for you.
0:27
And I've studied goal setting for years.
0:30
Setting goals is important because the top 5 percent of performers set goals.
0:35
And if you want to succeed in business, this is a sure way to get farther than you
0:38
would by just taking what comes your way.
0:40
So if you have aims to move up in your career and lead at the senior
0:44
levels, to be part of the decision making instead of executing on other
0:48
people's decisions, you'll want to stick around for this episode.
0:51
I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is SisterSmart Leadership, the
0:57
show that explores how women can rise from director to vice president and beyond
1:01
by fully leaning into their feminine energy as their biggest advantage.
1:05
Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
1:10
I'm joined here today by our SisterSmart coach who coaches our senior leaders.
1:15
Her name is Lisa Kolish, and we're going to take you through the
1:19
SisterSmart method of setting goals that we feel works best for women.
1:23
The way goal setting works for most people is that the company gives
1:26
you a set of strategic objectives and then asks you to set your goals.
1:30
This usually results in goals that are good for the company,
1:32
but not necessarily good for you.
1:35
Instead, think about setting goals in alignment with both your organization
1:39
and your own desires in order for you to feel motivated to do what it
1:43
takes to accomplish them, including overcoming the predictable and
1:47
unpredictable obstacles along the way.
1:49
So using smart goals alone is how I ended up on that goal setting treadmill,
1:53
checking boxes, but no fulfillment or alignment with your true purpose in life.
1:58
We want you to set goals, not just for your work, but for your whole life.
2:02
And in order to do this, we need a little upfront work to
2:05
think about your purpose first.
2:07
So Lisa, how could our listeners find their purpose?
2:11
Yes.
2:11
Purpose is very important.
2:13
It's really essential that before you identify your goals and go out
2:17
in the world to achieve them, that first you explore who you are and
2:21
what you want and why you're here and what would give purpose or
2:25
a sense of meaning to your life.
2:27
Now, I know that may sound a little bit overwhelming, because,
2:31
you don't want to have this huge purpose, but it is important that our
2:35
goals have some juice behind them.
2:37
Otherwise, they're just like a checklist of things to check off, and it's
2:41
really hard to stay committed to them.
2:44
So, when we live into our purpose, our life has meaning.
2:48
Research says that a predictor of not just psychological health, but
2:54
also physical health and general well being across diverse cultures.
2:59
So knowing the why behind your goal, which the author Simon Sinek and coach
3:06
Simon Sinek talks a lot about knowing the why behind your goals, it gives you the
3:10
motivation that you need to achieve them, even when they're obstacles to overcome.
3:16
So, one really good way to do this work is something called Ikigai, and it's
3:21
a, it comes from the Japanese culture, and it's an exercise, and it helps you
3:29
find the intersection between personal fulfillment and professional fulfillment.
3:35
So there are four key areas that you explore.
3:40
Where those four things intersect is your ikigai.
3:44
It's your meaning.
3:45
It's your purpose.
3:46
So the first one is what you love to do.
3:51
So what gets you excited?
3:53
What do you like to talk about for hours?
3:55
What do you enjoy doing or learning about?
3:58
So what you love to do.
3:59
The second one is what does the world need?
4:03
The world is full of problems.
4:04
What are the problems that need to be solved?
4:06
Are you in a field that's obsolete and need to retrain?
4:10
What are the solutions or help that people are looking for?
4:13
So what does the world mean?
4:15
So what you love to do, what the world needs.
4:18
The third one is what you can get paid for.
4:21
What are people or companies, organizations willing to pay for?
4:26
And how competitive is your field.
4:29
So that's what you love to do, what the world needs, and
4:32
what you can get paid for.
4:34
And the fourth area is what are you really good at?
4:36
What are you great at?
4:37
What do people come to you for advice on?
4:41
Where do you feel at ease in your work?
4:42
And if you're not sure about what you're great at, get some feedback.
4:46
Ask some of your co workers.
4:48
Ask some of your colleagues.
4:50
Ask your friends.
4:51
Ask your family.
4:52
What are you really good at that fits that?
4:56
So those four areas, what you love to do, what the world needs.
5:01
What you can get paid for, and what you're really good at, they intersect somewhere,
5:06
and that's your ikigai, or your purpose.
5:08
Thank you so much, Lisa.
5:10
I love that ikigai exercise.
5:12
It really helps to fill out what could be your purpose.
5:16
'cause some people think that their purpose has to be some lofty thing
5:19
that, I have to change the world.
5:21
And yet purpose can be something that's very simple but meaningful to you.
5:26
So as we talk about goal setting, we first wanna talk about ends goals
5:31
because this is the piece that's missing from the SMART framework.
5:36
No one ever would have landed on the moon from SMART goals.
5:39
And so we need this extra piece that's creating your vision and the ENDS
5:44
goals are the way that we do that.
5:46
So the thing is that smart goals are really helpful and think that they maybe
5:51
even work better for men because men love to track things and measure things
5:55
and they tend to be linear thinkers and kind of competitive with numbers and,
6:00
wanting to improve things, but I see that doesn't always work for women.
6:04
Women tend to not have so much of that competitiveness to them and
6:09
that kind of tracking and, looking at the numbers all the times, it
6:13
tends to be less meaningful for them.
6:15
But what women are great at is setting a vision and creating what that scenario
6:21
might look like for them in the future.
6:24
And so this is more about what you envision and what you see happening
6:27
for you, where you want to go.
6:30
And.
6:30
So when you set an end goal, you set that goal for the future,
6:35
but you don't worry about what it's going to take to get there.
6:37
You don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to know all of those
6:42
stepping stones in between here and there.
6:45
You're just setting that very end vision to you.
6:48
So a good way to.
6:50
To describe this is through an experience that I had.
6:54
So I was out buying a house, my husband and I moved to New Hampshire and we
6:58
had a real estate agent who was helping us find a house and we had just, a few
7:01
days to find something cause we'd flown in because a company was moving us.
7:05
And so we looked at about eight houses and we had this list of things that
7:10
we were looking for and we wanted something that was in the city.
7:14
We needed sidewalks to walk our dogs.
7:16
We needed a fence for the dogs.
7:18
And it needed to be two bedroom because I like a small house,
7:22
so I don't have a lot to clean.
7:23
And then we wanted to be able to walk to the grocery store and we wanted, I
7:27
wanted to be able to ride my bike to work.
7:29
So it needed to be cycling distance from work.
7:31
And then we also needed a garage because we had six motorcycles at the time.
7:36
So that was our list.
7:38
And our agent found all kinds of places that fit this criteria,
7:42
but nothing was working.
7:43
And so, before I even understood ends goals and means goals.
7:47
I did this process.
7:48
I said to my husband, this isn't working and we need to try something different.
7:51
And that's our philosophy is we always try something different if
7:54
whatever we're doing is not working.
7:56
And so, so we sat down and what we did is we set our ends goals for this instead.
8:01
And so what we came up with was that we wanted a house
8:05
that felt warm and welcoming.
8:07
And we wanted a house that made guests feel comfortable because we
8:10
were moving across the country and we wanted to have people come visit
8:13
us and we wanted them to come back.
8:15
And we wanted a garage with ample room for these motorcycles and we wanted
8:20
easy access to workouts because that's really what that walking was about.
8:24
And we want a place where the dogs could exercise easily.
8:27
We also wanted to feel welcome in our community.
8:30
And that list that we've had in the beginning was trying
8:34
to get us these things.
8:36
And so when we set these ends goals, where we set this vision of what this life was
8:41
going to be like for us, the real estate agent found us our perfect house and we
8:46
still talk about how great this house was.
8:48
And guess what?
8:49
It was not in the city.
8:50
It was in the suburbs.
8:51
It did not have sidewalks.
8:53
It did not have a fence.
8:54
We built that.
8:55
It had three bedrooms.
8:57
It was twice the size of the house we were leaving in Seattle.
9:00
We could not walk to the grocery store.
9:02
I could ride my bike and it had a beautiful garage but it didn't have.
9:07
All of these major criterias that we had set out because we
9:11
didn't know what we didn't know.
9:12
And so what ends goals help us do is to let all the other forces in the world,
9:18
your higher power included, come to into play for you and help you get there.
9:23
I talk about this as when you're driving a car at night and you can
9:28
only see as far as the headlights and you don't know what else is down
9:30
there in front of you on the road.
9:33
And you can only see, you only, this is what you know is what's in the headlights.
9:36
And so when you're when you're setting these ends goals, you can leave it out
9:41
to not knowing how you'll get there.
9:43
And then you just, set that vision instead.
9:46
Exactly.
9:46
Exactly.
9:47
What you're talking about, what it makes me think of, is that you're talking a
9:52
little bit, how do you want to feel?
9:54
How do you want to experience the house?
9:58
And some of the details are less important than the ultimate,
10:04
how do I want to feel there?
10:06
And that their different details could help you get to the same
10:10
place is what you're saying.
10:14
So, okay.
10:15
So you have your ends goals.
10:16
Let's say you've set your ends goals.
10:18
Well, then it's time to actually look at the means goals.
10:22
And by means goals, we mean like the stepping stones that you need
10:26
to get to your goals, to get to the end states, or the interim goals, or
10:32
every project along the way that's going to get you to the ends goals.
10:36
So, the ends goals, as Jill was saying, are vision oriented.
10:42
The means goals are action oriented.
10:44
They're more concrete.
10:45
They're practical.
10:46
And the best thing to do is to break means goals into small pieces
10:51
so that we can take more action.
10:53
And every time we take more action, we get more accomplishment, we
10:57
get more celebrations, and this fuels us to get to our end goals.
11:02
Now, going back to something Jill said earlier, she was talking about SMART
11:05
goals, which many people know about.
11:07
So SMART stands for Specific.
11:10
measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound.
11:14
And those are useful criteria.
11:17
But they're really not enough, at least not for most women.
11:23
So we talk about smarter goals.
11:25
We add an E and an R at the end, so these are smarter goals.
11:29
So we add the word exciting, E for exciting, R for resonant.
11:33
If your goals don't feel exciting and resonant to you, it's going to
11:37
be really hard to stick with them, these means goals, to stick with them.
11:42
You want to get to the point where for each of these means goals,
11:45
it's kind of, it's a hell yeah!
11:48
Hell yeah, I want that.
11:49
Yes, I want that.
11:50
That's what's going to keep you going even during the hard times.
11:54
Another thing that's really important with setting means goals is what I like
12:00
to call a learning or a growth mindset.
12:03
So there's always that question with means goals is how aggressive
12:06
a goal do I want to have?
12:08
How much of a stretch goal do I want to be?
12:10
Because after all, I don't, if I fail, if I don't accomplish
12:13
it, I don't want to feel bad.
12:15
But I also want to stretch because you never know what
12:18
I could actually accomplish.
12:20
I'd say the most important advice I could give is to have a learning mindset and
12:26
know that even if you don't accomplish your means goals exactly the way you
12:32
want it to or you make mistakes along the way, you learn, we learn, we all learn
12:37
and grow every time we make a mistake or we don't accomplish something as
12:43
well as when we accomplish something and sometimes even more from when we don't
12:46
accomplish, and then those learnings we incorporate into our lives, and
12:51
they make us smarter going forward.
12:53
So this question is, what am I going to learn on this journey?
12:57
It's a great way to approach goal setting, so that you might take some risks to set
13:02
goals that are a little more ambitious than you would have thought of, knowing
13:06
that, if you don't get there, you've learned something, and you're not
13:09
going to give yourself the whole time.
13:11
The other thing I wanted to say about this is make this process your own.
13:16
Sometimes it's difficult to have a clear vision, like you can't have a
13:20
vision, but you want to work on the means goals and the ends, sometimes
13:23
it's helpful to start with your means goals if you don't have a clear vision.
13:28
And the metaphor we like to use is it's kind of like a staircase.
13:32
So if you're going up the stairs and there's a door and you can't see
13:36
beyond the door until you get to the top of the staircase and then you
13:40
open the door and then you see, oh, there's another staircase or whatever.
13:44
Don't worry if you don't know what's behind the door.
13:47
Sometimes, like I said it's helpful to set some means goals
13:51
and get into action about them.
13:53
And as you move forward them, you might see either the next means
13:58
goal, or you might see the end goal that you're trying to go for.
14:02
So start wherever you are and work from there.
14:05
That's such a great advice.
14:06
Lisa.
14:07
I remember one client that went on her personal strategy retreat
14:10
and she was just struggling with figuring out her ends goals.
14:14
She just couldn't quite get her vision together.
14:17
And so what she did was she went to her means goals because she knew
14:20
some actions that she wanted to take.
14:23
And then she was able to through those actions, then see what that vision
14:28
was and create the ends goals and then the means goals to fill that out.
14:33
So it's really important to, as you're saying, to make it your own and to just
14:38
do what's working for you in that moment.
14:40
And that may change even year to year of how you want to set your goals and
14:44
what vision is coming together for you.
14:46
The other piece is, who do I need to be?
14:49
Right?
14:50
Who do I need to be in order to accomplish my means goals.
14:55
Did you want to say something about that, Jill?
14:57
Yeah.
14:57
Yeah.
14:58
I think this is an important piece because we're going to need to be a different
15:03
person than we are today when we are that person that's accomplishing that goal.
15:07
There's going to be something that's shifting and new for us.
15:12
And whether it's a little thing or a big thing, we're going to, we're going
15:16
to change and grow in that process.
15:19
And so it's really helpful if we think about how we will be when
15:24
we get there and start to, grow ourselves into that bigger person.
15:28
I like to compare that to the, those Russian dolls that nest in each other.
15:32
We have to kind of become a bigger and bigger version of ourselves we
15:36
grow throughout life and, as we take on bigger things and do those stretch
15:40
projects that you were talking about, we have to have that mindset of
15:45
seeing ourselves actually doing that.
15:47
And if we can see ourselves doing that beforehand.
15:50
The whole journey becomes easier if we've got that vision to start with.
15:54
When we're thinking about that ends goals and that new bigger self that
15:58
I was talking about, Lisa, what is your advice for how can we really
16:02
envision that next stage for ourselves
16:05
Yeah, so it's like you said before that you're going to be a different person
16:10
when you get there, because you will have had some whole new set of experiences
16:16
when you get to your end goals, and you'll be more evolved, you'll be bigger,
16:22
you'll have a different energy about you.
16:25
So it's really useful to start seeing yourself now as that person so
16:31
that you can step into that vision.
16:33
What I do and what I suggest clients do is that they actually close their eyes.
16:40
And they imagine that they're there at the end of those ends goals or
16:44
in at that vision and just imagine themself at that time of their life.
16:51
And maybe it's their, it's a wiser elder, future self and one thing that's really
17:00
important is the connection to meaning.
17:04
So your goals you set because they had some kind of meaning for you,
17:09
some kind of purpose, taking us back to Ikigai, these end goals.
17:14
And so they are obviously important to you.
17:19
And so just close your eyes and imagine yourself having Accomplished
17:26
those things that you wanted to and imagine what wisdom that person that's
17:31
person who's you might have for you.
17:34
And that is a wonderful way to start seeing yourself as that
17:40
person in a different light.
17:41
Oh, that's so beautiful.
17:43
I can't wait to do that and I hope everybody listening will
17:46
take a moment to do that too.
17:48
And what about habits, Jill?
17:50
I know habits are a big part of this.
17:53
They are a big part.
17:54
I like to think about what are the things that I'm going to need to do that
17:57
are different from what I'm doing now.
18:00
So what kind of person do I need to be that I'm not being now?
18:03
So an example here would be last year I made a big effort to become
18:07
a voice on LinkedIn and I had to become a different person.
18:11
And I always encourage all my clients to do this same thing as well.
18:16
But I had tried to try to make an, an effort on LinkedIn for years, actually.
18:20
And I had been posting and, but it was a little bit haphazard and I was trying to
18:24
fit it in the cracks and that never works.
18:26
So I decided, okay, I'm going to really do this thing.
18:30
And I'm going to be the kind of person that has a following on LinkedIn.
18:34
And.
18:35
So what I did is I just, I actually scheduled into my calendar and I spend
18:41
an hour each morning doing comments on other people's posts and I spend time
18:47
every weekend working on my own posts.
18:50
And so I had to become the kind of person that devotes time every day to being
18:55
on LinkedIn and interacting with the community there, finding my community.
19:00
And I also have to be the kind of person that works on my craft
19:03
of writing as well and creating content that people will appreciate.
19:07
So that was a major shift for me in both my day, my workload and my identity too.
19:13
And so, and Lisa's going to talk a little bit more about the identity
19:16
here, but when we can figure out these shifts that we have to make and
19:20
what our actions are going to look like, then it can help you to see.
19:24
What sorts of habits you need to change.
19:26
And so I had to change some habits as well.
19:29
And one great place to start when you're talking about habit change is we have
19:33
two books that we recommend here and one is Atomic Habits by James clear.
19:38
And the other is How to Change by Katie Milkman.
19:41
And we'll put some links to those in the show notes for you.
19:44
To figure out which habits am I going to need to change to be able to get
19:47
to these goals is very important step.
19:50
And then, so we can do a couple of things to create habits.
19:54
1 thing that.
19:55
that Katie talks about is using fresh starts.
19:58
So, the new year is a great time for fresh starts is why people set
20:02
new year's resolutions, but also spring or the beginning of summer
20:06
or the the end of summer, in the fall can be a good fresh start time.
20:10
So if you can kind of find your reason for fresh start that can be really
20:13
helpful setting your intentions and really setting your mindset and your
20:19
environment up to be able to create this new habit is important too.
20:23
And then one of the things that the atomic habits is famous for
20:27
is what's called habit stacking.
20:29
And so if you can find another habit to take this habit onto, so, and his example
20:35
is, when I brush my teeth, I'm going to floss, and so what I'll do is, When I get
20:40
up and have my coffee, then I'm going to meditate, and so stacking things together
20:45
helps you remember to do them really,
20:48
Then we make it attractive.
20:49
So it has to be something that you want to do.
20:51
When you were talking Lisa about the E.
20:53
R.
20:54
and the smarter, making it exciting and resonant.
20:56
And this is how we can make habits stick for us is that we actually want to do
21:00
them, I like to look for the joy in it.
21:03
Go back to Marie Kondo and, and figure out, is this new habit bringing you joy?
21:08
And it should be.
21:09
If you need some help with that, you can use what's called commitment devices.
21:13
An example of this was, I wanted to start working out.
21:16
And so I joined this Pilates studio and they had this policy where you
21:21
only have so many slots in the studio, you had to book it ahead of time.
21:24
And if you didn't show up, they charged you 14 and donated out
21:27
to the scholarship fund 14.
21:29
It wasn't going to break my bag, but it was enough motivation that I didn't
21:33
want to spend that money every week.
21:35
And so I made it the thing.
21:37
And that got me back into a habit of working out because I'd really
21:40
lapsed and I'd gotten out of shape.
21:41
And I, so I needed to really establish, doing exercise as a whole new lifestyle.
21:47
And so that was really helpful to do that.
21:50
And then the third thing is called make it easy.
21:52
So Q based plans are one of the things that's most helpful.
21:56
And so it's, you tell yourself when X happens, I will do Y.
22:01
And so you figure out what your X is for this new habit.
22:05
What is the thing that's going to basically remind you to do this?
22:09
It's a little bit like habit stacking, but it can be used
22:11
in all kinds of different ways.
22:13
So when I walk through the door of my office, I'm going to do something, when
22:17
I sit down, I'm going to do something.
22:19
So, we can use that, those cues to be really helpful.
22:23
These are ways that we can reduce friction to creating the new habit.
22:26
And then the fourth thing in creating good habits is making it satisfying.
22:31
So this is the reward piece of really rewarding yourself for every little
22:36
step of the way and every achievement of every time you do it, particularly in
22:39
the very beginning, you really need to celebrate that every little thing you did.
22:44
And so Find it.
22:46
Find some rewards for you.
22:47
I am the, I'm the queen of creating silly little rewards that help
22:52
me to keep going on things.
22:53
And, like, I'll just withhold something from myself and then
22:56
give it to myself as a reward.
22:58
Or even just a special cup of tea can be a reward for me.
23:02
Also, there's something called streaks where you can use a calendar and
23:06
put an X on the day every time you did the thing that you want to do.
23:10
And counting your streaks is really helpful too, because then you get
23:14
a certain amount into a streak and then you don't want to break it.
23:17
I know I meet my meditation partner at 5 20 AM every day.
23:22
And we have been doing this since July.
23:25
And so neither of us want to break our streak.
23:27
And so we've taken the holidays off and a few sick days, but we keep going.
23:31
And so that it's incredibly motivating now because we really don't want
23:35
to, don't want to stop this.
23:37
And then the final thing here that I want to say is don't beat yourself up.
23:42
Part of making it satisfying is just being gentle with yourself.
23:45
If you stop, if you don't do it, if you break your habit,
23:48
just get back on the horse.
23:50
Like, don't let that get you down.
23:52
Just, pat yourself on the back and go, yeah, tell yourself making habits is hard.
23:57
This is hard work that I'm doing and it doesn't always work the first time.
24:00
And it's not a matter of doing it every single day or every single time.
24:05
The matter the part that's important about creating habits is that we
24:08
do it and that we keep doing it.
24:11
And that we keep coming back.
24:13
So that's really in a nutshell, how to create good habits and you will
24:17
put links in the show notes about those with those 2 books, because
24:20
they're really helpful in doing that.
24:23
So what we've talked about is finding your purpose by doing IKIGAI exercise.
24:27
And we've talked about ends goals and means goals.
24:31
The habits that we'll need to get there and who our future self is going
24:35
to be what that's going to look like.
24:37
At the end of each episode, we like to give you three shifts that you can
24:40
make today to start your goal setting.
24:43
So we have a step by step process to take you through your goal setting.
24:46
First, do the Ikigai exercise that we talked about, and you will
24:50
find the link to the free guide on how to do that in the show notes.
24:54
And then next, watch our free video training on how to set ends goals
24:58
and means goals at SisterSmart dot com slash goal setting, all one word.
25:03
This is also linked below.
25:05
And finally fill out the worksheets that you'll get in that training to
25:09
create your ends goals that create that vision of where you want to go.
25:13
And then you can use our smarter goal worksheets to think through
25:17
your means goals as well.
25:19
So think about one goal that you would like to make.
25:21
What is the smallest possible step that you could take to get that goal started?
25:25
If you're watching on YouTube, let us know in the comments what you would do first.
25:29
Are you ready to try setting ends goals and means goals so that you can be
25:33
one of the top 5 percent performers?
25:35
Go to the show notes and download the align with purpose guide to find
25:38
your IKIGAI and watch the free video course on SisterSmart goal setting.
25:43
The links are in the show notes.
25:45
And if you want to dive deeper into women's leadership and how to
25:47
move up in your career, subscribe either on YouTube or wherever you
25:51
listen to your favorite podcasts.
25:53
I'm on a mission to help more women get into leadership and stay there.
25:57
And if that's aligned with you, I'd love to have you be part of this
25:59
community and tune into more episodes on SisterSmart leadership that will help
26:04
you become the leader you want to be.
26:07
If you're ready to fully lean into your feminine leadership and get promoted
26:10
from director to vice president and beyond, hit that subscribe button so
26:15
you'll get all the episodes to come and check out the recommended video here
26:19
to see how women are rising up without playing by the old rules that built these
26:23
male dominated industries and systems.