Throw Back Episode: Transform Your Life with Empowering Personal and Professional Goal Strategies

Next week we have a brand new episode on goal setting. But its more than setting goals, its strategies to kick their butt. See below to sign up for brand new Webinar Mary and Laura have brewed up for you!

Before that, we want to tease some of the great insights and strategies with this throw back episode on professional and personal goal setting. We are sharing some personal stories that will show you you're not the only one who doesn't have it all figured out all the time. Our goals is to guide you to the other side of problems  - success. 

What if you could set transformative goals that not only enhance your career but also enrich your personal life? Join us, Mary Fain Brant and Laura Bashore, as we unravel our personal stories and explore the power of setting intentional goals. 

From becoming a half marathon runner despite starting as a non-runner, to a poignant decision to redefine life after a grandmother's passing, we share how structured goal-setting has been a cornerstone in navigating our paths. 

Our entrepreneurial families have deeply influenced us, underscoring the necessity of aligning career goals with personal growth and satisfaction. 

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Chapters

• 0:03 Career Development Goals and Strategies
• 14:38 Setting and Achieving Career Goals
• 24:21 Effective Goal Setting Techniques

Transcript

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:03

You're listening to Scale Up Strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. We're your hosts and business coach experts Mary Fain Grant and Laura Bay Shore.

Laura Bashore: 0:16

We're sharing all our insider tips from 20 plus years in business, including how we successfully scaled our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:27

Sure, you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success. Or you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts, because we promise they're really awesome.

Laura Bashore: 0:38

So grab your favorite cup of coffee, tune in and let's start the show.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:44

But before we dive into the goal setting, I just want to share a personal story.

Laura Bashore: 0:49

I love stories.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:51

Right, I'm just like dropping so much about me in the last few podcasts, I'm like time to like peel the onion back Right. So goal setting, so personally goal setting. So personally. I decided I was going to run my first half marathon. So I was not a runner, I had done some five Ks for fun and then a friend asked me she's like I see you run, I want to run my husband's being deployed. Do you want to run a half marathon with me? And me. I was like okay, why not? But I needed to have right. So my goal was not to die running my first half marathon in San Diego downtown.

Mary Fain Brandt: 1:31

Um not to not to injure myself. Right. Slow and steady wins the race and to finish with no injury. That's always my goal when I was a runner. Um, I had to create a plan to go from three miles to 12.1, I think it is. You don't just go out and run if you're not a runner and go from three miles to 12 miles. You need a plan. So I had to build up on that plan to get and actually we only got up to 10 miles. They say if you can run 10, you can run 12. So there was a goal. There was a weekly plan, a daily plan of what I had to eat, what kind of other training like your back is super important as a runner and your core right, so we would stand on one leg at the grocery store. We learned all these little things to do. So this is about having a goal and setting those plans.

Mary Fain Brandt: 2:23

Now, as far as my career, I'm going to be honest. I didn't have a plan. Like career coaches weren't really the norm when I was starting off in my career. I just floated around and I accidentally, on purpose I don't know ended up as an executive assistant. So I was always in an admin role because and it makes sense because I'm an organizer, I'm a planner, I'm an organizer, I'm a task person. Give me a task list and I like to go through it and check things off. So it made sense that I fell into that role naturally, and it started with being in customer service. But I didn't had a plan. I would have learned that I am actually an educator, a trainer and a speaker, and I would have been an entrepreneur 20 years earlier. Laura, do you have any stories to share with us about careers and plan and goal setting?

Laura Bashore: 3:19

Yeah, of course I do. I think my story is that you know. My journey as the CEO of my career came out of grief. So I lost my grandmother right before I turned 20 and it just completely shifted my life trajectory. At the time I lived with my grandmother and she was like a mother to me, lived with my grandmother and she was like a mother to me. So when she died I was still living at home, but I was floundering around at the local community college with no real direction, and I ended up feeling an overwhelming sense of just regret that my grandmother died without seeing my potential, and so I was just determined to change my story.

Laura Bashore: 4:06

So six months later I packed up one suitcase, which I still have with me and I even keep it displayed in my home. But I packed up one suitcase and I moved to San Diego and I began my real career and life. I come from a small town, so in my small town I had a whole story that was there for me, but it was never the story that I liked or that I felt was really who I was. So by moving to San Diego I was able to create my own story, but even just doing that gave me the confidence that people see me with now, which is that if I see something, I just go for it, and it's sad that it came out of losing my grandmother. But you can either take something that was huge in your life like that and use it as fuel and energy to help you propel forward, or you can sit there.

Mary Fain Brandt: 5:04

So I think you know, I think a lot of people can kind of relate to that story. Like growing up in a hometown like you have a whole story, like your plan was already there without you thinking about it, what your family felt that you should do, right, what your friends thought you would do, what your community expected of you. So my story was, you know, I was always in this corporate role out of necessity. And then I saw my dad he was an entrepreneur, had his own business and I was like, oh hell, no, never doing that. Because I saw the roller coaster Things are good, things are bad. Things are good, things are bad. I was like I never want to be an entrepreneur because of what I saw my dad go through when it was good, it was great, when it was bad, it was awful. And I know you come from an entrepreneur family too. And you were like, no, that's okay, I'm not going to do that. And then look at both of us.

Laura Bashore: 6:00

Yeah, well, you know, my one family vacation was the San Diego, and that's when I decided I'd move here. So, yeah, yeah, so it's. You know really, why do we need career related goals? Well, you know, that's what we're going to explore here today.

Laura Bashore: 6:18

I think first we need to understand what career development goals are all about, because I think that's a little confusing in and of itself. So, according to Rebecca Dordell, these goals are about aligning the role of work in your life with your identities, values and or responsibilities. In the working world, setting goals is sometimes the difference between success and mediocrity, and I think both you and I are very much driven towards that. So, specifically with your career development goals, you know they give you something to look forward to each day as you work towards them. So, even if you're doing a job hunt or pivoting into a new role or industry, these goals lead you in the right direction and help you connect with the right people, elevating your entire professional experience and eliminating those unnecessary bumps. So these are personal and person-specific desires that can be short or long-term, as long as they positively impact you, the goal setter.

Mary Fain Brandt: 7:27

Absolutely, and I you know if you're listening, don't worry, we have some great resources for you on setting goals. So we're really excited to share those with you. But before we do that, let's continue the conversation about career development goals are not your everyday goals. Conversation about career development goals are not your everyday goals. Losing weight versus getting a promotion or pivoting in your career or moving to a different state and starting a new career A lot of people you know the pandemic, laura, that opened up a lot of opportunities for people to live or leave big cities and go live in the country or kind of like live off the grid. They didn't. You don't have to live in downtown Phoenix, downtown San Diego, seattle to work for the big company anymore, and so a lot of career goals shifted when the pandemic hit with the remote work and being able to work anywhere. Career development goals they are your professional anchors and your compass in the working world. They're the difference between thriving and merely surviving in your career.

Mary Fain Brandt: 8:36

Surviving is what I was doing. I was an admin assistant and then executive assistant and I went from. You know, I got recruited from one company to another, but I was just surviving. I wasn't thriving. It's not my organizing is my God-given talent. But you know, in hindsight hindsight we all know. Think about hindsight. You know I'm really a trainer, I love training people and if I had really invested in a career coach, I think at that time and created some really strong career goals, I would have become a trainer much earlier on.

Laura Bashore: 9:13

If you're setting yeah, Sorry, I was just going to say I think that's really interesting because earlier you mentioned that you didn't feel that career coaches were something that were around much. But you know, honestly, it's just that it wasn't talked about a lot.

Mary Fain Brandt: 9:29

Yeah, I mean, they were there, but it was for the elite or it just it wasn't common knowledge, just like Yep, when I, you know. My career journey is very different than yours. We're different ages, which I love because we bring different perspectives, but depression and anxiety and stress weren't talked about either. You just sucked it up, buttercup. You went to work. It didn't matter if you're depressed or tired or stressed, right? And we didn't have career coaches. We didn't have access to career coaches back in my day, when I was starting off, you know this was quite a while, quite a while ago, folks.

Laura Bashore: 10:09

No, I mean, I agree I had to explain to people with all my you know job hopping that I was doing. I had to be prepared to explain that in interviews, Like, well, why did you leave this place? And I would say, well, because I had different goals than what was set out there.

Mary Fain Brandt: 10:20

So here I am, here's how I can help, and you're on the yeah, you were on the cusp of when that was, you know, taking control of your career. Where my generation? You just worked, just got a job and you worked and you liked it and and you know most, you know I had a job. I was 10 years at one of my jobs and I did do some hopping around but that was from being laid off and different things like that. And then once I found that job, I was there for 10 years and that was really more of the norm 10, 15, 20 years. But that's not the norm today and because it's not the norm, you need to take control of your career. You need to learn how to become the CEO of your career.

Mary Fain Brandt: 11:03

So I got a question have you set your career developmental goals? So ask yourself what do I want? Write down whatever comes to mind and then turn that inward and actually listen to that voice within. And sometimes that's hard to do, but you'll know exactly what career goal is right for you if you put in the time Now. These goals are all about your desired level of success, performance, growth within your working life, like at one point you know, growing up to be the manager or the regional manager of a brick and mortar was something that I was doing. I would not want that today for many reasons, but I just wouldn't want it in my.

Mary Fain Brandt: 11:46

It's not in my career goal plan now, but having these goals will help help kind of break you free of a limited mindset and you can get support for causes through your professional roles, and even they can help you. They can help motivate you to upskill or reskill, right. So upskill or reskill, but you've got to start somewhere. So, really thinking about what your career goals are, are you looking to become the VP of sales at Qualcomm? I don't know.

Mary Fain Brandt: 12:20

Are you looking, you know? Are you looking to be on the brand strategy at Coca-Cola? Right, I'm throwing big names out there because there's no reason why you can't do that. But what is your plan of action? What are the tasks? Do you need to upskill or reskill? Having goals just really help you have a clear path on how to get from where you're at to where you want to be, and they can also help you, um, avoid burnout, because you're really clear on what you need to do, right let's take a pause right here to refresh your coffee and hear from our sponsors are you an entrepreneur or a small business owner?

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Laura Bashore: 15:12

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense right there, because we all talk about burnout and I think we're all doing a better job of realizing that when we get to it. But what can you do to avoid that, more than just saying, oh, I just won't take on as much work? I really agree with you here. I think it's talking about taking control of your career and figuring out what's going to be moving it forward and what you can take off. So research even shows that there's a surprising connection between goal setting and burnout. It's kind of like if you're just being task driven right. So if you ever find yourself stressed and uninspired, setting some career centric goals might just be the antidote you need. And remember, we're more than just employees or workers. We're multifaceted individuals, so it's important to separate goals for different aspects of your life.

Mary Fain Brandt: 16:07

Yeah, you should have personal goals, career goals and marriage goals. If you're married, like Joe and I, we have marriage goals, things that we are aspiring to. One was buying this house goal. Check, right, move to Arizona. Check, uh, go to Ireland it's in process, like what. And then, under Ireland, like, how many steps do we have to do? What do we have to do to get to Ireland? Right, save a lot of money, okay, and plan it during the off season, right.

Mary Fain Brandt: 16:40

So you know what are your marriage goals. What are your personal goals? Losing weight, cleaning, you know, getting rid of the clutter, I don't know, redesigning your backyard. And then your career goals what do you aspire to? You know what do you aspire to do in your career? And then, really, yeah, tackling. What do you need to get there?

Mary Fain Brandt: 17:00

I think people just think they're automatically like, if I work at ABC, coca-cola company or whatever, I'll start here, I'll get a promotion here, I'm going to be so great. My bosses are going to know that I want to transfer over to communications. My bosses are going to know that I want to become the VP of sales, and that's where that communication piece comes in. Right, you have to have really clear goals. So setting career development goals, it's a personal journey, you guys, and it all starts with understanding what you want and what you don't want.

Mary Fain Brandt: 17:36

I'm going to add that because I think understanding what you don't want in a career is just as important as understanding what you do want. So you guys should be writing down what you want and then distinguish between short-term and long-term goals so you can create different game plans. I don't know about you, lauren. I know we're going to dive into some goal setting stuff. I'm going to, since we just talked about short-term and long-term. I like a one-year plan, a three-year plan and a five-year plan. Do you do like? I'm a big proponent of that?

Laura Bashore: 18:10

Yeah, I think that's a really good point because people will say, well, I'm going to set this career goal, but it's something that they think they're going to be achieving in a year out. And to be clear, even though I've been in many different industries in my career, I had a much lengthier goal than just what I was doing at that particular company. They honestly the company didn't matter, it was about what I was trying to do. Oh, don't tell them that if you're interviewing don oh don't tell them that if you're interviewing, don't.

Laura Bashore: 18:45

Don't tell them that if you're interviewing, they're the most important one. Right, but does it?

Mary Fain Brandt: 18:49

align with what your goals are? Can you learn the skills that you need to learn at that job Gone?

Mary Fain Brandt: 18:55

are the days of working at a company, 10 years. So you really I think these one year, three year, five year, like I always have a five year plan, move to Arizona, buy a house in a in a retirement community, check right Next goal. You know what my next goal is? There's another business adventure have it up and running and semi retire in five years. I'm working on getting that goal, but I have a five-year goal and in that five-year goal, what is that first year? You know actually what does the first three months look like?

Mary Fain Brandt: 19:30

So when you start a job what are your first three months looking?

Laura Bashore: 19:35

like, and the thing is is to realize what that's going to take you to. So I've always wanted to work in the nonprofit space, like I think maybe I watched too many 90s movies. You know they're always going to these benefits you know what I'm saying Like Harrison Ford, all the benefits that he would go to when he was in like, clear and present danger, and all these things. So, anyways, that's how I envisioned myself that was. I was like Yep, that's made it. Even my son's name is Harrison, but not after Harrison Ford, but anyways.

Mary Fain Brandt: 20:07

Oh, okay, I thought he was named after Harrison Ford, named after George.

Laura Bashore: 20:11

Harrison of the Beatles, but you know so I liked the way that that looked. I wanted to be a person who would be in those environments and set that up. I never knew how exactly I was going to get there Right, but if I look at where I am in my career right now, it's that everything I've done has kept pushing towards that. So when you're talking about a five-year plan, a three-year plan, a one-year plan, some of those goals are kind of dreams, right, the aspirational side of your goals. But here's where I put it differently. I never think that that's not possible. I mean, I just must have something wrong with me, maybe. Well, I'm just like, oh yeah, I'm gonna do that, and then I just keep moving towards it, and when I get backtracked or sidetracked, I still remember to bring myself back to it, because I constantly reevaluate where my goals are at, and I think that's what we're really going to talk about right now, right, Well, I just want to say, because you said, something's wrong with me.

Mary Fain Brandt: 21:12

No, you know what it is. You have the right mindset. Anything's possible. And I think that is the stumbling block with so many people they don't have the right mindset. I could never. I'm not smart enough, I don't have enough skills, I don't have enough experience. How can I ever become the CEO of that company? Or how can I ever become the communications director or the CIO of the company I want to work for? So I think it starts with a mindset number one, Number two number two what are your goals?

Mary Fain Brandt: 21:44

And sometimes when you, when we break down those goals. Okay, so I'm going to go when you, when you write down goals. Here's what I've learned over the last. Uh, well, I'm looking at my goal board 2023 and I made one in 2022. Is I write down too many goals in 2022? Is I write down too?

Laura Bashore: 22:04

many goals, okay, and they become tasks right and they become tasks Right.

Mary Fain Brandt: 22:11

So three goals for the year. What are your three goals for your career? Is it make an impression in the first six months, introduce a new program. At two years you plan to have this, and at the five-year plan, you're the CEO.

Laura Bashore: 22:21

What are your or?

Mary Fain Brandt: 22:22

whatever it is. It might be work at this company for two years, get the skills I need, get some recommendations, grow my network and at year three I'm out and I'm onto my next thing. Whatever your career goal is, you need to write that down. So three goals and then under each goal and I'm looking up at my goal sheet right now Under each goal? What are the three actions that can help you achieve that goal?

Laura Bashore: 22:48

Yeah, and then Papers Spreadsheets.

Mary Fain Brandt: 22:53

I'm seeing spreadsheets here for those not watching video on this, so the spreadsheet, laura and you sent me this book last Christmas is the 12 week method we both read that and to break your year down into 12 weeks. So if you're not watching the video, there is a really cool 12 week goal sheet and I only have three goals. That's all I'm allowed to have now, because the other goal list was a task list. Right, that's right 'm allowed to have now, because the other goal list was a task list.

Laura Bashore: 23:22

right, that's right so just three goals.

Mary Fain Brandt: 23:24

And then what are the action steps that I have to take under each goal? And then you assign them a due date. What? Because, I'm sorry, a goal without a due date is just sitting on your calendar.

Laura Bashore: 23:36

And it's just another thing that you'll keep. You know how you press the snooze button right, so you just keep pushing it back. Oh, move this to next week.

Mary Fain Brandt: 23:44

Were you talking to my phone this morning Cause I literally hit the snooze button three times.

Laura Bashore: 23:49

Oh, I saw this other weird thing. Okay, random tangent, but I was just reading two days ago where it's like 58% of people hit the snooze button at least once, and then I felt better about myself.

Mary Fain Brandt: 24:03

I hit the snooze button at least once and then I felt better about myself. I hit the snooze button almost every day. I'm awake, but then I'm like, oh, I'll turn on a podcast or the news, and in the winter time I'm more likely to hit that snooze button.

Laura Bashore: 24:16

I know I can't get out. I can't get out of bed. I need sun, okay.

Mary Fain Brandt: 24:21

So we're talking about goals and we're going to put in the show notes links to the 12 week method book. I forget the name of it 12 week, the 12 week year yeah, the 12 week year.

Laura Bashore: 24:34

It's fantastic. It's such a good book. It really changed me because, again, sometimes going back to the goal setting and burnout this links right into it, because if sometimes you get so into goal setting that then things turn into tasks and that's where it gets overwhelming. So I thought that this book was such a big help to just kind of pare it down a little bit, you know. So I'm glad that you loved it too, because I think it's such a beneficial thing loved it too, because they think it's such a beneficial thing.

Mary Fain Brandt: 25:06

If you enjoyed the podcast, show us some love. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and share that with us too, because we want to hear from you. Until then, stay focused, stay motivated and stay caffeinated.