117: Should You Set New Year’s Resolutions?

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 117.

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four.  Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

Wrapping up 2020 0:48 

Hey, Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and I am so happy that you're here. I'm also so happy that we are wrapping up another year. I think 2020 will be one for the books. I think most of us are going to have stories that we're going to tell our kids and grandkids for many, many, many years and decades to come about this year.

New Year’s Resolutions 1:12

But I for one am excited, I'm excited for 2021 and what it's going to bring. And so today on the podcast, I wanted to dive into a very timely topic of New Year's resolutions.  Now the way the heck back Episode Number 13 way the heck back in 2018, I recorded a Podcast Episode Episode 13 on New Year's resolutions, and in that episode, I gave really great advice if I do say so myself about how to think about New Year's resolutions and how to go about breaking them down into actual action items that you can achieve during the year.

Break down big concepts into simple actionable steps 1:49

And a funny thing that I was that just came to mind right now. One of my superpowers is being able to take big concepts and to break them down into simple steps. Break them down into like, do this first, do this second, do this third and that's one of my superpowers. And I learned this year that that was one of my superpowers, which is it's kind of funny, I think sometimes our gifts, we just kind of think that that's how everybody thinks like, if it comes easy to us, then we just think oh, it must come easy to everybody else. And this year, I learned that one of my gifts is being able to break down things into really simple actionable steps. And that that isn't something that everybody is really good at doing.

Recognizing and embracing one of my gifts (strengths) 2:32

And I had an experience. We're going off on a tangent, well, I'll get back to new year's resolutions. But I want to tell this story. So over the summer, I went to a mastermind for business where we get a whole bunch of business owners together and we just work on our businesses and talk about business and brainstorm and do lots of awesome things to grow and scale our businesses together. And we had a personality expert come in. And he talked about different personalities and their strengths and weaknesses. And he was able to kind of run through with each of us, some of our personality and our personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. The way that he caught, like classifies people is based on one of the ways he classifies people is based on seasons. And so he has what's called the summer season, the fall season, the winter, and the spring. And then in addition to that, there can be in between people. So you can have like a summer-fall or you can have like a fall-winter person. And each of those has unique personality traits and characteristics. And he labeled me as a summer-fall. And as he started going through some of the things that are traits of a summer-fall, my jaw just dropped because he just started spewing things that were just like, totally me talking about making lists and liking to check things off of list talking about liking things to be in order, things to be sequential, taking big concepts and breaking them down into small steps. All of these things that I kind of just always assumed was the way that everybody saw the world. And I'm learning that it's not and what a wonderful thing is that it's not we all have different perspectives. But, I guess I was in my 30s when I realized that people saw the world differently than me. And that's one of the things that I've really embraced this year, is recognizing that you know what, some of the things that are easy for me, being really sequential, being very logical, being very action-oriented, being a checklist type of person, that all comes very naturally to me and it doesn't come naturally to other people. And so as I've understood that and recognize that and been able to step into that a little bit more, it's been such a beautiful place to be able to serve from this place of my strength.

Looking back to Episode 13 4:46

So, I tell you that story because I go back and I listen to episode number 13 and that strength of breaking things down into steps, action items, very logical, very like time-oriented. It comes out in that episode. And it's a really great episode, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to, to that process that I teach back in Episode 13. I actually even have a free guide that walks you through setting your own goals and breaking them down and making them really actionable. So if you go to our show notes at www.bicepsafterbabies.com/13, you can snag that free download as well.

Reasons why I am recording another episode on New Year’s Resolution 5:25

So then, here we are two years later, and why the heck am I recording another episode on New Year's resolutions if I've already done one?

No. 1 I have new and different perspectives 5:31

Well, first, because as I continue to evolve and change and level up, I have new and different perspectives. And I want to continue to share those with you. And so when I go back, and I listen to Episode 13, I see the very logical, practical, step by step process that I shared. And it's great, and there's a lot of value to it. But I have new things to share that are a different focus than that podcast episode I recorded two years ago. So while many of the principles that I taught there, they're consistent, and they're unchanging, I have some new perspectives that we can talk about with the process.

No. 2 We are not in the same position compared to two years ago 5:31

The second reason that I'm sitting down to record another episode about New Year's resolutions is that many of us are not in the same position that we were two years ago. And to be honest, 2020 has been a year that has changed a lot for a lot of you listening. And if you are new to me, or you haven't been around for a long time, maybe you don't know my love for goals. If you stick around, you'll find out I love me some goals. And one of my favorite podcast episodes that I've ever recorded is Episode 92, where I talk about the mistakes that women make with goals. And so many of you guys have reached out to me and said that that episode really changed how you looked at goals. So in Episode 13, I talked about the doing aspect of New Year's resolutions. And I used to set new year's resolutions in the past like I'm going back many years ago, as a bunch of process goals. And if you don't know what a process goal is, or you don't know the difference between a process and outcome goal, I teach that in Episode 92. But I used to set new year's resolutions as a bunch of process goals. They were very binary, they were very checklist II, very summer-fall. In fact, I remember, one year, this must have been, oh gosh, 10 years ago, I actually one year set 52 goals for the year. And I actually kept a blog. And I had like all of the 52 goals written out; they were very specific of like, do this thing or like accomplish this for as many days or whatever. And I checked them off throughout the year as I accomplish them. So in the past, I have set new year's resolutions as a bunch of these process goals and that's great. And again, I think we all should be setting process-oriented, binary specific goals, I think that's really important. And now I want to layer into this episode talking more about the being part of setting goals, and specifically New Year's resolutions.

Casting a vision for your life 7:59

And I think New Year's is the perfect time to talk about this because one of the big differences, I think that there can be between just a general goal setting and the way that people think about New Year's resolutions is that New Year's resolutions are more about casting a vision for your life, like a broad vision for who you want to be and how you want to uplevel and how you're growing as a human and an individual. And so I titled this episode, Should you set a new year's resolution? And I want to help you answer that question. And of course, you've been around here for any period of time, you know that I'm going to do that, I'm going to answer that question by asking another question. And that question is do you want to grow? If the answer is yes, then goals must be a part of your life. Now, if you don't desire growth, cool, that's awesome. There is no need for goals, there's no need for New Year's resolutions. In fact, you probably just can't skip the rest of this episode. If you're just not somebody who is desiring growth, then this really isn't going to be for you. So that means if you're still here, and you're still listening, I have to assume that you answered yes to that question, that you do want to grow.

Thoughts on should you set New Years’s resolutions 9:13

And what I want to offer is a process to help you think about your New Year's resolutions in a slightly different way.  Okay, so we're gonna dive into not really steps. I hesitate to call these steps, but just maybe like ways to think about this process different perspectives to take.

No. 1 What results do you desire? 9:34

And so the first point that I want to make, cuz I did lay all these out in points, right? Like, we got to be organized, we got to have a list. So I have a list here. So the first question that I want to ask as you're thinking about New Year's resolutions and as you're thinking about the goals that you are setting is what results do you desire. I always say that my goal is to help you reach yours, whatever your goal is. No one gets to judge your goal, nobody gets to tell you that that's a good goal or a bad goal. It just is your goal. And I think in our society right now, we like to judge, we like to judge other people. And we like to say, Oh, that's a good goal, that's a bad goal, she shouldn't have that goal, or she can't do that, Oh, she shouldn't reach for that, or whatever. And I think there's a lot of judging that goes on with the goals that people set for themselves. And I, gosh, I want to get away from that. I think that whatever goal you want to set for yourself is an awesome goal. And I always say that, really, goals are about who you want to become. I feel like you set goals because you become someone different in the process of setting and reaching for that goal, not necessarily because of the end result. And I think that's where especially and we can even bring in this conversation around diet culture, we maybe you've been, you've heard as much about diet culture on Instagram, and people talking about how it's so bad, and how women don't need to change themselves to be more worthy, and I am 100% behind that. You do not need to change a single thing of you to be more worthy, or to be more enough, or to be more whole, that you are 100%, worthy, 100% whole, 100% enough, right now without changing a single thing.

The value of who you become in the process of reaching your goals 11:19

And at the same time, we can still strive to set new goals and to reach for more and to become somebody different, and to uplevel ourselves. And to me, that is the point of a goal is to reach for something that is so big, that it requires you to become a different version of yourself to reach it.  So I get this from a lot of women all the time especially we start talking about fitness goals and aesthetic goals, where they say, you know, they're kind of embarrassed about what their goal is because they say that it is vain, or shallow. And I think it's really important to ask yourself that question if that's been a thought that you've had of like, this goal is vain. It's vain, according to who? Who is judging that as vain? Are you judging it as vain? Is someone else judging it as vain? And asking yourself that question and recognizing where's that judgment coming from? And if you can change your perspective, first of all, who gets to decide if something's vain or not. And second, again, this is about not even the end goal that you have set, but who you become in the process. And so some goals that maybe people would label some aesthetic goals as vain or shallow, when you start to recognize that it's not really about the goal, but about who you have to be the person you have to show up as that is really the point of the goal, in my mind, that shifts the focus from the end result to the journey. And I think that there is value in a journey towards any goal that you want to set.

Your desires are indications for things that are possible for you 12:54

So when asking yourself this question, what results do I desire, what I want, what I want from my life, I want to offer a thought to you. And that is if you desire something if you want something if you have thought about setting it as a goal, or maybe achieving it, that inherently means it's possible for you. Desires are indications for things for which you have a built-in ability to accomplish. I believe that desires are a signal from God, a signal from your higher self from the universe, whatever you want to call it for areas of evolution and growth. And so we don't, most of us don't go around having desires for things that aren't really possible. Like, I don't, I didn't wake up this morning and say, Hey, you know what I want to do I want to go play for the WNBA. Like, that's not even a desire. It's not even in the realm of desire for me. And so the things that I do have desires for, I believe, I inherently have the ability to accomplish them. And I'm curious if you've ever considered that because I think a lot of times we have desires for things. And then like I said before we start judging them, and we start deciding even ahead of time, is it possible? Are we able to do it? What are people gonna think if I do this, what's gonna happen if I try it and fail? Wait, so we think to start thinking about all of these things around the result of the desire that we have. And I just want you to come back to this place that your desires are already an indication for things that are possible for you. So if you have a desire, that means you can accomplish it is within you to accomplish that.

What would you really want? 14:46

Now, if you start to ask yourself, What do I want? What results do I desire, especially as we go into a new year, What do I want in 2021? What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to do in 2021? If you start drawing a blank. Sometimes I get this way where I'm like, I don't know. I just don't even know. I remember my husband asked me that question. As I was starting my business, he's like, what do you want this to be? And I was like, I don't know. I'm just like building the thing, but don't really know where it's gonna go. If that's where you're at, where you're like, I don't really know what I want. I don't really know what I desire in life. I love to ask myself the question if I knew I couldn't fail, what would I want? And so maybe thinking about 2021, if you could literally speak a word and it would happen, and that you wouldn't fail, you would be 100% successful, what would you want? What would you want in 2021? And I think that's a great question to ask ourselves, because a lot of times, we couch our goals, based on what we think we can accomplish, rather than actually what we actually want. And when we can come back to this idea that the fact that you have that desire, means you are capable means you can achieve it, we can start to realize that we don't need to, don't need to set smaller goals, don't use that “achievable goals”. What do we really want? If you couldn't fail? What would you want? That's a really powerful question to sit in. And to be and those people who sit in that question, and live life from that question, are the ones who are the people who you look at and you're like, man, they continue to uplevel, they continue to improve, they continue to become a different person. It's because they continue to push the envelope of what they believe is possible for themselves.

No. 2 Who do you need to be to get the result you want?16:43

Okay, thought number two, when you have figured out what result you want, what your desire is what you want to create. The next question I want you to ask yourself is, who do you need to be? Who do you need to be to get the result that you want?

Be- do- have model 17:03

One of my mentors, Jim Ford, and teaches a model called the be-do-have model. Now, most people think of life, think of life in the do-have-be model. So and what let me break that down a little bit. What that means is we think about life as when I do something, it will cause me to have the result, which will cause me to be a certain way. For example, when I count macros, so that's a doing when I do something, I count macros, I will lose weight, so that's something that you'll have, I will have weight loss, and then I will be happy, or I will be confident. So we think of things in a do, which makes us have things which make us be things when in actuality, it's flip-flopped, the being must come first. So it is not the being that comes last, it is the being that comes first. So what does that mean? It means being happy or confident now is actually what drives you to do the things you need to do to have the result you wish to have. Be-do-have, the being comes first. And this is revolutionary because rather than focusing on the doing when we focus on the being on the identity of the person who has the results that we want, the rest takes care of itself.

Applying the be-do-have model 18:35

Think about it like this, it's almost like there is a boat, and there's a hole in the boat. And so water is leaking in and you have your pail, and you're, you know, scooping up water and you're tossing it over and scooping out water and tossing it over. You can work really hard, you can work super hard, and you can even work faster than maybe the water is coming in and sometimes feel like maybe you're catching up and you know, you're not gonna sink. But the doing, you can do, do, do, do, do, do. And it's never gonna really fix the underlying problem. And so until you go and actually patch that hole, you can do all the doing in the world, it's never gonna actually fix it. And I think of that in terms of what we want to create and the results we want to create our lives we can do a whole lot of doing. We can focus on goals, we can focus on action, we can focus on taking steps and moving forward and all those like action-oriented things which I love. Don't get me wrong, I love a good action-oriented plan. We can do a whole lot of doing. But if we never go below it, if we never go down to the who we're being to the being who is doing the doing, we aren't going to actually solve the problem. And I find this a lot of times with people in fitness goals and in fitness journeys that they reach a level of success and then they revert back, the yo yo back, they revert back to who they were. And the reason is that the doing may have changed for a time but the being didn't change, they didn't step into that new identity of who they were being in the moment.  So thinking about who do I need to be to achieve the results I want is an awesome question to ask yourself, Who do I need to be? What type of woman gets these results? What's what type of woman takes the action, in order to get these results? Again, the doing is important, we have to do things like you have to take new actions to get new results, what got you here will not get you there that is action-oriented. However, underlying every single action that we take is who we are being in that moment. And when we start to ask the question, Who do I need to be? Who do I need to become to be able to make these results possible? That is a powerful place to start your transformation and journey from.

No. 3 How can you intentional about your thoughts and your state of being? 21:02

Okay, and then thought number three, is how can you be intentional about your thoughts and your state of being. And this idea of, who are you being is a really nice one, but it can feel hard and intangible. Like how do you be? And that's how my, very action-oriented mind is, is like, Okay, so that's great. Now, how do I be like, what do I need to do to be, which is so funny, right? I just go straight to the action. And maybe that's how you are like to. Our minds are really good at doing, we have a much harder time conceptualizing being. Consider that what you do is an indication of the type of person that you are being whether it's consciously or subconsciously. So we can look at the actions we're taking the doing, that we're doing as kind of a delayed response to who we are being, okay, it's a little bit of like a clue that we can gather as to who we're being. And behavior, so actions that are incongruent with your identity won't last, this is where I talk about how you can do it for a while, but then you always default back to the identity, it's because there's that leak in that boat, till you actually address the leak until you actually address the identity and shift the identity, all of the doing in the world is not going to actually end up creating the results that you want. So when we talk about being, it is an internal state. Nothing needs to change in the external world for your internal world to change your internal state. So this is why I talk a lot about the transformation happening from the inside out. Because it starts with an internal state, you decide to be happy, or be confident, or be wealthy or be successful.

Being is an internal state 23:02

A funny story, interesting story about being successful, I had a coach at one point for my business. And you better believe that like coaches have coaches. I'm a big proponent in coaches having coaches. So I was talking to my business coach, and I mentioned something about wanting to be successful. And she like stopped and kind of look give me like this look. And she was like, you realize that you are I said, I want to be a successful businesswoman. And she said you realize that you already are a successful businesswoman. Right? And I just had to stop and pause and recognize that Yeah, heck yeah, I am a successful businesswoman. Like I, for some reason, I hadn't accepted or stepped into that identity. But I am, I am already successful. Now, does that mean that I don't continue to try and grow the business that I don't continue to try to serve more clients? No, I can be a successful businesswoman right now and I can also be working to increase our revenue to grow the business to serve more people like both of those things can be true simultaneously. So being is an internal state, I can be successful. I can be a successful businesswoman before I've even made a dollar because being is an internal state has nothing to do with what the external reality is. And so you can decide at any point to be happy. You can decide at any point to be confident. You can decide at any point to be successful, to be wealthy. Being is a state, it's not an action. Okay. So the best way to kind of check on your being is to become aware of your thoughts because who you're influencing the thoughts that you end up having. And if your current thoughts don't match who you want to be, then that's the point where we can start to change your thoughts. And we can start to shift those thoughts. And we can start to step into the type of woman that you need to be to get the results that you want.

An example of the be-do-have steps 25:11

Now, I know we're going a little like a little woo-woo here, a little deep. But I hope you're following me because this is such an important, valuable lesson that I have learned myself in my own life. And then also, as I help clients to step into the identity of the woman that she needs to be in order to get the results that she wants. Okay, so let's take an example because I know this can feel very esoteric, it can feel very ethereal and I do want to ground it a little bit for you. So let's take this example of being confident because this is what I'm going to hear a lot. When I asked women, you know, what's your goal? And they tell me, and then I say, you know, why do you want that? Or what is that going to do for your life? And a lot of times it will boil down to increasing their confidence. And maybe that's you, maybe you feel like, the changes that you want, they stem around this desire to be more confident. So being confident is a state of being. And so a good question to ask yourself is how will you know? How will you know, when you are confident? What will tell you that you have reached confidence that you are being confident? Another question to ask yourself is, what would the confident version of myself think when she looks in the mirror? Right? If I'm Amber, and then there's a confident version of Amber, what does that confident version of Amber say, when she looks in the mirror? What would that confident version of Amber tell herself when she enters a room? What would the confident Amber think when someone questioned her eating decisions?  Okay, and so staying in those questions of like, what would the confident version of me do and then starting to do those things to be that woman. If you think, you know, the confident version of myself would look in the mirror when I got dressed and say, You look Dang, girl, you look good. Now, and you don't totally do that now. Right? So how do you actually get to be that confident person? You emulate that, you stand there in front of the mirror and you look at yourself and you say, dang girl, you look good. And it can feel at first uncomfortable because your brains gonna be like, No, you don't, you are not there yet, sister. But the whole point of this exercise is to step into the being, into the identity of the woman that you need to be, who will then create the results that she wants. Remember, it's be, first the be, then do then have.

Recap 27:53

Okay, so those are some of my big thoughts for you around New Year's resolutions. And like I said, Episode Number 13 is very action-oriented, very linear, very, do this first and think about this and set this kind of type of goal. And in this podcast episode, I wanted to go a little bit deeper. And I wanted to go into some of the stuff that matters, that really matters, but that we don't often think about because we get so caught up in the doing. And I really want to invite you, as you step into 2021, to think about this question of what desires do I have? What results do I want? And who do I need to be? Who I need to become in order to make those happen? And then the last step of how can you be intentional about your thoughts and your state of being and step into that version of the woman who is able to have the results that you want. How can you step into the confident version of you, the successful version of you, the version of you who loves herself? What would that look like? And as you step into 2021, thinking about who you want to become? Who do you want to be in this upcoming year? Being, yes influences doing, you get it like you cannot get around the fact that we live in a 3D world where you have to take action to get results, that is part of the process. But if that action comes from a state of being that doesn't align with the long term results that you want, you'll never be able to keep those long term results. And so the fact that you're listening to this podcast means you want long term sustainable results. You wouldn't be here if you're just like, I just want to lose 20 pounds as fast as possible and then gain it all back. You wouldn't be here if that was you. So the fact that you're listening here means that you want long term results. If you want long term results, changing your identity, stepping into that person that you need to become is part of the process to make it a lasting long term change.

What to look forward to in episode 118 30:02

So I'm excited about 2021, I'm excited for you. I'm excited for myself, I have some new goals that I'm working on some New Year's resolutions that I'm working on that I'm going to actually share next week on the podcast. So if you're interested in how 2020 went for me, I'm gonna share a little bit about the goals that I set and how I did on those goals during 2020. And also my goals and ideas and plans for 2021 make sure that you tune into next week's episode. And I'm going to be sharing what worked and what didn't work in 2020 plus what I'm going to be doing in 2021.

Thank you for being here! To show some love and support kindly leave a review in iTunes 30:38

Before we go, will you take a quick moment to go and leave a review on iTunes, if you have not yet done it, I know a lot of you have? And I'm really grateful for those of you who are taking the time to read a review, or to leave a review, I read them. And it really just gives me life knowing that there are people on the other side of this podcast, learning and listening and growing because of the podcast. So please, if you haven't yet taken three minutes, leave a review on iTunes. It really helps the podcast and it helps me out a lot. And last, as we wrap up this year, I just want to take a moment and say thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing the podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community. I love what I get to do and I love that you are here doing it alongside me. That wraps up this episode of biceps after babies radio, I'm Amber now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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