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The Path To Leadership
We podcast about strong leaders, loyal employees, avoiding burnout, and raising profits building strong cultures. Everyone is a leader, but the path isn't always easy. Developing critical skills to build stronger, more successful and profitable organizations.
The Path To Leadership
Why you failed: troubleshooting your goals
Feeling like your New Year's resolutions are just distant memories? You're not alone. Emma and Jenna are here to reignite that spark of ambition with an honest chat about the realities of goal-setting fatigue and strategies to overcome it. We're not just talking about resolutions; we're reshaping how you approach change for the long-term.
Here's the article we mentioned in the episode!
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Path to Leadership podcast. We're excited to record another episode today, but in a new fashion. We don't have Dr Katie with us, it's just Jenna and Emma today. How are you, emma?
Speaker 2:I'm great. Is this the first time that we've had a podcast with no Katie?
Speaker 1:It is. It's definitely the first time she has left us to our own demise.
Speaker 2:Hopefully not demise.
Speaker 1:I know we always make everything work. It's just so funny when we don't have the team together because we're so used to how we all work and it's just funny how it happens.
Speaker 2:But Katie's on a boat and we decided to let her go.
Speaker 1:Yes, we decided that she needed some vacation time and, honestly, it's her son's graduation cruise. He graduated in 2020, so we all know what happened with that. He's definitely deserving of getting to enjoy a graduation gift.
Speaker 2:Indeed.
Speaker 1:Yes. So Emma and I decided today we want to talk about something a little near and dear to both of our hearts. It's the end of January and this will come out on the 30th, and which means we've all had our goals. We all had new year's resolutions and had a lot of great intentions and maybe fell off the wagon. So we are going to help you troubleshoot your resolutions. We want to get you back and help you to revamp, rework and gain a little bit of resilience for your resolutions and your goals, to make sure you get them restarted in January if you've fallen off.
Speaker 2:So we're basically like your goal customer support and we'll do more than just say have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if that one will work for goals, but most other things it works for. So to do this, we decided we were just going to do a quick Google search and look at what the top reasons for missing your goals is are, and so we went through and found an awesome article that we'll share with you. We're going to talk about kind of our top five that we pulled from this article. If you want to learn more, if you want to go into more depth and learn the other six that they outlined, we will share the article with you in the show notes, and so make sure to check that out. But for me and Emma, we decided the first one that we wanted to talk about of why people missed their goals is too many things on your plate. So, emma, you want to talk about how people fail themselves when planning goals and having too many things on their plate at once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of times, especially at the first of the year, you get really ambitious and you start thinking, oh, I want to be the best version of myself, which is very admirable we all like that. But a lot of times what that leads to is you saying, ok, I want to eat really well, I want to eat super healthy, and I also want to go to the gym every day, and I also want to learn how to play the guitar and I also want to, and on, and on, and on, and next thing, you know, you've just got too much that you're trying to do, because you're literally trying to change your entire lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's that. What's the movie? Dude wears my car. That came out when we were young and it's the lady at the drive-thru window saying, and then and then, and he's like no, and then no more, no more.
Speaker 2:Stop it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we see this a lot, and, whether it's personal or professional, we all try to decide that we want to do all these amazing things. We have great aspirations and great intentions, but the unfortunate thing is that as humans, we are creatures of habit and our brain likes familiarity, and so when you try to change a lot of things at once, you end up failing yourself. On top of your already busy schedule, you have to be able to have the capacity to take care of what you want to take care of and add whatever new goals you have, and I think that's one place that really hurts people when setting goals.
Speaker 2:OK, so let's troubleshoot it. How do we fix this problem?
Speaker 1:I always tell people when you are trying to do something better. So I would use fitness as an example. People are always like, oh, I'm going to take everything bad out of my house, I'm not going to do anything. And instead of taking something out, I tell people to add one good thing. So taking and drinking more water instead of trying to stop drinking soda, so that when you're drinking a lot of water, you end up naturally not drinking soda. So I reverse engineered that for people. If there's something in your life that you really enjoy, making sure that you almost atomic habit it. And so if there's something you enjoy watching Netflix, for example and you have a step goal, you only get to watch Netflix when you are on the treadmill getting your step goal. It helps you to reach that goal Instead of trying to put everything on, just do one thing at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is called habit stacking and it really works, folks. Yes, just that idea that you change one thing at a time and you attach it to something you already do. Oh, you want to read 10 pages a day? Okay, well, attach it to something that you know for sure that you do every day, like brushing your teeth, let's say. Let's say I always brush my teeth right after I drink my coffee. Okay, well, then you kind of know your routine goes I drink my coffee, I brush my teeth, and then I read 10 pages. So you start building your routine around things that you already are going to do and things you already have as a habit, and then you stack something on top of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think the next part of making sure you don't have too many things on your plate is to take your goals that you talked about in January and you set those intentions and breaking them across the entire year, instead of trying to do everything at once. Say you had a goal you want to read 10 pages, you want to get to the gym more often and you want to drink more water. So at the beginning of January, decide you're going to focus on reading 10 pages for that month. Then in February, focus on drinking more water. That way you have that 21 days of creating a habit to get used to one thing without throwing everything on you at once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. Make one habit at a time. They will start to stack up and, before you know it, next year you're going to be wanting to double those goals.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely All right. So that is the first thing that Emma and I thought was one of the reasons that people fail to hit their goals. The second one is undefined goals. I think this one really is probably one of the biggest pieces as to why people miss their goals, because they don't actually know what their goals are. We talk a lot in strategic planning with businesses. We have to have pieces to a goal. So you have an overarching goal, which we will call your rallying cry, then you have the next level down and the next level down you have to make sure you actually break your goal into daily habits so that it will then add up to the next phase. So, emma, any tips?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hear this all the time. It's easy to understand when you say it like this what if your goal is I want to lose 10 pounds this year? Okay, that's pretty vague because you don't know how you're going to get there. You need to really say out loud, write down what are the steps you're going to take every day to actually get to that goal, because without clear definition and this article says and I love this phrase they're just wishy-washy fantasies.
Speaker 2:I hear all the time people see me perform and they say, oh, I wish I had musical talent, I really want to learn how to play the piano, I really want to learn how to play the guitar. I'm like, oh, okay, do you? Because that sounds like a good idea. Until if you're just not the kind of person that wants to learn how to play guitar really in your deepest heart of heart, it's just kind of like a fantasy that you have. Then, when you actually sit down and have to practice your guitar for 30 minutes a day, you're going to hate it, because it's really just a fantasy about what happens once you learn, once you already know how to play guitar.
Speaker 2:So if it's not in line with your life goals, that's the wrong kind of goal If it's not that motivating to you, if you're not motivated enough to actually do it, then it's probably not the right goal for you. If it's too big, it's too overwhelming, it's not specific, it's probably not the right goal you need to redefine. So you need to choose a goal that's actually possible to achieve and you need to pick one that you can chunk into smaller daily actions so that you can actually take that action every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. One of the things that we talked about in an earlier podcast is setting smart goals. This is one of the easiest ways to help yourself make sure that your goals are defined. So if you don't know what a smart goal is, they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. So you have to make sure you actually give yourself specific metrics to push yourself up against.
Speaker 1:And the other part I see a lot of people really struggle with is not putting it on their calendar and making time for it and just saying I'll just get to it at the end of the day. Hey, tell you guys, that doesn't work out. We don't get that done. Some people I myself can go through and in the morning I can look at what my schedule is going to look like and then I can say okay, at two o'clock I've got an hour block, I'm going to do 30 minutes of cardio here and then I'm going to read tonight. And I do it because I'm a tenacity driven person. If you don't have tenacity, naturally, or you struggle to get things done, or maybe you have kids or have other people who take up your time, you have to do a better job of maybe doing it the beginning of the week, or just having a set schedule that's for the whole month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Jenna, I don't have as much tenacity as you, as you know, and so I started really looking for tools that would help me do that, and so, you know, technology is an amazing thing. As you know, we both are pretty good about like setting reminders for ourselves. We tell Siri, you know, hey, can you remind me to do this or that, and she's very helpful. In fact, I think she I accidentally just turned her on, right now, I was wondering if that was happening.
Speaker 2:But you know, and so I use tools like. Motion is a calendar tool that does exactly what you just said. Only it doesn't for me. It uses AI to determine what I should do next, which is great for a non-tenacity person, because I'm just like, okay, just tell me what to do, I really don't know, and so, yeah, using any kind of tool that you can. It's you know. I really believe in that, because you can't just rely strictly on your own. You know self-motivation all the time, so you will not be motivated.
Speaker 1:You have to become disciplined. That's a whole nother podcast, exactly.
Speaker 1:We should do that sometimes, but really just finding that time for yourself. You know a lot of people as far as like morning routines. Sometimes people will try to do seven different things for their morning routine and it takes an hour and a half and just nobody has that time in the morning, you guys. So I have a list of things in the morning that I can do depending upon what I feel like that day, and I know I take 10 minutes in the morning no matter what for myself and then the rest of the day I can get those other things done based on when I have time and just making sure that you break them down to help you reach your goals. Figuring out sometimes what your goal actually is is really hard.
Speaker 1:So, like Emma used the example of wanting to read more as a goal for the year.
Speaker 1:So if you're somebody who said I want to read more this year, an easy way to break that down is to go through and say, okay, how many books do you want to get through in a month?
Speaker 1:And then, how many books does that mean you need to get through? Or how many pages does that mean you need to get through in a week? How many days. Does that mean you're going to have to take out of the week to read? Are you a fast reader? Are you a slow reader? Do you know that you need a little bit more time to you know, absorb the information and then going into your calendar and saying, okay, here I'm going to read for 30 minutes tonight, I'm going to read for 10 minutes today, I'm going to read for 20 minutes, and then you have reached your page goal and by the end of it you have done way more work than you thought. It's a principle I use called 1% better, and then by the end of the year, when you do 1% better every day, you're 365% better by the end of the year, which is a lot more than people think.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:All right. So the next one here is continuing of this, actually for planning and not really a plan for obstacles or planning for deadlines. So this is kind of a continuation of the last one, of having too many things on your plate but poor planning and obstacles and setting deadlines. So what are your thoughts for this one, emma?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is. This is huge, and this is part of why you should always try to time block things if you can, because when you actually see that stuff on your calendar, it becomes really real and it really shows you whether or not what you've said you're going to do is realistic. Because, look, things crop up every day and calendars are nice, but every single day there's something that happens at work or at home that it was unanticipated, and so those obstacles will be there, and so you have to know ahead of time how you're going to handle that. All the time Like, what, what effect? What if that time that you scheduled to go to the gym? Like, how do you deal with something cropped up at work and now that time slot isn't really where I'm going to go to the gym? What do you do, jenna?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I. For me, the gym is always just because I enjoy it so much and it's what part of like who I am. But I know that no matter if I get off work at two o'clock or I get off work at six o'clock, I go to the gym after and it's because I have learned how to compartmentalize. I said I was going to do this and I will do it, no matter what, no matter how I feel. So that's been a big piece for me is removing my feelings as a driver for what I'm going to do, because if you allow your feelings to decide things for you, you won't get these done, because your, your body and your brain are made to keep you comfortable and familiar and it goes towards what is easier.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, if this is your first time listening to this podcast, she's telling the truth right now. She really is like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you probably like the last like two weeks, because I decided I was going to up my steps to try to help with a step goal and so literally for like the last week I've been on the treadmill at like 930 at night for like 40 minutes and Emma gets my notification.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know.
Speaker 1:And she's like what is she doing at 11 o'clock at night? I'm finishing my steps because I said I was going to, because I committed to it, because I know it will have a positive impact or the goal that I'm trying to reach as far as steps go. That's kind of how I do it. I know I'm a weird creature and I know that I'm Okay yeah, you are weird.
Speaker 2:You're a bad person to ask.
Speaker 2:Let me answer this question. It's all right. Okay, so I have contingency plans? Yes, so like if? So I do like to go to the gym, but if it stops being realistic when it's, you know, five or six o'clock and I really don't feel like going to the gym at that point because it's super busy and I have to go drive over there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what I will do is I have a contingency plan of I can do Pilates at home, I can do strength training at home, I can do a yoga flow at home, and so I try to make sure that whatever I said was my goal, because my goal for fitness is usually a little bit more fluid than yours. My goal is usually like I want to work out or move my body in some way every day, and so if that doesn't mean I'm at the gym on the machines, then at least I'm at home doing a Pilates workout. That's still going to make me sore.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, because I'm a baby. That's the best way to be too. And I will tell you like, earlier in my bodybuilding career and getting into the gym, I had similar contingency plans. I still do, like last week when it was freezing cold and I didn't want to leave the house and I was like there is no way on God's green earth that I'm getting in my car when it's negative seven. So I went downstairs to my apartment gym and just got some movement of some kind in.
Speaker 1:But I think the important piece that you mentioned without realizing you did, is you know what's going to get in your way. Oh, I don't want to drive there. Oh, it's really busy. You already were thinking about the objections in your head and then you think about how to mitigate them.
Speaker 1:I listened to a podcast.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what podcast it was, but they were talking about people who do want to eat healthier and the holidays and things like that, and a lot of people who travel, then come home to an empty house and end up eating poorly continually because there's no groceries in the house and you know all X and Y. And so a way to stop that from happening is to order groceries delivered to your house or even order, like meal prep, foods that are going to be delivered there, so that you know when you come home you have pre-created meals already there for you to go and then you can get back into the normal habits that you might have had after the holidays. Yep, so I think the number one takeaway from this part of this article was know your pitfalls. What are your normal habits that have gotten in your way before? I will. 85% of the people who are talking about and listening to the goals here have probably set this goal before. You've probably tried to accomplish this already in your life, so you know where things got in the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally Okay. What's next? All right, so number four.
Speaker 1:Yes, number four and I think this one's really important is shifting your mindset from reward to journey, and so this is a really big one, and if you haven't read this book, it will really help to cement this for you. There's an author, his name is Tim Grover. Tim Grover is the trainer for Kobe Bryant, michael Jordan. He's in the Netflix series. What is the name of that Netflix series With Michael Jordan in it? That was really big during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:You're asking the wrong person.
Speaker 1:I'll have to look it up. Anyways, you guys will know what I'm talking about. My brain is just not remembering what it's called. It was all about the 90s bulls and how they really developed their winning culture.
Speaker 2:Do you think that I watched that you know?
Speaker 1:it was a big deal, okay. Anyways, tim Grover is the one who did this. His book is called Winning and he talks about how winning is a feeling that we're all chasing, and you see this all the time with athletes. You see this all the time with anybody who's really goal driven. You go in, you're after the goal, you meet the goal and then before you even realize it, you're already through. You don't even live in the moment and enjoy it. You're just onto the next thing, the last dance. That's the name of it.
Speaker 1:Sorry, brain, but so you. You see this with athletes a lot and you see this with people. If you only enjoy when you reach your goal, you're not going to meet your goal Like, unfortunately, it's just not going to happen. So, emma, I'll let you add some pieces in here to enjoying the journey, because I know you enjoyed learning to run and that's really what kind of motivated you in a big goal that you had in your life, and then you can even tie that kind of to your music career if you would like and how that has been part of your journey that you've enjoyed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting and that's so true because I think a lot of times we set a goal at the beginning of the year and we're like, okay, I really want to have you know whatever the reward is. And for me, yeah, with my, with my music career, a lot of times it's like, oh, I really want to work towards having this album out, or I really want to work towards this big show. Okay, that's good. That big goal is oftentimes enough to motivate you through some part of time, I don't know, maybe a couple weeks of hard work, because you're telling yourself, oh, I have to do a bunch of stuff I don't like. So, that way, I I am motivated enough because I love this, this goal, the reward that I'm going to get to so much, it will motivate me to do the hard work.
Speaker 2:Well, that's true, for a little while.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately, once you get through that little while and it's usually like a week or so A week, yeah, for me it's like a week yeah, that's about thinking about my bikini body is about a week's worth of motivation.
Speaker 2:And then it's like, meh, right, because you start thinking about the effort that it takes to get there. And so, yeah, you're right, you have to start figuring out how to enjoy the steps along the way. And so, yes, when I started running I have never been a runner, always hated running but I really started learning to love the idea of, maybe not actually the physical act of running, but I loved the idea of the progress that I made every day, and so I found something about it that I liked, which was making that tiny bit of progress every day and getting to watch. You know, on my phone the little thing tick up, like the graph tick up on how long I ran or how far I ran, or whatever. That little graph was a little hit of dopamine that I could look forward to every day, and so that's really all it was. It's just like having that little thing and making a way to enjoy the little steps along the way, because, no, that end goal is not gonna motivate you for very long, it's just not. It's too far away.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and I think a way to really think about enjoying the process and enjoying the journey is, like you said, finding one thing within it that you really enjoy, if you're somebody who's trying to go to the gym, or you're running the little game you can play with yourself to say like, oh, I lifted more weights today, or I did this, or that I ran a little farther, or I didn't get as tired today, or whatever. That like little change you can see happening over time, versus the oh, I wanna run two miles and until I get there it's gonna be miserable. You're gonna have to hack yourself into thinking that.
Speaker 2:Or, as you said earlier, when you do a little bit of habit stacking, or like you say, oh, I get to watch my favorite show whenever I do this. That's another way to make you enjoy the journey. I mean, I don't know, that kind of works on me. I'm listening to my favorite audio book while I'm on the treadmill, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The other thing that is really impactful for this specific side of this article is the way you talk to yourself during something makes a big difference. So trust me, I know there are some days it is so hard, like if you are trying to work out and you're trying to do more. There are plenty of times where you're like, oh me and this sucks. Oh me and this sucks. Oh me and this sucks, and it does. But if you can reevaluate the way you're speaking and you can say like, this is fun, I'm doing new things, that was a great challenge and I beat it. Like, if you can go through and really pinpoint times when your brain is negative and try to reorganize it to think positive thoughts, it will make a big difference in how you're thinking.
Speaker 2:Do you have any mantras that you use on the journey? So you probably don't need them anymore.
Speaker 1:But Well, there's still times I mean, there's times where I put weight on a barbell or a hip thrust or whatever and I'm like, well, this is gonna suck. I know this is gonna suck, this is gonna hurt later, I know it is. But there's everybody who's ever been in the gym who's kind of lifted in the same style that I do. Lightweight is something that you say to yourself a lot because it's like nope, this is light. Nope, this is light. Because the second you say it's heavy, it gets heavy and you're like dying, especially if you're trying to like binge press something. You're like stuck and you're like I can't do this.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's funny. Yeah, I definitely had that when I was running a lot. I would say this is easy, this is easy, this is easy, and even though I was like about to die.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've used that one plenty of times too Like, this is easy, I can do this. This is nothing. 10 more pounds, that's nothing. It's only 10 pounds. This is fun. Yeah, I only added this, and then it's fun is another really great one. So, yeah, there's just little hacks that you can do like that to try to enjoy the journey. Another one is smiling while doing something you don't enjoy.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a big one for me, Isn't it Like yes?
Speaker 1:You want to talk about how it actually, like, rewires your brain.
Speaker 2:It's because I'm a performer, I've learned how to smile at the worst of times, and so I absolutely do that. And you'll see, like, if you ever watch a workout video, you know all the people on the stage or whatever they're always smiling and that's partly because they're performing. And so I was like, wow, I wonder if that helps. And so I started smiling in the gym. I'm sure everyone in my gym thinks I'm an absolute insane person, because or maybe that I'm like I don't know some kind of like I'm training to be a cheerleader or something, because I'm always like smiling through the pain.
Speaker 1:That's why having like an accountability partner, especially in the gym, works because you're enjoying yourself and you're talking to somebody and you can have a little bit of camaraderie paired with it. It makes it enjoyable to be there. And the same thing applies to professional goals. If you're somebody who's trying to read more or grow yourself, if you have somebody that you can kind of talk about, like, hey, I really enjoyed this part, what do you think you can come back and you can build that camaraderie that helps you to just smile through it. And goal setting is a little harder on the professional development side. To add in a smile randomly you can. If you're reading is one of your goals, then you can say like, wow, I really enjoyed those 10 pages that I read, and not just, oh, I finished it. There we go. It's a very different concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, and that's why joining groups is good. If you wanna read more, try joining a book club. If you wanna do more professional development, try joining a group like oh, shameless plug leaders, we have plenty of programs for you, yeah. But yeah, I think when you can do something with other people, you start to enjoy it more, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Any last thoughts on that one before we switch to another.
Speaker 2:No, we should move on. We're taking forever, I know.
Speaker 1:We can talk about this stuff all day, guys, in case you can't tell, we really love helping people reach their goals, and we both have a completely different approach to it, which is why we love getting to help, because catalyst gets to come at it from different angles. So the last one, I think, is one that a lot of us struggle with, and it is the fear of failure, but we also wanted to toss in the fear of success. So fear in general, what do you have about this, waleema?
Speaker 2:Fear Horrible, but yeah, it can be crippling, because when you decide, oh hey, I want this, and you say it out loud, then you're almost at that point you've started becoming accountable. The second that you say you want it right, I mean the second that you say, oh, I want to do this then your brain knows that that's what you want. And every time you aren't working towards it, or every time you make a misstep, you kind of are taking note of it in the back of your mind like ugh, and it doesn't feel good. And so I think a lot of people are afraid to fail and so they don't even set that ambitious goal that they want and so it really stops you before you start, which sucks. And then the other side of it, like you said, is a fear of success. Like I see this a lot with my musician friends what happens if? What happens if this song is really good, that's-.
Speaker 1:Can I?
Speaker 2:handle it? Can I handle that? Can I handle any amount of success that comes with it? Then what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think success is an interesting one, and I think it's because you know a lot of the times when we work on ourselves, when we do professional development, when we do personal development, we're working on leveling up ourselves and what inevitably happens is we end up out, rowing the people around us and not fitting into the group or not feeling like you're where you belong. Or we've all had this happen, where you're sitting around someplace and you're listening to people and you're like I don't want to have this conversation, I'm not, I don't like what we're talking about right now. This doesn't fill me up anymore. Why and you're almost confused because you're like they haven't changed, my brain has changed why don't I enjoy this anymore? And so you start to be afraid of not fitting in because you're being successful, and so I think that's a really daunting thought for a lot of people and, honestly, it's really hard to have a come back, for it's not easy to tell you guys how to fix this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is maybe the toughest one. Yeah, because, yeah, fear of becoming that sort of back of your mind, fear of becoming a better person or a more successful person moving up in your career, you know all of those can be daunting, scary things, but I guess all we can really say is that growth is always worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Becoming better is always worth it and you will find yourself in the right places. And you know we always say Katie says a lot. You know if you're the smartest person in the room all the time you're not putting yourself in the right rooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think when we talk about the fear of success, you really have to think to yourself like, do I wanna be comfortable or do I wanna be sorry? So I have a graphic on one of my widgets on my phone and it says something like a comfort zone is a great place to be, but nothing grows there, and so that's one of them that I try to live myself by. And the other one is you can have two regrets the fear or the fear of regret, or no. What is it? It's the. You can regret staying where you are, or you can regret growing. Pick one, and so it's like everything is hard. Growing is hard, leaving your people is hard. Being successful is hard. You know, a marriage is hard, but being single is hard, being overweight is hard, being fit and healthy is hard. Like you just have to choose them because it's going to be difficult, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, choose your heart. I learned that from you and I think about it all the time. Now it's like, okay, it's not gonna be easy if I don't do this either, so I might as well get my button gear and do it Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's pivot to the fear of failure. I think failure is something that stops all of us, especially in today's day and age and I may be speaking a little bit to our younger listeners here If you are living in social media and all you see are people's highlight reels and all you see is the perfectly crafted picture that somebody puts on their Instagram or their TikTok or you know whatever, it can be really scary to think like, oh, I'm the only one who's messing up. And that's not the case, guys. I used to tell you, I always tell people this story and I will gladly tell it here. People come up to me and they're like oh, you're always in the gym.
Speaker 1:you make it look so easy, you know, it's all these things. I have done so many goofy things in the gym where I have almost hurt myself or done something silly, like one day I was doing a band, bent over row, and so I had the band under my foot and I was lifting my shoulders up this way and I was leaned over. The band slipped off from my foot and smacked me across the forehead and left a welt. So, like even gym veterans do things that were like oh you gotta be kidding me, how did this happen? Right, and when you do that, you learn not to put the band where you had it on your foot, or to do it with a different type of band that doesn't roll, or so the fear of failure is really the fear of learning lessons, almost in a way, but we have to fail in order to be able to accomplish that next goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what you said about only seeing everyone succeeding is such a good point, because you're right. Oh my gosh, you guys, everyone fails. If you're not failing, what are you doing? Like Katie, when she hired us, she told us I want you to fail, I want you to take risks, because that's what it's all about, that's what life is about, that's what growth is about, that's what your career should be about. Taking those risks and, yes, that means that sometimes failure accompanies that. That's okay. Do you think I've never hit a wrong note on stage? It looks fun and it is, but it's fun because I don't sweat every little thing. It's just like yeah, the culture of perfection, we have to stop this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think we both really enjoy Marie Forleo, and she has outlined it as a failed attempt in learning. Instead of fail, she uses it as an acronym and when you think about it that way, you win, no matter what. You either win or you learn a lesson, and I think that's the way that I've always tried to work my life around, like even if I fail, I might fall on my face, but I learned what not to do and the failure that comes with it is actually going to teach you quicker than if you try to just only do it perfectly. It's gonna take you a lot longer.
Speaker 1:And I was actually just listening to Adam Grant's new book, hidden Potential, and he talks about this about how people who were trying to learn a language, who most people when they try to learn a language, they won't immerse theirself in language and won't use it because they're afraid to sound stupid, right, and people who actually will go in and immerse themselves in a language and will use the wrong words and be corrected by somebody, learn a language like five times faster than somebody who won't. So you have to fail in order to teach your brain the lesson it needs to learn Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So, all right, guys, I think Emma and I could talk about this stuff forever. We love helping everybody with their goals personal, professional. If you're a leader and you're not sure why you're missing your goals or why your team is missing your goals, I think the biggest piece is to sit down and kind of list out some of the things that might be getting you guys's way, that might be causing you stress or that maybe don't work as a group. If you've got group goals, if you've got organizational goals really helping to understand and break them down use this article, reach out to us if you have questions that we can help with, because that's what we're here for. And, Emma, you have my last minute thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you need us to help you with this, we're happy to do so. We do all sorts of coaching and trainings and everything you. Just let us know what you're struggling with and we can find a way to help you. And before we or after we sign off here, I'll see if I can get Jenna to show me a picture of that wilt from her forehead.
Speaker 1:There are no pictures. I did not Dang it, none of that. But trust me, it happened, and I was not the only person in the gym either. There were plenty. Oh no, all right guys. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Path to Leadership. We cannot wait to start the next month with you. We hope you are reaching your goals and can't wait to see what February brings. Bye, bye, guys.
