00:00 Intro

Energy energy. This is Gritty Birds 2.0, I’m here to help you reconnect to your passion for life, change your patterns, and ultimately empower the grit you already have within you to thrive as a creator. I’m your host content, creator, media and voice coach, singer, and owner of the podcasters forum. Jeni Wren Stottrup.

Thank you all so much for your support. The first couple of weeks, please help spread the word about the show. If you love it, it really takes a village. Every little bit helps this week. We are talking about goals. What we should be thinking about goals, how setting goals isn’t necessarily the way that you think it might be.

Let’s dive into that and how we can set future foundations that will keep us inspired every single week. Now let’s get going. This is Gritty Birds and it’s time to create

okay. It’s week four and it is 3:00 AM. And I just did a recording that unfortunately got lost because I forgot to turn on Phantom power. This is week four and I have. Then creating the show for a few weeks. And it’s the first time that I am going fairly off script that I’ve ever done, unless it was in a life.

And I’m doing this consciously because it is part of, one of my bigger goals for this next evolution of everything that I’m doing. I’m classically trained. Uh, and then I had a narrative podcast and one of the things that I never have really done is just dove into speaking, feeling really comfortable. I spent the last few episodes, very structured, and I did that because I wanted to have a format in my mind for the show.

And I’ve written out an outline. Even here I brainstormed ideas, they spent a bunch of time. Recording and writing down some concepts so that when I came down here today that we were going to have a conversation that like had some clarity and some follow through now, what is this goal that I speak of?

[00:02:21] What brings you joy?

Right. Let me start off by talking about, you know, what exactly we’re speaking about is terms of goals. Let me go back to last March. Um, so I went through a big shift last year, and a lot of you might’ve followed that whole situation, and that was quite a journey. And on Instagram I shared a lot of posts.

I had a bunch of things on Tik TOK for the first month, and then I kind of went offline for a little while, but at the beginning of the whole thing, it started off with roller skating and. It was a question that my, um, my therapist had suggested, he said to me, like, what was it that used to bring you joy?

Because at that period of time, I was feeling this like straight apathy where I just wasn’t excited about anything. And it was really freaking me out because I’m a person who is, has a lot of energy and, um, I really had not felt this sense of like emptiness in a long time. And it really, really like, felt very concerning to me.

And so I’d gone to him and said, like, I don’t really know what to do about this. And so I got roller skates. And what was so cool about roller skates is that. It was like the best thing I possibly could have done as the first step that I did because roller skates were fun. If we’re actually heading toward a goal in like the way that I’m going to be speaking about goals, you’re probably still like, I don’t follow what you’re doing yet.

You have to have it be something that’s fun. Something that you actually want to show up and do. Right. And that was the first thing that happened with. My plan. And like, I didn’t really have a big goal, but I did have this one concept in mind and that was, I don’t recognize myself. I really want a different life.

[00:04:18] The key elements of change

And I began to think about what that might look like and who that person might be. Now at this time, I had not really done a lot. Like habit research. I had not known about any of the research that’s currently out there. I had not read Bernay brown. I definitely hadn’t read Derrick or James clear anybody, but yet somehow intuitively I happened to follow like all the main recommendations for these things.

And I can’t say that I had like no foundation at all because of the fact that I love goals and I’ve always been really, really into goals and setting goals. I love goals. If I can figure out a way to, uh, inspire myself. Like I’m a, I’m a person who like competitively, you know, if, if there’s something that I can like have as a, as a focus, it really, really helps me.

Uh, it keeps my eye on the prize and I want to be able to finish it. But the other pieces about it, like how the whole habit formation loops work or how we, um, We think about goals had not really been fully a part of my rhetoric yet, but I intuitively fell into this, the, a couple of steps that were just like really brilliant.

I was so smart. Um, but first the big thing was, is that I got into roller skating. And then on the first day that I roller skate, I fell and I really messed up like my whole right side, which is still an issue. And. Meant that I had to start working out and a couple of weeks into working out. I also recognize that like, okay, I’m apparently if I just work out, like I don’t just like lose weight.

And, um, I have only been eating spaghetti for a really long time. So I started to, I did noon and noon happens to follow cognitive behavioral therapy and it uses, um, the psychology in its programs to be able to help people with weight loss because. You know, helping with decentrally addiction to food and helping you create new patterns, which was actually really perfect for somebody who had just quit drinking.

And so I began working out of me in doing this and as I was doing tick-tock I learned about something called seventy-five day hard, and I was really fascinated by it, but I was very, very clear to me is I still couldn’t work out for more than 15 minutes that it was like, definitely not a thing I should do at this at this time.

[00:06:39] Falling down and starting again

And within a couple of weeks, I had already kind of left my work. But my birthday, I was like eating cake, which is kind of like a thing. It took me a couple of months to get back into it. I experienced summer was the first time I saw people. I dated for a brief period, which was a total disaster because I was not ready to date yet.

And I got really overwhelmed and I recognized like some work that I still need to do within myself so that I could be the partner to somebody that I really wanted to be able to be. And. To be able to be like my independent self when I hadn’t even experienced, like what it really meant to be me, you know, in a really long time.

And so once fall hit, once August hit, I was starting to recognize that I wanted to do, you know, all this work on my, my panic attacks and all my PTSD. And very specifically though, I began to have a clear vision of like, Things that I wanted to be. And even around, like, I’d say even going back to like June, I knew that I wanted to be a person that worked out and I knew that I wanted to be a person that created content again.

[00:07:49] Setting my goal of consistency

Like that was a really clear one. And I wasn’t sure how to do that because one of the things that had always held me back was this idea that I wasn’t consistent. And it turned out that this was actually a really key element. Of the whole piece of the puzzle and why things weren’t really meshing for me.

I finally did do a 75 day challenge. It turned out to be a really, really great thing for me, because it was a set period of time that I could reach and have like certain elements to it, of wireframe. Might you have it? And it wasn’t a forever thing. So it allowed me to make these systematic changes to my life, making these small shifts that I could get all these things organized and pull things together.

And it was so life-changing. So when I brought it to friends back in January, I brought it forward again, saying I would love if you guys did it with me, I said, who do you want to become? It’s not, what do I want to change? It’s what, what is the thing that you want to change that you’re doing right now that isn’t suiting your larger goals?

Like if you know that you want to own a house in the next 10 years, what’s something that you might cut out that would help you toward that goal. Right. Is there something that you can be doing that with? Create habits. So that, that would be more likely to happen. Right? Those are the kinds of things that we really are thinking about when it comes to goals.

So as a content creator, that meant that I needed to start creating content again. I mean, just straight forward. And it took me a while to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. And so for a long time, it was just creating these portraits on Instagram. And like telling these stories about and sharing with everybody this perspective on, you know, how we want to be changing our habits, what we’re going to be thinking about coming back to this whole thing is when we’re thinking of goals, this thing that I intuitively did that apparently is absolutely backed by a whole bunch of science and you know, all the current psychology, if you’ve ever read James clear atomic habits, I still read it.

[00:10:01] It’s all about WHO you want to become

I’ve really, really wanted to. And. How all of these pieces come together, all has to do with the way that we think about who we want to become, not the thing that we want to grab, not about the accomplishment that we want to have, not like I want to win this award. Like, great. Well, what is that award actually going to do?

Like, how is that going to influence your life? People are gonna look up to you. Okay, well then what’s going to happen. Cause like you can have people look up to you. It’s still be dirt poor, you know? What is it that’s going to change the quality of your life because what good is having an acclaim, if the quality of your life hasn’t shifted.

So as we’re creating things is we’re getting into content creation. It’s very, very simple to look at it and say, oh, I’m a business owner. And I want to create content because I want blank with my business. I want to grow to six figures. I think that if you’re a business owner, Making podcast is the best I love creating podcasts, I think is so much fun.

And there’s a lot of reasons why you can create podcasts. That can be a really pleasurable thing for you. That becomes a reason that you want to do it. Like very specifically just the networking alone is wonderful. And the connections that you make is a much better goal than it is about this number that you want to read.

Now, if you want to have a show that reaches some of those numbers, there are certain systems that you can have in place to be able to have that consistency so that you continue to grow so that you’re being able to create that conversation and communication with those folks. That is something that you can still head toward.

[00:11:43] Knowing where you are heading

You can have those, those benchmarks that you’d like to meet, because I think it is good to know where you’re progressing at. Okay. You do have a lot of strength. If you can see that you’re still continuing to work towards something, but the thing that helps make you feel okay about heading toward those benchmarks, which can feel really frustrating is the part that’s really fun with it.

Like what’s the roller skating that you’re doing that makes it so that you’re getting back into working out, even though. Uh, your entire right side hurts and you’ve been going to the chiropractor off and on for six months. And you ended up going to PT in the fall. You know, I don’t know what made me want to go to PT.

I loved the people that were in PT. They were lovely. I loved seeing them every week. Um, what made the chiropractor? Great. I love the massages. He’s really nice too, but it wasn’t like the idea of somebody cracking my neck that made me want to go right. Not this element of like, well, I want blank to happen.

A lot of it had to do with these other things that made it fun that made it pleasurable. That made it nice. That may just like my quality of life better. That made me start heading again towards. This vision of who I like to be as a human being, like how I like to be around others, how I want to enter the world, how I want to communicate with others, like being able to change interactions that I just didn’t feel like were aligning with who I was.

[00:13:12] What does it look like for people doing it NOW

And I think that everybody has pieces of those. So when we’re setting our goals, it is so easy to set it as this. Crazy element of like, I want blank, giant thing to happen, but who is the person that has that going? And what does that person do if you look. Other folks who are those people? What is their life look like?

What is, what are their systems and their habits? What are the things that they’re doing? Like what kind of assistance? Like what kind of help are they getting on their teams so that they can emulate that? How are they paying their bills? What is their system for being able to. Scale that and make that something that’s sustainable within their teams.

All of these are part of reaching that human that you want to become like that, that aspirational self, that. Is a goal that you know, is worth living toward, because when we’re thinking about, you know, even like how our brain works, dopamine and oxytocin, like the parts that like are deep and lasting are the ones that have to do with bonds between other people.

That’s the oxytocin. Where like your endorphins and your dopamine, they’re so sudden, and they can feel really good like that praise that you’re getting can feel really wonderful, but in two weeks, that praise still doesn’t like that that’s worn off. I hate to tell you, and if your whole reasoning to get to that point was that then all of a sudden it can feel very empty.

But if you also, at some point started just feeling pride about the fact that like you did it and you did the best that you possibly could and that you were. Staying consistent. And here you are, man. You learn these things you didn’t think about all of a sudden those things end up being actually really exciting for us.

[00:15:03] Goals helps us get through apathy

So then let’s head back to this concept of apathy. You know, as I’m sitting here on week four and I’m tired and I’m having an interesting week where I’m making a humongous decision in the next 24 hours and I’m. You know, pulling these late nighters, getting my, my home together and working on building that my onboarding and building the structure for my company that I had started, you know, year and a half ago when the podcast is formed started so that as I’m starting to take on more, that these systems are in place.

So that. I have the freedom to be able to be the listener that I can be to have the consistency so that I don’t forget things so that I can be more present with any of the clients that I work with so that I can be able to spend more time learning, doing more like ongoing education or being able to put together more workshops like that time becomes so important.

All of those become the key for like, why. Working as dedicated as I have been for the last few weeks is okay. And the confidence in doing a cast like I am today feels more comfortable because I have not done one like this before. This is the first and it is a little scary having the show. Where I’m speaking in.

The first place is a little scary. It’s very vulnerable because you’re seeing who I really am. And I’m I’m left to have, oh my gosh, you’re going to like me. What’s going to happen. I don’t know. That’s scary. I haven’t put myself out there in a really long time, you know, very rarely do any of us do that, but we don’t move forward unless.

We start understanding where we’re heading with it so that when we feel apathetic and we don’t want to show up to the mic and we don’t want to show up to the camera. We’re still doing it because we know we’re going to have those weeks worth more excited. I know that I’m going to now start pulling together some things for longer-term.

So I’m not hitting these weeks where I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s week four. And I now recognize, I need to finally do one of my content deep dive, like I, how with clients before. Right. And all of these things come together because of. Like the person that I want to be like the partner that I want to be, the friend that I want to be the coach that I want to be the daughter, you know, all like this human, I want to be this human.

And I want to be able to connect and support other people and still like honor myself and set those boundaries and feel confident and continue to grow. That’s the key, like as a producer, I know I’m going to be producing for the rest of my life and whatever that looks like is going to change from time to time.

If I know who I am and who I want to be, it changes everything. It means more to me than saying, I want this by next week. I would like these 50 things. I can imagine those. And I really love manifestation. I really can picture those, but who’s the kind of person who has those things and what. I want my life to have in systems and organization, to be able to be that human who has that life.

[00:18:30] Becoming inspired by YOUR excellence

That’s the key. I want you to think about that. Who’s the person that you want to be as a producer for your show as a producer for your music, who is someone that inspires you? I hope it’s you. I want to see you be inspired by your. What are the things that you love about you already? What are the strengths that you already are building up?

And what are some things that you’re too scared to even admit that you really want be able to say it? Just say it out loud. Don’t be afraid to say this is something that I want to try. I want to really do this thing. They, the thing that’s steep in your. Kinda sit there and figure what those things are.

Well, thank you everyone for being here this week here at gritty birds. I’d love to hear from you. Please go ahead and leave a review. I’d love some fresh reviews for gritty birds, especially with the new elements that is so helpful. And please send me messages. I’d love to hear from you on my socials.

It’s the podcasters forum. Instagram and on Facebook and then I’m gritty birds on Twitter. Please send me a message to say hi. And what questions do you have that you want me to cover on the show coming up? I’d love your input. Keep your eye out on the YouTube channel because there is going to be some exclusive content over there.

That’s not on the podcast. It’s just different kinds of content in that channel has always been on a techie side. So thank you guys for everybody for being here and I will see you all next week. Have fun, keep creating and I appreciate you all. Bye .