Mapping Your Success: Achieving Your Goals in 2024 | Ep #115

Mapping Your Success: Achieving Your Goals in 2024 | Ep #115

On Episode #115 of the Second Act Success Career Podcast, host Shannon Russell guides listeners through a practical and empowering approach to goal-setting for 2024. You'll learn why ditching traditional resolutions in favor of realistic and achievable goals, is a sure fire plan to achieve success this year. Shannon will go through tips to break down your ambitions into manageable steps. The episode delves into the necessity of embracing the growth process, maintaining flexibility, and establishing daily routines for success. Listen in and start planning your 2024 goals right now!

SHOW NOTES:
https://secondactsuccess.co/115

Setting Realistic Goals (00:01:00 - 00:03:00)

Accountability and Support (00:03:00 - 00:05:00)

Embracing the Journey (00:05:00 - 00:07:00)

Daily Routines for Success (00:07:00 - 00:10:00)

The Biggest Way to Achieve Goals - Start Now (00:10:00 - 00:14:00)

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Transcript

Second Act Success Career Podcast
Season 1 - Mapping Your Success: Achieving Your Goals in 2024 | Ep #115
Episode - #115
Host: Shannon Russell
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)


[00:00:00] Shannon Russell: Well, it's that time of the year when we reflect on the past and set ambitious goals for the future, the start of a new year, symbolizes a fresh beginning, a clean slate. If you will. It's a psychological reset button that allows us to reevaluate our lives and envision positive change. So this makes it a perfect time to plan goals and get motivated for a new year. 

A new you. 

Hey, you are you feeling stuck, desperate for a career change or thinking of starting a business, but you're just not sure how to make your first move. I'm television producer turned career coach Shannon Russell, and this is the second act success career podcast. This is where you will not only get the career advice you've been craving, but you'll get tips from career and business along with inspiration from others who have made a career transition to find second act success.

Let's get started. 

Personally, I am not a [00:01:00] fan of resolutions I Prefer to plan ahead listing out my goals so I can really narrow down what I want my entire year to look like. And that's what we're going to talk about on this podcast is really planning out our year and maybe not making resolutions per se, but making goals. I did some research and it looks like I am not alone in my dislike for resolutions. Only eight to 9% of people actually follow through on their resolutions. 

Guys. That's not good. That is just saying that we have a lot of pressure when it comes to resolutions. 

So let's think of a way to make our planning for 2024. More relaxed yet focused. Shall we? 



First set realistic goals. I am all about ambitious goals. But what we're talking about right here is mapping out steps to actually follow through. So, this is where that clarity will come and we can better see if the goal that we're thinking about is possible now rather than months [00:02:00] from now. I work with my clients to break their career transition goals into smaller, more manageable steps. 

So it doesn't seem so overwhelming. YoU can do the same here with your 20, 24 goals. Just spend some time with your goal, think about what it will entail to achieve. What are steps that you can work towards each week, each month to get you to that end result. 

So when we focus on that main goal, we break it down and then we kind of sense how we can achieve it in a realistic way. It becomes a lot more achievable. 

The more you understand what you are working towards, the more realistic it becomes. It really does become this tangible thing that you are walking along with in your journey through the year of 20, 24. So you want it to be something that's tangible, realistic and something that you can truly keep in the forefront of your mind as you proceed with your year. For example, it's a lot harder to say that you want [00:03:00] to, , launch a business of your own and replace your salary in the next year. If you don't know the steps that are needed to get you there, right. BUt if you know, small steps that you can take to get to that goal, it makes the process of achieving it a little bit easier. 

You can work towards one goal at a time. You can set out your timeline of what you want to achieve next month, three months from now, six months from now. So it seems like you are getting closer to that end result. It really does keep you motivated. 



Next let's talk about accountability because I believe that accountability really plays a crucial role in sticking to a goal. The same goes with the resolution. Really? If you share your goal with a friend or with a family member, that person can provide support and encouragement along the way. A lot of us like to keep our goals and our dreams to ourself where they're safe. I do that too, 

it's the idea of keeping that dream. Alive in your heart rather [00:04:00] than taking action and screaming it to the world. We often don't want to feel judged by others and I've been there. Trust me. So I often suggest that you keep your goals to yourself until you are ready to share them. And this can only work if you are actively working on your goals yourself. So I'm all about you keeping it to yourself until you're ready, but make sure that you're working on them. Because if you don't have someone to hold you accountable, you may just write it down on paper and then forget it. 

I don't want you to do that. I want you to think of other ways that you can motivate yourself and you can have that schedule and you can have those check-in times with yourself to make sure that you're checking things off of your list and you're working towards your goal on. On your own. 

Another suggestion is to lean on a mentor or a coach, someone outside of your inner circle, who can be objective and really act as that accountability partner for you. I do this with my coaching clients 

and I also have a business coach [00:05:00] myself. In fact, I'm in several different masterminds and group coaching programs where we can share our goals and we can keep each other on track and make sure that we are. Working towards what we want to achieve, but we're in a safe place to do that. 

I highly recommend this route. If you are someone who needs guidance and needs that push, but you're not ready to ask someone who runs in your circle. But You can find someone like a coach or a mentor to lean on. Or groups, you can go online and look up some groups, maybe on Facebook or in LinkedIn, where there's other people who are working towards a similar goal, and you can find that commonplace and really support each other. 



Next, I want to remind you that your goals or your resolutions. Are all about your process and it's all about personal growth. You're going to go on this journey to learn and grow with yourself. So embrace the process. It can be scary at times to really lean on [00:06:00] yourself and go through a change or a transition of any kind, but just know that you are going to. Have fun. 

You're going to learn, you're going to embrace and you're going to grow through this process of reaching your goal. It's not going to happen overnight. And that's something that I think we need to be reminded of. But allow yourself the flexibility that you'll need as you move along this path. There were going to be days where you are not going to feel like working. On your goal. There are going to be days where you are going to be too busy at work 

there are going to be days where you just don't feel well. You might be tired. You might be going on vacation. There might be a family or a personal. Priority that you need to tend to where your to-do list for your 2024 goal is going to get pushed to the side. Life happens. 

So embrace the flexibility. Give yourself that time because you are working. You have friends, you have a family, you have a personal life. You are [00:07:00] living while you are working towards. This ultimate goal of yours. Know that it's going to be a flexible Rocky road at times, but it's your road. Really the more comfortable you are with the road ahead and the map that you have set out in front of you, the smoother your journey to accomplish your goal will be.



Lastly, I suggest that you set up a daily routine. Even if it's just a quick check-in with yourself about your goal each morning. Routines lead to success. It's proven it's worked for me and I know it can work for you. 

Now is a terrific time to look at the next 12 months and literally map it out. Map out what you can do every day, what you can do on a weekly basis. Or monthly moving forward. I talk about this a lot because I am obsessed with to-do lists. 

I have lists everywhere and it's just that feeling of checking something off that is so fulfilling to me. So if you're anything like me, [00:08:00] just writing it down, getting it in front of you, you're going to be so excited and feel so accomplished when you check something off because you are one step. Further towards your goal. And you've done something you've been productive, you've been proactive. 

And, um, that's just a really great feeling and a motivator. As I plan out my 12 months, my 2024. What I do is kind of look at all 12 months, I have several new programs that I will be launching in 2024, but I know that I will not be releasing them all in January. So when I sit at my calendar and I really try to plan it out, I mark out. All of my personal events first. And you can try this to really look at any big events that are happening for you this year. Any vacations that you have planned. Any dates, of important things maybe at your child's school. Holidays that are of importance to you and your family, mark those all down.

. I was actually doing this this past week with [00:09:00] my family and I realized that my husband has a lot of work things in March. And my son is in two different plays in March we were going to go on a winter vacation. 

When are we going to do that? So we planned a shorter, like long weekend trip in February. That we just planned, so that is going on my calendar and I know not to. Schedule any of my launches or client calls or things like that. During those couple of days that we'll be away. So it just helped to kind of clear my mind and it helps for someone who's type a like me to get all those dates down on paper. I don't know about you, but it's so hard to make plans with friends and to actually solidify vacation plans so I'm now like reaching out to my friends of like, okay, when are we going on our girls' trip? Let's get those dates in the calendar. Cause It really, really helps just overall. Thinking about the year ahead? As a whole. 



Now that you have your 12 month view in front of you. You can take time to plot [00:10:00] what you want to do each month. So for example, for me and my business, I will be marking down when I will be launching certain programs. If a program is launching, I need to have my weeks of, selling it my weeks of. Bringing on new clients. 

My weeks of doing my one-on-one coaching calls, I have to plan all that out. And that has to go into a calendar. If you are looking to open a business and you know that you need three months of build out time for your brick and mortar location, then you can write that down in your calendar and say, okay, while my location is being built, here are some marketing items or, , community outreach that I can be doing over these months where I am not in my location, in my store. 

Here's what I can be doing when I'm not in my physical location. Or another example is if you are looking to change careers and you want to do some research, And really [00:11:00] prepare for that change. You're giving yourself a timeline. Maybe you want to give yourself the winter and spring and then come June. 

You are going to start actively looking for that next career move. So now you can kind of look at what you can do in the months leading up to that. Maybe it's updating your resume. Maybe it's throwing your LinkedIn profile through chat GBT to make sure it's up to date. You can do all of those little steps while you're currently working while you're leading up 

to that date, where you're going to start blasting your emails out, starting to really talk to hiring managers, getting interviews on the books and really going towards making that change. 

It's about kind of working backwards. If you will. You know what you want to do when and everything before that is your time to get other things done that will lead up to that. I hope that makes sense. 

Again, remind yourself that there's flexibility in all of this planning, [00:12:00] because we can just plan only so much. For me, I have two kids, I own two businesses. So a lot of this goes on the calendar and it goes in pencil because things can change at any moment. And so I just have to be flexible and okay with that. 

And I have been working on that for some time and I'm getting better at it. But it's really trying to put less pressure on yourself. And I truly believe that the more you plan ahead, the less. Stressed you feel

while you're working towards that goal. 

I also believe that when we get rigid with our resolutions or our goals, then that is when they fail. Setbacks are a natural part of proceeding towards any end goal. 

So keeping this in mind that we are setting ourselves up for less disappointment, the more flexible we are with our plan to achieve our 2024 goal. 



But my friend, the biggest way to achieve your 2024 goals. Is [00:13:00] to simply start. Start planning now. I put it on paper, put it into your Google calendar, sit and think about what you want to do, what you want to achieve and write it down, put it down somewhere. And then break it up. And figure out okay. 

Who can help me achieve this goal? What are little tools I can use to help me achieve this goal. Sometimes we have more resources in front of us. Then we even realize until we really sit down and break it apart. 

Most of the time we move so fast that we don't think about the resources that we have or the people who can help us 

we just don't think about all that we have in front of us and all that we are capable of achieving. We just go, go, go. And it's important to stop. Think and plan because that leads to action. 

Plan out your actionable steps in your calendar and get started. 

Don't push off your goal until [00:14:00] next year, we only live once my friend and guess what? We aren't guaranteed it thing. So time is precious. And you know what you are to my friend. So I am here, rooting you on we are doing this together. 

I have my goals. You have your goals and we are going to work towards them together to find our success this year. OnE last reminder is to treat yourself with the love and the care that you show others. You deserve to achieve your goal? Whether it's work-related relationship related, health related or financially related, it is your goal to work towards it's your goal to accomplish. So 2024 is here and now it is time to take action. My wish for you is that you pursue your dream goal. And make this your year. 

Good luck. 

My friend, I am sending you the best vibes for a productive January, and I know that you can [00:15:00] do this. If you need any extra encouragement, reach out to me, send me a DM on Instagram. I'm @secondactsuccess. 

Head over to my website, secondactsuccess.co and send me an email, get in touch and let me know how I can support you. I want us all to feel empowered that any goal big or small is possible to be achieved this year. I'm Shannon Russell. Career transition coach and your host here on the podcast. 

I can't wait to bring you more. Second Act Success Career Podcast episodes And I will be back again with you very soon. Thanks so much for listening. Make it a great day 

[00:15:39] Shannon Russell: Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act success. To view show notes from this episode, visit secondactsuccess.co before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a [00:16:00] few moments and they really do mean so much.

Thank you again for listening. I'm Shannon Russell and this is Second Act Success.