Leveling Up in 2024: Setting Goals and Taking Action

:: 00:00

Welcome to the Thriving Woman Project podcast, hosted by myself, Wendy Griffith. This is the podcast for women who want to level up and thrive in all areas of your life, health, and business. Join us as we cover a range of topics, all inspiring you to thrive and not just survive. We are here to work on the project of you, because I believe the best gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy and thriving you. It's time to thrive. Hello, Thriver, and welcome to Episode 9 of the Thriving Woman Project podcast with myself, Wendy Griffith.

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And I am so delighted to say welcome to 2024. So yes, if you're listening to this in real time, we are in the first week of January 2024. Can you even believe it? So, hopefully you're not feeling too much like a stuffed turkey after all the Christmas festivities. But don't worry, I've got something to help with that today. But in this episode, I really just want to address some things that really annoy me at this time of year. So we're going to talk more about that in a sec. Coming into 2024, just feel such a sense of excitement, of hope, of courage, really. I say that with clenched bum cheeks about everything that's going to unfold this year. But you might be sitting there thinking, Wendy, I do not feel any of those things.

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Hopefully, by the end of today's episode you will be feeling the vibe that I'm on right now. So yes, this time of year can throw up a lot of stuff for people. I think it's always a tricky one here in the Northern Hemisphere if you're listening. I'm here in the UK where it's January, Christmas lights are down, the Christmas decorations are coming down, it's grey, it's miserable, we're heading into the coldest three months of the year and I can just feel a bit meh. And there's a lot of pressure on us, isn't there, to really start, you know, 2024, start the new year. I think Northern Hemisphere people should really have our new year rather in September. That's certainly how I feel. I always feel much more, you know, full of energy and on it come September when the schools go back.

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But it is what it is. We are where we are. And I'm going to give you some action tips to take forward today to really rock your 2024. But yes, this time of year, you get all this stuff that starts coming out online. You know, you need a new you this new year and make 2024 your best year ever, your healthiest year ever. You're going to rock it this year, year ever. And I don't know about you, but that just feels like a tremendous amount of pressure that I just do not need right now in my life. As I say, your brain may still be a little bit scrambled from the Christmas festivities and you have barely woken up to the fact that you've got a new year, kids are going back to school, school run again, all those kind of things. And you just might be like, oh, I just want to have a little lie down.

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I just want to have a holiday from the holiday. I got you. I get you. Just know this. 2024 doesn't have to be the best year ever. Seriously, it doesn't. Take that pressure off yourself right now, please. There's one thing I ask from you today. Sure, you can set plans, you can set goals for the year, and I do recommend that you do that. I'm a big goal setter, planner, but I can pretty much guarantee they will change by the time you get to the end of 2024. Just mark my words on that. Think how your 2023 went, like how you started it, the goals and intentions you had for the year, and how did they end? When I think about where I started my 2023, It's definitely not how I ended it. But you know what? It was so much more than I could have ever thought or dreamed of.

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And this really came down to a couple of things that I did. And I'm going to share those in a moment. But I just wanted to say this. Honestly, like that feeling that you have going into this year, you can absolutely either bottle it if it's a good one, or you can eradicate it if it's not. And you can absolutely change your state right now into something that is going to set you up to thrive. And the unfortunate side of it is that you're going to have to work on this on a daily basis. It's going to have to become a consistent habit for you, that intention around what you're wanting to create for your life this year. But as I say, like, just take the pressure off yourself and do this instead. Set intentions. And how intentions and goals and plans differ is that intentions are much more around the feeling, the feeling that you have, the feeling that you want to create about your year.

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The goals and the plans are the logistics, the high level. Plugging into the sat nav, okay, that's where I want to go. And then the plan is, right, turn left here, do that there, you know, fill up with petrol, whatever it is, it's the logistics of how you get to there. But ultimately, it comes down to your intentions. So when I started 2023, gosh, like, I went into the year thinking, right, this is going to be my year, I'm going to smash it, all the good things. And I was so excited because I was just on the cusp of launching the Thriving Mum Club, which some of you may remember from previous podcast episodes, but this was a program that I had done so much work on. I'd got sort of investment, I'd built a portal, I had spent so much time and due diligence like building an audience and going through, you know, all the logistics of getting it set up. I was just about to launch my Thriving Mom Kickstart, which was a lead generator for bringing people into my funnel, into my world, who would then hopefully want to buy a membership to the Thriving Mom Club, or so I thought.

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And so off I went, I did a fantastic kickstart, 57 people signed up for that. and hopefully it's helpful to share these stats with you. But it came to 9.59pm on the last day of my cart closing for this launch offer for the Thriving Mom Club and one person signed up. One person. And it was kind of the worst thing that could ever happen. I would have rather had just been no one sign up because that meant the ego inside of me was like, right, I've got to do this. I've got to launch it rather than me just going, you know what, clearly this hasn't worked. It hasn't been the right messaging. I haven't, you know. sort of demonstrated the transformation enough for people, all the things that I've learned through my digital marketing course that I teach other business owners, all the things I teach them, I just, I froze and I was like, right, ego kicked in, I've got to do this.

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And so I went on my merry way, just really feeling like I was pushing water up a hill for months and months and months. And it actually took about nine months until I eventually admitted defeat, realized that things like my messaging to the mum club was just, it was too generic. It wasn't specific enough. I wasn't speaking to a specific niche. Again, things that I teach business owners now, because I always love to use my hindsight to be other people's foresight. So while this is an episode about 2024, you're going to get some really great business tips here because I'm sharing legitimately what happened to me and also realizing I just didn't have that big enough audience. So the conversion rates that you get around one to 2% of your audience size weren't happening.

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In fact, it was a successful launch based on my audience size, but not for what I had and wanted to achieve with my business goals. So it was in about March of 2023 that a lovely friend and business owner, she's actually been a guest on episode five of this podcast, the lovely Joanne Bonnet, she came to me and said, right, I need you to teach me all the things that you're doing to rock your business right now. And I want to pay you. And it was this like moment of Oh, okay, fine, cool. And then she got another friend of hers and then I sort of put out a little bit of an offer online and another person joined and then suddenly I made three effortless profitable sales, basically packaging up knowledge that I already had and delivering it on four live Zoom calls

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over the course of the month of March. done. And I was like, this is easy. This feels good. This feels in my zone of genius. This wasn't hard. All the while in the background, I'm plugging away, plugging away on the thriving mum club, trying to again, push that water up a hill. But honestly, what it made me realize is that I was really good at this and I could really teach and help people to do this and to grow their online businesses. And it would be absolutely nonsensical for me if I didn't pursue this further. So what subsequently happened with further iterations of that sort of what we call the Thriving Biz Bootcamp initially, which then evolved into the Thriving Biz Club because I wanted to create the best of a course and a

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membership in one in a program where you could get the skills and the knowledge that you needed and you could self-study that at your own pace, but also you had the community and the support and I just, I've always been someone who wants to bring something extra special to the table. So I set up a WhatsApp group and we had that community building, we had our monthly coaching and co-working calls and it just really started to flow and just more and more people started to join and tell other people and they joined. Anyway, fast forward to the end of the year, we finished our final coaching call of the year for Thriving Biz Club with 30 members of that amazing community. And I share this not because I'm like, oh, you know, aren't I great, look at me, although maybe just But really just to highlight the fact that when you lean in,

:: 09:52

when you lean into the discomfort, when you lean into sort of pushing yourself forward and really just leaning into your zone of genius, like amazing, amazing things can happen. So, you know, from that evolved The Thriving Woman project, obviously we got the podcast, we got the Instagram account, we got all the resources that go with that, and more and more my desire and personal journey on perimenopause to support other women on that journey. So really for me it was about converting that audience from a mum club to a perimenopause journey. program for people and helping them through that and alongside my album business and health coaching business. So suddenly things just started to click for me.

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And it was so, you know, I'd love to say it just happened like that, but unfortunately that's not the case with things. You have to sort of test things. Does that work? Does that, you know, messaging land, like how does that fit? But I can honestly say that at the end of 2023 I just sat back and I was like, Oh my goodness, what a year, what I've been able to achieve with my own bare hands, I know digitally, but like physically what I've been able to take out of my brain and be able to help other people. I even went so far as to actually become qualified as a menopause wellness practitioner because of my desire to just really learn more and to be able to help and serve people more on their perimenopause journey.

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So I share that because I hope it inspires you to know that things are going to change. Like when I started 2023, I had all these ideas around the mom club and what I was going to do with my business. But how I ended was so much more incredible than I could have ever, ever imagined. So this is why I'm saying you don't have to have it all figured out right now. But the key question you need to ask yourself for this year is how do I want my year to feel? And that's so important. Like how do I want it to feel? You know, is it that you want to take that big family holiday that you always wanted to? Do you want to finally? declutter your house?

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Do you want to grow an online business? Do you want to spend more time with family and friends? Having those intentions around how you want to feel is so, so important. So two intentions for me at the start of last year were to build a thriving community of empowered mums initially, but that changed to women. And I did that. I did that with the Thriving Women Project and the Thriving Biz Club. The second was to grow a business around my lifestyle that I loved, which gave me purpose and that generated great profits. And I'm so pleased to say that I achieved both of these intentions. And that was really because I had the intention around them. And so I'd say, you know, for me, that was a pretty great year. Like, it's not the year that I'd planned or set goals around, but it was the year that needed to happen for me. And I'm so full of gratitude for it,

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in spite of the inevitable highs and lows along the way, because let's face it, life happens after all. But now going into 2024, it's really got me thinking like, okay, so what are my core intentions around this year? And can you feel them to your core? Do they resonate? Do they spark joy? Do they inspire you? That's when you know you're on the right track. Because the how takes care of itself when you have the right intentions. The right intention set the reticular activating system at the front of your brain that goes to work on finding the solutions to make those intentions come to life. So if I said to you right now, like, don't think of a pink elephant, like seriously, please do not think of a pink elephant. I can guarantee that's all you're thinking about right now,

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because I've given you and I've set that intention and your reticular activating system is like. Like pink elephant, pink elephant. I'd love to see what yours looks like, by the way, but anyway, that is how powerful it is. And then it started to think about, okay, so around that, your brain will automatically start to show you the resources, the tools, the mentors, the programs, whatever it is that you need support in, in your business to help you achieve those intentions. And so this is something that I really wanted to impress upon you today because you can, you know, be like, right, my goals for this year, get healthy, grow a thriving business, spend more time with my family and friends. But again, like those are too wishy-washy. They are too broad.

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Your brain doesn't know what to do with that. It's like, ah, it's too like pie in the sky. It needs tangible. Your brain needs tracks to run on. It needs to know, okay, where are we going with this? So when you have that intention, set around what you want to achieve. So say, for example, your goal for 2024 is to get healthier. I'm going to encourage you to break that down into a plan. So the goal is to get healthier, but what is the plan of action? And those are the action steps. Now, those of you who've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I am passionate about habits because honestly, as unsexy as it sounds, they are the winner.

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Like they are the thing that helps you get to the person or the lifestyle that you want to create. having those consistent habits in your lifestyle but it's knowing okay fine so what is getting healthier look like? Maybe for you, you have quite a sedentary lifestyle so for you it's about moving more so maybe it's setting the goal of doing 5,000 steps a day. I'm not even going to say 10 because I don't want to set things too far ahead in the distance that they feel like a strain. We want stretch goals but we don't want strained goals that really feel hard and difficult to get to. So you've got that goal and that plan of having, you know, doing those 5,000 steps. Maybe it's that you need to increase your hydration.

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So you're actually going to get a water bottle that is easy to tote around with you and that you are going to carry with you and you're going to fill that up with two liters of water at the start of the day or even the night before so it's already chilled in the fridge, ready to go first thing. You're carrying that water bottle with you, it's there, it's in your line of sight, it's a reminder every day. Maybe one of your goals is that with being healthier that you want to reduce your stress levels. So it's maybe starting, maybe it's downloading an app where you do a two-minute meditation. I'm not telling you to meditate for 20 minutes, but just start with a two-minute daily meditation to really start to build that habit. And you'll actually start to build confidence through taking those actions, those three simple steps. You're not trying to do all the things.

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You're not, you know, trying to lose 10 kgs and run 10 Ks a day and do all the things. You're just picking small achievable daily tasks that you can do, achieve, feel that confidence and start to move towards that ultimate goal of being healthier. Does that make sense? Breaking it down. So thinking about your intentions for the year and then breaking it down into like what are those overarching three main goals I want to achieve because I think it's really difficult if you have like 10 goals that you want to achieve. Let's be honest, you get to June and you're like, I'm going to start on goal number one. So it's thinking about three overarching goals. Maybe it's a business goal and a personal goal and maybe more of it like a self-development goal that you have and picking one main thing and then under those goals, having the action steps to actually achieve that goal, get you to the goal, actually plug in the sat nav, know the directions and be able to take those off the list.

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So that is something I would highly, highly recommend that you do. And I've got something to help you with that in a sec. But also, when you think about the goal of getting healthier, I see so many people at this time of the year, unfortunately, like it's just the nature of the world that we live in, who want those quick fixes. They want to drop a dress size or 20 dress sizes in the month of January and get it done. I know it's great to have a deadline and give yourself a goal. I have an amazing holiday to South Africa coming up in February that I want to feel great and look lovely in my bikini on the beach and all that good stuff. So yeah, I have some goals around that that I want to achieve. But what I would say is that being healthier as a banner goal can be broken down into such simpler steps and I've actually got a fantastic resource that

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I want to share with you today which is my 12 ways to be healthier in 2024. handy guide really and it's going to give you 12 ideas for ways that you can be healthier this year and what I encourage you to do is take that document, pick two maximum three things on that document as ideas and implement those and just focus on those for January. I've also included handy little habit tracker in it as well. So you can actually, I don't know about you, but I love, like I will even write a list of things I've already done just so I can tick them off. Is that just me? Like anyone else? So you can actually tick off when you achieve those sort of daily steps, you know, drinking the more water, whatever the thing is, you can tick them off and you can visually see it keeps you accountable.

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If you have that on the fridge or in your bathroom mirror. Trust me, you are 99.9% assured to achieve that goal because it's visible, it's in your line of sight, it's something that, and if you feel brave enough, put it on the fridge because your family will certainly keep you accountable on those action steps. So I'm excited for you to get that fantastic resource to use, to get your habit tracker printed out so that you can actually start tracking, seeing that progress, And that's how we start to build habits. And another little tip for you is to think about your habits and layering them with something that you already do every day. And so this is something that's called habit stacking. Now, for example, I do daily declarations and I shared a little video about this on my Instagram recently,

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which I'll link to in the show notes, just showing you like I have them on my bathroom mirror and what I do with them. And that is something that I do every morning and every evening when I'm brushing my teeth. And then if I do remember I also do my pelvic floor exercises so quite a lot going on there but ultimately it's a way for me to attach a new habit something that I want to start doing with an existing habit that you already do. So say your goal is to move more and I know I've shared this one before and you guys loved it so I'm going to share it again is say for example you want to move more you want to get more movement into your day well here's an idea every time you go to the toilet you could do 10 squats.

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when you finish the course, not before you need to go. That could cause serious problems. But think about, you know, if you're going to the toilet, maybe 5, 6, 7, if you're like me, 10 times a day because you drink so much water, then, you know, that's going to add up, guys. Imagine you're doing like 100 squats a day, 7 days a week, 700 squats a week. Can you imagine what your peachy little behind is going to look like by the end of 2024. It's going to be amazing. So it's all about breaking it down to little steps, attaching a habit to an existing habit to make it more achievable for you and that is called habit stacking. So think about what you do every day on autopilot without even thinking about it and how you can attach a new habit to that and that is really going to stand you in such good stead.

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So yes, going into this year, think about your intentions, how you want to feel about your year and then breaking it down into those three overarching high-level goals of what you want to achieve this year and then putting a plan in place with those two to three actionable steps that you can do attached to each of those core goals of how you're going to do that and then a little bonus tip of stacking it to a habit that you already do if that's possible. And as I say, you can get loads of inspiration in my 12 ways to be healthier in 2024 guide and habit tracker for you. And I just really hope that that has inspired you today as taking the pressure off. It's given you the freedom to go, you know what, this is my year and I'm going to rock it how I want to rock it and I'm going to end this year in my most thriving state for me, for my life and for what suits me and is going to help me to be a happier, healthier, more thriving person. So yes, thank you so much for tuning in today. I have some very exciting announcements coming later in January. So do keep your eyes peeled and keep listening to the podcast. Please do keep sharing on your stories and reviewing and rating and all that good stuff because it really does help us get the word out and help impact more women and empower them.

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So thank you so much. I'm so excited and grateful to be on this journey with you in 2024. I love you immensely. Speak to you soon. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. If you've got value from this, please won't you take two seconds to take a screenshot and share a pic of this episode on your socials? Extra points if you'd like to rate and review this podcast on your preferred platform so that we can share the love with more women wanting to thrive in their lives. Do be sure to visit my website, wendygriffith.co.uk, to get all my free resources to support you on your thriving journey. Until next time, God bless, take care of yourself, and keep thriving.