Goal Setting for the New Year: Why SMART Goals Fall Short for High Achievers

In this episode, Lisa Jeffs breaks down the pitfalls of traditional goal setting for the new year and shares why high achievers should look beyond SMART goals. This episode explores why traditional SMART goals may not lead to substantial change and discusses a transformative framework focusing on identity and values for achieving meaningful success in 2025. By visualizing who you want to become, aligning with your core values, and fostering accountability, you can craft a fulfilling path towards your goals.

• Discussing the 8% achievement statistic in goal setting 
• Critiquing SMART goals and their limitations for high achievers 
• Emphasizing the importance of envisioning your future self 
• Integrating personal transformation stories to illustrate radical change 
• Exploring the alignment of goals with core values 
• Introducing the Magnetic Leadership Framework: Align, Amplify, Accelerate 
• The significance of confidence and accountability in achieving goals 
• Encouraging listeners to envision their identity for 2025 

If you found this episode valuable, I would love it if you would share it with someone that you know needs it or could benefit from this perspective, and I would love for you to subscribe and, if you have more questions, send me a text message because I'd love to take any questions that you have.

APPLY for the Magnetic Leader Accelerator here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1F2BVQuR00LK4BX4T68B1pkuvcxs1c4TRbB2wCEvwz6g

Chapters

• 0:00 Transform Your Life With Magnetic Vision
• 17:16 Achieving Success Through Confidence and Alignment
• 39:05 Fueling Bold Action for Vision Success
• 46:53 Embracing Transformation for a New Year

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today, I heard a staggering statistic that only 8% of people end up achieving their goals. For the new year. I want you to have the most incredible 2025. The energy is so supportive of massive changes this year, especially for those willing and able to step into the version of themselves that has been calling them for quite a while.

Speaker 2: 0:53

We're going to get into this and more in the first episode of 2025. Let's get going. Hey of an entrepreneur, level up. Step it up because I believe, find your purpose. Time to be a magnetic leader.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Welcome to the Magnetic Leader Podcast. If you missed our last episode, we have recently changed the name from the Confident, connected Leader to the Magnetic Leader. I am your host, lisa Jeffs, and today we're going to go beyond the conventional, beyond the expected and way, way beyond SMART goals. If you're ready to prep for the new year or get in at the least motivated but we're actually gonna do some prepping during this podcast so, if you can you're not driving, you're listening to this at home get a paper and a pen, get your journal if needed or, if possible, have your notepad on your phone ready. We're going to talk about in this episode why SMART goals just don't cut it for the majority majority of entrepreneurs and high performers and really anyone who's looking for substantial, long-lasting change, there is a time and place for SMART goals. So, if you're not familiar with SMART goals, what it stands for is and there's variations of this, but in general, what it stands for is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant or realistic and time-bound. Now, there is a time and place for SMART goals, but when you are truly looking to transform your life, particularly when you are doing prep for the new year, smart goals are too focused on what you think or what you want to get done, as opposed to who you want to become, and because of that, they can be very limiting. So Benjamin Hardy, who is a thought leader in transformational psychology. I love Benjamin Hardy. He's written the books 10X over 2X, who, not how. He is a brilliant writer and he points out that SMART goals often anchor us to incremental progress, not exponential growth. Incremental progress, not exponential growth. So in my magnetic leadership accelerator that is currently in its beta it will most likely be in its beta for the next six months to a year we don't just seem to grow right. It is not the Accelerator isn't just about achieving goals, it's about transforming, and today we're going to go into how to think bigger, align with your future self and prep for 2025 with clarity and confidence and in a way that I'm hoping you enjoy a lot more than just simply writing out your SMART goals.

Speaker 1: 4:52

I'm not a fan of SMART goals. I'm really not, for the most part, if we're only looking at creating SMART goals. I am so vision focused. I am a high performer, a high achiever, whatever that means to you. For me, it simply means that I reflect on my life and my values, what's important to me and I focus on that and I like to cut out the rest. That is a lot of filler and a lot of I don't like to use the word wasted time and effort, but it's definitely not the most beneficial time and effort when those aspects of our life don't align to our core values, what's important to us, what we are desiring to create. So smart goals are, in my opinion, not exciting whatsoever, not motivating and very limiting, because I know from my own experience transforming that you can make a radical shift overnight.

Speaker 1: 6:10

There have been moments in my life where I have gotten to places where I've been so sick and tired of what I was experiencing. So one of them was when I was going through an addiction. I was going through an addiction for about four years to drugs. What I was really doing was numbing, a lot of grief from my father's passing and a lot of emotional pain and, through the grace of God, spirit, my connection to something else beyond me, I was able to make a radical shift within the matter of a few weeks. It was literally a moment where I had a very distinct feeling, knowing, not even a feeling. Well, it was a feeling and it was a knowing that that part of my life was over. It was time to move forward. I didn't know what the heck was going to come after that, but I knew. I had that distinct feeling. This is it. We've run this course for four years this is what it felt like in that moment, longer than what was planned, let's say by my soul, by my spirit, it's like okay, four years is enough. It's time You're here for something else. We need to make some radical changes. And within two weeks of that epiphany, I found out I was pregnant, and that was a huge catalyst. It's now or never. This is either going to happen now or it's going to go down a very dark, even more of a dark path. And I made radical changes instantly. Obviously, I had to, but I changed my entire self-identity within that moment. What I believed was possible, who I believed I was, what I was deciding to put my focus into. And within I don't even think it was a month, I was working at a new job within the Sick Kids Hospital, at the coffee shop. Prior to this, if you know my story, I was in the adult entertainment world, so it was a stark difference from that and I just had such a different outlook on life and was in such wonderfully different place than I was, and this isn't the only time that I've made radical shifts and changes in my life.

Speaker 1: 9:00

I'm just talking about one very distinct one when we look at SMART goals. Life, I'm just talking about one very distinct one. When we look at SMART goals, I do believe that it limits a lot of people and if you are a high performer, high achiever, it doesn't take into account what really drives us. So we're going to go from smart goals to a magnetic vision and transformation. Instead of setting goals based on where we are today, we're setting them based on who we want to become. This is where Benjamin Hardy's framework intersects with my magnetic leadership approach. It's about creating identity-driven, emotionally compelling and stretch goals that align with our purpose, our values and our vision.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Part of the SMART goal framework, which I don't like, especially when people use the realistic for the R in the acronym. Because what is realistic? You know, if we look at realistic, nobody who's done anything worthwhile has gone into it with a quote, unquote realistic lens. And if we're only basing things on what we think are realistic, what are we even basing this on? Whose belief system are we basing it on Now. Okay, within reason, there are certain things that, okay, let's take into account. If it's, you know, if your goal is to be the president of the United States, you know, by next month, and you've never dabbled in politics, you know nothing about politics or anything. Okay, we might want to bring down that goal a little bit. Okay, obviously that's an extreme example, but for the most part I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1: 11:24

There is a gentleman that he popped up on my YouTube about a month ago and, great, he has a fantastic idea, fantastic niche. This gentleman is 80 years old. I'm pretty sure it didn't take him over six weeks to get monetized and to grow his following. I think it was over 5,000 subscribers I haven't done the exact research but above what's typical or common for new YouTube channels, new YouTube channels, he's gone far above what the typical personal brand, unknown brand, typically does on YouTube. So if he was to set his goals, looking at that as realistic, he might've gone in and said, okay, 100 followers the first month, 100 subscribers, 200 the next month, maybe in a year I'll be monetized. And the problem with that is then we downgrade the actions and the strategy to align with that, whereas he came on and he blew through that within about six weeks. He totally went above and beyond.

Speaker 1: 12:54

We don't want to take the smart goal from where we are looking ahead and thinking, well, what is realistic in the next month or two months? Because what we're doing is we're just basing it on what we believe has already been done by the majority, as opposed to really stretching yourself. So I like to go, especially at the beginning of the year, into the next year. So I want you to take a deep breath. If you're not driving release, let go any tensions.

Speaker 1: 13:39

I want you to close your eyes for a second and I want you to imagine that it's December 31st 2025. Who are you in this moment? How do you feel in your body? What have you achieved that you are so, so excited about and that's making you so, so proud and satisfied and excited? Picture this version of you. Picture this version of you. This version of you should inspire you and should excite you. Think about all the things you've done. Doesn't have to be a whole bunch of stuff, but think about what is going to make you extremely proud, excited and satisfied.

Speaker 1: 15:00

No-transcript, what needs to get done from that North Star, because we are envisioning our future self, and then we are setting identity-based goals. We are setting identity-based goals. We will always live up to the identity we hold for ourself. So I don't want you to ask yourself what is realistic for me to achieve this year. I want you to get really, really excited and set your big, hairy, audacious vision and then ask yourself, if this is my vision, ask yourself, if this is my vision, then realistically you can use that word in this who do I need to become first before that vision becomes a reality? Because then you're going to look within, to what is actually important here, and it's who you are within, what you believe about yourself, about the world, what you believe is possible, who you are, your character traits. If you're sending a vision or a goal that's radically different than what you have achieved the last year, you need to become a different person. You are not achieving something radically different by being the same person. This is where the SMART goals do not take into account any of that and why it's painfully limiting in a lot of cases.

Speaker 1: 17:16

So I saw this person today on YouTube and his video was great. It was really well done. The only thing that was an issue was when he was talking about his goals. He was talking a lot about what he wants to do. Right, this is what I want to do. These are all the things I want to do. And it was more like a to-do list than it was a transformation list. And the problem with that kind of prepping is there's no emotional connection to that. A bunch of to-dos great, we have enough of that. The day-to-day of it all can become more of a task list. That's a whole nother subject. We won't get too much into that.

Speaker 1: 18:08

But we want to look at who do you need to become? Because, as a byproduct, when you focus on who you need to become, the byproduct of that is your vision creating, it's the co-creation of your vision. So 2x is doing the same, just simply a lot more of it, right? So let's say that you have a sales goal and you want to double or triple your sales goal. Whatever sales industry you're in, a 2x could be well, okay, if I'm doing this amount of sales calls, I need to triple the amount of calls I'm doing. So I'm going to schedule, triple the amount of calls, whereas the 10X goal forces you to reimagine your strategies. So how would this look if I aimed for the 10X growth instead of incremental improvement. So let's say that you want to 10x your sales goals. Well, you're not going to put in 10 times the amount of sales calls. What you would have to start thinking of is well, how can I hire more people on my team to outsource some of these sales calls? How can I reimagine my entire business? If I do that, who do I need to become to be that leader of these new people that I need to hire on? So is this making sense?

Speaker 1: 20:11

I hope this is getting you excited about a new way or, if you're already doing this, potentially refining it to really amplify what you get to experience in 2025. That it doesn't need to be the same as you experienced in 2024. It certainly doesn't need to be worse. And if you have fears around it being worse than it was, whatever that means for you, we also want to look at your fears that are coming up. We want to look at what's coming from the collective consciousness and how can we start to challenge these fears and break them down as not true, because there's so much potential in 2025 to radically shift your life, shift your business, to change and align to something so much greater for you.

Speaker 1: 21:14

And the next step we want to look at. We're going to layer this in with my magnetic leadership framework the align, amplify and accelerate framework. We have to look at anything that we are setting for ourselves, any kind of vision or goals or milestones that we are setting, creating, thinking about. We need to make sure that these are aligned with your core values. This is a non-negotiable. This is why a lot of people driven leaders, exceptional CEOs, ceos, entrepreneurs, et cetera when their vision is not aligned to their values. This is where we can find a lot of people sabotaging Misaligned goals.

Speaker 1: 22:22

They're going to drain you, right? So anything that is misaligned our goals, our vision they're not going to energize you, it's going to drain you. And if they are competing with other values that are important to you, if they're not taking into account. So if you're setting goals, let's say, or if you have your vision and you're reverse engineering the goals or the steps you need to take, and let's say you've set something that's a 10X, a 10X vision, and you're getting clear who you need to become, but you're not taking into account, does this align with all my core values? Taking into account? Does this align with all my core values? And you have, let's say, a core value of a family. What you've set for yourself is a strategy that is going to greatly limit your time with your family. This is not going to work.

Speaker 1: 23:25

This is in misalignment, and this is where people will often start sabotaging and they think it's a personal issue. They think there's something wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with them. What they're doing is they have these two competing values that are almost fighting each other because we haven't taken into account. Is this big, hairy, audacious vision congruent with everything that we say is important to us? And if it's not, then we just need to make the adjustments necessary, right? We don't need to throw it all in the trash. We need to make the correct adjustments, refinements, that's it right.

Speaker 1: 24:12

So we have to get clear on what even are your core values, and this is what we focus on first in the magnetic leadership accelerator, because most people have no freaking clue what their values are. Because most people have no freaking clue what their values are. They know what their aspiring values are, but you have a value of health and fitness, but you haven't prioritized your health and fitness in two years because you've been grinding it out, trying to build something, then operating from lack and limitation, you're operating from a fear program, you're not operating from your actual value, and these are important parts that we need to understand and do work around, or else you will never be able to achieve what you want to achieve. This is why we focus in on this in the Magnetic Leadership Accelerator. It's so critical, if you want to have a life, of having it all and I believe you can have it all at the same time right, there's a belief system that you can have it all but not at the same time. That's, to me, just another limitation. Having it all is understanding what your values are, and it's building a life around your values, not operating from fear, lack and limitation and then trying to fit your values in somewhere along the way.

Speaker 1: 26:04

The next part of the framework is amplify. This is amplifying your inner and outer confidence. Confidence is critical. Without confidence, we struggle. We struggle in a lot of areas without confidence. Confidence isn't just a feeling. It's a state of alignment between our self-belief and our actions. So, when we focus inwardly on building trust within ourselves, whether that's through consistent practices, it's through self-compassion practices, it's through self-compassion, self-love. It is so, so important that these pieces are in place because we operate so much differently when we have compassion for ourselves and when we truly operate from a place of.

Speaker 1: 27:05

I may not be perfect. This may be a hot mess right now from my perspective, but you know what I love and accept myself through this. That is a completely different experience than when we beat ourself up, when we judge ourself, when we're self-critical, like many high achievers are, and we just sit in guilt and blame and regret Okay, so it's absolutely critical, and also that we're acknowledging our past successes. So I don't care what happened in the last year, I don't know. You know whether it was a brilliant, the best year of your life or it was absolute train wreck in your opinion. I mean, I shouldn't say I don't care. Of course I care, but I don't care if it was a train wreck. There were definitely things that you can celebrate. There were definitely things, whether it's you sitting down and really looking at what are things I can celebrate about myself. If you're still going through, you still have dreams of something different, then that's something to celebrate because that's a huge, huge deal. So then we're going to reflect outwardly by stepping into spaces and relationships and truly thinking about how can we step into these places with more intention, authenticity and confidence. The more deeply you trust and value yourself, the more magnetic you become Really. The more you trust and value yourself and value yourself and the more you can release attachment from the outcome, the more magnetic you become.

Speaker 1: 29:20

When I used to go to job interviews before I worked for myself, there were quite a few job interviews where I would go in not having any experience or very little experience and because I trusted myself, I believed in myself, I knew I could do the job and I totally released my attachment on the outcome. I didn't care whether I got it or not and I just had fun. I wasn't a ball of stress. Of course there were nerves, but I wasn't tense or taking it too seriously serious enough that I was professional, but not so serious that I was just a hot mess. Express these interviews I would get called. I wouldn't even be home yet and I would be getting called and offered the job.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Getting called and offered the job I can't stress this enough when you truly I'm staying on this confidence piece a little bit longer because when you truly do the work to be confident in yourself, believing in yourself, believing in your capabilities, putting yourself out there, detaching from outcomes, not worried about how it's going to be, knowing that if it is a mess, that's fine. You learn from it, you move on. It makes you so appealing to be around. People want to be around that. They desire to be around that because they want. They see what they want within you. It's not even about you, they're just seeing what they are desiring in you your frequency. They want that you become so magnetic to opportunities, to people, to relationships. So this is the amplify piece within the magnetic leadership accelerator Working on that inner confidence and external confidence showing up intentionally, and then it is the accelerate piece.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Finally, this is where, when we look at our 10x vision, we reverse engineer. This is where we can use if you want to use SMART goals or you want to use some kind of goal framework where you decide on. If I'm 10Xing myself this year, that is an acceleration. I'm going to need to take some bold new actions, bold inspired action. It's not about hustling. It's certainly not about doing a whole bunch of more stuff we are moving away from. We are not doing that away from. We are not doing that.

Speaker 1: 32:54

This is about intentional focus, steps that directly align with your vision. Remember, your vision is aligned to your values. It is aligned to your belief system. And if it's not, we work on the belief system first, to align the belief system with your vision. And these are 10x action steps that we get clear on. Ask yourself what's a bold move you can take today to start building momentum. If you were thinking what's the 10x bold move I don't mean the 2x, the 10x bold move what would that be? And feel into that? Because the biggest problem that a lot of and yes, even high performers, high achievers faces run into is the accountability to make this happen. So that is a part of the magnetic leadership accelerator is the accountability to taking the action steps needed to make these changes. You can do this on your own by setting up some kind of accountability system.

Speaker 1: 34:20

Now, I don't recommend telling everyone. It really depends on your own self right how you process other people's perspective, emotions, thoughts on your vision, because, depending on your family, your friend circle, what kind of support circles you have do you have a support circle, that where you're all going 10x, where you're all dreaming big, or are you kind of the lone wolf within a group that doesn't? Maybe they don't even set goals at all. Maybe they're not even setting SMART goals and if you share with them, you may get a lot of feedback that's not supportive. So it really depends on your own personality how you take it. I personally don't recommend telling many people at all. From my experience and the experience I have with my clients, it's better focused on your small circle that you truly trust and you're already aware that they're supportive of you Getting that accountability, whether it's an accountability buddy.

Speaker 1: 35:47

This is where coaching, investing in mentorship, is, hands down, one of the most effective ways to do this, because, as much as we love our friends and even our accountability buddies, I have never seen it in other programs that I've been in. It just doesn't last. The accountability doesn't either last or it's not even there to begin with, even though people have great intentions. It's not that people don't have the intentions. Intentions can be wonderful, but when money investment, when people have skin in the game, they show up differently. That's it, plain and simple, myself included. This is why I've invested in one of my coaches. I have multiple coaches masterminds, mentors that I work with, masterminds, mentors that I work with, but one that's been where I've been working with for, I believe three years. Maybe it's been a long time. The only thing she does is keep me accountable, week by week.

Speaker 1: 37:00

So we're going to get a couple of questions down to help you. I want you to ask yourself who do you want to be in 2025? I want you to write down December 31st 2025, who am I? Make this visceral. Get clear who this version of you is. Write down descriptive terms that get you excited. Write down terms that get you wildly excited when you think about this. And then I want you to ask yourself why does this matter to you? What is the emotional connection to this? This needs to be emotionally. It needs to emotionally pull us forward right. This is why I always reverse engineer, because there needs to be an emotional pull.

Speaker 1: 38:17

When I was training for my first marathon so a short form of this story I started a running goal I hadn't run in years. I started a running goal I hadn't run in years and I ran down the street. It was about a few minutes down the street and I was absolutely dying. I couldn't believe how out of shape I was and I am very driven and I'm like you know what I need to set a milestone for myself. So, instead of going for 5K or 10K, which might've been a little bit more realistic, I decided to do a half marathon and I had very little time to train for this half marathon.

Speaker 1: 39:05

But one of the things that pulled me forward, that got me really excited when you know, I was training I had to train in the snow. I mean, I remember training one time there was almost I don't even know two feet, one foot. I was training with my training buddy and we were literally stomping through the snow. It was actually kind of ridiculous. I'm not sure why we didn't find an indoor track. Probably would have been a better idea. Anyways, what pulled me forward, what kept me going, was listening to the same song every day with my earphones and just getting so excited with the thought of crossing the finish line and feeling that feeling of being doing it, completing it. Having them put that award over my neck when I was done. It was so emotionally compelling. It pulled me forward.

Speaker 1: 40:05

That's what I want you to get clear on forward. That's what I want you to get clear on. Why does this matter to you? What is the emotional connection that you can use as your fuel, that bold action that you can take today, I want you to start practicing thinking 10x with Benjamin Hardy's framework, 10x with Benjamin Hardy's framework, 10xing what you think is possible, reimagining the strategies needed here. And then, as a bonus question, what you can ask yourself is what outdated belief or habit do you need to let go of to become your future self? Write it down, challenge it if you need it and release it as you step into this new vision. You can have a wildly more expansive life by the end of December 2025.

Speaker 1: 41:12

If you simply make the decision today to get clear who you are by the end of the year, what is this identity? And then reverse engineer, if you have that specific vision, reverse engineer the strategy to get there and really be thinking the 10x version of this. If you're ready for real support, accountability on what matters, not the fluffy stuff, not the feel-good stuff that doesn't actually change anything, but on what is going to make the exact changes you need to make this year your best. Yet I invite you to apply to be a part of the beta round of the Magnetic Leadership Accelerator. So this isn't just another coaching program. Together, we're going to align, amplify and accelerate your vision and you are going to be guided to taking the necessary bold actions, and bold can mean anything.

Speaker 1: 42:38

Bold is typically the actions that you've been avoiding taking that align with this amplified vision. You're going to be held accountable in the most loving but firm way possible, because without that real drive, what happens is we often get to the end of the year and not much has changed, or we've made incremental changes, which is fine, right. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't want you to judge yourself, especially if that's what happened last year. But if you're ready for something more, something more expansive and you know it's within you, but there's these little sticky parts that you just need a little bit of support on. If you know that you've been trying to do it on your own and you're aware enough to know that if you don't get the support, nothing is going to change, then I'm inviting you to apply, and the application is simply filling out a form, and then we'll get on a call to make sure that it is the right fit for you. One, because I wanna make sure that it is what you need.

Speaker 1: 44:16

Sometimes people need a different direction, whether that is one-on-one coaching or it could be a totally different avenue that I refer you to, and also, too, I want you to know that I don't take just anyone in this program. Part of this program is for you to be in a community of people who are going to support you, who are on similar missions, who have similar values and beliefs, so you feel safe to truly express yourself within the group. That is why there is an application, a process, two off. I want you to remember that to truly change your life, to experience something that's much different than what you are experiencing now, which chances are if you're still listening to this, you're likely that person, regardless if you even listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1: 45:27

That it's not about just setting goals. It's also not just about creating a vision. It's certainly not about just doing more stuff. It's about you stepping into the identity of the person who has already achieved them, person who has already achieved them. That's how you create not just success, but alignment and purpose and your values being met, fulfillment, satisfaction all the stuff that we are desiring as people who want far more than a mediocre, womp, womp life, womp, womp life. It truly is about transforming, not just about achieving.

Speaker 1: 46:53

If you found this episode valuable, I would love it if you would share it with someone that you know needs it or could benefit from this perspective, and I would love for you to subscribe and, if you have more questions, send me a text message because I'd love to take any questions that you have. And, the ones that are applicable, answer them throughout the year. The ones that are applicable, answer them throughout the year. And here's to a magnetic 2025. Here is to a year where you are releasing the burdens, the heaviness, the shame and regret and the old patterns and the old stuff that is no longer and hasn't been serving you, your expression that wants to come out more, your vision. For so long we are letting it go and we are stepping into a whole new way. Thanks for joining me. I love you, I appreciate you, I appreciate your time here and let's stay connected. Thank you.