Episode 15: Goals Only Get You So Far

[Auto-Generated Text]

Welcome to The Reclaim Podcast. I’m your host, Leah Van Dolder. I’m a weight loss dietitian and a mindset coach and this program is for you if you’re a busy working woman or female entrepreneur and you’re ready to take charge of your health, you’re ready to lose weight and make lasting positive change in your life. The only kicker is that you’re on the brink of burnout. You’re exhausted, you are frustrated, you’re feeling discouraged and uncomfortable and this is how I help my clients. Giving you simple, practical and savvy strategies to help you achieve your goals while reducing your stress, boosting your mood, your energy and your self-confidence. To learn more about working with me, check out my website at leahvandolder.com. Welcome to the show.

Hey guys, welcome to this week’s episode of The Reclaim Podcast. I’m so excited to chat to you today. It’s the beginning of a brand new month on the day that I’m doing this recording and I don’t know if you’re going to like me for saying this but girl, your goal is only getting you so far. I want to talk today about the process in making those goals happen because you’ve got great intentions, right? The goal is kind of there in your mind but your execution absolutely blows. So let me help you with that.

I was talking to a client the other day, Sarah, she worked, her and I worked together for about a year and honestly, that’s the average time that my clients work with me. About a year to, I’ve even got long-term clients like two years, three years, really depends on the goals that you’re going for, right? And she messaged me the other day. She’s like, oh my gosh, I feel so good. I’m pulling out my shorts and tank tops from last summer. They are fitting so much better. I mean, she’s down 40 pounds. She’s had to go out and get new clothes and she’s fitting into size six again versus size 10 and 12. And she’s just feeling so energetic, so healthy and just so light on our feet again. It’s just awesome to see that. And I remember when we started working together because she’s like, okay, so I’ve got these goals in mind. I want to lose weight. I want to lose inches. I want to feel healthy, but I have these great intentions. But then life happens and things go sideways and then I feel like I’m not making any progress. And then I just sit there and do nothing for weeks and months on end. And it’s great to have goals. The point of this message is not to say don’t have goals because it’s super important to have goals.

I’m going to tell you that you’re focusing and you’re putting so much pressure on the wrong goals. You are focusing so hard on these things that I call outcome goals versus the process goals. Let’s talk about that. What’s the difference between them? Well, your outcome goal is the thing that you want to get out of this journey. The outcome or the result is weight loss, inches lost, down a couple of pants sizes, more energy, off medications, better blood work results. Those are results. Those are the result goals or the outcome goal. And when you put so much focus and energy on those, it just sucks because those aren’t the behavior changes. Those aren’t the habit changes. Do you see what I mean? Like weight loss is not a behavior change. Better blood work is not a habit change. The results are very different than the process goals, the things that you do on a daily, weekly basis that get you the results or the outcomes over time. Does that make sense? And I love this approach. It works very well in my own brain when it comes to business, but it really helps with all of my clients. And I’m sure even with you, this is really helpful. So separate out the goals. You’ve got your outcome goals. You know that you want to lose weight and be more healthy, like feel more energetic and all that stuff, but stop focusing so much on those because those will happen as a result of you looking at the process. And this is really how I help my clients because you’re probably spinning your tires over there thinking, well, I’ve got these great goals in mind, but you have no idea what the best process is to do that. Or you’ve tried different processes. I say this in quotations, such as a detox or a challenge at your gym, or you’ve tried another weight loss program that’s like a three-month program or a 90-day challenge, and there’s minimal wiggle room in terms of what you can and cannot eat. And yeah, sure, it works for the short term, but it wasn’t a long-term solution.

So process goals. It is so great to separate out your outcome versus the process goal. And I say this to my clients all the time. I’m like, hey, you’re going to get your outcomes, right? Those are absolutely going to happen. Have faith that those will happen. Stop focusing on them though, because it’s such a waste of your time and energy to focus so much and validate your success based on the outcome goals. I help my clients and I encourage you to shift your focus and validate yourself on how you’re showing up in the process. Those daily habits, those weekly goals that you’re achieving, that’s what you validate yourself on. Not by the numbers on the scale or by the inches lost. No, don’t do that. Don’t even bother. Validate yourself on the process and the woman that you’re being in the process.

So let me give you some examples, because I’m going to use Sarah. She’s down 40 pounds, feeling amazing in her skin, keeping up with your kids, improve relationship with a partner, more intimacy. These are things, these are the real reasons why you want to eat better, lose weight, and build your self-confidence. It’s for the relationships. This is the stuff that matters. Feeling good, feeling sexy, feeling confident in your skin, and taking risks. Doing more of the things that bring you just pure joy in your day, instead of holding back and living in your safe world. Again, girl, if you want to work with me, let’s do it. I mean, you’ve been hanging out, listening to these episodes for quite some time now. What’s the worst that can happen? Apply to work with me, let’s chat, see if we’re a good fit. I would love to chat about your goals and the process with you.

Let’s talk about examples of process goals. For Sarah, she’s a busy working woman, she’s a nurse, her husband works as well, so he’s gone most of the time during the day. For her, we looked at planning a prep ahead. Those are process goals. Every Sunday, for 45 minutes, she set a timer on her phone. For 45 minutes, she meal prepped. She got her husband to take her kids, say, hey, deal with them. For 45 minutes, I’m going to do my process here. I’m going to prep a protein, prep a couple of vegetables, and prep a couple of fruits for those things to be in the fridge for easy grab and go lunches and snacks. That’s a process goal. Sunday, 45 minute prep.

Another process goal for her was working out three times a week. I’m not talking insane workouts because she’s postpartum, just trying to ease back into exercise. One of them was Pilates. Another one was a, oh, I can’t even remember now, but something else at her local gym, and then she did a home workout. That was her process, exercise three times a week and putting those in her calendar. She made an appointment with herself. It was a non-negotiable process. We started with meal prep on Sunday. We started with three workouts a week.

The last one for her, these were the very starting steps for her weight loss journey because I want to remind you that the reason why you feel like you’re unsuccessful with your weight loss is because you’re trying to load on the process goals. You’re setting yourself up for failure by trying to do eight to 10 things every single day. You’ve got minimal wiggle room for error, and then you feel like a total failure, and then you put your hands up in the air and then don’t do anything or get stuck in a slump for months. I know. I’ve talked a lot of women. I know what’s going on over there in your head.

Starting with two to three process goals that are doable with what’s going on in your life right now. Get comfortable with those, make it a habit, then layer something else in as time goes on. That’s my approach. It’s a progressive coaching approach.

The third thing that we did with Sarah after the prep on Sundays, her exercise three times a week, the third thing was really reining in her evening snacking. You guys know what I’m talking about. It’s the mindless turn on the TV, sit down on the couch, and then this bell goes off in your head. You’re like, snack would be nice, and then you’re scrumaging around in the pantry and you’re like, I don’t even know what to eat, but I’m sitting here looking for food anyway, that kind of stuff. So her and I worked really hard at uncovering the root cause of what was causing her. Yeah, we uncovered her and I worked really hard at uncovering the root to that overeating mindless snacking behavior. You got to get to the root of this stuff in order to change and reprogram your thought process around nighttime snacking because surprise, surprise, it actually has nothing to do with food and it’s got everything to do with your thought process and your mindset at that time of day. So those are the three things that we started on, food prep, exercise, and reining in nighttime snacking. Those were her process goals.

So I hope this gives you a really good idea of the things that will give you the results that you want. And in Sarah’s case, I mean, those are the three things that we started on, month after month, we would layer in a couple of more things, tweak a little bit here and there. And over the year, she’s down 40 pounds and kept it off, kept it off. That’s the most important thing here that I got to say. And has improved her relationship with food over that year. She’s like, I can’t even believe how much energy and happiness that I have. Like I’m not obsessing about food all the time. It’s just so different.

So goals will only get you so far. You got to have a process. You can have your outcome goals, but stop focusing and validating your success based on the outcome. You got to pull your focus and really get a handle on the process goals, the things that you do on a daily basis that are going to give you the results because they’re going to come. They’re going to come.

If you’re loving this episode so far, take 30 seconds of your time to go rate five star and drop a little review. Honestly, it helps the podcast so much and it gives me the resources to pump these things out every single week.

So action stuff’s for you today. After you’ve listened to all this stuff, I’m sure now in your mind, you can differentiate your outcome goals versus the process goals and really put your attention, your focus and your energy on the process versus the results. And really ask yourself based on what’s going on in my life right now, the agent stage of my life, what two to three goals are doable for me? Start with those, get comfortable with those, and then layer them in. And I got to say too, you’re probably over there. You’re like, what do I even start with in terms of goals? This is how I help my clients. Stop wasting your precious time and energy over there, trying to figure out what two to three goals are the best ones to start with. You’ve probably tried them all out on your own and you’re frustrated because you’re not making any progress. So reach out, send me a message on Instagram, send me a DM, or apply to work with me because that’s going to get you the results that you want faster. And I just take the guesswork out of it for you. Let me worry about all that stuff for you. I show you exactly where to start. I show you exactly what process goals to focus on, when to layer in more. That is so helpful in your journey. That’s a lot of value.

So thank you for tuning in today, guys. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with you. Follow along so you can catch every week’s episode of The Reclaim Podcast. And I’m so excited to connect with you in the next one. We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Reclaim Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to follow, rate, and review. To learn more about working with me, check out my website at leahvandolder.com. Thank you again for being here. It means the world to be able to connect with you. Girl, keep doing amazing things. You have everything that it takes to achieve your goals and be successful at anything that you want.