Hi, I'm Kara Sutterfield and this is my podcast.
After over 20 years of leading one -on -one and
group coaching in professional settings, I developed
a passion for helping other women uncover who
they long to become and how to live into that
vision of self today. Let's deep dive into this
profound exploration together, discover how best
to embody the highest version of ourselves, and
take action in this present moment to be her
now. Hello and welcome back to to be her now.
I wanted to jump in before this episode plays
to set you up for success in listening to it.
I actually recorded this much earlier on and
became inspired by some other topics. So this
episode was meant to be episode number three
and directly references episodes number one and
two. If you have not listened to them yet, I
recommend pausing here, circling back to those,
and then coming back to this episode. If that
doesn't work for your timeline, that's totally
okay. The episode does stand alone, but I did
want to give some context to what I'm talking
about when I speak of your vision. Okay, I hope
you enjoy the episode. It's been a little bit.
I have been very busy my life and realizing that
it is time to get a very strict plan in place
that allows me to have episodes available to
post weekly because that is what I would like
to do. So that's my plan going forward to have
a consistent timeline on which to post. So apologies
for the break in between, but this is definitely
a learning process for me. And so here we go.
So in our first episode we began to define what
it meant to you to be her now and in our second
episode I walked you through a visualization
or an idea for a visualization that could help
you to imagine what your life might be like in
the future so that we can then today take a look
at how to take that vision and bring it into
reality. It can be hard to go from where you
are currently into seeing yourself living in
a life that's drastically different from the
one you're in. So let's talk about some tangible
ways to make that happen. One idea that's very
prevalent is the idea of setting SMART goals.
I've heard a lot of different renditions of what
SMART stands for as an acronym, but the way I
first learned it and the way that I tend to repeat
it is to say that the letters in SMART stand
for specific, measurable, actionable, meaning
you can do actual work on it, realistic, and
time bound. So let's give a couple of examples
of what this might be. If in your visualization,
when you're looking out into your future, you
saw yourself as a marathon runner, but you are
currently a couch potato, it is not realistic
to pull one of those letters to say that you're
going to run a marathon in three weeks. So the
goal here is to step back and say when do I want
to have attained or achieved this thing. So just
to stick with the example of being a marathon
runner. Let's say you do a little bit of research
and figure out that a year's time frame sounds
realistic for you. Today is April 18th on the
day that I am recording this so I might look
at the calendar and find a marathon right around
today's date a year out. And let's say I found
one on April 22nd 2025. So my specific goal would
be I ran a marathon on April 22nd, 2025. Specifically,
I want to have run a marathon. Measurable. How
will I know when I have done it? Well, I will
know it when I have crossed the finish line.
So we have a clear point at which I will have
achieved this goal. Actionable. I can absolutely
put a training program in place and take actions
that will build me up into being able to achieve
this goal. Realistic. A year's time in the research
that I've done or whatever time frame you were
to come up with if that was your goal says that
I know from my current physical capabilities
I would be able to work my way into having achieved
this within the time frame I'm setting. And then
time bound I have decided that I will have run
a marathon on April 22nd of 2025 so I know I
have a year to train for it. Make sense? So that's
an idea of smart goals. And I hope that you will
be able to intuit into whatever your specific
goals were, how you might be able to fine tune
those. One thing I want to point out is whenever
you're setting a smart goal, absolutely set it
in the present tense. Meaning I'm not saying
I want to run a marathon in a year. I'm saying
I ran a marathon on this date so that That goal
begins to work in my subconscious as something
I can attain. There's a lot of science behind
that that is accessible and researchable that
I will leave to you to do. What I know for sure
is that when I start speaking in the present
tense as if I have achieved the things I want
to achieve, I'm a thousand times more likely
to achieve them. The next idea I have for taking
your big goals and bringing them into your reality.
is to slice those goals into very bite -sized
pieces. Let's say that in my vision I saw myself
as a published author but I am at this time not
writing any words whatsoever and I have a little
flicker of an idea but nothing really developed.
So I'm going to take that goal and I'm going
to turn it into a smart goal for you. And then
I'm going to illustrate how I personally would
slice this down into bite -sized pieces so that
I could move forward each day taking an action
towards achieving this goal in three years. So
knowing I want to achieve it in three years,
it is April 18th, 2024. I have published a self
-help book to help women live into their best
lives by April 18th, 2027. Now, let's take this
idea of a huge book and let's figure some things
out. In a quick Google search, the average self
-help book is between 40 ,000 and 60 ,000 words.
So let's go with 50 ,000 words as a goal and
it's a nice round number. Something else I might
want to do is to brainstorm and develop the ideas
that I really want to have in the book. So I'm
going to decide on a main topic. I'm going to
brainstorm ideas around that topic. I will then
take my broad ideas and outline them in a much
more detailed way and then arrange those ideas
into some ideas for chapters. I am an actively
recovering perfectionist and so for me this process
might become very sticky. It's highly possible
that I would get stuck in the process of trying
to outline ideas. So I'm going to give myself
permission to establish a loose outline and trust
that I will be able to fine -tune it as I go.
So for this example, let's take the idea of 50
,000 words. I'm going to say that in three years
time, I'm going to need to write a book, I'm
going to need to have time to edit a book, and
I'm going to need to publish a book. But we have
to take a first step first. So there I have three
clear overarching goals. So I'm going to assign
one of those goals to each of my three years.
So in this first year I need to write a book.
I'm going to take those 50 ,000 words and divide
them by 12 months. That means I need to write
4 ,167 words every month. That's rounded up.
Then I'm going to take an average of four weeks
a month. So now I need to write 1 ,041 words
per week. Now let's look at the days of the week.
I don't want to write every day. I'd like a day
off now and again, so I'm going to divide my
weekly number by five days a week, and that brings
me to the position of writing 209 words a day.
Now, suddenly writing an entire book of 50 ,000
words feels way more tangible, at least to me.
209 words is maybe a few paragraphs, so If I'm
just sitting down every day with the intention
of writing a few paragraphs versus writing an
entire book, already I feel so much better. See
how this is going? So let's say I stick to my
goal of writing five days a week at 209 words
a day. And at the end of my year, I have a written
book. My next goal for year two is to edit the
book. And again, I'm going to break this down.
Let's say I've ended up with 12 chapters. Well,
that's pretty easy for a year's time frame. I'm
going to edit one chapter a month. And I can
break that down further by saying how many pages
are in each chapter, divide that by four weeks
out of the month, and I'm going to tackle that
section as I move along. So we have our finished
and edited book, and it's time to get it published.
And I have no idea how to get a book published.
So I'm going to take a little time, maybe the
first quarter of the year, and do some research.
Find out what are the steps to publish a book.
I probably need to find a literary agent. How
do I go about that? Who do I need to meet? Where
do I need to go? Who do I email? In quarter two,
I'm going to start taking those steps. Maybe
I'm sending my book out into the world on a regular
basis to the entities that are important for
that. Now there's aspects of this goal that start
to rely on other people if I'm wanting to go
through a publishing company, right? So let's
say halfway through the year, I'm not making
traction with literary agents or publishers directly,
but I know I have this goal of having a published
book by the end of the third year. Maybe I start
looking into self -publishing. What does that
look like? Amazon makes it pretty easy to bring
publications into the world now. You get the
idea. This is how we take a big elephant of an
idea and break it down into easily chewable bites.
Another way to make your goals more tangible
is instead of thinking about what you want to
accomplish in a year, think about what you want
to accomplish every three months. When you break
down your year into 12 -week sections, suddenly
it becomes very easy and very tangible to make
traction on goals. If I have a goal within 12
weeks to accomplish x in my business, then I
can divide it by three months and I can divide
that by four weeks and have a very clear direction
every Monday when I sit down at my desk to do
work on this particular goal. Something else
I'd love for you to do when looking at your biggest
goals is to examine your habits right now in
the moment. If when you did that visualization
or when you take time to see yourself years from
now and you see someone who is social and surrounded
by friends but you don't reach out to schedule
a coffee or lunch with anyone you know. or if
you see yourself as fit but you don't have any
workout routine or take any care in the types
of nutrition that you put in your body. Your
habits right now in this moment are hindering
you becoming that person in the future. Likewise
the habits you choose to implement now day after
day consistently are what will create the person
you want to be and the frustrating thing about
that statement is you will not see an indication
of that big goal coming to fruition depending
on where you're at right now in relation to it
for a long time. But there's so much information
in the world now that it is very easy to establish
what habits you need to have in your day now
to create the person you want to be. And it really
comes down to deciding that you're okay with
living in the mundane every day in a consistent
way to achieve the big shiny thing at the end.
So to break habits down a little bit further,
do you have a daily routine and is that daily
routine scheduled in your calendar for you to
follow? Or if you're not a scheduled person,
do you have a list of things that you want to
accomplish every day? Somehow, some way, you're
going to get it done. Two ideas that I use on
a regular basis are to have a virtual calendar
that houses everything so that I can schedule
my personal goals, habits, and routines around
what's required of me for work. And I utilize
the alarms on my phone when I'm trying to establish
new habits. I absolutely am a creature of routine
and habit and I will forget. I will come to the
end of the day and I will forget that I wanted
to do X. And if X is, for example, working out
and I've gotten so busy or so distracted that
I haven't done it I am not the type to go out
and do it when I'm tired and I have to have an
alarm to remind me until that thing becomes a
habit. An awesome book on habits is Atomic Habits
by James Clear. And if you haven't had the chance
to read it yet, he gives a million and one suggestions
on how to establish new habits and routines in
ways that don't feel overwhelming and allow you
to tackle the small aspects of your goal in a
consistent way to get you where you want to go.
Highly recommend. The final thing I want to recommend
is to identify and bust through the roadblocks
that are keeping you from achieving your goal.
One of the things that I noticed myself doing
was procrastinating recording this podcast. And
it took me a little while to get a clear understanding
and get real with myself as to why I was doing
that. And when I sat with my expectations of
myself, I was realizing that I really thought
I needed to put out a 45 minute to an hour episode
every time I sat down to record. And that felt
so overwhelming. I wasn't doing anything. And
so what I had to do after identifying that roadblock
was bust through it by saying, it's okay if my
episode is five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
I'm going to sit down and get these ideas out
and trust that if there's a topic that I have
more to say on, I will. But by removing that
constraint of time, I suddenly feel freed to
sit down and share my heart, which was ultimately
the goal of starting this podcast in the first
place. I hope that you have received some ideas
today that either directly impact your ability
to be her now or have stimulated some thoughts
that are going to help you to do that as you
move forward. And I very much look forward to
talking to you next week.