Episode 321: The Missing Step: Why Your Goals Need a Theme

Episode 321-The Missing Step_ Why Your Goals Need a Theme.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 321-The Missing Step_ Why Your Goals Need a Theme.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
I just wish I trusted my horse more or my horse trusted me more. I wish we had a better relationship. I wish I felt more connection. Look for the words that come out of you when you're frustrated and you feel that lack. That area of lack is often pointing to something you deeply crave. These are subjects that make great themes.

Speaker2:
In podcasting, from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Speaker1:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. Bur the actual temperature outside is 23 Three degrees and the feels like temperature is eight degrees. I am okay dragging my feet. I'm slightly delaying heading outside. I am currently averaging about four hours a day in the barn, working horses in this weather, and when I finish recording this, I'm going to head back out to ride again. On days like this, it is important to know your why or your purpose. It's very much needed in order to get myself moving and get out the door. The effort that it takes me to go from not moving to bundling up and walking out the door is the hardest thing that I do most days. In weather like this. Because in the morning when I go out to feed, it's not that hard because I'm going out and I'm coming right back in. But when I have the intention of working multiple horses in this frigid Whether I need something more than just willpower. And for me, that's a combination of purpose and process. I'm going to say it a different way. I need to know my why and what I'm going to create with that this coming year. Here's the question I have for you. Is your current why strong enough to motivate you to do the hard things? If not, keep on listening. Okay, confession time when someone asks you about your 2025 goals, are you a yep, here they are kind of person or a oh, can everyone just quit talking about goals? No judgment.

Speaker1:
I've been in both of these places before, and because I've been there, I actually think That if you resist or hesitate to name a specific goal, it's an indicator that you skipped a step. And when writers skip this step, they often have the experience of a goal feeling hollow or meaningless. And if you have a goal that feels hollow and meaningless, it's going to be hard to pursue, which increases the likelihood of failing at that goal. Which makes it even more likely for you to say, ah, stop talking about goals. And on top of this, as if that's not enough, traditional goals tend to prioritize actions, not values. So if you are a writer who values something like relationship or connection, and someone says, what are your goals for 2025? 25. It can be easier to simply say, I don't set goals. Good news. What I'm talking about today has solved this problem for me. It has made it possible for me to find meaning inside of goals that once felt empty, like checklist items to me. I will share a very specific example from 2021 at the end of the podcast, and I'm also going to share the three simple steps that you can go through to join me on this meaningful journey of setting goals. It is January 2025. Don't know when you're listening to this, but right now I'm going through this process myself, and process is a great word to use here, and it also makes the challenge more clear.

Speaker1:
Many people who resist goal setting have a negative reaction Action to diving into a process because what they want is less tangible. So if you desire mindfulness or connection, it can seem like goal setting is in competition with that. Like, I can set this specific goal to do this specific thing at this specific time, or I don't set a goal and I can be mindful. However, I promise they can complement each other. Here's how I shared with you last week that my goal in the next four years is to learn more in that time period than I did during the four years that I spent in college. That's an intention or a direction. It brings my awareness to something I want to do. The next thing I'm going to do is pick a theme for 2025. I haven't actually settled on the theme yet. I will do that in the next few days. I've got some words floating around that I'm trying on, and this theme will be there as a guiding principle. I will pick a phrase or words that I want to learn about deeply. For example, back in 2021, my theme was Relationship and results. So that year I wanted to focus on both these things that at times can seem like they are in conflict with each other. Relationship and results. But my desire that year was to take something intangible like relationship, and I personally wanted to pit it against something which happened to be results in my world that was showing.

Speaker1:
I wanted to examine that all the way through 2021. So that deep desire that you have, that might seem intangible, like connection that's going to become your purpose. What it feels like to me is this theme becomes a measuring stick. It becomes the fuel. It's the green light that says, yes, you're on the right track, or it's the red light that says, wait a minute, you're losing the point. So if you find yourself resisting goals and the word process seems cold compared to what you're seeking, like connection, then what you're missing is that way that you can have purpose inside of your goal. And the best way I know how to keep that purpose at the forefront is by picking a yearly theme. Picking a theme and sticking with it for an entire year teaches you how to redirect your mind, how to keep coming back to that one word or that one phrase. Your mind may wander And then your job is to keep coming back to that one word or that one phrase. As this common throughline, you'll learn to deepen your knowledge of that one word or that one phrase by sticking with it for an entire calendar year. I believe in this process so much that I wrote an article and published it over on my website. It's titled Not Just Another Goal Your Path to Meaningful Progress. In that article, I outlined this with more specific examples than what I'm going to give here in the podcast.

Speaker1:
And I also created a two page PDF worksheet where you can literally circle words that stand out to you, fill in the blank, and come up in three simple steps with your own custom yearly theme when you are coming up with a theme. I see three specific steps in creating it. The first one is to identify what you're seeking. I'm going to talk more talk more about that in just a second. The second one is to try on different formats. I'll give you some here. And again you can actually find a fill in the blank version of it over on that PDF. And number three, you're going to need to decide how you're going to touch it on a regular basis. So let's go over the three steps. The first step is identify what you're seeking. I actually find that this will come out of people oftentimes when they're frustrated. So you've probably said this word to yourself or someone else when it feels like it's missing, when something's not going well. So you might have said something like, I wish I had more patience. I wish I was more focused. I just wish I trusted my horse more or my horse trusted me more. I wish we had a better relationship. I wish I felt more connection. Look for the words that come out of you when you're frustrated and you feel that lack, that area of lack is often pointing to something you deeply crave.

Speaker1:
These are subjects that make great themes, because relationship focused phrases are often what writers are craving, and when you choose to actually focus on them by picking a theme, it can become the foundation of making meaningful progress, not just completing a checklist. So let's put this in action. What this means is that if you pick a specific, measurable goal, one that I talked about on the podcast last year was competing in the Tevis Cup Virtual. Let's say that you listened to those podcasts back in 2024, and you've decided that you're going to ride in the Tevis Cup virtual in 2025. Then that specific, measurable goal of completing 100 miles in 100 days would become the goal, and the measuring stick of success wouldn't just be the miles, it would be how you applied your theme to those miles. So imagine completing the goal of 100 miles with the focus on the year of discovery, or growing confidence, or creating joy or progress over perfection. So you still can set a specific, measurable goal like the Tevis Cup virtual 100 miles in 100 days. But instead of measuring the success purely in yes or no to the miles, you would actually be measuring the success in how well you did at focusing on joy while completing the 100 miles. Do you see how that shift changes everything? The second step in the process is choosing how you want to phrase your theme on the PDF.

Speaker1:
I outline that I typically choose either something that's like the year of so the year of patience, or an action phrase like creating joy or something that sounds more like a guiding principle. Progress over perfection. What I know for sure is the phrase only needs to make sense to you. It matters more that it resonates with you, that you connect with it. Like I described in last week's podcast, that matters more than whether or not it makes sense to anyone else. Because the point of this is to focus yourself on one aspect or one way of being that you want to study for this year. So one of my students, one year, chose the year of year of patience. And if you chose the year of patience, you might choose to do exactly the same things in 2025 that you did in 2024. But the difference this year will be that you're going to study patience while you're doing it. Or maybe you choose the year of patience and you choose to do new things, and then you'll be studying the year of patience. Either way, because you're going to keep reminding yourself that you valued learning more about patience or impatience enough to come up with the phrase the year of patience. When people are resistant to setting goals, I'll say it again it's often because the goals seem hollow or shallow, and they will if you don't give them a purpose or something bigger. For me, identifying a theme has been key to me enjoying my goals regardless of the of the outcome.

Speaker1:
The theme is a set of words that helps me remember the meaning that I'm searching for while I pursue my specific, measurable goal. So back in 2021, my theme was relationship and results. I chose it early in the year, and that happened to be the year that I ended up showing Willow at the AQHa World Show in both Western Dressage and Traditional or Classical Dressage. The show, the World Show is in November, so I had been practicing my theme all year, and I know without a doubt that it helped me at that show. Here are a few ways that it changed the way I approached that show. First, I chose to take only one horse. Usually, if I'm going to haul that far and go to something that big, I like to take multiple horses. But because my focus had been on relationship and results. I chose to take only one horse. Then while I was at the show, I paid attention to relationship in two areas. Relationship with Willow and relationship with myself. The aspect of the relationship with Willow was easy, because that's an area where I've always prioritized my relationship with my horses. But the real weak area for me has usually been prioritizing relationship with myself. So even though relationship with myself sounds a little bit woo woo, I was actually able throughout the year to learn more about what that meant. I was able to make it measurable.

Speaker1:
So taking only one horse was actually something that was pro me. It was for me. It was better from my relationship with me. What it did was it made it easier for me to have a little more time, which meant I could plan my meals instead of just eating whenever and whatever. If you've ever been to a horse show and your main meals came from grabbing candy out of candy jars, you know what I'm talking about. No. This time I was planning my meals and prioritizing them because that's part of my relationship with myself. Same thing with sleep. Instead of just grabbing sleep whenever I could and thinking that I could probably make up for it at some later date, I actually planned my sleep when I was going to go to bed, and I made myself stick to it because it was about the relationship with myself, which also meant that I couldn't say yes to everything. I had to say no to some other things, to say yes to my meal plan and my sleeping plan. And then really, one of the even bigger things for me that I'd never done before. This show was journaling, not just at the end of the day or beginning of the day. I was journaling between my rides, so I was journaling at night before I went to bed. I was journaling in the morning when I got up, but a really big switch for me that was very much relationship based was journaling between my rides.

Speaker1:
And what that did for me is it gave me a very tangible way to empty out everything. I was thinking about what just happened and get very clear about what I was about to do. And so, especially at a show where it's really easy to focus only on the results, what the judge said worked or didn't work, my theme helped me see the deeper areas of learning that were available to me. The environment of being at a horse show tested my ability to see and act on my theme. This is the power that themes have. Why am I headed out to ride when it feels like eight degrees? I know I'm riding on these days because I can see how each one of these rides moves me closer to the person I want to become by the end of 2025. The goals that I want to achieve in 2025 have not been set yet, but I do know that my goals will involve physical sports type aspects, whether that turns into raining, whether that's trail riding, a lot of miles, whether that's ranch riding my horses and I will be involved in some high level physical sports. So it requires a certain level of fitness and skills that I need to start building now in order to meet those requirements in the summer. And I'm also headed out in the freezing cold. Because I'm currently physically able to. There have been other times when I've been sick or under the weather and I can't.

Speaker1:
But on this day when I'm physically able to, I will go out there. And because I have prioritized relationship in the past, I also realize I might run into some challenges where I might not be physically able to ride. But if I put my time in now when I can. Even though it's uncomfortable, and even though it's hard, I know that I will be more mentally and physically prepared for the more fun days in the summer of 2025. So remember, I created a worksheet that makes coming up with your theme really straightforward. I give you ten examples of the most common areas that people choose to focus on. You could just circle one and that could become your word. And then I give you a fill in the blank template for how you can test it in three different formats. And then I also share the ways that I keep it at the front of my mind. If you're new to goal setting or very resistant to goal setting, simply creating and applying your theme could be your 2025 goal, or your theme can be used to add fuel to your specific, measurable goals like it does for me. I would love to hear yours. Once you create it, go ahead and send me an email and let me know. Maybe your theme will show up here on a future podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm going to go bundle up, go outside and ride some horses, and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you’d love including automated subtitles, transcribe multiple languages, secure transcription and file storage, upload many different filetypes, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.