#50 – Soar in 2024: Avoid These Common New Year’s Resolution Traps & Learn How To Set Your Goals Up for Success | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to the daring to leap podcast. I'm your host, Lori. Phillip. I'm so excited to dive into this week's episode with you. The new year is almost here. As we dive into the new year with new energy and high hopes. We can find ourselves caught in the cycle of ambitious goal setting. Followed by inevitable disappointment. Our special guests, Laura Livingston is here to discuss. How you can create new year's resolutions and goals that actually stick. And learn the common goal setting traps to avoid so that you can soar in 2024. Let's dive in.

[00:00:44] Loree Philip: Our special guest, Laura Livingston is here as a fulfillment and success coach. Laura helps driven world changing visionaries and entrepreneurs to create more fulfillment impact and profit in their work [00:01:00] in a way that works best for them. An expert in navigating and creating change.

[00:01:05] Loree Philip: Laura coaches her clients through the pivotal decisions. Creative pivots and business transitions along the journey of doing work they love. Laura's magic is in helping her clients to think differently and think bigger so that they can live and work at their greatest potential. Welcome to the show, Laura.

[00:01:27] Laura Livingston: Thank you so much for having me. Really happy to be here.

[00:01:31] Loree Philip: Yeah, it's so awesome to have you here. And I know we've been talking about doing this for a while. So I just really love that we're actually doing it. You're here with me on the show. And I think where I want to start off with you, Laura, is you spent 18 years in change management and consulting.

[00:01:51] Loree Philip: Can you walk us through the journey you had to deciding to kind of shift out of that profession and explore something [00:02:00] new for yourself?

[00:02:01] Laura Livingston: Yeah. And, and, and it really is part of my story because I, I will say, I think the short version of, of how I got into it was I was always really interested in psychology and human behavior.

[00:02:16] Laura Livingston: And. Back then, in the 90s, when I graduated from college with a psych degree, like, the only thing I knew to do was to be a therapist, and I really seriously considered it. I did a lot of work on the back end to sort of test that out for myself, and it just never felt right for so many reasons.

[00:02:36] Laura Livingston: And so I kind of found my way accidentally into recruiting and then into HR and then into change management and consulting and that made me feel corporate never really resonated with me as a young person, but it made me feel like, okay, it's broader and it's it's. More expansive than, than I realized and understood from the [00:03:00] outside.

[00:03:00] Laura Livingston: Just like many things when you go into it, you can understand the depth and the richness to the opportunities. And, and I felt like, okay, well, this is a place where I can play. This is a place like the people's side of the, of the corporation, right. Or the people's side of the large business usually was where I was.

[00:03:19] Laura Livingston: Spending my time.

[00:03:19] Laura Livingston: Like I still just. Find that interesting, but over the years, the environment and the nine to five, which was never nine to five, I was always working minimums, 50 hour weeks, depending on my career. And the lack of balance that I had in my life of putting too much pressure on my work or too much time and energy on my work, felt got me to a point where I just felt like I was intellectually challenged.

[00:03:47] Laura Livingston: But my soul and my true quirky creative personality had to wait for the evenings and weekends to be expressed. And that just over time was not [00:04:00] sustainable for my mental health and it was not sustainable for my enjoyment in my work. And I, and I was honestly not really performing at my potential any longer.

[00:04:11] Laura Livingston: Those final, that final maybe year or so. And so. I leaped. I leapt, right? I, I really, I, I walked out the door, having honestly no idea what I was going to do next. And I, that worked for me. I am a leaper. I really am. I have moved around a lot. I have made big change in my career. I, I've, I'm somebody who's fairly comfortable with big leaps.

[00:04:41] Laura Livingston: And as a single person in my forties, I have not been married. I have not had children and I by choice. And I, and so I didn't have anybody else to worry about when I made my crazy decisions. And so I want to just really say like, you don't need to do it my way to leap for yourself, but I, [00:05:00] this has been a way that I have.

[00:05:02] Laura Livingston: Found change and found my fulfillment in my work.

[00:05:05] Laura Livingston: I grew up with a family. My dad was a lawyer and my mom was a teacher and not because of anything they told me to do, but I just made meaning out of that, of I can either make money, right? Or, or I can do work.

[00:05:20] Laura Livingston: I love, and that mindset kept me in corporate for longer than was supportive for me. And so that's partly why I call myself a fulfillment and success coach now, because in order to leave, I had to decide or want, or at least decide that I wanted to believe that I could do both, right. That I could create my own version of fulfillment and success and that I didn't have to choose.

[00:05:48] Laura Livingston: And now I have some businesses to do that as well.

[00:05:52] Loree Philip: What a story, Laura. I just love hearing where everybody was and what really got them to make a [00:06:00] shift for themselves. And that point you just made about the mindset of I can either be successful and make money or It's almost like the other side of the coin.

[00:06:14] Loree Philip: I can actually enjoy my work and love what I do. And how did you manage to merge that together for yourself and, and help yourself shift out of this either or mindset and realize that, Hey, it is possible to have both. And I'm going to go try to do it.

[00:06:37] Laura Livingston: Yeah, it, it was a process and if I'm honest, six years into entrepreneurship, there are still days where this is something that I have to kind of keep bringing myself back to.

[00:06:49] Laura Livingston: So, but I think, I think the hardest part for me honestly was I didn't have any models. I didn't know anyone [00:07:00] who seemed to be. Loving what they did and were making an unrespectable living. And at the time, by the way, I should say at the time when I left my corporate job, I was a single woman in my, I always think I was 40 or 41 and I was living in San Francisco.

[00:07:17] Laura Livingston: So financially the stress around that was, was real. But, and so I, so I think. One, I, I knew I didn't have any models and, and I, I've lived my life quite untraditionally, as I've gone. And so part of it was just re reminding myself that my lifestyle has never, I don't know anybody who lives exactly the lifestyle that I do and I created it myself so I could do that for work too.

[00:07:45] Laura Livingston: And I always kind of had this entrepreneurial creative mindset for my life, but I never really.

[00:07:52] Laura Livingston: Applied it to my career. And so part of it was, I think, and I think this is really helpful for any mindset challenge anyone's going through finding [00:08:00] something in yourself where you've already done some version of this is so empowering and reminding yourself of like, you actually already probably have the skills, So I think that was one.

[00:08:13] Laura Livingston: Another was I, I just felt this weird desire to have models. And so I started watching and I still to this day, this is one of my favorite past times watching documentaries on not famous people, but really talented, famous people. Yo yo ma Arnold Schwarzenegger has a documentary out right now. David Beckham's documentary is out right now.

[00:08:36] Laura Livingston: Podcasts of people who have done. Really extraordinary things, people who really are in their zone of genius and living that out at such a, like a, their greatest potential. And see, finding that, that within me. Because everything that those podcasts or books or [00:09:00] autobiographies, you can find something to relate to, right?

[00:09:03] Laura Livingston: And noting, knowing myself in that moment, when I was leaping, they tell their stories of the leap, right? And the zero confidence in the leap or the, I don't know, I don't know why I know this is going to work. I just know it's going to work. And everybody else is going to tell me that I'm crazy. And I'm just committed.

[00:09:21] Laura Livingston: I know I sound crazy. It's okay. I just know. And I knew I had that in me and I could relate to that. And so I always encourage people when you don't have a model for something. And this happens a lot when we're Doing something really big and different in our careers or when we're starting businesses that never existed before, find, find a model that might just be a model of greatness or a model of the vibe that you're looking for.

[00:09:50] Laura Livingston: and that really helped me ground into being able to even put words and a feeling to what I was looking to create. For myself. [00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Loree Philip: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Laura. Models are so important. Not only, um, as inspiration, but also, at the end of the day, we're all human.

[00:10:14] Loree Philip: And if one human can do that barring some like athleticism, that's impossible for most of us to do. It's on the table, right? Yes. We are, we all, especially if it's something that you want to do, something that you love to do, something that you're passionate about, that's where your strengths are anyway.

[00:10:36] Loree Philip: And so, keeping that motivation, inspiration alive through other people, I think is a really great idea for sure.

[00:10:45] Loree Philip: So I think we'll shift gears here, Laura, what I really wanted to focus this conversation with you about today is this idea of, okay, it's the end of 2023. I [00:11:00] don't know where the year has gone. Honestly, it's flown by like a blip, just like every year. And this is the time of year where we start to think about the next year, 2024.

[00:11:14] Loree Philip: New Year's is coming up. We're going to be starting off fresh, clean slate. There's this beautiful energy around the new year and a lot of potential. And what, what, what is possible for me next year that we can really tap into. And so what I want to talk to you today about is. How can we set ourselves up for success when we start thinking about what we want our year to look like, what our goals are, resolutions, things like that, because as we know, a lot of the time we set out at the beginning of the year to do X, Y, and Z, and we fizzle out by March.

[00:11:58] Loree Philip: And so to start that [00:12:00] off, let's just talk about a few of the kind of traps that we've seen people get into as we start to plan our year and start to think about, okay, what is it that.

[00:12:12] Loree Philip: I want my year to look like and set my goals around. What have you seen have been some of those traps that people fall into?

[00:12:20] Laura Livingston: Yeah, I, I think one of the big, there's a lot, but I think one of the biggest ones I see is setting goals for goal sake looking almost outside of yourself for something that you want to achieve when it doesn't necessarily align back up to who you are and what you deeply, deeply, deeply desire to have or be or experience.

[00:12:50] Laura Livingston: In your life, I always encourage my clients to define success for themselves and that might evolve and shift over time. But if you're [00:13:00] putting out someone else's or society's goals, you're. As you said a minute ago, talking about like how the love of the work kind of draws you forward and, and motivates you and keeps you going, it's really hard to do something you don't want to do.

[00:13:15] Laura Livingston: Like, it's just really hard. And yeah, discipline and willpower will only take you to maybe the end of January.

[00:13:23] Loree Philip: Yeah. So this is a good 1. this is around. Okay. So we're, we're deciding our goal for next year and our heart isn't into it at the get go. It's not really. What we actually want, and I think that's a good 1 as a starting point one I'd like to throw in there is choosing too many goals.

[00:13:44] Loree Philip: So I, I, I love to be ambitious. I've done this to myself over and over and it's like, okay, 2024, I'm going to, be as fit as a supermodel and, get promoted [00:14:00] and this and this and this and this. And that trap, it looks you look at it and you're like, yeah, that'd be great.

[00:14:08] Loree Philip: I can do all those things. And then the execution of it gets hard. And all of a sudden it's like, okay, all of it falls apart. And then in the end, you don't really get to do any of it. So that's, that's another one I'd throw into the, to the pitfall equation on that one. Yeah.

[00:14:30] Laura Livingston: Yeah. I, I definitely agree with you on that one.

[00:14:32] Laura Livingston: I see that a lot and, and it comes from such a good place, right? Like great new year, I'm going to do all these things and then reality. Sets in which which I think brings me to one of the other ones that I see a lot which is being too extreme on one end of the other related to the planning of accomplishing said goals, so either Setting out to accomplish something with no plan[00:15:00] and that kind of almost then means it's more of a wish or a hope Mm hmm, then Something you're actually deeply committed to for yourself.

[00:15:13] Laura Livingston: Kind of like, I hope I make 40 billion this year, okay. What's your plan? Right. And I think the other end of the extreme also happens so much, right? Okay, great. I'm gonna. To use your example, I'm going to be as fit as a, as a supermodel. Okay. And that means I haven't going to go to the gym four times a day and I'm going to eat only this.

[00:15:38] Laura Livingston: And I'm and micro goals underneath that, that are so big and so much habit change all at once with such a detailed plan underneath it, that it's just like, you already know, once you write it all out, you're not going to get there. No, most humans won't. Right. And so I think it's that. That, [00:16:00] no plan or too much of a plan that is just not real in both directions.

[00:16:04] Laura Livingston: It's, it's really not realistic. And so it means you're, you're kind of. accidentally setting yourself up for failing yourself with that goal, as opposed to putting a plan together that is realistic and manageable and bite sized. And I think it's also that annual goal that can get too big or too unwieldy.

[00:16:30] Laura Livingston: Because it is, it's hard to think about 12 months from now. Yeah. It's a long time and it's hard to plan for 12 months from now. Right. And so I think jumping ahead, I think one of the answers is like planning bits as you go, planning just enough at a time to make it manageable so that you can adjust because you don't really, it's most people, it's really hard to put a 12 month plan together for most.

[00:16:54] Loree Philip: it is it is it's hard. We. It's a long time, a lot of variables and who knows [00:17:00] where we're going to be next year, this time of year and what what our life's going to look like. And the other pitfall I throw in there on the planning is.

[00:17:11] Loree Philip: Choosing a plan of something. That's going to take a lot of willpower because you don't actually want to do it instead of choosing a plan that actually sounds like something you'd want to do and it's the difference between if we just take like a weight loss goal or a fitness goal. It's the difference between deciding you're going to go to the gym every day and run on the treadmill when you actually don't like to run that much.

[00:17:41] Loree Philip: But you do like to hike or you do like to do yoga or you do like it's so it's, it's about figuring out the best plan for you to make sure that you're going to get your goal done and it's going to be. [00:18:00] sustainable in the long run.

[00:18:02] Laura Livingston: Absolutely. I think it really is the other thing I'm hearing you say, which is what I see a lot.

[00:18:07] Laura Livingston: It's just a mismatch between maybe not even the goal. Maybe the goal makes sense for you, right? And it fits you, but the, the, the plan that you go about to accomplish the goal or the strategy in my case with my clients, the strategy in your business that you've go about to do it. Yeah. Isn't something that actually makes sense for your gifts, for your talents, for your style, for your workload.

[00:18:30] Laura Livingston: And so it's sort of making sure that it, if it's misaligned, like you said, like you're just not going to want to keep showing up for it. You might be gung ho for a few weeks or even a few months at the most. But once you put yourself in a position where discipline and willpower is the only thing that's going to keep you going.

[00:18:49] Laura Livingston: It's just not sustainable. And that's like scientifically proven. It's just not sustainable. So I think that misalignment. For you and your life right now.

[00:18:59] Loree Philip: Right? [00:19:00] Yeah, realistic. Like, what can you actually accomplish and I think the last pitfall I'll throw out there is creating, maybe even create some really solid goals and you create some really solid plans and you integrate it into your schedule and you know exactly how you're going to do it, but you didn't really.

[00:19:22] Loree Philip: let go of anything else that was on your plate. And so all of a sudden you're just adding, adding, adding, adding to your list. And. Now, even though you have a great plan, you don't really have the space for it and something's got to give. And, and so that one I've seen quite a bit for not only myself but for others because we love to do more.

[00:19:49] Loree Philip: I mean, we love to, to, to have goals and, and put more on our plate and we're just not as disciplined at taking things out. Letting things go. [00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Laura Livingston: Absolutely.

[00:20:02] Laura Livingston: We don't always know. How to set up just the boring elements of time management and scheduling. Nobody wants to talk about that, but it's really important because you are saying no to something else, whether you realize it or not,

[00:20:14] Loree Philip: yeah. Whether, whether or not you're intentionally saying no, or if it's just falling through the cracks and then you're feeling guilty about it. And then there's this ripple effect and how that affects you and your stress and all that kinds of things. So let's, Laura, let's talk about.

[00:20:31] Loree Philip: Intentionally setting ourselves up for success at the top level. It's the new year. Let's just walk through a process that somebody could follow. From the start and we'll just, we'll just decide that our listeners are thinking about one goal right now for 2024. And let's talk through how they might set it up in such a way.

[00:20:56] Loree Philip: That that will be successful for them.

[00:20:59] Laura Livingston: I have a lot of [00:21:00] things to say, and we'll just get to whatever we get to today. But I think we've already started to touch on this, but I just want to highlight it and make a make a point with it, which is, making sure that this makes sense.

[00:21:14] Laura Livingston: for you. And, and I think in some ways it starts with defining success for yourself, right? Or defining as you said, like if we're just picking one goal to start defining one goal and like what's underneath that for you. So if you want to make more money or you want to switch careers or you want to spend more time with your family.

[00:21:32] Laura Livingston: Why? What's the purpose underneath it? What's the, what's the reason or the reasons or the quality that you want to feel and experience in your life, like deep in your soul that's going to support you on those days where you don't really want to do the thing that you said you were going to do, right?

[00:21:51] Laura Livingston: Because you're going to have those days, even if you're Setting up a goal that you really, really, really, that aligns to you, that you really want to accomplish. Like all of these things. [00:22:00] Watch the deeper, deeper. One of the questions I like to ask my client is. What do you really want? I want to make more money.

[00:22:07] Laura Livingston: Okay, and what do you really, why? What do you really want under that? And what do you really want under that? What do you really want? What do you really want to feel? What do you want to go do? How do you want to spend that money? How do you want to feel when you spend more time with your family? What feeling will you have?

[00:22:22] Laura Livingston: When you spend time, more time with your family and less time at work, as an example, right? And so really dialing into the emotional, the personal, the like soul craving deal underneath it. Because then it also helps like, oh, you know what? I'm really not that attached to it. Okay, well, let's set another goal, right?

[00:22:41] Laura Livingston: Or if you can answer that in a way that almost brings you to tears. You're on to something that will really, really serve you next year.

[00:22:50] Loree Philip: That is a great place to start and it's the, the start of almost anything we want to do important for ourselves that's going to make a difference is the, is the, [00:23:00] why the deeper meaning is what's going to keep us from, like you said, and when we fall off, Pick ourselves back up and keep going at it because we've decided it's

[00:23:11] Laura Livingston: important

[00:23:13] Loree Philip: and in order for people to make a change, big or small in their life, they have to decide and decide that they want to do it.

[00:23:24] Loree Philip: And they want to do something different. Otherwise we just revert back to our current habits, our current schedules, what we're focused on now, the status quo. And so it is very, very powerful when you go through the process, asking yourselves the question that Laura just mentioned, because that's where you'll get to that deeper decision of this is why I'm doing it.

[00:23:49] Loree Philip: And then it's important enough to. To go to the next step and start to make a really good plan for yourself and all the, the next few things that we'll [00:24:00] talk about. So what's next, Laura? We have a goal and we're deeply committed to this goal and we realize that if we did it, it would make such a difference in how we feel in our life, in our experience.

[00:24:16] Loree Philip: How do we take that idea? And create the next step that's going to get us to action.

[00:24:24] Laura Livingston: The next step is great. How do we put it into reality?

[00:24:27] Laura Livingston: Okay, well, I'm going to be really aware and look at. What are the, what we used to call in corporate, like the downstream impacts, like who, what, why, where is going to be affected by this change. And then it kind of gets back to, then you almost naturally, it almost naturally starts to help you set up a plan and to make some smaller decisions under that big decision of, Oh, that means I'm saying yes to this and no to this.

[00:24:52] Laura Livingston: Or that helps me set up a priority where if I'm spending more time with my family this year. I'm going to have to find some things to take off [00:25:00] my plate at work in my community commitments in my whatever, right?

[00:25:05] Laura Livingston: Yeah, it's,

[00:25:07] Loree Philip: I like this thinking about the downstream effects. And especially when you're, when we're thinking about that and what's what, what is this change going to impact this goal? How is it going to be accomplished? You can also start to see where there might be some resistance from yourself or I've tried this before, but.

[00:25:31] Loree Philip: These are the reasons why I fell off the last time, or it didn't work out, whether it's too much work came in, I didn't have time to focus on my own personal time or time with family, you can start to. Think about this in advance and then decide how you're gonna handle it before it happens.

[00:25:51] Loree Philip: Yeah, because in the moment, it's very, very hard to break out of that [00:26:00] mold and say, nope, I'm not doing that if you didn't already kind of foresee it coming a little bit. Is this something that you've seen too? On

[00:26:09] Laura Livingston: your side. Absolutely. Absolutely. All the time. And I, and I think maybe another just way to think about goal setting and making changes in your life and your work is to look at it as a process.

[00:26:24] Laura Livingston: Because this isn't like a past. I mean, it could be depending on what your goal is, right? Did you, did you lose the weight or not? Did you spend more time with your family or not? You could look at it like that, but I think when you set yourself up for some kind of, like pass fail thing, I feel like that's just setting you up for failure instead of setting you up for success.

[00:26:40] Laura Livingston: But when you can look at it, As a process, it gives you more patience. It gives you, you can look at it from the perspective of like we used to do with consulting. Like you had a phase one and a phase two and a phase three.

[00:26:52] Laura Livingston: And I think it just helps you to put things in the right perspective. And give yourself a break and give [00:27:00] yourself some space and grace

[00:27:01] Laura Livingston: make a plan for what you can make a plan for now, right?

[00:27:05] Laura Livingston: this is why I like to say quarterly plans are really helpful for at least for my clients, for small, for small businesses, but I think for lots of things, it gives you.

[00:27:14] Laura Livingston: Something to hold on to to see and track progress when it's big, especially, and then you can go, Oh, it's the end of first quarter. We did some things the way we said we didn't do some things the way we said, let's look at it and adjust now that we kind of know how this might go. Look, you have more data,

[00:27:34] Loree Philip: yeah, I, I have a couple of questions and thoughts on this, Laura, first of all, I love this idea too, is to kind of cut yourself some slack, like change doesn't happen overnight.

[00:27:45] Loree Philip: Yeah and if this is something that you've been wanting to do, if this is a bigger goal, it will take time. And in my experience. We are, humans are bad predictors of how long something is actually going to take. [00:28:00] Oh, yes. And so, whatever it is that you want to do, I don't think you should reduce your goal.

[00:28:07] Loree Philip: I don't think you should reduce your expectations. But cut yourself some slack on how long it's going to take for you to get there. And how messy it might look on the, on the journey. And, and I, I just wanted to bring in that point because I heard you say to cut yourself some slack a little bit.

[00:28:28] Loree Philip: And I'm curious, what, what is your perspective on what came to mind while you were talking is this idea of.

[00:28:37] Loree Philip: We have this goal, and that goal is often some kind of result, right? when we set our goals up, We can be more successful if we focus our energy on the things, actions we can actually control and take and focus it in on instead of your result that you want might be losing 20 [00:29:00] pounds, but measuring yourself.

[00:29:03] Loree Philip: On just the reps, what I can actually do is show up at the gym every day or every other day or whatever your plan is, and I think it helps us get past this beating ourselves up because we're not seeing the result yet, but actually. through the process of taking action, we're kind, we're becoming the person who is that healthy individual that shows up at the gym every day and you will eventually lose the 20 pounds.

[00:29:36] Loree Philip: And so what are your thoughts on that?

[00:29:37] Laura Livingston: so many things. Yes, I completely, completely a hundred percent agree with you. And I, and I think there's a few things that come up for me around that one is when we're putting a goal together or affecting a change or whatever, like we, we are essentially saying I'm going to be different.

[00:29:55] Laura Livingston: I'm going to improve. This is self improvement really. Right. Like, and, and [00:30:00] so I always like to ask my clients like, Who do you need to be in that future vision of yourself? Like, what is this future version of yourself? What is he or she, or they thinking, doing, being, seeing, believing, acting? And that's not to say you are perfect just the way you are right now.

[00:30:18] Laura Livingston: And this is about stepping into more really of your brilliance, as you say, and more of your genius and more of what you really want. And I think from the mindset perspective. That helps you on the day where you're like, I don't really want to go to the gym, right? It helps you to, yeah, but the person that I'm becoming can commit to herself, trusts herself to do what she sets out to accomplish.

[00:30:47] Laura Livingston: And then that's very different than making yourself go to the gym. Right? That sort of starts to not ask yourself to go into self discipline and, and hard work and forcing [00:31:00] yourself. It's like, I'm actually just stepping, this is, today I don't want to go, but I'm going because I committed to myself and that feels really good to me, even though I don't really want to go.

[00:31:07] Loree Philip: Yeah. I also like the, mel Robbins approach on taking action. So if you don't want to do something in the moment to count backwards, five, four, three, two, one, and then just do it and just, yeah, just do it. You, even if you don't want to, and to your point is you already decided you might as well just show up for yourself.

[00:31:31] Loree Philip: And follow complete your plan and I think before we close out Laura on this topic, I'd love to just get your perspective briefly on how we can enjoy the journey of the process to reaching our goal and why that's important to allow ourselves to kind of, actually feel fulfilled along the way and not just.

[00:31:58] Loree Philip: When we get to where we said we [00:32:00] wanted to be.

[00:32:01] Laura Livingston: Yeah, I think that's actually maybe even the most important part of this conversation. Because if we are setting out to achieve a goal so that we can feel happy, feel free, enjoy our life enjoy our work, feel successful, right, prove it to other people, like, whatever the reason is.

[00:32:23] Laura Livingston: Even if it is a sole yes reason, right? I, I just want to enjoy my life as an example. I think that's what's under a lot of our goals. But if we set that goal for ourselves, and then we decide somehow underneath that, that we don't get to have that thing or that feeling or that essence until we get there.

[00:32:43] Laura Livingston: First off, that doesn't feel very fun and empowering to me. But I think that's also how we get in our own way, and don't, and, and don't enjoy the process. Because we're essentially saying, I need this thing in order to feel okay. I need this thing in order to enjoy my [00:33:00] life. And the truth is, enjoying your life starts with the decision to enjoy your life.

[00:33:06] Laura Livingston: And you can actually enjoy your life more in three minutes from now than you are now if you decide, right? And yes, the external things and the goal accomplishments and all the things come with that at the end result of these goals being accomplished absolutely help you get that feeling more. But if you don't have that from the beginning.

[00:33:26] Laura Livingston: You're just kind of missing the boat

[00:33:28] Laura Livingston: Making it realistic, but making it realistic and fun for you is the process because you're not going to be happy when you accomplish the goal. If you killed yourself all day, all year to get there, that's actually not what you want. And so you're That just makes it more, and really that's life, like, life is not the accomplishment of goals, life is the process, life is what we learn in the middle, right?

[00:33:52] Laura Livingston: Yeah, goals are just great icing on the cake because you became who you wanted to become in the process anyway

[00:33:58] Loree Philip: The enjoying the process [00:34:00] enjoying the journey is so important to just feeling Good along the way and at the end of the day Why wouldn't you want to

[00:34:10] Loree Philip: I have one last thought before we start to close out. And that's really that we're talking about new years. We're talking about 2024 and the energy around starting fresh and having a clean slate. And what I'd love for people to consider is. You can choose to start fresh at any given moment, any given moment.

[00:34:35] Loree Philip: So even if come March, you didn't do what you said you were going to do, it's okay. And guess what? You can pretend it's a new year and start over and start again and create a new plan or change, change your goal or change your mind. And I really allowed myself this year to, To think about this reset and I almost feel like I'm [00:35:00] resetting almost every single day now because, we have ups and down days and it's like, well, tomorrow's a fresh day and it doesn't have to be wait to the end of the year to create a new set of goals.

[00:35:14] Loree Philip: You always have opportunity to shift and improve and change and start over. And so I would encourage people to consider that if, for whatever reason, it's not coming together for you after the first or two first or second month of the year you have so much Opportunity ahead of you and Laura. Is there any last?

[00:35:37] Loree Philip: closing thoughts you have for listeners or viewers on this topic of change and and being successful next year

[00:35:47] Laura Livingston: I think what I'll leave You with is something that, that you just brought up for me as you were talking, which is this question that I like to ask myself all the time, which is what if I believed anything was possible?[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Laura Livingston: And I think if you believe that anything is possible, then, like, all the rules are out the window in the very. Best way, right? You don't have to, you can start your year over on May 12th, right? Like there is no rule. You can just start fresh anytime because anything is possible, right? And I think dreaming big at this time of year is great.

[00:36:23] Laura Livingston: To see things to see things that you maybe wouldn't think. And I think a lot of times when we're setting goals, we I, I said a lot of times like making it realistic, but that's about. The, the actions that you take as you go, it's not about the goal needs to be realistic. And I encourage people to really, take small action, right?

[00:36:44] Laura Livingston: Like make it realistic in the daily, weekly, monthly practice. But when you're setting that goal as the CEO of your life and your business or whatever it is that you've got your career, like thinking big, letting yourself let go of what's possible will help you set a goal [00:37:00] that. Maybe you don't even think it's possible and maybe that's the point next year is to do something that you don't even know if you can do, but you're just going to try, like, start it.

[00:37:11] Laura Livingston: I don't even want to say try, because I think if you start to let go of something not being possible, then like, holy cow, look out, everything else can change after.

[00:37:20] Loree Philip: Absolutely. Thank you for that, Laura. I, I believe in that so much and I, I love that perspective. Where can our viewers. Reach you and learn more about you and your work.

[00:37:35] Laura Livingston: Yeah. Thank you. I play a lot on LinkedIn and Instagram mostly, and you can find me by searching Laura Livingston coaching and both of those places and my website is lauralivingston. com.

[00:37:47] Loree Philip: Thank you so much, Laura. I enjoyed this conversation so much. I always do when I speak with you, I really appreciate your perspective and your wisdom

[00:37:56] Laura Livingston: Thank you so much for having me. As you said at the beginning, this has been a [00:38:00] long time coming and I'm just really pleased to be here. Thank you

[00:38:03] Loree Philip: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the podcast with a friend.

[00:38:15] Loree Philip: Make sure to tune in next week. Our inspiring guest, Eugenia Jordan, chief marketing officer and author is going to be here to share her inspiring story from secretary. to C Suite Executive and discuss her book, Unlimited, The 17 Proven Laws for Success in a Workplace Not Designed for You.

[00:38:40] Loree Philip: I hope you have an amazing week. It's your time to shine. Bye.