“Goals help us create the future that we want, but they are not the most amazing part of life. The most amazing part of life are our intentions.”

It’s that time of year when people begin to think of the goals they want to create for the upcoming year. In coaching, we focus a lot on looking at the present and the future, but when creating goals, it’s important to look at the past too.

In order to make your goals effective moving forward, you have to know what worked for you in the past. But, it’s tricky to know how to analyze what worked and what didn’t work, right?

It’s not always easy to see your ROI on an activity, especially in your personal life.

On this week’s Become An Unstoppable Woman episode, I’m teaching you HOW to analyze your past to find the ROI in EVERYTHING you’re doing. It’s a powerful exercise that I hope you’ll make time to complete.

Listen to the episode via the link at the top of this page!

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

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Full transcript:

Episode 23: RECAP REWARDS

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 23, Recap Rewards.

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Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

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Hi there, Ms. unstoppable. Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. It is a very popular time of the year, as this episode goes live, to be thinking about our goals for the upcoming year. I even talked about it on the last episode of Cut The Crap of, hey, it’s really great to dream up new goals and think about what’s next and plan our next level of success. We need to look at the things that are holding us back. That’s what I talked about in that episode of cutting that crap.

Today what I’m going to talk about is looking at your past, so especially this past year, to make sense of what you can create even more of for the next year. In coaching, a lot of times we’re really focused on the present and the future, which I love, but I think the past is just so important. It’s so important to understand our patterns and the things that we’re doing and the results that we’re creating. Because so many times we’re moving so quickly, and we’re always thinking about what’s next, what’s next, our brain just always goes there, that we have to slow down at certain periods.

This time of year is a great one, or whenever you’re listening to this episode, it’s meant for a reason. Don’t just think you do this at the end of the year, but it’s really important that you sit back and think, “Okay, what is it that I have done? What is it that I’m doing, and what kind of results is that creating? Is that still leading me to where I want to go and what I want to do? As I started to really analyze my past year, I started to remember a principle called the 80/20 Principle. I must admit, I heard about this again on a podcast from Ali Brown, and her podcast is called Glambition Radio. I love her podcast. It’s meant for business women or entrepreneurs.

She mentioned this of really taking this principle and applying it to analyzing the end of your year. I had been familiar with this principle for a few years now, and I’m always constantly looking at my own life at the 80/20 principle, so it was so fitting for me to hear that episode with her, and to bring it into my own analysis of things. I will say, in my own life, I found that this principle is absolutely true.

What it means, when I say an 80/20 principle, it was an initial idea from an Italian economist named Pareto. He realized that 80% of the land in Italy at the time, and so this is the late 1800’s, was owned by 20% of the population. Being the economist that he was, he started to study even more. Where’s this 80/20 principle coming up? He found so many examples of it. He even found in his own garden that 20% of the vegetables were producing 80% of the results.

Many other economists, as time has gone on, has gone in and done the same kind of analysis. They found, for example, in the US, 20% of the people pay 80% of the income tax, and 80% of the wealth and all of the world is owned by 20% of the people. Even in sports, they’ve done these kinds of analysis. I encourage you, if you are somebody like me, who really needs to know all the research behind certain principles or ideas, to go in and research this 80/20 principle. It’s also known as the Pareto Principle, or you can find it under Law of The Vital Few, or Principle of Factor Sparsity, but go research it if you need to, to really understand that this thing is legit.

Most things in life are living at this 80/20 principle, and I’ve realizing it more and more in my life, especially as I’m doing this year-end recap. What is happening is, I’m seeing that so few of what I’m doing is creating such a big result. For example, I did many marketing efforts this past year, this podcast being one of them, being on Instagram, trying to get my Pinterest up and running. Another one was just being casually invited to a course bundle. This course bundles said, “We’d love to include this one course of yours.” I didn’t really think twice about it. I was like, “Sure, you can have this little baby course that I have and throw me in with all the other courses you’re selling.”

What ended up happening off that course bundle, is I got 80% of my clients roughly this past year from that one marketing effort. Probably about 20% of my marketing effort came off of just that one partnership. Crazy, right? Then it made me realize, “Wow, that’s where I need to double, triple, quadruple down for this next year, is do more bundles like that,” Because those people are already interested in things like personal development, and then they just happen to get my course in there, and they get my contact information, and boom, it’s just a really great fit versus someone just randomly scrolling on Pinterest, or just wanting to passively follow someone on Instagram.

For me, I know now where I want to focus even more on 2020 and beyond, because I went and I just recapped that one little piece of my business, which was my profitability with where I got my clients from. As I started to expand and look at even areas of my personal life with the 80/20 Principle, I thought about, “Okay, motherhood is really draining for me some days, and it seems like my days are really long, because I’m with my kids a lot. I started to think, “Okay, what times of the day, or what things am I doing with them that’s creating the biggest impact.

I realized, for example, with my daughter, it’s when I’m taking her to school, which only takes about 20 minutes, when I’m picking her up from school, again, about 20 minutes, and then when I’m putting her to bed, another 20 minutes. Just about an hour of my time with her there is my most impactful part. I didn’t analyze it based off how many hours I’m actually with her during the day. It would probably break down to an 80/20 principle, I don’t know. I’m realizing, “Hey, there’s just these little pockets of time with her that are the most impactful. I need to just really make sure those are a part of my schedule and not really worry about all the other times.

Because sometimes I get in this mindset of, Oh, I need to give more, I need to be with my kids as much as I can, and the reality is, is that I’m just as impactful when I’m with them all day than when I’m just with them during those pockets of time. Two, it makes me realize like, “Hey, I want to keep those pockets of time on my schedule too, because with my daughter at bedtime this past year, for example, sometimes I had calls, and I couldn’t put her to bed.”

Now realizing that’s one of our most impactful parts of the day, that’s something that’s going back on my calendar so that I can show up and I can be the best mom that I want to be, and at a time when she’s really open to being parented in a certain way, and, again, it’s just going to create great results for her, and great results for me because we’re both wanting that.

Even if I look at other areas, like my marriage, what is it that we’re doing that is creating the biggest results? It’s really our date nights. When we go, when we have our alone time with one another. We’re together, my husband and I, a lot, pretty much 24/7. Now, granted, we’re working separately, or I’m parenting and he’s working or vice versa, but most of the time it’s just when we’re going on our date nights. That’s the most impactful part of our marriage, and when we have our nightly check-ins every so often of, “Hey, how did your day go?” and recapping everything.

Again, those are most impactful times, and so I’m not really going to sit and worry and judge myself or feel like I’m not giving enough to my husband or my family. Instead, just really focusing on those impactful times that we have together and make sure those are on my calendar, and make sure that I’m showing up in the best way I can during those times because those are the ones that are creating results.

I really encourage you, as you’re recapping your past year, to apply this 80/20 principle in essence. Really, what this is at the end of the day, is just looking at every different area of your life and thinking, “Where is it that I’m showing up and making the most impact, or the things that I’m doing are making the most impact?” I bet you, after you start to realize what those times are or those activities are, whatever it is, you’re going to see, wow, it really is only 20% of my time or my energy or my effort, whatever, that’s creating 80% of the result. How crazy is that? Even if I look at my own personal development, I’m always working on myself when I can, and I’m thinking, “What were the things that stood out to me the most this past year?” One of the things that stood out to me the most was going to this free little enneagram workshop at my daughter’s school, and that workshop, I think, was only like two or three hours, and the content from that workshop is something that has stuck with me all year, and made such a huge impact in the way that I do certain things. It’s just so mind-blowing that all these other things that were in there were great, and they helped me a little bit, but that one workshop created so much benefit in my life.

I even probably see this with my own clients when they’re going through my courses. Granted, I think they gain a little bit off of everything, but I bet they could sit down and tell me, “These were the big things, Lindsay, or the big moments as we work together, that shifted everything.” It would probably go down to that 80/20 principle again, right?

I just really want you to start to think about again, what are the areas that I’m making the most impact in, or I’m getting the most results from, or I’m feeling the best stat, and then really start to think, “Okay, how can I double and triple, quadruple whatever, down to make more of that happen in the upcoming year.” Because there’s a quote out there that I love, it’s an Albert Einstein quote, that talks about insanity. He says insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I know for 2020, or whenever you’re listening to this episode, you’re wanting some sort of different results, and you can’t go into that next phase of your life with these new sets of goals, even if they’re just goals that are maintaining what you have even. You can’t go in with the same mindset or doing the same thing over and over that you’re doing today and expecting a different result. That’s insanity, according to Einstein.

We’ve got to start to think, “What is it that I can do differently to make better results?” We don’t have to go out there and hustle ourselves to death to go make it happen. I am not a fan of hustling. I don’t like it when people talk about hustling, and there’s some big personal development people on the market who love talking about hustling. As a former hustler, that way of working will burn you out so fast. If you’re just constantly hustling, that is saying, “Hey, I’m not in alignment. Hey, I’m not working smart. I’m just working really hard,” and at some points in our life, I think we need to go out and work hard, because we don’t know what we want yet, and so we have to go try all these things and do all these things in order to get into an alignment, in order to know, “Hey, this is what works and what doesn’t work, and let me move with this.”

For example, if you’re starting a new business, you’ve got to try so many things, and get to work and create all these little energy sources, maybe trying a million different marketing efforts to see what is going to work here, what is going to stick for you to even apply, “Hey, this is what works and what doesn’t work, right?” There comes a point, if you’ve been doing something for a little bit, at least like a year, I would say, and really showing up and being consistent in something like a workout even, or building a relationship, you’re going to have enough data to apply this principle and say, “What is working really well, and what’s not?” I bet when you go down to analyze it yet again, it’s going to be that 80/20 principle, and you’re going to realize, “Wow, just this little bitty sliver is what’s creating so much results? Let me do more of that.” Make sense? I hope so.

That’s really the bulk of today’s episode, is you just going in and analyzing and thinking what is it that it’s creating what I want more of. This, to be honest, is a process of somebody who already knows themselves, can kind of go in and analyze themselves and build awareness. Most people walking around in today’s world are not very self-aware.

If you’re listening to this podcast, at least you probably have at least a little bit of self-awareness, but it’s really important that you start to build even more awareness. I always tell my clients, study yourself like a scientist. If you’re looking back on your past year, or whenever you’re doing this exercise, and you’re not able to spot what worked and what didn’t work, that is a telltale sign that you are not, what I call, awake. You are kind of in zombie mode. You are not aware of what is working and what’s not working. You’re not taking the time to study yourself. Until maybe that needs to be the goal, moving forward is I need to build more awareness in ways you can build more awareness or doing things like personal development, listening to this podcast, maybe coaching with me, doing things like journaling. Again, that’s stuff we work on in my coaching practice, doing things like personality assessments to gain more awareness, but it’s really important you start to understand yourself, and understand what you’re doing all the time, because just like that quote goes back to about Einstein, we’ve got to figure out what’s working and what’s not, otherwise, you’re just going to get the same results, and that’s insanity if you’re not going to change anything.

Really make sure that you go in and do this exercise, what worked, what didn’t work, are great questions to ask yourself, too. I’m a big fan of a tool called Powersheets. It’s from a company called Cultivate What Matters. This is something I recommend for all my clients, and people who are on my email list know all about it, but you may not be there yet.

This tool helps you recap your past year, and then plan out very intentional goals, and keep you accountable to those goals in the coming year. I’ve used Powersheets now for four years, I think this is my fifth time using them, and I don’t know where I would be without my Powersheets, to be honest. It really helps me, every single year, get clear on what didn’t work, get clear on what does work, and do more of that.

It asks questions in there like, “What is it that you’re going to say basically, on your deathbed? What is it that you have wanted to create? What are you going to say? What really mattered? What didn’t matter?” Granted, this is a question I ask all the time to my clients, and I have done power sheets now, and I’ve been asked that question, but for some reason, this year really hit home to me of, “Wow, my family is so important to me,” and granted, I want to do all these great things in my business, and I want to hit income goals, and I want to help more people and do those things, but at the end of the day, that really doesn’t matter, because when I sit there and I picture myself on my deathbed, that’s just going to be side noise of, “Yes, that was great. I’m glad I did it, but at the end of the day, how did I show up for my family? How was I as a parent? How did I love them? Did I give the amount of love that I wanted to give in this lifetime?” That really helps me get clear on my goals for this next year.

I could have easily gone off track and made all these very specific income goals and weight loss goals, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and at the end of the day, it really came back to working on my way of being, and showing up as a more authentic version of myself, and everything else is just a side piece to this next year. It changed my perspective on the entire next year, which is huge. That’s just a general question you can ask yourself to help you recap and think about bigger picture stuff as you do your goals, but really look into Powersheets. They’re only about $60. That breaks down to just a couple dollars every month, and you’ll have that planner all year long. It’s an amazing tool, and I would love it if you go use my affiliate link too. I am a proud affiliate for them. You can just go to Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y, epreston.com/powersheets. I just get a couple of dollars off of every sale, so it’s not like I’m going on a grand vacation with that money, but it is helpful for me to see who is buying Powersheets off of me telling me that. Cultivate What Matters really gives me some cool stuff, because this past few months, I’ve had a lot of people go in and buy Powersheets using that link. They’ve done things like give me a $100 gift card to give to my audience, and given me a ticket to go see an event of theirs, and things of that sort.

Please, just go use that link. If you go and check out parachutes and buy them, I know you will love them. They’re amazing. One of my favorite tools.

One last question that I think you should be asking yourself, as you’re recapping and moving forward into the next year, is very simple, and that is what is it I’m going to say yes to in this next year, and what is it that I’m going to say no to? Just to give you a little spoiler, this is a question in your Powersheets as well, but if you’re not going to invest there, I really think it’s important for you to still ask yourself this question. It may seem very black and white of, “Okay, well, obviously, if I’m saying yes to this, I’m going to say no to the opposite of that,” but it’s important for our brains to see the two sides of things. To see, “Okay, I’m going to say yes to my family, I’m going to say no to more work things,” like for my brain, because I can very easily get caught up in these egotistical things of, “Oh, I need to work more because I want to make more money and prove something.” At the end of the day, I really don’t want that. I really do not care how much money I make. I really do not care about booking my calendar. What I care about is showing up and giving really great service to the clients that I have, and showing up for my family in a really, really great authentic way, showing up for the worlds that are really great, authentic way.

When I did that exercise these past few days, it just made very clear for me what I need to say yes or no to, because our life is just constantly moving so quickly, and things are so gray of, “Well, I do technically have the space in my calendar. I could fit in this work thing,” but then if I were to just sit down and think about it, I’d be like, “No, that’s really not in alignment with where I want to go.” Sometimes, let’s face it, when we get presented with opportunities, if you’re like me, I just want to jump on it and just take the opportunity, but I really need to stay focused on what it is I want to create in this next year, and what it is I want to create my lifetime and doing that black and white answer of what am I saying yes to, what am I saying no to, really helps me move forward in a way that feels really, really good.

I just want to leave you with one last thing. I’m not going to make this episode long, because I think you need to go out, and you need to go and do this exercise. This is where you’re going to see the power of this. I do want to say that goals are important. Yes, goals help us create the future that we want, but they are not the most amazing part of life. The most amazing part of life are our intentions. How are we showing up every single day, who are we being as we wake up, who are we being as we go out in the world and do our work and do our things? Who are we when we show up in relationships? Who are we when we’re working out? I don’t know. Whatever. That is what matters.

I think it’s a Maya Angelo quote that says, it’s not really what you do, it’s how you made people feel. Hopefully, I’m not butchering that, but it’s so true. How is it that you are showing up every single day? How are you making people feel? That is where the power of your life is at. Please, as you’re going into this next year, don’t get so wrapped up in the goals per say, but get very, very clear on how you want to be this next year. That’s where doing a strategy like having a word or a phrase of the year can be very helpful, because you may just need to work on one little intention for that whole year.

For example, mine for this next year is joyful expansion. I really want to be able to expand the amount of joy that I have in my life. I want to be that person who is living more in enjoy, and living more in expansion. I’ve noticed that when I have some joy moments come in, I contract, and I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to be someone who can take in that joyful abundance and use it as fuel to continue to accept more and more. That is something I’m really wanting to be intentional about, and the way of being that I want to be more of. It helps me keep me focused too, because I’m somebody who can really dart in all these different directions and get that shiny object syndrome, or get really goal-focused and forget about the bigger picture. Word or phrase really helps with that.

I know I’m covering a lot of literally little things here. Powersheets are really going to help tie all this together. I really hope you can purchase them. My affiliate link again is lindsayepreston.com/powersheets. I have a free community that you can come into and work on your Powersheets with. Hopefully, you’re already on my email list. If you’re not, just go to lindsayepreston.com, and start with taking my free coaching assessment and you’ll get on my email list. I’ll also give you really good feedback too if we’re good to work together either working through your Powersheets it’s X year, which there’s no cost to do. As I said, it’s a free community.

Or if you want to up-level and maybe have a discovery call with me, and maybe go through some of my coaching programs in 2020. That’s a great place to start to get your Powersheets and then join that free community because we’re constantly talking about our Powersheets in there and our goals and our intentions. It’s just a really fun community. I’d love to have you.

That’s what I’m covering today, as we were doing the recap rewards. As I said, this episode was all about the power of looking at your past and analyzing especially this past year. You can do that with whatever timeline you want so that you can look at your present and say, what is it that I want to do today to create the future that I want to create? We don’t want to be insane. We don’t want to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. This is a really great time of year for you to start to say what habits do I want to change, what patterns do I want to change? Something’s got to change for me to have my next up level. This is a great way to do it.

I hope you gained a lot from this episode today. I would love to hear from you if you haven’t left a review for the show, especially for listening on Apple podcasts, please go do so. So many of you are going and leaving a review. It’s so much fun to read those reviews and hear about how working with me on this podcast, or just listening is helping you out. That is my fuel to keep giving you these episodes, because these episodes take time, and they cost money. This is free content. Just going and leaving that review, again, feeds my soul to keep making these for you.

Thank you again so much for tuning in. Remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be. Believe in yourself, you got this.

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Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.

In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.