Making Your Resolutions a Reality – Episode

Empowering you Organically – Season 2 – Episode 11

Title: Making Your Resolutions a Reality

Hosts: Jonathan Hunsaker & TeriAnn Trevenen

Guest: None

Difference between Schedules, Rituals, and Goals

• Schedule – a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times.
• Ritual – (of an action) arising from convention or habit.
• Goal – the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

Benefits of Goals

• Provides Direction. First and foremost, goals give you a direction and destination…
• Clearer Focus on what is important. …
• Clarity in Decision Making. …
• Gives you control of your future. …
• Provides Motivation. …
• Gives you a sense of personal satisfaction. …
• Gives you a sense of purpose in life.

Goals By The Numbers in the United States

• 53% say save money,
• 45% lose weight or get in shape,
• 25% have more sex,
• 24% travel more,
• 23% read more books,
• 22% learn a new skill or hobby,
• 21% buy a house,
• 16% quit smoking and 1
• 5% find love.

Resolutions Around the World

• Canada
  • 33% for improving personal fitness and
  • 21% to focus on financial goals
• Sweden
  • 47% eat healthier,
  • 31% start training,
  • 27% reduce stress,
  • 20% drink less alcohol,
  • 11% spend more time with family and friends,
  • 8% get my finances under control.

Intimacy and Happiness

Intimacy is crucial to normal human functioning and can help ward off depression, aggression, and calm anxiety. To foster intimacy, partners must:

• accept one another for who they are;
• experience high regard for each other;
• enhance the welfare of each other;
• give emotional support to each other during difficult or negative experiences;
• share occasional experiences of interest, excitement, and enjoyment;
• be reliably “there” for each other;
• communicate on more than superficial or practical levels; and
• acknowledge each other’s unique value.

Quote on Health

• “Men will spend their health getting wealth. Then, gladly pay all they have earned to get health back.” ~ Mike Murdock

Princeton Study on Wealth and Happiness

We have habits everywhere in our lives, but certain routines — keystone habits — lead to a cascade of other actions because of them.

• Americans report very high levels of stress (fifth among 151 countries).
• More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain.
• $75,000 may be a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals’ ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure.
• Data speaks only to differences; it doesn’t imply that people will not be happy with a raise from $100,000 to $150,000, or that they will be indifferent to an equivalent drop in income. Changes of income in the high range certainly have emotional consequences.

#1 Tip for Setting Goals/Resolutions

• Focus on one major thing at a time!

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

• Specific: Your goals must be specific. They must outline precisely what it is that you would like to achieve. The more detail, the better. Specifically, focus on what you want and not on how you will accomplish these things.
• Measurable: Your goals must be measurable. Spend some time developing a process that you will use to measure your progress as you work toward your goals. How will you know you are making progress?
• Attainable: Your goals must be attainable. This effectively means that you must wholeheartedly believe that you can achieve your goals.
• Realistic: Your goals must be realistic. Your goals are realistic when you have the time, money, resources, and skills needed to achieve the goal. If you lack in any of these areas, then you need to get to work or set a different objective.
• Timed: Your goals must be timed. You must set a deadline for the achievement of your goal. Without clear deadlines, you will likely succumb to procrastination and instant gratification.

S – Specific (or Significant).

M – Measurable (or Meaningful).

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

R – Relevant (or Rewarding).

T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

New Year’s Resolutions You Can Actually Stick To

Break a Bad Habit – this type of resolution tends to be specific enough that you can actually hold yourself accountable and keep with it. Once you find that you have full control over yourself when it comes to overcoming the bad habit, you might even be inspired to expand that mindset into larger aspects of your life like work, relationships and health.

Try Something New – It’s only human nature to stick to what we know. But while it’s perfectly fine to have routine and a sense of normalcy in your lives, broadening your horizons to new experiences can only help you grow. Choose one thing you don’t usually do or have never done and break out of your comfort zone a bit.

Prioritize Self-Care – Sometimes we are so busy worrying about others that we forget to take time for our mental and physical health. If you feel guilty taking some me-time, keep in mind that there’s a difference between taking care of yourself and being self-indulgent.

Mend Relationships – If you want an easy way to get into the whole “new year, new me” mindset, letting go of grudges and mending relationships is a good place to start. At the same time, recognize when someone in your life is toxic or is holding you back in any way. The people you surround yourself with play a role in shaping who you are, so make sure their qualities, personalities, and values and line up in some way with those of your own.

Go Easy On Yourself – Recognize all your hard work and learn when it’s time to treat yourself. If you vowed to eat healthier this year that doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself from a delicious meal or a night out with friends. Life is all about balance, and taking a break once in a while might keep you from giving up on your resolution all together.

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Episode 11 – Making Your Resolutions a Reality

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Episode 11 – Making Your Resolutions a Reality

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Jonathan: Welcome everyone to another episode of Empowering You Organically. This is our New Year’s Resolution special episode. I am joined by my cohost, TeriAnn Trevenen

TeriAnn: Hey everyone.

Jonathan: It’s just the two of us today, we’re gonna banter back and forth, we’re gonna talk about goals, setting goals, maybe give some pointers that are good. We’ll see. The first thing to talk about is, you know, is it even necessary to set goals and I think what a lot of people don’t realize is we’re setting goals every single day, all the time, right? Whether it’s something as small as, “Oops, I’ve got to be to work in 30 minutes so I’m only going to take a five-minute shower” or “I have a goal to eat healthier today.” I mean, whatever it is, I mean, I think we set minor goals every day, all day, almost.

TeriAnn: Agreed but I think you have to really define between goals and everyday decisions, right? I think there’s a fine line between the two. Are you a goal setter? Do you set goals?

Jonathan: That’s a good question. I do set goals. I don’t set them in the standard aspect of maybe necessarily writing them out but I have goals that I have in mind, right? One goal and, I guess the answer would be is I like to set myself up with rituals. I have a goal of maybe being a certain health or a certain weight, something like that, but the ritual that I like to setup around it is running 5k every single morning. I’ve now upped that to 6.8k. It’s about four miles, then I’ll go up to an 8k pretty soon. Throughout my professional career, I’ve set a lot of goals. The answer is yes. I set goals. I also think that I could do a better job at setting goals and following them more consistently.

TeriAnn: Yep, well like what you were talking about earlier for me is rituals. I think there are scheduled rituals and goals because schedules are, “I know I need to be here at this time” and I guess in a sense that’s a goal. I have a schedule of my week like right now in our company, Jonathan’s encouraged everyone to write their schedule out before the week starts so that you’re intentional with your week. I love the word “intentional.” You’ll hear me say that more times than I probably should but intentional with your schedule. So you know, “This is what my week looks like.” Rituals I guess you could say are another form of goals where it’s like, “In the morning, I do this every day to start my morning.” For me, it’s gratitude, 100%. I’m not perfect, I have days that I miss but I try not to and I really wake up and I talk about feeling gratitude, which is actually a concept that I picked up from Tony Robins and he does this gratitude ritual where you feel gratitude.

TeriAnn: You don’t just think about it, you feel it internally and it’s extremely powerful. Then there’s things like our exercise habits and our eating habits. I think those are rituals, whether they’re good or bad. Then there’s goals, right? Goals are something that help us to attain something bigger than, I think sometimes we even think we can accomplish. But it’s interesting because when you’re talking about it I think major goals help us get into better schedules and rituals. When we realize that we can achieve and accomplish great things in our lives, it propels us to do that on everything else in our life.

Jonathan: I think you have to have goals. Without goals you don’t have, in my opinion, direction, right? I think without goals you get lazy. Now, how you work those goals is up to you, right? Some people are big advocates that you need to write it down and I think that’s a very powerful way, right? Writing down your goals, being reminded of your goals. I think it’s the rituals that allow you to reach your goals or not reach your goals, right? It’s like, yes, I have a goal of, let’s say losing another 40 pounds and trying to be in the healthiest body that I can be. The way that I’m gonna get there is with my rituals of running in the morning, with cutting out sugars and eating sweets and things like that. Those are gonna be my rituals. So I think without goals we become lazy. Then right now, being New Years, goals are on a lot of people’s minds, right?

Jonathan: “Okay, what’s my goal for this year?” I wanna start by saying you don’t need to wait until the New Year to set a goal. I mean, I think that’s actually a, you know, a bad habit that we get into is, okay well I’m gonna set my goals, you know, January 1st and then by February maybe you’ve lost them and maybe you reconnect with them in the summertime, who knows. Maybe it’s a whole nother year before it’s like, “Oh yeah, time to set some goals again.” Whereas the second you fall off the wagon is the time to reset your goals and reevaluate. Is that still your goal and if so, how do you need to adjust those rituals to get where you want to be?

Jonathan: Really quickly I want to go over just some statistics because it’s January 2nd, so a lot of us that are listening have set goals and just want to kind of share what others around the country, what kind of goals they’re setting or what kind of resolutions are around. So 53% of people have a goal to save money or set a resolution to save money. Now, what’s interesting in this, this is from Statista.com. I think people have more than one answer for their resolutions because otherwise the math doesn’t add up. But 53% say save money, 45% lose weight or get in shape, 25% have more sex, 24% travel more, 23% read more books, 22% learn a new skill or hobby, 21% buy a house, 16% quit smoking and 15% find love.

Jonathan: It’s just really interesting when I look at this list and money is, it’s at the top of the list. Money and health. You know, what to say on that is that I think you need to set goals around those if you’re going to achieve on either side.

TeriAnn: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. You know, it’s interesting to think about the psychology around it, though, too, as well. It shows that we live in a society where money and health are really valued and I think when we think about setting goals to what end are we setting those goals? To what end are we looking at, “I wanna save more money, I wanna lose more weight.” I think when it comes to setting goals, you really have to work on setting goals that are meaningful for you not just to compare to other people. So that’s great, like if you want to save money and that’s one of the number one goals for people that’s a great goal. Being financially sound and financially responsible I think is very important. It’s something that I practice in my life and I’m very passionate about but if I’m gonna set goals around money like, what is it and what does it do to help me feel peace in my life? Feel happiness?

TeriAnn: I think, you know, it’s not really surprising to me the psychology behind why people are doing this. That’s kind of the pattern we live in in this day and age is not being financially responsible, not being healthy, not being good stewards over those things in our lives and those two things can impact your life so much, probably more than anything else. So I’m not really shocked by the statistics and right behind that, have more sex. I mean, that’s an interesting one in my mind because it ties directly to relationships and human connection. I mean, I know you could spin it many different ways but to me in my mind I hear relationships, body and health and being financially sound. It’s just not surprising that those are the top ones in my mind.

Jonathan: I think it’s really intimacy, I think it’s connection, I think it’s having that relationship. I think we’ve gotten as we’ve gone more down the smartphone route and everybody has a phone and Facebook and Instagram and you know, all these other social things. I think we’ve lost more and more connection, human connection, right? We may be connecting with people’s profiles or their updates or their, you know, whatever glamorous stuff they wanna share that day but we’re not having that true human interaction. The interesting thing with money being first and weight being second is, and I don’t remember who said it or where I read it but it was more or less, you know, the man that compromises his health to make a lot of money, at the end of his life is spending all that money to try to reestablish his health.

TeriAnn: I love that.

Jonathan: And I think there’s gotta be a real balance there. I get it, money does matter and I know there’s other studies where pretty much, you know, money matters in your state of happiness up until about 75000 a year or something, you know, around that number. Once you’re making more than that it doesn’t affect the happiness scale as much. I think that we absolutely can get caught in a downward spiral of chasing the money. Constantly chasing the money, “I need this, I need this, I need a better car.” I mean, we do it with technology, “Oh there’s a new phone out, time to go trade in and get a new phone” when I mean, is your iPhone 7 that much different than your iPhone 8, right?

TeriAnn: Nope.

Jonathan: But you’ve gotta get it ’cause it’s a new thing.

TeriAnn: We’re always chasing.

Jonathan: Exactly.

TeriAnn: We’re always chasing the next best thing and it’s instant gratification.

Jonathan: Yes.

TeriAnn: All the time.

Jonathan: Yes.

TeriAnn: All the time.

Jonathan: And it’s constantly chasing that dollar and it’s something that I get more and more present to because I’ve chased the dollar a lot of my life. What’s changed my life greatly is having my two daughters and the money doesn’t matter as much. Now I will say that I was very deliberate in wanting to reach a certain financial state before I chose to have kids because I felt like that could be a big burden by not being at the level that I wanted to be at. Now that I’m here, I also realize that was… I just didn’t know any better, right? It wasn’t necessarily the case. Now, what’s more important to me over the money is absolutely my health but you know, the third one we say, “Have more sex,” I just think that’s having more intimate relationships or having closer relationships.

Jonathan: For me, the close relationships that matter most to me right now are the ones with my daughters. Being a good father, that kind of thing.

TeriAnn: Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, I’ll share a personal for a minute, which I don’t do this very often but for me, in looking at all of those I’ve had a lot of crazy life experiences over the last five years. One of them being that last year I was extremely sick. I had a lot going on, a lot of stress and I had a lot going on with my body. It took a while, you don’t just get to a place and correct immediately. It’s not that I wasn’t eating good foods and I wasn’t you know, it’s not like I was just taking all these bad foods and doing bad things to my body. It was just the stress and not taking care of myself the way that I should.

TeriAnn: It’s interesting to me that saving money is the number one because I feel like, and this is a personal experience for sure, that getting healthy for me was the number one thing I could have done in my life. Forget the job, forget money, forget relationships, even though all those things are important to me, and I could do a whole thing on money and why it’s important and why we shouldn’t look at it in a negative context, right? You and I have had a lot of conversations around that but my health and my health being compromised impacted everything else in my life. It was hard to feel good, it was hard to feel happy, it was hard to, you know, do the things that I needed to do because I just wasn’t feeling healthy.

TeriAnn: So I don’t know, it’s just interesting to me saving money in the number one spot but I truly, I’m a big believer that your health, being in a good place and being 100% healthy impacts every other thing in your life.

Jonathan: Yeah I mean what I think is interesting in your story there is you faced a health scare and so it woke you up and I think that happens with a lot of people. I think once they’ve faced that health scare then they wake up, right, and they start realizing what’s more important. Unfortunately, I mean, some of us don’t face that until later in life and then at that time, do we regret all the choices that we made all along? You know, I don’t know what the solution is there but one thing I can tell you is, I mean, absolutely the health is more important than anything else. You know, if I want to be a good father I need to be healthy. If I want to be good at business, if I want to do anything, really, I’ve got to be healthy. Without my health, I’m not here.

Jonathan: It’s not just even, you know, a weight thing or a movement thing but my mind is greatly affected by my choices around healthy. What am I eating? Am I eating sugars? Am I eating this? Am I eating that? Am I taking supplements? Like, am I feeding my whole body? Yeah, it’s interesting. I was looking through here and there were some stats that came from Canada, which I love that their number one resolution was to improve personal fitness and nutrition then number two was focus on financial goals.

TeriAnn: It’s quite a bit higher, too, by the way.

Jonathan: It is. 33% for improving personal fitness and 21% to focus on financial goals. You know, and it’s different for everybody, right? I think the big challenge here is let’s not compare ourselves to somebody else, not gonna compare us to Canadians, although I love that their focus if they’re setting a goal, is more on their fitness.

TeriAnn: Okay but do you wanna know, this is also interesting, as well. We have stats out of Sweden and listen to this, it’s just weird, all cultures in society are different but their resolutions for 2017, the first thing was resolutions? What? What is that? 47% eat healthier, 31% start training, 27% reduce stress, 20% drink less alcohol, what was that? 11% spend more time with family and friends, 9% get my finances under control, 8%.

Jonathan: Eight percent.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: And I don’t know that there’s a lot different other than just our culture, right? We have a culture here in the U.S. of everybody wants to be a superstar, everybody wants to be a model, everybody, you know? There’s this ideal thing, right?

TeriAnn: Successful.

Jonathan: Right.

TeriAnn: It’s the word of success.

Jonathan: Right.

TeriAnn: But how do you define success?

Jonathan: We should all be driving Lamborghini’s.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: And have big homes and should look, you know, like toothpick models and all kinds of things and it’s unfortunate.

TeriAnn: Yeah and it’s… well here’s another interesting, I just want to ask you this. You’ve had a lot of success in your life. I’ve had some pretty successful things in my life. I’m gonna ask you this question then I’ll answer it but do you feel like your success comes easier when you have a better work/life balance and you’re not as focused on the money when you’re focused on what’s important to you and happiness and your work/life balance? Do you feel like money comes easier?

Jonathan: Absolutely. I’ve been in sales since I was 14. I started as a door to door salesman to be able to pay for food and clothes and all of that fun stuff. One thing I’ve learned throughout my years in sales and starting businesses is when you’re desperate it doesn’t come as easy, right? If I needed to make sales and I’m knocking on doors and I’m desperate to make a sale, that comes through and it makes it a lot harder. I think that it translates with business and with everything. Yes, I need to be focused on growing the business but focusing on making the money has never been the way that my businesses have become successful.

Jonathan: With Organixx specifically, focusing on helping the people and creating the best product then the money follows, right? It’s almost like a ritual of, “Well my ritual is we’ll create the highest quality product and try to help as many people as possible and the success will follow.” It was the same thing with the truth about cancer. How much information, you know, let’s put together a documentary and let’s release it to the world for free, right? How much, you know, that was almost the ritual, right? Like how many people can I help? How much can I do that for free? The success follows. I feel it’s the same thing in my personal life. If I get up and run, while I am heavier right now than I would prefer to be, if I stick with my ritual of getting up and running every morning and eating healthy then ultimately I will get healthy. I’ll hit that goal at the end.

Jonathan: I think I’m kind of answering your question in my way of answering the question and that is, I think the money will come if you focus on doing the right things for the right people and for the right reasons.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: Right? Sometimes that money will come in millions, sometimes that money might come in thousands. The money will come and the other part you have to get right with is, “Do I need millions or do I need thousands?”

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: Right? To go on a little bit of a tangent, I am a conscious capitalist. I understand that my business has to be profitable because without it there is no-

TeriAnn: To help other people.

Jonathan: Right. Without it, we won’t have 50 people working for us or providing for their families.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: And providing for their kids and all of that. I also am very clear that it’s not profit-driven, right? We need profits to survive but it’s not, “Can I squeeze out another point here? Can I squeeze out another point there to get as high of profits at whatever cost.”

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: Right? I think that can sometimes be the challenge when you’re chasing money.

TeriAnn: Yep.

Jonathan: I think there’s… we could do a whole Podcast I think around money and people’s relationship to money and what it does and all of that.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: I think it goes back to the whole, “if I were here I’d be happier.” Right? “Well if I just lived on an island I’d be happier”-

TeriAnn: Gratification. Yeah, satisfaction like, success is that word. My whole point in asking that is before you can even get to the point of setting goals, in the New Year whenever you set goals, I think you have to know what your purpose is for you and it would be so awesome to have a movement in the United States because clearly like, just looking at Sweden, I’m sure if you looked at other countries, too, it’d be very different than what we see here of relationships and health come first, the money follows. We’re so focused on success and money here like, for me, I could not do what I do and work as much as I work without having that passion and that purpose behind it.

TeriAnn: Also to go on top of that, the longer I do what I do and working with all the people that we work with and running businesses, the more I focus on my children and my relationships and my health and I put more time into that, the more I figure out what’s important with the business and what is not. When I make it a priority to put what I love and what I need first it’s like, you can’t do it all and you can’t accomplish everything and everything else falls into place. It’s clear in setting goals going into the New Year that money is a big one, especially in the United States and it’s clear that health and relationships come after that is important but I just would love to shift that way of thinking. Money, yes you have to work hard. Yes, you have to work smart. Money doesn’t just come if you sit around and hang out with your kids and workout. That doesn’t work that way but the way we think about money and the way we think about our relationships, I think that has to be a culture shift.

Jonathan: Well it’s really interesting, I lived in Panama, all over Panama, Central America, then I lived for a year down in Southern Chile and I love the Latin culture. One of the big differences and somebody pointed it out to me when I was living down in Chile is a lot of our sayings up here have to do with time and money, right? Time equals money and everything is about time or it’s about money. Whereas down there, the sayings are all about love and relationships.

TeriAnn: That’s interesting.

Jonathan: Yeah, it’s a very big paradigm shift and it was interesting. When I was living there I didn’t wear a watch, I didn’t have a smartphone, I actually started these companies while living in Central and South America. I didn’t, again, didn’t have a smartphone, didn’t have a watch and it was just a different relationship to things. When I moved back to the states, started getting back into that hustle again and, “Now we’ve gotta do this and have to watch the clock” and do all that. It didn’t change my success levels, it just changed my stress levels.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: Right?

TeriAnn: Yep.

Jonathan: That’s, I think that’s an interesting conversation in and of itself. Let’s get focused on goals and see if we can give some tips for those of you that are listening at home as you’re setting goals and as you’re going into the new year. The first thing that I want to talk about is what are some New Year’s resolutions that you can actually stick to, right? I think it’s very easy for us to set a lot of lofty goals. I think it’s easy for us to want to take on everything at once. One thing I’ve learned very much over the years is focus on just one major thing at a time, right? I’ve shared before, I smoked for 20 years. It was just to focus on quitting smoking and quitting cold turkey. Now of course in my mind I wanted to be running every morning, I wanted to be lifting at the gym, I wanted to be eating healthy, I wanted to do all of that.

Jonathan: I got really clear over my numerous attempts previously to quit smoking that I couldn’t do all of that and the time that I actually quit smoking is when only thing I focused on was quitting smoking. I still went out and ate crappy burgers and fries and, you know, other junk knowing that once I got the smoking dealt with then I could move on to the next thing and move on to the next thing.

TeriAnn: Yeah can you imagine if you would have tried to do everything all at once?

Jonathan: I did many times [crosstalk 00:21:33].

TeriAnn: It doesn’t work.

Jonathan: Yeah that’s why I kept being a smoker.

TeriAnn: It would be insane.

Jonathan: And fat and unhealthy ’cause-

TeriAnn: Because everything, you have to be good at everything all the time and then it’s like, if you’re gonna fail, like, it’s gonna happen when you’re trying to do it all. You cannot do it all. Then that failure’s like, “Oh well, I give up. I’m done.” I think a lot of people find themselves in that place.

Jonathan: Agreed and it requires willpower, right? We only have a certain amount of willpower and if I’m trying to change five things at one time that takes a lot of willpower. That willpower might run out in a few days before I get a chance to see any results. What’s really interesting is if you only focus on one thing and my focus on, I’ll just use quitting smoking because it’s something I can relate to, is when I used all my willpower to just quit smoking, five days later I could find the cravings going down. That helped refuel, right, that desire and that willpower. Two weeks later I was thinking about it less and a month later I was thinking about it less. Whereas again, if I was taking on five things at once, three days later I have no more willpower and I am falling back on things. Maybe I smoke again or I eat some crap. I didn’t even get enough chance to get a result.

TeriAnn: Yeah. It’s interesting, earlier in some of the notes that we had for this, it says, “As a result…” what goals do very well is they focus you on a specific aspect or area of your life. As a result, all of your choices, decisions, behaviors, habits, and actions are now aligned with this one key objective. I think it goes along so well with what you’re saying. If you try to do too many things all at once, you know, you can’t be successful at all of them. One focus can really impact in your life. When you step back and you think, “I’m going into a new year, I wanna see things change.” I don’t think it’s hard for people to identify one thing in their life that impacts everything else. I can think of one for me right now.

TeriAnn: My biggest goal in life and I didn’t just set this going into the New Year is being a better mother to my children. I feel that on every level. I want my girls to see me as a woman who works but not a woman that works so much that I don’t have time for them. I want them to see a strong, powerful woman but I don’t want them to think that it consumes my life. I want my girls to think that I have time for them, I want them to think that I have values and that things matter and when I think about that goal of being the best mom that I can be, which has been my goal for the last year and it’s still my focus.

TeriAnn: That’s the other thing about goals. You don’t have to have new goals all the time. My one goal in life right now is to be the best mom that I can be. I do all these other things in my life but focusing on that has put everything else into perspective. I changed the way I work, I changed my schedule, I changed how I behave with my children, I change how I behave with other people because my children are watching me, I change the decisions I make. All of those things, just like you with smoking, you knew if you got that under control what it would do for the rest of your life. You knew how it would impact you. So when we’re setting goals going into the New Year, or whenever you set your goals, what’s that one thing that you can think of that you’re like, “Ugh, if that was different everything would feel so much better.” And feel it. How does that feel for you when you say that? That should be the thing that you focus on in your life at that time because there’s so much emotion and passion behind how it impacts every aspect of your life.

Jonathan: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I mean, at the time, and this was close to five years ago, I was a lot heavier, I was absolutely unhealthy, I was just very bad habits all around. Just addressing the smoking allowed everything else to change, right? I think that that’s what’s really important as you’re looking at, “Well what goals do I set this year? What’s the thing to focus on? What is that one thing?” For a lot of us, I would say it’s your eating habits, right? I would say, “Well what are you choosing to eat? What are you choosing to do?” If you eat healthier, you’re gonna feel healthier, you’re gonna sleep better. It’s gonna affect all other areas of your life.

TeriAnn: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jonathan: For others, it may be exercising. Just getting up and moving your body first. Now if your goal is to lose weight, you know, I do agree that it’s the food choices that make a bigger difference there than the exercising. Although exercising is good. Get one thing under control at a time, right? As you conquer one, then you can conquer the next and the next and the next. Trying to conquer all at once, I think you’re setting yourself up for failure in a big way.

TeriAnn: And don’t you feel like when you accomplish your goal of not smoking any longer you felt even more powerful to change other things in your life? You’re like, “Wow.” Like when I talk about identifying one thing that really impacts your life and then conquering it or learning a new skill or doing better at something, don’t you feel like it changed how you perceived yourself in being able to accomplish other things in your life?

Jonathan: Absolutely. I mean, what’s very interesting, I’ve always been good at sales. I’ve always been, not always, but when I learned, when I got into marketing, I was really good. Entrepreneurship I’ve been good at. When it comes to business it’s easy for me, right? I get a lot of positive reinforcement there. When it came to myself and my body and my health, I did not have a lot of wins there. I was smoking, I was drinking a lot, there was sadness there that needed to be dealt with, right? I think the answer is yes, in the sense that when I quit smoking it allowed me the power, the satisfaction, the win to now take on the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, right?

Jonathan: It’s affected everything in my life since then. The reason I bring that up versus the business side is because I was successful in business but it didn’t mean that I was happy, right? I can do good at business and that’s where, when I looked at the charts and it talks about the making money and it talks about all of that, the number one thing for me, and I think the number one thing for most would be having a healthy body, living a healthy lifestyle. I think if you conquered that, a lot of other things fall into place.

TeriAnn: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about goals when it comes to how we set goals and where to start with setting goals. We talked… a lot of people talk about the term “smart goals.” We already talked about being intentional, they use the word “specific.” We talked about what’s that one thing in your life that really stands out to you? I really think everyone can think of something like that. You know, for me, for a long time it was health and getting my health in order. But once my health was in order it shifted to my girls. That’s been my goal for well over a year now. Being the best mother I can be because, for me, it’s not just for them, for me that’s what fills me and that’s what makes me happy. So being specific and knowing what your goal needs to be is so important. That’s the first thing they talk about in smart goals: intention.

Jonathan: I’m gonna put you on the spot and get really specific with your goal because being the best mom you can be leaves a lot of wiggle room. Help give examples to people in what that definition is for you.

TeriAnn: Yeah so the next thing they talk about in smart goals is measurable and it’s evolved over the year for me. First, it was in how I disciplined and talked to my children. I’m certainly not perfect and there’s three girls living in my house and we have a lot of emotions. So there are moments when our emotions are running really high. For me, it was how I’m talking to my daughters, how I’m disciplining them. Not just talking at them but talking with them. Training them on how to regulate their emotions and communicate better. The way I do things is the way they’re gonna learn to do things. I’m their only example and reference. That was the first aspect of it.

TeriAnn: Right now, my goal with them is setting a good work/life balance, which interestingly enough has been a domino effect. As I have focused on having more time for my girls and being more present with them to do homework, at their sporting events, in helping them to accomplish some of their goals and dreams, I find myself doing better personally, at work, with family relationships because I’m fulfilling that part of me. Right now, it’s having set time in my life, I call it “sacred time.” People at work have heard me say this, people in my personal life. Very rarely is there something that comes up that I would say, “Okay I’ve gotta cut into this time.” It has to be really important but more often than not, it’s, “No, this is my time for my girls.” This is when I drive them to school, this is when I drive them home from school. We talk at that time. This is when I’m at their sporting event and I want to watch them. This is when I need to sit and do homework with my daughter, she’s struggling with this concept at school and the only way she’s gonna learn it is if I sit and work with her. Nobody else is going to do that for her.”

TeriAnn: So it’s been scheduling specific and set time with them at this point in time with the goal.

Jonathan: Love it. The first one’s specific. Your goals must be specific for SMART, which is an acronym. M: measurable. Your goals must be measurable so spend some time developing a process that you’ll use to measure your progress as you work towards your goals. A: attainable. Your goals must be attainable, right? I can’t have a goal of being six foot two, right? I’m 40, I’m not-

TeriAnn: You could try.

Jonathan: I mean, I could have that goal but it’s just not attainable.

TeriAnn: No, no.

Jonathan: So be realistic with your goals. I also encourage that the goals are not too easy but not too hard, right? I think setting goals that are five years in the distance are a little harder to grasp and be able to hold versus setting the goal that you could reach next week, as well, is a little too easy as well. Now, for some I will say I mean, maybe, you know, if you struggled with weight or you’ve struggled with eating or struggled with exercising, that goal might simply be to work out five days this week and get this little win, right?

TeriAnn: Yep. Well like for me with my daughter in setting the time to be with her, I identified places where she needed help in school just by sitting and doing her homework with her. I was able to measure, “We accomplished this, we accomplished this, we accomplished this.” As you work on your goal, you find places where it’s like, “I need to get to this point, I need to get to this point,” and it’s not like all of a sudden one day you have it accomplished. It’s every single day you’re just, you know, chipping away at that goal until you’ve reached a larger goal. You can’t accomplish it all at once.

Jonathan: The letter R in SMART is realistic, goes back to being six two. I mean, is your goal attainable and is your goal realistic? I think that this is part of our culture, as well, of always needing to have the Lamborghini or be a superstar or be the next big pop star or whatever, right? I mean, it’s this idea that you’re gonna be a millionaire, that you’re gonna be something, you know, big that everybody’s gonna “oh” and “ah” over, right? One, I don’t think that’s realistic. Two, it’s not necessary to be happy but to focus on just kind of SMART goals, I mean, is your goal realistic?

TeriAnn: Yeah, absolutely and I think some of those goals that you talked about are attainable for some people.

Jonathan: I agree.

TeriAnn: It happens for people, you know? There are famous people, there are superstars, there are people who have Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s and I, more times than not in my life, have seen that big things like that happen for me come from working on the things that matter most. I just, I truly believe that. You have to work hard, you have to work smart and you have to set goals that are meaningful. If you want something big like that you’re not just gonna go out one day and say, “I want a Ferrari.” You’re someone who works every day on meaningful things in your life, you work hard, you work smart and you do things that are important and that’s how people get to that point. Truly, I truly believe that.

Jonathan: Well and it’s having the smaller goals that allow you to get further. I’m not trying to discourage anybody from having whatever amount of money you wanna have-

TeriAnn: You’re ruining my dream of having a Ferrari, thank you very much.

Jonathan: Exactly. That may all happen but if that’s just your goal is just that I think that it’s a lot less likely that you get there.

TeriAnn: I agree.

Jonathan: So the last one, the letter T is for time. Your goals must be timed. You must set a deadline for the achievement of your goal. Without clear deadlines, you’ll likely succumb to procrastination and instant gratification. I think it’s vitally important that there is a time set on your goal. Now, you may not reach your goal in that time but that may be the time to reassess your goal, right? That’s that time to readjust that goal or have it pivot. I’ve had so many companies that the way that I thought they’d be in the beginning is not the way they were at the end, right? Or middle of the way through. You have to make pivots. We make pivots all the time-

TeriAnn: Daily basis.

Jonathan: In business.

TeriAnn: Yeah, absolutely.

Jonathan: I don’t encourage daily pivots in your goals, in your personal life, if your goal is to run and do X, whatever, for three months stick to that. Don’t make pivots every day because that leaves room for rationalization. Maybe you’re gonna run, you know, 5k a day for 90 days. At that 90 day mark, now you can reassess and realize, “Okay I can’t keep doing this” or “I need to tweak it or do something.” Have it timed so that you have a time to really reassess it. Really quickly to wrap up, this was just gonna be a short Podcast because we’re actually in between meetings right now that we have to be on with work. I want to talk about just some New Year’s resolutions that you can actually stick to.

Jonathan: So the first one is breaking a bad habit. What I like about this is it’s very specific. It’s like the quitting smoking, it’s like if you’re going to quit eating sugar or you’re gonna quit smoking or you’re gonna quit drinking alcohol or you’re gonna quit something. It’s very clear whether or not you’re accomplishing it or you’re not. I think that that’s always a challenge when we want to rationalize and make things better and easier and there’s gray areas. If you choose a bad habit as your one thing and make that your only New Years resolution and quit it and you’ll know whether or not you’ve accomplished it.

TeriAnn: Yeah, absolutely. The next one is mending relationships and I do really love this one because I think that bad relationships that you have a desire to fix really impact your life in almost every aspect. You constantly think about it, it constantly impacts you and I think mending relationships can be extremely healing for you in your life. Stress levels go down, you’re healthier, you don’t feel all of this upset over relationships and I think that it’s so important to make sure that your relationships are healthy and that you’re keeping relationships that have had issues or that have caused stress in your life in a place where you can heal them at some point and you can really work through them. It impacts us in every aspect of our life.

Jonathan: I think that it’s an, if you’re new to setting goals or if you set goals that you struggle to achieve, it’s a very achievable goal, right? Maybe you have a best friend that you haven’t talked to in six months or a year or a brother or sister or mother and father. Pick up the phone, make a phone call, make that New Year’s resolution to mend that relationship over the next month to two months. You might find that mending that relationship helps you, you know, your eating choices or your other ways of coping with stress because you’re stressed because that relationship isn’t good. It’s just, I’m not gonna say it’s easy, many relationships isn’t easy but it is an easier one, I think, to do and it could have a massive impact on your life.

TeriAnn: Yeah and I wanna say on the opposite side of that it may not be about mending a relationship. Sometimes we have to get rid of relationships in our life and sometimes that’s one of the hardest things to do. That might be something small in some people’s minds and in some, it’s really hard to get rid of some relationships and that might be a really good thing going into the new year to reset your life.

Jonathan: I think that’s a really healthy way to look at it ’cause some relationships, that may fall under a bad habit, right? You might have a relationship that’s a bad habit for you-

TeriAnn: Absolutely.

Jonathan: And you’d be better to break that habit. Another one that we’ll get onto here is to go easy on yourself. As a New Year’s resolution, how much do we beat each other… beat ourselves up, I’m sorry. Like I know how hard I can be on myself. I woke up this morning, I wasn’t feeling well and was not able to go on my run and my self-talk has not been polite at times this morning. You know, just consider that having that resolution to just be nicer to yourself, to just go easier on yourself, could be all you need to find more happiness.

TeriAnn: Yeah, there’s research behind the fact that we are harder on ourselves than anyone else and we are more negative about ourselves and have more negative talk about ourselves than we do with anyone else. We are our worst critic, for sure. I think we need to do a better job. We talked about this in the holiday podcast, we need to do a better job of accepting ourselves, being kind about what we’re good at, what we’re accomplishing and what we’re doing right in the world and I think that sets us on a path for success as we look at what we can accomplish and what we can do, what we are doing and all of the good things about ourselves versus talking about all of the negative.

TeriAnn: We’re raised in a negative culture and we have to really rewire that in our brains. I think it’s a great New Year’s resolution to be kind to yourself.

Jonathan: I agree. Then the last thing I’m gonna leave off with which is a combination of that resolution and any other goal that you set. It’s nearly impossible to be flawless, right? You’re not gonna be perfect, you’re gonna screw up, you’re gonna miss that day of running. You’re gonna eat that candy bar, you’re gonna miss that day at the gym, you may forget to pick up your daughter from school on time. You’re gonna have that mistake and the resolution to go easy on yourself, number one, is most important but two, get back up on the horse, right? Don’t let that one little mistake be that determining factor that, “Ope, well I just screwed up. Now I’m gonna go back to life as it used to be,” right? Don’t let that be the excuse.

Jonathan: Don’t be like, “Well, you know, I screwed up for this whole week. I didn’t go to the gym. I guess I’ll start again April 1st or January 1st or whatever date.” No, the best time to start a new habit and a new goal is right now. Not waiting ’til Monday, ’cause what happens when you wait ’til Monday and let’s say you want to go to the gym? Then you binge eat all weekend long, you put on three more pounds before you hit the gym. Then you only go to the gym ’til Wednesday and you forget Thursday and now it’s Friday, you didn’t go again. “Well, I’ll start again on Monday so I better binge and eat some garbage that weekend before I get to the gym again on Monday.

Jonathan: The best time to start your new habit, your new goal or to restart that goal is right now.

TeriAnn: Yeah.

Jonathan: You’re gonna fall off the wagon.

TeriAnn: Yep.

Jonathan: You just will.

TeriAnn: Yeah, so I agree. To close this out in kicking off the New Year, our podcast is called Empowering You Organically. That is a phrase that we use because we want to empower the world through their health and I think that comes down to a lot of different things. I think that comes to your emotional health, your mental health, your spiritual health and a variety of other things in your life but as you start off the new year, find that thing that could really change your life and empower you. What’s meaningful for you in your life? What’s going to change your life? Your course? What’s going to make you feel empowered to be the very best you that you can be? We’re really excited to kick off this new year. We’re excited about what’s coming up on the podcast over the next year. We hope to continue to deliver content that will change your life and we hope that you feel empowered through this podcast to learn new information and change habits in your own life that will make your life better.

Jonathan: Visit EmpoweringYouOrganically.com for all the transcripts and show notes. If one of your resolutions is to get healthy, I will shamelessly plug our supplement company, which is Organixx.com. O-R-G-A-N-I-X-X, two X’s, .com. We have all kinds of supplements from multi-vitamins to inflammation support, immune support, digestive enzymes and probiotics, and clean source collagens. All kinds of things to help you on your journey to health and-

TeriAnn: You can also go to, let me just plug this, too, our inspired health library where we’re delivering the best content out there, cutting edge content on your health and information that can help change your life.

Jonathan: And you can find that at Organixx.com. We have a YouTube channel, we have a Facebook page. Come join us, come join the conversation. Thank you for listening to today’s podcast. We will see you again next week.

TeriAnn: Happy New Year, everyone.

Jonathan: Happy New Year.

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Episode 11 – Making Your Resolutions a Reality

Organixx:

Empowering You Organically - website

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Organixx’s INSPIRED Library:

SMART Goals:

Human Intimacy:

Princeton Study on Wealth and Happiness:

Statistics on Resolutions: