Gratitude and Goal Setting - Take Control of Your Happiness

1. Welcome: Hey, close letters. I am evolved minds and I am the founder behind smart life dot tips. I'll be your instructor through this gratitude and goal-setting training. Now this is a method that it works incredibly well. The two put together the direction that you set when you do a gratitude practice. And by that I mean an active gratitude practice, not just the passive. Going to settle for something nice. Now we're putting some effort into it and it's going to be an active practice That's going to set us direction. And then the action that you take through the goal-setting is those two things together is going to give you an incredibly powerful combination direction in your life. You're gonna be happy, you're gonna be productive, and you go into achieve amazing things. This course is for you if you've never done a gratitude practice, but you've heard that mindfulness helps with happiness and you're willing to give it a try. This course is also for you if you've been doing a gratitude practice, but it's not working well. In fact, it's maybe even making you feel more crappy. This course is for you if you've been setting goals and trying to focus on the journey. But the journey kind of sucks and the whole thing seems pointless. In this course, you'll see how all areas of your life work together. We'll be exploring ten different areas of your life, making sure that each area is at a high enough level to support the other areas. You'll learn how you can gain opportunities by giving your mind direction. Once you have that clarity and focus, It's amazing what opportunities will reveal themselves to you. Starting in the very next video, you'll see how you can get on an upward spiral to happiness. Let's get started. 2. Creating an upward Spiral: I'm so glad you're joining me in this course. I want to start with talking about why gratitude and goal-setting is so important. Let's start with gratitude. I want you to picture an upward spiral. Instead of a downward spiral, we're going efforts here. You're gonna start with focusing on something that is good. And once you do that, then I will put you in a positive state of mind. From that state of mind, it is so much easier to make good decisions. The poor state of mind, you'll end up making poor decisions. They might be too emotional or tied to something that is not relevant, whatever. But I can guarantee once you in a positive state of mind, you're more likely to make better decisions. Now those good decisions are going to lead to good outcomes. Not every single one, but bit by bit, there'll be better and better. Those good outcomes then lead to something more to be thankful for. With more to be thankful for it, you can start that spiral all over again and it just builds and builds and builds and builds. And you won't notice right away that you're in that upper spiral. It takes a little while, but it keeps building and eventually you're going to notice it. There's going to be a big difference. And you're gonna say, oh, I got it in practice, do this daily gratitude practice, and then one day it will be like, I get it okay. Things are different than my life is much better. I wanted to give you a little story to show you when I first recognized that this guy to practice that I was doing was working for me. Years ago. I was I had a very special evening, special date night. I'm gonna call it with my boyfriend. But we're sitting in a car for hours. This is before COVID getting quality time together. So at that time, I really appreciate that quality time we had together just sitting in a car. It was late at night. It was a February night, but it didn't happen to be too cold. I was in Toronto. So february can be called, but that night wasn't too bad. And we were able to go to Tim Horton's, which is another Canadian thing, and grab some stuff to snack on, had a little picnic in the car and spend some really enjoyable time together in this car. I'm picturing that as a memorable date night. The reason we were there, it was because I had borrowed his car on the way back to his place. The muffler system, like the whole system fell out at the bottom. So I couldn't keep drive. I had to pull over and I ended up in a parking lot and I gave him a call and we were waiting for the tow truck and it took a very long time. I can think of that night as something special because of my gratitude practice. Before my gratitude practice, it would've been a very different story. I would've probably want to pulled over or maybe not right away because I would've been frustrated, might not have made that good decision right away, which would have caused more damage to the car. I would have called my boyfriend and he would've come in, stayed with me waiting for the tow truck. He would've helped me out. But I would not have been in a good mood. I would have been grumpy. I'd be frustrated at we would definitely be fighting. He wouldn't leave me stranded there because he's a good guy. He wouldn't have done that, but I can tell you it would not have been a special quality time date night at all. We would have spent hours in just miserable. Looking back. I know for sure that the difference between me being frustrated and grumpy and making poor decisions in that situation and turning it into being able to turn it into a special date night was my gratitude practice. If I hadn't practiced getting into the positive state of mind where I can make good decisions, then I would not have those outcomes at all. That just shows you how powerful AI gratitude practice can be just on its own. But we're also going to look at when you combine it with goal-setting and you're taking action on it as well. It can make such a difference in your life. I'll see you in the next video. 3. Opportunities reveal themselves: Now that you know about gratitude, let's talk about goal-setting. Goal-setting is going to help you take action on the direction that you've given yourself. When we do that, our mind does this incredible thing. It starts to focus on things that had been all around us all the time, but we just ignored before. Then all of a sudden we're paying attention to them. So it reveals opportunities when we're focused on them that are always there, but we haven't noticed. Let me give you an example. Not long ago I bought a new vehicle and g. Now before I was looking for a vehicle, I wasn't really paying attention to the cars on the road. What was what? The Jeeps are always there. It's a very popular vehicle for sure. There is tons of Jeeps, but I didn't pay attention to them, so I didn't notice them. I had no idea how popular they were as soon as I started looking for one myself, all of a sudden, I couldn't go down the street without running into a deep. They were everywhere. But when I put my mind towards it, that's when they reveal themselves to me. When you're setting a goal, opportunities are like that. G is suddenly everywhere. You set a goal towards something and you may not be sure exactly how it all is going to unfold. But those opportunities are always there surrounded you are going to reveal themselves to you. And then all sudden you've got your direction set and those opportunities come together. And it makes it a lot easier to achieve a goal once you focused on it, once you mind has been triggered to focus in a certain direction, all of a sudden there it is. Now some people call that part of law of attraction or manifesting, or the universe has got your back. Prayer. Maybe. There's lots of different ways that this sort of philosophy comes to light. But I find that the easiest way to think about it is that when you set direction, your mind starts to focus on those opportunities that have always been there and you don't notice. Now, I'm not saying that little lock doesn't come into it here and there because there is this element of having to be in the right place at the right time. We don't all end up like say Bill Gates, who had goals and use the strategy. But he ended up in a different place, but most of us well, but the chances, the opportunities, the ability to increase our odds are there when we set goals and start to focus on what's around us in our everyday life. Goals are going to help us take action. You're not going to manifest or do something just by sitting on the sofa and thinking about it. You have to bring that into your life. You've got to take action. The gratitude will help you focus on what direction to take. The goal-setting will clarify it even further and help you take action towards it. That's how the two of them work together and end up giving you an opportunity to just absolutely loved your life. 4. How to work through this course: Here's what you can expect in this course. We're going to start with gratitude and examine four areas in our life. Health, wealth, love, and happiness. Now within those areas there'll be subcategories as well. So we're going to explore many areas of our life about how they all work together to support each other. Then we're going to do a gratitude practice where we're thinking about, I'll give you a whole bunch of different ideas, things that you can reflect on so that you can make it an active gratitude practice. As opposed to a passive practice. An active means we're focusing on things that we have control of. Things that we are accountable for, things that we can change and set direction in our life. If we're just talking about what's coming into her life, it's really hard to make a difference in your life because those aren't things that you control. We're going to do an act of gratitude practice together. And then we're going to evaluate how that went. There'll be some areas that you've done well, some areas that you feel like could use some improvement. And we'll take that into the next step, which is the goal-setting. I'm going to really focus on the process, the journey here for goal-setting, and make sure that we're doing something that is fun We want to enjoy your life, will be working on three mini goals and then one larger goal. Three mini goals are smart goals will use that formula to help us set those goals. Then one stretch goal. I've done this course as a workshop and I still offer it as one-on-one training. During that, I came up with a formula that has worked really well, but I wanted to bring into this course as well. We did it as four weeks, four consecutive weeks, so that we could work on one area of life in the first three weeks and then with our mini goals and then our stretch goal in the fourth week that would take you into the next six months or a year or whatever. Now, I realize you're probably not going to come back to those class on the same day, on same time, next week, the week after, and the week after that. That's not really realistic. You can. But instead I put together a worksheet for you and you're gonna be able to watch everything now, get all the information that you need and then use the worksheet to take you through the next few weeks and into the rest of your journey. You don't need to come back to this class to get the refresher. You're welcome too, of course. But everything that you'll need will be in the worksheets so that you can take the lesson today and then take it with you on a journey. I'll be walking you through that worksheet as we go along the class today. 5. Health, wealth, love and happiness: Let's take a look at the areas of her life that will be evaluating and examining through this course. Health, wealth, love, and happiness. I've put it into four categories. Now, I've been inspired by a man named Tai Lopez. You may have seen him on the Internet. I find him actually knowing, but he has really good things to say and has taught me a lot from listening to his words or wisdom. And this is where these four categories come from, health, wealth, love, and happiness. Now you may have seen this as the pie of life or 12 categories in your life or some other form. The basic idea behind it is that you're going to examine your life in various areas and then see how they all work together. I use health, wealth, love, and happiness because it's catchy, it's easy to read. Remember you can think about it on a daily basis without having to go check your notes. Those are the top categories and there are subcategories that I've put underneath them so that we have a greater, a broader idea of the areas of our life that we can look at under Health. I've got fitness, nutrition and mental wellness. Fitness is pretty straightforward. Is your physical activity, your nutrition, diet, and what you're feeding yourself, what you're putting into your body and mental wellness. I don't want you to think of this as a replacement for anything that you may be doing with say, a doctor or physician, psychologists, psychiatrists, or any medication that you are taking. This will help for sure. We are going to improve our level of happiness and reduce our stress and anxiety. But it's not a replacement for anything that you're doing with a medical doctor. Well, as our second category here, I've put career. I've used the word career as an all-encompassing word. If you're a student, then think of this as how you contributing at school. If your volunteer, then you're adding value to the world in that way. If you're a parent and that's your focus right now, then how are you adding value? As a parent? Please interpret career as any way that you are adding value to this world. Finance, this can be a tough subject for a lot of us. But it's really important because let's face it, we can't live life without money. We need to at least get the basics right. So we'll be examining our money situation and abundance. Now this is the one where we have less control on an immediate basis. If you think about the world that you've created for yourself, you'll find that you've actually contributed to it a lot. Abundance is to get you thinking about what you think before that you built throughout your life that's accumulated to the life that you have now. Love is our third category and the subheadings here, our relationships could be with your significant other, your family, your friends, you or your children, self-love. This is the one that I find the most difficult, but I'll give you lots of examples it can be thankful for in the self-love area. Last subcategory is community, but how you add value to your community, it could be grouped or association. Could be your neighborhood, or spiritual or religious community. Then happiness. This is the category that is the stop and smell the roses category. And it's a simple question of What made you smile. Will be going through all these categories together. And I'm gonna give you lots of examples to help you think about ways where you've contributed to something that's gone well in those areas when they're laid out like this. I think it's easier and see how they all work together. So for example, if you're working on your relationships, let's say you're trying to think about how you can be nicer to your significant other. But your health isn't very good. You just feel crappy. You haven't taken care of your fitness or nutrition or your mental wellness and you're just not feeling very well. Well, it's going to be really difficult to be nice to your significant other. Or let's look at, say, career. Let's say you're focused on your career, but your relationships not doing well. Well if you're trying to focus on, say, a big project at work, but your significant other is calling you and complaining, not appreciating you. And you feel like you've done something that has diminished your relationship, then you're not gonna be able to focus on your career very well. That's why I like to look at all these things together. They really do work well together. They support each other in order to be successful in any one of these areas. They all need to be at a certain level. They have to be doing pretty well. So that's why we're going to examine them all. 6. Gratitude focus on health: This is exciting stuff. We're starting with our gratitude practice, the health category. I want you to remember this is an active practice, not a passive one. I want you to focus on things that you have accomplished, not just things that have come to you so accomplished as you're reflecting on the past day or two days or few days, I am bringing that into your practice. Now. I'm going to give you a whole bunch of ideas just to get the ball rolling on things that you can think of and might inspire you. But if you don't want my guidance or if you just need a little bit more time to think about it, then simply pause the video and continue when you're ready. I highly recommend that you use the workbook and put your answers what you appreciate in the space provided. That doesn't work for you, just grab a pen and paper and write it out. Writing it helps you visualize it. But for some people, visualizing it in their head is also quite effective. If that's you, then reflecting on it works too. The only thing I ask is being nice to yourself. We're not asking you to write down that you ran a marathon yesterday. We just want to look at the small things and appreciate the small things that we've done for ourselves that we've accomplished. Okay, You're ready? Here we go. The fitness category. Maybe you appreciate that you went for a walk yesterday or you ran up a flight of stairs, maybe took the stairs instead of taking an elevator. Or you played with your kids in the park. Perhaps you did go a little bit further than you went for a run or worked out at home or the gym, did some yoga. Appreciate that you've got moving in any way at all. Let's move on to nutrition. Thank you. So for maybe having a healthy salad for lunch yesterday or maybe you drink a glass of water when you first woke up, you snapped on some veggies. Perhaps you read the package ingredients at the grocery store. And while you were making a choice as to what to put the shopping cart or just in general, you did a good shop at the grocery store with lots of healthy things. Maybe perhaps some healthy snacks for the next few days. Now let's focus on mental wellness. This does not replace anything that you would do with a medical physician. But we are here to relieve anxiety, distress. Consider areas of peace and calm, but you can bring into your life and just all around feel better. Perhaps you're grateful because you went to bed early last night and got a good night sleep. Maybe you read a book, meditated, talk through an issue with a friend, set some boundaries yesterday. Good challenge. I mean, you hear right now doing this gratitude practice, That's a good one to put in there. Or perhaps you went for a walk to de-stress. Even if you put the I went for a walk in your fitness category, it's fine to repeat it here as well. Okay, that's it for the health category. I hope that wasn't too difficult if you did find that you left any of these areas blank, that's fine. It just means that you can focus on it today or tomorrow and do a little something for yourself in that area. 7. Gratitude focus on wealth: Moving on to the wealth category for gratitude practice. Now remember there's no rules here, they're just guidelines. The point is to reflect on something that you've done well, that you want to do more of. So keep that in mind as you're writing your answers. For this one, to make it an active practice, I want you to consider areas where you may be pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone a little bit. Starting with career. Remember career is a catch-all phrase for anything that you've done that adds value into this world. So if you are a student and you're going to school, maybe you've pushed yourself out of your comfort zone there. If you're doing volunteer work or your main job right now is parenting. Anything that makes you feel like you're living on purpose? Here we go. Perhaps you've promoted an idea on Instagram or other social media. Maybe you send a resume to accompany of interest. Maybe you attended a networking event for gained some respect while working with a difficult colleague. Perhaps you've pushed yourself to participate in a meeting by asking a question. Maybe you volunteer to help on a new project. Here's one you can put down your starting an online course. Now let's look at finances. Now. Finances for some people can bring up a lot of different emotions. So make sure you're being nice to yourself here. The smallest things can add up to make a big impact. And it happens over time. Focus on anything that you've done well in the past few days. Perhaps you've learned a little bit more about investing, or you went through your budget, maybe call it a spending plan because that sounds a little bit more positive. Maybe you paid your bills on time or he set it up so that you build, are paid automatically, set up automatic deposits into an investment account. Maybe you negotiate it better compensation for a project that you're working on. Or this is a tough one, but perhaps he had a money talk with your significant other. Let's focus on abundance. Abundance is a little bit more of a mindset approach. It can be your past accomplishments that have worked together to bring you where you are now. But you right here will be less tangible. But I want you to focus on all the great things that you've brought into your life as far. Maybe your investments are doing well today, or you're living in a home that you enjoy. Perhaps he gave to a charity or you took a friend and meet up for lunch and he had a good talk with them. Maybe it's that you can take good care of your kids and you can afford to put them in different programs. You can afford a fun adventure for yourself. What you right here. It doesn't have to be monetary. It could be something that you appreciate outside of your finances, such as the incredible support you get from your family, or the abundance of fun things you did on the weekend. Just to remind you here, we are supposed to be feeling good after our gratitude practice. I'm supposed to be focusing on the small things that we want to celebrate. These are small wins that should be thought of as a reason to do a happy dance. That's not happening for you. And I want you to try breaking it down to focus on things that are even smaller. Just like any tiny way that you've stepped out of your comfort zone. That is something to celebrate. Be nice to yourself, be kind to yourself, and enjoy the journey. 8. Gratitude focus on love: Here we are in the love category. Now for this one to make it active instead of passive, I want you to think about where you've put in some effort. When we talk about relationships, it's not just that you have a relationship is where you've put in some extra effort. Let's start starting with relationships. This can be with your significant other, your family, your close friends. Maybe you've had a good conversation with your boyfriend, sister, mother, in that you put the effort in to listen a little bit better than you normally do? Perhaps you went for a walk with your mom and kept her company. Maybe you checked in on a friend or family member who hasn't been willingly. Maybe you reached out to a null friend and wish them a happy birthday. Perhaps he's spent some quality time with your kids, or it's just that you pick them up on time. Moving on to self-love. This category for me is a tough one. I have a default that I always go back to if I can't find something else. And in the self-love category, It's that I liked that I'm tall. Now that does not active is passive. My height is given to me. But I want to have something here that I appreciate about myself. Even on the days where I struggled to find something. That's why I say there's no rules here is just guidance. And if you have a category as well that you struggled with, then try having a simple default answer. Let's continue in this practice. Keeping it simple. Maybe you're just having a good hair day. Are you wearing a shirt that's a flattering color for you? Here's a good one. Perhaps you caught yourself in some negative self-talk and you changed it up. Use your creativity to come up with an idea. Maybe you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone by being in this course. Or maybe you accepted a compliment just by saying thank you. Let's focus now on community. Community could also be your spirituality or religious practice. Perhaps you said hello to a stranger on the street and made them smile. Maybe you complimented the cashier at the grocery store. Maybe you were more patient with your Uber driver. Said thank you to your postal worker. Perhaps you participated in something like a book club or a church event or a beach cleanup. Focus on whatever effort you made to increase your connection with community. Those are the three areas where our gratitude practice is active, not passive. And I will see you in the next video. 9. Gratitude focus on happiness: You've made it through the act of part of our gratitude practice. Well done kudos to you. Now we're on to the, what I call the stop and smell the roses category, happiness. For this category, I want you to think of just something that has made you smile today, yesterday in the past few days. Anything that has made you smile? For me anytime I see sunshine, think you can see behind me there's some sunshine today. Sunshine always makes me smile. But perhaps for you is just a good cup of coffee. Maybe you read a good book this week, are washed a good movie. Or maybe you are watching a comedy show and that made you laugh. Maybe there's been a happy by the work this week or something good has happened. Or even just that you didn't get stuck in traffic this morning? Snuggling with our pets is a hoist good. Lately there's been a lot of snowed here. Watching some funny videos of dogs running through the snow has been a good one for me. Anything you like, et al, that has made you smile. I wanted to make sure that you noticing all the greatness that surrounds you. That's why I call this one the stop and smell the roses category. I think it's really important to appreciate the environment that we're in and all the greatness around us. Let's say for the gratitude practice. I'll see you in the next video and I'll give you some guidelines for the next few days. 10. Turning gratitude into a practice: Well done on the gratitude practice. Now because it's a practice, you want to do it regularly. You're practicing gratitude, you're getting better and better at it. So think about a time in your day where you could do this regularly. Now for me, it is first thing in the morning, I get up, I grab a cup of coffee, I sit in myself and I pretty much just meditate on the gratitude practice. For a lot of people. The end of the day might be better just before you fall asleep, it can put you in a good state of mind as you're trying to drift off. But for some people, neither of those work. You might find that it is while you're on the go. Perhaps he'd drive somewhere every day and you've got a few minutes on route where you know the route already, you don't have to focus too much on the road or maybe you've got one of those self-driving cars. You can do your gratitude practice while you're on route. Or you know that you have to stop and wait for something every day. Like you're in line for coffee every morning and got a few minutes, a single morning where you can just reflect in your head with your gratitude practice. Now having said that, you may want to be writing it down every day. And that's going to affect where a when you do your gratitude practice or you may just be reflecting in your head, I'm going to encourage you to write it down. Most people find when they can see it visually, it gets out of their head and onto a piece of paper that, that's more effective for them. But it doesn't work for everybody because it's got to fit into your schedule as well. You may just want to reflect on it. That's fine too. That works for me. One thing that I heard works really well and I think as a fabulous idea is, and yet one of my sisters and her daughters used to share their gratitude practice through text every day, which I think is fabulous. It was harder to do and it wasn't sustainable long-term. But for a little while it works really well and it's a good connection for them. You might want to give that a try. I'm also going to encourage you to grow into this gratitude practice. I've given you four categories, health, wealth, love, and happiness. I've also given you subcategories now to do all of it all at once when you're first starting, it's a lot. If you've never done a graduate practice before, is start with just one thing. Or if you want to challenge yourself a little more, Two or three things, That's it. Keep it simple. If you have done a gratitude practice before or you're taking the next step, then try doing all four categories, health, wealth, love, and happiness. If you are ready for the next step, then I want to encourage you to make sure your practice is an active one. Instead of a passive one. You're appreciating what you've accomplished, or where you stepped out of your comfort zone, or how you've added effort into something that you appreciate. And of course you've got the happiness category, the stop and smell the roses one. So just remember this is a practice. There's no need to perfect. It's just something that is going to help you feel better each and every day. 11. Experiments are about discovery: Before moving into this next section, the goal-setting section, I want to make sure you're reflecting on what came out of you gratitude practice. Or there's some areas that you want to focus on and bring into your goal-setting. Now remember, all those areas work together in harmony. For instance, if you were working on a relationship with somebody, then you want to make sure that your health is at a certain level. Because if you feeling grouchy and ill and irritable, then that's going to make it difficult to have a good relationship with somebody. You've got a tough conversation coming up if you want to feel that before you go into that conversation. Another example is if you're working on the abundance section, if you want to bring that into your goal-setting, then you want to make sure that your happiness level, that category is pretty high. You want to be able to notice all the greatness around you and bring that into your abundance goal-setting. In this next section, as we're setting these goals, I want you to think of it as an experiment where it's all about discovery. There's no failure. Every time I've done this practice with somebody, they've always come back and said, You know what, I thought I was setting myself up for something easy and simple, but it turned out to be more challenging than I expect. Inevitably, even something as simple as I wanted to make sure I'm drinking more water. You think that would be easy? Well, it turns out not so much. In the process. They learned new things about themselves. They've discovered that they like something or don't like something, what works, what doesn't work for them. And they're growing along the way. So most of it is positive. But even if it's not, it's at least constructive. There's no negativity happening here. It's all good. 12. Ready, set, goal!: The next few videos we're going to focus on three mini goals for health, went for wealth and one for love. We're going to focus on the part that we have control over the process. We can't predict the end result. We can hope for something and use it as direction. But whether it happens or not is not always in our control. So we're going to focus on the process. The journey will follow those three mini goals. With a stretch goal, you'll have some time to practice to figure out what works for you, to figure out how to approach it and then get into the larger, more challenging stretch goal. It'll walk through everything in the videos now. And then here's your workbook for doing this in real-time at your own pace, I would suggest one mini goal per week and then you stretch goal for however long it takes you. I urge you to make it fun. Goals that are easy, something that you'll enjoy doing. Don't torture yourself. Maybe you can pair up with a buddy brainstorm ideas for making it even more enjoyable. And don't forget to bring in lots of rewards for yourself and celebrate. 13. Goal setting focus on health: We are identical settings section, we're starting with health. Which of the sub categories do you want to focus on? Fitness, nutrition, or mental wellness in the same way that the main categories support each other. These subcategories support each other as well. If you choose something in the fitness area, then nutrition and mental wellness will help you along your journey. Now I want you to think of who you want to become. We want to attach an identity to our goal. Because when we think of ourselves as a certain identity is going to help us along the journey. Instead of the end result, we're focusing on being that person in the moment. For example, if you choose the fitness category, you could say, I am a runner. That identity is going to help you figure out and do the things that I understood. I am a runner. I do the things that runners do. You can even make a list of the things that runners do. If you choose nutrition, perhaps your identity is, I am a vegetable eater. I do the things that festival leaders do. And of course you're going to make a list of all the things that vegetable eaters do. It's not just eating the vegetables. You've got to go get through the groceries. You've got to prep them and prepare them and make it easy for yourself to become a vegetable leader. If you choose mental wellness, perhaps you are a good sleeper. You do things like good sleepers do. You can do some research on what those things are and activities that can help you in that area. In this next section, we're going to use smart as an acronym to figure out what we need to do along the journey of becoming this identity. I will use, I am a runner for our example is for a specific, I'm going to visualize myself as a runner, all the details of it, all of the things that I need to do, what I'm going to be wearing, what I'm going to be listening to. Who's going to be running with me? What kind of area am I going to run on? Everything that I can think of, all the details I'm going to be as specific as I can while I'm visualizing myself as a runner. For measurable, what's your starting point? And where do you want to get to? Perhaps currently you run about two kilometers once a month. And you want to head in the direction doing about three kilometers once a week, figuring out what sort of measurement you're going to use to track your progress for aligned with the values. If you've used a smart goal before, you may recognize a as being attainable to me, attainable. And the next one, realistic, is fairly similar. The traditional sense of the smart acronym is missing something incredibly important. And that is aligned with values. If it's not aligned with your values, then why are you doing this goal in the first place? I think it's so important to just check in and make sure that what we're trying to accomplish is important to us. Why is it important to you? And that reason will help keep you motivated. For realistic. Now this is just a mini goal and I'm suggesting you spend one week on it. This makes sure that we're doing something realistic, something that we can accomplish. Because our lives are busy. We don't want to add so much that we're packing on something that we're going to stress over and then think, what else in your life do you have to say no to, to clear more space for you to become this identity T for time-based. This is where I want you to pull your calendar or use the workbook to mark down one thing per day that you're going to do along the process of becoming your identity, you'll probably find that it's easier to work backwards. So if one week from today, you want to run three kilometers without stopping, that lands on a Saturday. And what are you going to do on the Friday? Perhaps you need to eat really well on the Friday, the fuel you around. What are you going to do on a Thursday? Well, maybe you've got to do some grocery shopping so that you can eat well, on the Friday, what are you going to do on Wednesday? Maybe it's here that you're going to do a special workout. What are you going to do on the Tuesday? Perhaps you're going to spend some extra time stretching. Maybe that's the day that there's a yoga class that you'd like to go to Planet out in advance. And if you have any special events in your identity than trying, working backwards from that event to help you figure out how you should plan. There's your first mini goal in the health category. Well done. If you need to spend a little extra time on it, of course, pause this video or come back to it when it's appropriate. We're going to do the same sort of exercise through the wealth category and the loved category. After this course, you're going to be spending your time becoming your identity in the health category first. And that's going to take you probably a week if that's the appropriate amount of time for you to use the workbook to remind you how to approach the next categories when you're ready for it. But we'll talk about it now in this course. 14. Goal setting focus on wealth: Here we are in the weld category. Now, I'm sure you're going to get some ideas as we're talking through this section. But I really encourage you to make sure that you spend your time first in the health category, go through your process of doing the goal and everything that you're going to learn along that journey. And then you can take those learnings into this category. You'll get some ideas today, but then come back and use your workbook when you're ready to tackle this section. Don't try to do it altogether. We're trying to make this an easy process. So thank under wealth, which of the three areas, if you want to focus on career, which is an all encompassing category, anyway, that you're adding value into the sprawled your finances. That one's pretty straightforward or abundance. That's more of a mindset area. Let's attach an identity to it so that we focus on who we want to become. And that's going to help us focus on the journey. For example, you might choose, I am an investor, I do the things that investors do. So then you go in and make a list of all the things that investors do, doing some research, making a plan, choosing some stocks and all things that would help support you becoming fat identity. Let's go through the smart ball acronym to help us figure out how to plan becoming this identity. S for specific, visualize yourself as this identity, as many details as you can. In fact, if you were in a movie as this identity, what would it look like? What would it feel like? For measurable? Where are you at currently? And where do you want to add some numbers to it, or some unit of measurement aligned with values. Why is it important to you to become this person? What will motivate you? For realistic? This is a mini goal, only one week or so. What else in your life where you need to say no to? In order to focus on becoming this identity, make it easy for yourself. And T are time-based at the milestones in your calendar. And remember, sometimes it's easier to work backwards from a certain point or certainly event. And then put in all the supporting activities that it will take to get there. Well done. I'll see you in the next video. 15. Goal setting focus on love: Here we are in the love category. So think of the area that you want to focus on, an identity that matches that area. So for example, if you choose relationships, perhaps your identity is, I am an excellent stats. I am at patient, parent. Or if you're choosing the self-love category, your identity could be I am my own best friend, or I am a positive self-talk. Or if you choose the community category, perhaps your identity is, I am a spiritual leader or I am a community center volunteer. Then thinking about all the things that somebody in that identity would do to become that person. Okay, Let's go through the smart acronym for specific. Visualize yourself as that identity. Remember all the details and playing it for yourself as a movie might help em for measurable. How would you evaluate who you are now compared to who you want to become? How will you know when you're progressing? For aligned with the values? Why is it important to you to become that identity? It will motivate him. Are for realistic. What can you accomplish with this mini goal? Remember, some things are not in your control, which is in your control. What can you do within your timeframe? Then T for time-based, add some milestones to your calendar, something that you're going to accomplish each day of the week. That's it for our three mini goals. I hope as you go through it, you're learning and growing, discovering new things about yourself, what works, what doesn't work. And you're building some momentum along the way. You're going to bring those learnings and that momentum into a stretch goal. See you in the next video. 16. Happiness - stretch goal: We've talked about smart goals in three categories, health, wealth, and love. You've probably gone through and thought about it a little bit as the men talking, of course, when you do the work with the workbook and you're taking it and actually doing the practice part of this course might be some ideas that you get that you might want to take further into a stretch goal. Here we are in the happiness section and we're going to be talking about a stretch goal. This is something that's going to challenge you a little bit further and help you grow and learn. The definition of a stretch goal. Stretch goals require you to learn, grow, and challenge yourself. You may not know exactly how to achieve it, but you believe it's possible for you to figure it out. You may need some outside help. We've been doing weekly goals and I won't do you think for the stretch goal, is there a timeframe that you think would be appropriate for what you want to achieve. Maybe it's a few months, six months, maybe a year, maybe even five years or longer, up to you, depending on what it is you're trying to achieve. I want you to consider everything, absolutely, everything in the world as possible and open to you. You've got This finances, you can make things happen. Anything is possible. What would you like to do? Think about that for a moment. And then let's move back into the identity. Who do you want to become? A stretch goal? It's gonna be something that is going to take longer for you to become this person, but you're gonna grow into it and enjoyed the journey along the way. Let's think if you were thinking about something in the health category, perhaps it's that you want to be a marathon runner. So I am a marathon runner. Or if you were thinking in the weld category, perhaps you really want to get a business started and off the ground. So I am an entrepreneur or I am a business owner. In the loved category, maybe really want to focus on your relationship with your spouse. I am an excellent spouse. The same way that we use an acronym to help us work through our smart goals. Come up with an acronym for you to help us work through the stretch goal as well. Dr, DRI BE think about it as we're going on a road trip, long journey. We want to get from where we are now to whatever destination it is somewhere off in the future. We have no math. We're focusing really on the journey. We're not going directly from a to B because we're, you know, that destination is memory not be there, we don't have a map. So what we have to do is try and figure out our way to get there. Maybe we're following the sun or the stars are asking for directions along the way. But we're gonna have some roadblocks, we're gonna have some side trips. We're gonna see some sites along the way. We're going to have great experiences. This acronym Dr. D for direction, are for reason, I for intervals, be for variables and E for evaluation. Let's break each of these down. Starting with D for direction. Visualize the details of who you want to become during the journey. Picture, all the details, but are you wearing who's with you? What's the environment look like? What does it smell like? And if you can attach to the emotion to it, are you happy, sad, excited, feeling adventurous, feeling free, and emotional were really helps you connect to that identity are for reason. Why do you want this goal? Who else do you want it for? Similar to the work that we did, aligning our values to our goals. What is the reason behind why we want the school? What's the purpose? Why is it important to us? Who else do we want it for? Maybe you want to be a marathon runner because it means you can run with your teenage son who's really getting into running and you want to be able to do it together. If you have somebody that you're doing it with, it makes it a lot easier. Doing it for family is a great reason. Perhaps you want to be a business owner or an entrepreneur because you can bring in lots of money that would help your family. Or you've got a product or service that you know, can really help somebody and you really believe in it. Who else are you doing it for? A picture, that person that you want to be a great spouse, picture your husband or wife, or partner, and pictures the relationship that you can have. But the emotion to it. Yes, we definitely want accountability to ourselves. But it is often easier when we bring somebody else into the picture as well. For intervals. What are some of the milestones you want to hit while on route? Let's break it down. Is there something that you want to hit within a month from now? Is there something you want to hit three months or six months from now or a year from now. What are those milestones? If your identity is a marathon runner, when are you going to hit that five-kilometer mark, that ten kilometer mark, that half marathon. If you're focused on being an entrepreneur, when you launch your product or service, When are you going to get your first sale? And then of course, when you're going to get your first ten sales or a 100 sales, if your identity is to become a great spouse, what are some milestones you can put to that? Are you going to go on vacation with your spouse? Are you going to have a special date night? Are you going to have date nights regularly? Are you going to have a deep conversation that you've been avoiding? Figure out your milestones and at what time frame you want to hit them. For variables. Roadblocks do you expect to encounter who can help on a road trip? We know where we're heading, but what are the variables along the way? We're not going straight. There is a challenging road trip and we don't have a map, so we know we're going to stop, need some gaps. We're gonna stop and eat some food. We're going to need some place to stay. We're going to encounter all kinds of things on the way. So let's say you're becoming a marathon runner. What happens if you sprained ankle or you run out of time on the days that you want to run. Let's start thinking in advance what those variables are and how we can overcome them. You're becoming an entrepreneur. What happens if you launch your product and service and you don't get your first sale, who can help you? If you becoming a great spouse? What happens if your partner doesn't respond to the effort that you're putting in, how are you going to work around that? These are the areas that are unknown. And to help avoid some of the uncertainty that comes around it, just start thinking in your mind, well, what can I do if this happens? What are some possibilities and who can help me? Then our last part of it, evaluation some regular dates to celebrate accomplishments and evaluate what's next. So figure out what's working, what you want to do more of and areas that you want to approve and don't forget to celebrate. Celebrating the small stuff makes the journey so much more fun than going back to our gratitude practice. And we celebrate something. You really helps us reflect on what's going well and starts that a bird spiral again. Those celebrations are extremely important and makes sure that you've got it marked in there that you're going to evaluate and celebrate. 17. Stretch goal paired with SMART goal: Now stretch goal can be challenging for sure. I mean, that's the whole point. You want to challenge yourself. But to make it a little bit easier, to think about this smart goals that you've already gone through and how you broke those down. Perhaps you can take this stretch goal and break it down into several smart goals. Or just think about the first, a few steps that you want to do for your stretch goal and use a smart goal to get there. Just to recap, you want something specific, measurable, aligned with values, realistic and time-based. Let's take a moment here to brainstorm a little bit on what a fun first step could be if you were becoming a marathon runner, maybe your fun first step is that you are doing some online shopping for a nuclear running shoes. That's always fun. If you're becoming an entrepreneur, maybe your first step is to connect with other people that are going to help you along your journey. And you're going to collaborate with somebody to do a launch. If you're becoming a great spouse, maybe your first step is to talk to your kids and find out what their opinion on what your partner really wants would be. You know, kids are always bringing great ideas. What could be your first step along your journey? Then let's consider what success looks like. If this were an experiment, then it's about discovery. There is no failure. We're going to repeat this from our initial definition. Stretch goals require you to learn, grow, and challenge yourself. That's it. There's no like, oh, I fell off the wagon. I gotta get back up and oh, I gotta do this and I am not enjoying goal and I'm really struggling with it. Be nice to ourselves. Remember this is about discovery. It's about learning, growing, and challenging, Challenging ourselves. So failure is not even part of the equation. It's all success. If you're discovering new things, then you're successful. Next, I want to give you some tips on how to make it happen. 18. 10 tips to help your journey: Be feeling good and pumped up about the goals of your new accomplished. But I know that when you actually put them into practice, you're going to find that what you thought would be easy may not be so easy to put together some tips for you to make your journey a little bit easier, a little more fun, and to help you along the way. Tip number one is really simple. It's called just show up. I have a friend whose daughter play soccer. And one morning she woke up and went to her mom's room and said Mom, I just don't feel like going to practice today, feel a lot of anxiety. I'm just not into it and said, Okay, I know that supporting the team and being part of that team is really important to you. Why don't you just go to the practice and you can talk to the coach and the coach know that you've just not into it today, but you're gonna sit and watch so that you can support the team. Dotted thought. Okay, I can do that. I'll just go. She went and sure enough, she shows us that practice as soon as she was in that environment with your teammates around her, with that different energy, she decided she wanted to dissipate once she was their whole different story, the anxiety left, and she just felt really good about practicing with the team. There's a saying, 80% of success is just showing up. But saying is attributed to Woody Allen, who is not a scientist. I don't know how he came up with that stat, but I think he just intuitively knew that one of our biggest hurdles is just not putting ourselves in the environment where we need to be to succeed. If you just show up, the rest can take care of itself. Tip number two is called trigger and reward. Find something that will kick-start your mind into action, do it, and then celebrate. When I was doing this course as a workshop, one of my sister was taking this workshop with me and she said she was having some trouble finding the right time during the day to remember to do her gratitude practice. One of the things that I knew that she did regularly was make dinner for her family. So we thought well, what about if you took that moment and use that as a trigger? So as soon as you go to the kitchen and start making dinner and thus your trigger. And then you're going to do your gratitude practice. Just take a moment and reflect on what you're thankful for. And then as reward, you can listen to that podcast that you really enjoy while you're making dinner. Her triggers going into the kitchen. And the reward is the podcasts that trigger reward system has really helped her remember to do her gratitude practice. It's working. Tip number three is actually quite similar to number two. This one's called habit stacking. Latch a new habit onto an old one that you do daily, like brushing your teeth. Your habit of brushing your teeth is done automatically. You don't even think about it. It's already got its trigger reward system built-in. Your mouth feels bowel in afterwards, so it feels fresh in the team. You don't have to worry about remembering to brush your teeth. It just happens. It's already a habit. But you're supposed to brush your teeth for two minutes. During that two minutes, you don't really have to focus too much on which tooth brushing. You've got some mental energy there that you could put into something else. Then maybe that is when you do gratitude practice or you're looking in the mirror, maybe that's when you try some positive self-talk or whatever it is that you need to do. Brushing your teeth is one example, but there's lots of habits that we do through the day, such as waiting for the kettle to boil for a cup of tea. You've got some time in there where you can fit something in or waiting for the coffee maker or whatever. Got lots of habits during your day that you already do without thinking. Where you can stack a new habit that you're trying to build onto, one that you're already doing without thinking. Tip number four is get an accountability buddy and make sure it's somebody that you can rely on. The other day, I was burning with my Run Club and the rest. A club is more experienced than I am, so they run farther and faster. But I've been trying to improve every week. And at the start of this run, I told the run leader that I was going to do the whole route. Previous runs, I've been chopping out a section so that I'm not so far behind. But today I was determined to do the whole route. By the end of the run, I was feeling like cutting out the last little bit and just having straight back to the starting point. I didn't want to do the whole route. But because I had already told the run leader that I was going to do the whole route and I knew she would ask me about it. I decided I better do it. I did. It works. Tip number five is to make a promise to yourself, develop the integrity, to do the things you say you're going to do. It's similar to tip number four with the accountability buddy. But you're being accountable to yourself. We don't actually need somebody else to hold us accountable. We can do that for ourselves. If we made a promise to a friend, we wouldn't cancel so easily. We would do our best to do what we say we're going to do. Let's say the identity you want to become is a book reader. Tonight you've promised yourself you're going to turn off the TV and read a book instead. Well, keep that promise to yourself the same way that you would keep that promise to a friend. Don't for yourself. Tip number six, be flexible. So many things are not in our control, including the results of our goals. Let's say your identity is to be a healthy eater. Weight-loss might be the direction that you're going in here. But what if you've been sticking to your healthy eating plan and you feel like you've put the effort in and your body is just not responding. Sometimes things are not in our control. You're going to need to be flexible. You're going to need to try something else, see if something else will work for you. This is one of the reasons why I love the idea of becoming an identity as opposed to trying to hit a certain end results. It allows for space to change direction and pivot in order to take on the characteristics of that identity regardless of whether the end result happens or not. Tip number seven, practice patience. I'll admit this is one I find really challenging, but in some cases it's so necessary. It takes time to see results. Let's say your identity is, I am an efficient business leader. You research some new information and you try some new stuff. You may or may not get some positive feedback right away. It takes time for people's perception of you to change. If you were heading in the direction of a promotion, you're definitely not going to get that overnight. Keep going. Practice patients and new opportunities will open up. Tip number eight, feet prepared, setup what you'll need beforehand and have a contingency plan. For example, if your identity is, I am a meditator. I'm going to meditate every day. You want to do it outside in a natural environment such as on the beach or under a shady tree. What if the day that you're going to do your meditation outdoors is a horrible weather day, trench or rain core. Are you still going to go down to the beach, sit there and meditate? Probably not. So what's your plan B, What's your contingency plan? Is there another area that you can go to if you first plan doesn't work out. Number nine, guided by values, like our meditation example, sometimes things don't go as planned and you need to change direction. It's fine to change direction if it's in line with your values. Like our road trip example where we're trying to get somewhere without a map. Of course, you're going to need to change direction. You're not always going to be perfectly on course, our values come into play in so many things that we do in our lives. Most of us don't really take the time to figure out what it is that's truly important to us. So I'll give you a quick exercise just to get you thinking about what your values are. When you think about something that's important to you, think about why it's important to you. Give me your answer and then ask why to that answer, and then ask why again to that answer. It's called the Five Whys approach to figuring out your values. And the point is to go deeper and deeper and deeper until you get an answer that is meaningful. I'll give you some more information about it in the resources section of this course. Tip number ten. This one's my favorite. It's called kaizen. That's the Japanese word for a tiny steps are tiny improvements. Our brains don't like to change very much. It likes to conserve energy and do things repetitively as much as possible. That's why it's so hard for us to break habits. If there's a sudden change in our life, our brain's going to be on alert. It's going to be in that freeze fight or flight mode and trying to do everything it can to get back to what it feels is normal for you. Using Kaizen, these tiny steps we can tip toe around that alert system and still build two great impact. Now let me give you an example. If you're trying to switch from eating a chocolate bar every day at three o'clock to eating carrot sticks every day at three o'clock. If you try it the first day, it might not be too hard. The second day, it might be a little harder by the third day though, your brain is just like what's going on here. This isn't normal. I want that chocolate. Let's say that chocolate bar has six pieces to it and you usually eat all six pieces at three o'clock. Try instead to eat five pieces of chocolate and one carrot stick. Try that for a few days until it feels normal. Then take another tiny step. Have four pieces of chocolate and two carrot sticks. Try that for a few days until it feels normal. Then another tiny step, three pieces of the chocolate, three carrot sticks, and so on and so on. When you break something down into those tiny steps, it's much easier to get around the alert system in your brain. So there you go. Those are attend tips. I'm sure you've got other tips as well. It would be great to see you share them in the discussion area so that other students can learn from you. 19. Your class project: The class project. We're gonna go back to the sternum at the goal-setting section. In the health category, I want you to take a piece of paper and a pen, write down your identity, who you want to become in that health category, and then write down your first smart goal using the acronym SMA are specific, measurable, aligned with values, realistic and time-based. Then take a picture of it and share it here. Every goal posted will help inspire somebody else to figure out what their goals could be. And you're going to think that things that other people won't really be appreciated if you can share what you're doing. 20. Bonus: Interview with Francesco Samarelli: I am so thrilled to be here with my friend and fellow teacher, Francesco Corelli. He's the author of Kiss and love yourself, a gratitude self journal. And he is known for just putting himself out there, being vulnerable and letting you come into his world. And I'm excited to have this bonus video with them. And Tesco, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited and let's share with the world about the gratitude attitude of gratitude. Maybe even start by telling us a little bit about your background with gratitude. Eight years ago I watched the TED Talk by Shawn Achor and he's a positive psychologists from Harvard. And he goes over how gratitude priming yourself each and every morning or each and every evening plays a difference in your happiness level. From his book, Happiness Advantage. When I read that I said, Well, I got to try that because I was not so happy at the time. Since then I started I started time five-minute journal. Then I met my wife and we started to have our gratitude list right before we go to sleep. Oddly enough, in German, in my native tongues so I can practice language. And then that developed into us writing our own self-love journal called kiss and love yourself, which is K IS keep it simple. And now I'm giving speeches on FedEx about the attitude of gratitude and sharing with the world how important it is to be grateful. Such great stuff there, Francesco, can you tell us about how you knew? I know you've been doing grassroots practice for quite some time. So how did you know it was working for? You? Noticed that after a month or two, I started seeing life. What that is as if the glass is half full rather than half empty. I could see how a moment normally would have bothered me. Whereas as well, I see some good adhere. Whereas before I wouldn't take me about a month or month and a half. Which according to statistics, it could be when you starting a habit that kicks in, could be 33 days or 66 days. I don't know all the numbers scientifically. But to me it was when I started to just say, wow, this rain that's making me drench right now. Isn't that bad? I forgot my umbrella. Didn't know it's good. It's like a free shower. I'm joking. Med says Although I didn't have that happen to me last week. It was almost cyclone here where I'm living and did have that moment west. And this is not as bad as I thought it would be an OR. That happened about a month after I started writing in my five-minute journal at the time, which isn't my five-minute generalists. The five-minute journal, if you have Google it. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how it just hits you on day. There. It is. Just like, Oh, it's working. I'm wondering if you can share with the people watching any tips you have on making gratitude habit in your life. That's a great question and I'm sure you have some tips to give, which I would love to learn from what has worked for me and has worked for many people who had a shed with when it comes to my general, you didn't give the tips in there. Make sure that that journal or that gratitude practice is something really easy to get. Your phone or your toothbrush or your keys. You have something that is so accessible that you cannot avoid it. Whether it means you put it on the side of your bed or you put it on top of your phone where you're charging your phone. And that to me is the most important because if we put it in the desk, most likely we're not going to take it and write it in the morning. And I feel that if we do not write in our gratitude journal or we do not have that accountability partner, which I haven't my wife every evening, which we still do by the way, extra eight years. I feel that it's just something that you do in the beginning with motivation, it's fun. And then eventually just fades out. And so I'll just do it the next day. And this almost like going to the gym in January. I'm gonna go to gym on results where I'm going to use resolutions is I'm gonna look like Brad Pitt and Fight Club. Then after one month year. I don't feel good to have a headache. And I feel when you have that gratitude journal on top of your phone, It's a. Q. This is investing in my gratitude and priming my brain in the morning and in the evening is more important than me checking my messages in my e-mails, more than anything else. That's my number one sip. That's amazing. Francesco, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your energy. Every time I talked to you, I just feel super energized, so it really appreciate you so much. Hope everyone starts their gratitude practice soon with the environment. Her great course. Thank you. 21. Keep in touch and resources: Thank you for spending your time with me in this course. As always, I would love to hear from you. Please leave a review or add a comment to the discussion area. It follows so we can stay in touch or e-mail me directly at Yvonne dot lines at smart light dot ts, TIP S. Let me know how your life improves and I want to hear about all your small wins and how you're celebrating. Now as promised, I want to leave you with a list of resources. So if you want to dig down a little further into your gratitude practice or you need some help along the way for your goals, then these resources should help. Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck is a book that's all about having a growth mindset, which means you can learn no matter what age you are. That's something we definitely need for reaching our goals. Gratitude diaries is a story, It's got interviews in it and an examples. I also found tons of gratitude journals that you can look into if you're interested in having a book that you participate in every day. I love this book by James Clear Atomic Habits, which of course will come in handy when we're trying to build habits to reach our goals. He also writes great articles if you want to search for that too. In our tips class, we talked about Kaizen, which is Japanese for tiny steps are tiny improvements that we can use to tip toe around our brains alert system. This book, one small step can change your life is a great resource to find out more about Kaizen. Moving on from books, if you're into podcasts, gratitude blooming is based on a card deck of the same name. They take one card every day and do a podcast around that. So it's quite instantly. Leap of faith is a podcast and YouTube channel where Randy silver interviews some guesses about how they've overcome some challenges and had great successes. Rene Brown is an amazing thought leader. She's written books, he gives talks. She's gotten this podcast as well called Unlocking Us. Within this podcast, There's an episode called living into our values. It comes with a worksheet to, it is great for figuring out what your values are. Those values are going to lead you as you're setting your goals and in case you need to change direction. Also on the topic of values is another course that I've published. One of my most popular courses called values-based decision-making. I mentioned earlier that there's a method called the Five Whys to dig down deeper and deeper into figuring out why something is important to you. You'll find that method and several other methods for figuring out your values in this course. Congratulations on completing this course. I'm so glad you spend your time with me and I wish you all the best in life.