Ep #62: How to Close Out 2024 Strong: Goal Setting Edition

Hey coach. Have you noticed it's goal setting season? But instead of jumping into setting new goals, I have a better way, which is to close out past goals so that instead of dragging, feeling guilt or shame or discouragement or whatever about those past goals that didn't happen either at all, or it did not happen quite the way you expected. Instead, you can start with a clean slate.

I'm Kendall. In just two simple steps, you can close out those goals that didn't make it across the finish line. What this is going to do is free you up with that feeling that we all crave, which is the feeling of completion. I'm also including three simple coaching questions that will help you start your goal setting strong with clarity and peace of mind. It's all here for you in this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. Let's dive in. 

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hello, beautiful coach. Before we jump into today's episode, which is going to be so good if, like me, you're a perfectionist or if you're someone who tends to feel disappointed when you don't achieve all of your goals, trust me, I am that person too. I have so got you covered with this episode. 

But before we dive in, I want to tell you about a brand new masterclass I have called The Strategy To Delivering High Impact Coaching Sessions In Just 30 Minutes. Now I am super excited about this new masterclass. This masterclass is for you if you want less of winging it in your coaching sessions, you want less of over delivering and sessions that go on way too long, if you want less of experiencing clients losing momentum and bailing out of coaching with you, and certainly if you want less of secretly feeling insecure during and after delivering your sessions.

This is for you if you want more of your sessions that feel energizing. You want to feel more deeply connected and creating results. This masterclass is for you. If you want more of knowing exactly how to lead a high impact session, and it's for you if you want more of happy clients who keep coming back for more coaching, and if you want better client results. Clients renewing and getting those wonderful word of mouth referrals.

But there's definitely a strategy for delivering high impact coaching sessions in just 30 minutes, which is something I'm famous for. You can easily learn it by enrolling in this masterclass. So you can enroll by going to kendallsummerhawk.com/30. That's the number three zero. So kendallsummerhawk.com/30, which is 30, which stands for 30 minutes. So if delivering the very best high impact coaching sessions in 30 minutes sounds like a dream for you, then definitely join me in this new masterclass. I will also link to it in the show notes. 

All right. So today's episode is all about getting you ready to make 2025 amazing. No matter how 2024 has been for you, no matter if you did not meet all of your goals, I mean, who did, right? Or even if you did not meet any of your goals then none of that matters because a new year is a new start. It's an opportunity for you to release and newly claim what it is that you want.

Now, I know that may sound simplistic, but it's actually a really effective strategy. I want you to think about it. You can choose to carry with you all of the baggage from the past year or two or three and then try to create exciting new goals from that place. Ugh, right.

Or you can take yourself through a simple process that I'm going to share with you here today and create exciting new goals that you're giving yourself permission to achieve and permission to feel amazing about. Well, I think the choice is pretty simple, isn't it?

Right now, we're entering into full on goal season. That's what I call it. Everyone is talking about them. Everyone is giving you their process for the how they create theirs. Mostly you're hearing the same old, same old advice. That is not what today's episode is about. 

I'm here to give you a way to actually achieve your goals. Not by writing down smart goals or anything typical like that. No way. I know you want something fresh, new, and inspiring to support you right now. So we're going to start this goal setting season for you by first having you prepare for your new goals. Yes, you heard that right. Prepare. The reason why is because so many of us do have that baggage from the past that can hold us back.

So in today's episode, I'm going to show you two steps to preparing for 2025 goals by releasing those emotions you may be having about your 2024 goals that maybe did not turn out quite how you initially wanted.

Now, first I have to confess, I absolutely obsess over goals. I love them so much because number one, they hit that sweet spot for me of wanting to stretch and grow who I am as a person and seeing what I'm capable of. I love that. Number two, they give me direction and focus for channeling what really is an excessive and often hyper creativity and a love of what I do. 

I love coaching more now than ever. I have so many ideas of what I want to bring to the coaching space and so many ideas of ways to support women like you to be both masterful as a coach and to make money as a coach. Now, without goals, all of those ideas just spin around and they don't go anywhere. 

Number three, I adore goals because I'll be honest, they cause me to fall in love with possibility. I love possibility. Falling in love with possibility is a feeling that is so yummy to sit with. Now I realize I've been gushing here a bit, but it's all really true. Goals, coaching, making money, and possibility are, for me, the ultimate of bringing together all good things. It's like dark chocolate truffles with the yummiest of fillings.

All right. Now that being said, there is a flip side to the coin here. My issue with goals isn't in creating them. It's in the execution. I get too many goals going or I discard older ones in favor of a new one or I discard a longer timeframe one, you know it takes a backseat, to new and faster ones.

Or so often I have too many ideas, which creates too many options. Then I can't even set a goal because of idea overwhelm. I mean, I once listened to someone advise to write down 100 business and 100 personal goals each for the year. I said, okay, I'll do that. I started that list. I didn't finish it. I remember I was on an airplane at the time. I didn't finish the list, and I felt immediately both overwhelmed and defeated. Maybe you can really and definitely that's an exercise I'm happy to skip. 

The other thing I'll confess to is I love planners. You know, it's like if goals had a twin sister, it's planners. Usually every year I typically buy one or two or even three planners and then I never use them. They're beautiful, but there they are unopened. They're neatly all lined up on my bookshelf looking pretty and unused. There's always just one that is also very pretty where I do make notes. 

So this year I'm not buying any planners, and I decided to approach goal setting differently. I actually started this process earlier in the year, and it's worked out so well I'm continuing it into 2025. So my goal setting process is simple. Start with closing out past goals so that instead of dragging, feeling guilt or shame or discouragement or whatever about those goals that didn't happen, either at all or didn't happen in quite the way you expected, you can start with a clean slate. A clean slate that feels fresh for you and opens you up to decide what really matters for you going into 2025. 

Now I call this goal prep because that's what we're doing. We're preparing to create amazing goals that will be accomplished rather than just jumping into new goals that may or may not even be what we want. All right, so as promised, here's the process and it's really simple. Okay.

Step number one, close out what did not happen with your goals this past year. I'm going to give you a way to do this. I want you to jot down each of the goals you had intended to accomplish this year. Please, please do not start judging yourself for whatever the current status of those goals is. No self-punishing is allowed here. You're just listing them. You're not reliving all the reasons why they didn't happen or didn't turn out the way you hoped they would. Just write the list down. 

So you've got your list. Now here's the releasing process, the closing out process. You're going to ask yourself three simple questions about each of those goals and jot down your answer next to the goal. Now the questions are this. Question one, what did you learn from having that goal? I want you to be really specific here.

I'm going to use an example from my own coaching business. I had a goal this last year for 2024 of reaching a certain list size. Now my goal was to reach a certain number that would have been a little over a 100% increase. So in other words, a little bit more than doubling my list. Guess what? We did not reach it. We're not really even close to it. So even though we did increase the list by 55%, which is amazing, that wasn't the goal.

So what I learned in this process of having that goal, even though I didn't reach it, what I learned is how to create lead magnets that convert extremely well using Facebook ads. I learned to put our lead magnets front and center everywhere in this podcast, on my website, in my Facebook group, on social media, and to put them there repeatedly. Not just here and there, but like everywhere all the time. I was reminded that what you focus on expands because while 55% growth is not 100 plus percent, it's still 55%, which is huge.

All right. Question number two, what did that goal really mean for you?  I think so often we state a goal that sounds good, but either it's not the real goal or it's not connected to something meaningful for us. I'm realizing now in going through this end of year process, this goal prep process, that my goal of doubling my list, what it really meant was expanding our reach with our coach certifications, my money mastermind, and our coach trainings. So the doubling the list size was really a measurable way of expanding our reach. 

Did we do that? Yes, we did. We had more people enrolling in our trainings and mastermind than last year by nearly 50%, and the year isn't over yet. So when you ask this question, what did that goal really mean for you? You're looking for an answer that feels real, feels authentic. It feels meaningful for you and be sure it is specific and clear, which leads me to question number three. 

Did you actually achieve the goal in some way, even though the result may look different than you anticipated? Now this is about having a wider lens of awareness and it's about being flexible. It's easy to discount our achievements when or if they don't match up exactly with what we originally envisioned, but your business is more nuanced than that. That hardline masculine way of saying it must be this or it doesn't count is defeating for our feminine energy. 

I'm not advocating making excuses for not reaching a goal. What I am advocating is being encouraging and acknowledging with yourself that you got farther along than you might've realized.

All right, so that's all about step one, closing out what did not happen with your goals this year. Now hopefully you're already feeling more aware and appreciating what did happen in a way that feels positive and supportive of your intention, even if the goal itself wasn't fully realized. 

So now for step two, what did happen because of that goal? Something positive always comes from setting a goal. I give you a personal example. I vowed at the start of 2024 to get in the best shape of my life. Now, never mind that that was totally unrealistic. I'm not in my twenties or my thirties anymore and I'll be transparent here and let you know I have had severe hormonal imbalances, particularly this year, that caused me to barely function on a lot of days, particularly in the intense heat of our summer. 

So I was already setting myself up not to succeed, but that's only if I look at succeeding as either I'm in the best shape of my life or I'm not. I'm choosing instead to look at what did happen because of that goal.

What did happen is I was relentless in my pursuit of getting my hormones sorted out, which wasn't easy, but now I am feeling fantastic. I also kept my steps level consistent right around 6,200 every day. Some days are 9,000, some are 5,000, but the average weekly, monthly, and annually is right at 6,200. Then next year I'm going for 8,500. 

The other thing I did is I restarted Pilates. I'm doing private Pilates twice a week after not having done it for several years since the beginning of the pandemic. I'm about three months in, and the results have been fantastic. I get stronger with every session, and I love my Pilates instructor, and it's just 10 minutes from my house, which is amazing considering I live a little bit outside of town. 

I also got serious about protein, which as a decades long vegetarian took some retooling of what I eat. I now aim for 90 grams of protein a day, and now my low days are 75 grams, which is about double what I was getting before. So am I in the best shape of my life? Well, no. Am I in much better shape than I was at the start of the year? Absolutely. That's my point. 

I used the goal not to self-punish for not meeting it, but as a tool for being my better self. Better is an accomplishment. Let me say that again. Better. It's an accomplishment. So my coaching question for you is when you look at a goal from early this year, where are you better than you were before? 

So to wrap up here before the hype and the hoopla of goal setting really sets in along with all those pumpkin spice lattes, I want you to take 20 minutes to prepare for new goals by going through the two steps and the questions I've given to you.

Number one, give yourself permission to have not met a goal. Don't self-punish. It's okay. Maybe it did not get fully accomplished, but it ended up being the catalyst for you. That's awesome. Number two, start noting what you want for your 2025 goals. Definitely make them specific and clear and assign a number to them wherever it's appropriate. I'm going to go after doubling my list size again in 2025, but I'm going to expand how we look at making that happen.

Because any goal isn't just about the number. It is about expansion. It's about the goal giving you a clear direction and challenging you to expand what you currently believe that you're capable of. Having a goal is not the same as holding a goal. You want to start 2025 having a goal and then use the year to practice holding the goal.

Now trust me, as the weeks and the months roll by, you're going to accomplish more and stretch yourself more than you realize. All right. Remember, coaching changes lives, starting with yours. Speaking of changing lives, be sure to head over to kendallsummerhawk.com/30, that's the number three and zero to enroll in my brand new masterclass, The Strategy To Delivering High Impact Coaching Sessions In Just 30 Minutes.

All right. Thank you so much. My beautiful soul for listening, for your loyalty. I appreciate you for being on your coaching journey with me, on your money reinvention journey with me. I would love it if you shared this podcast with your community, that would be great. You can tag me on Instagram at Kendall SummerHawk. I would so appreciate it really, really a lot. 

If you want to take a couple of minutes and use Apple to make a review, a five star review, that would mean the world to me. All right, my beautiful soul. I will see you here for the next podcast episode. 

Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you follow so you never miss an episode. Also, I would so love and appreciate if you would leave a 5-star review. Your review supports women just like you in discovering all of the juicy tips and insights I’m sharing here on how to coach women on money.

And if you want to learn how to excel at coaching women on money, definitely go to KendallSummerHawk.com and check out the wealth of money coach trainings that we have for you. Thanks so much for being part of this money coaching movement and for tuning into the show every week.