Reaching the goal is not actually like the wind like we’re friggin ambitious people, you guys, we are going to be chasing goals for the rest of our lives. It’s not even like the accomplishment of the goal, that it’s a success. It’s the trajectory, what direction are you going in, there’s a quote in the book by James clear that says, You will not rise to the level of your goals, but you’ll fall to the level of your systems.

Hi, guys, this is Natalie Hayes. And you’re listening to the fiddley podcast where we talk all things, fitness leadership, and how to live your own remarkable life, and we believe that to lead is to serve others. I’m a fitness coach and US army captain, and I’m obsessed with bringing you guys the most value from the most badass people on this frickin planet. So let’s get into it. This is from a solo recording from inside fit to lead a Facebook community full of badass people who believe in our values and are looking to leave this world better than they found it and get after their fitness goals and improve their personal lives in the meantime. So have a listen, I hope you enjoy it.

Hey, hello, hello, hello. Okay, we’re living. We’re live on the live stream, or live on the podcast. We’re doing it all today, guys, and I’m so pumped again to be talking to you about how to set goals or actually achieve you guys voted for this topic. And a lot of you have told me, I’ve worked with a lot of you personally on setting goals. And then I saw a lot of you say that setting goals that you actually achieve don’t overwhelm you. It’s something that you struggle with. And that makes perfect sense because we are a community of go-getters of people that want to create change in their life and in the world. And it totally makes sense that you would want to set crazy goals that you get uncomfortable with that kind of growth goal. So big, you get uncomfortable telling small-minded people. And that’s what you should be doing. And I want to encourage you to keep doing that. But I want to help that not be overwhelming to you.

And I want to help formulate a plan so you can achieve the goals that you’ve set for 2021 for this year, for this quarter, whatever it may be whatever you have next on the horizon, or maybe it’s not next, maybe it’s within five years, 10 years, there’s a way set up your life to make achieving your goals not overwhelming in possible to do so I want to first kind of tell a story, of course, storytime with naff and kind of put this into perspective. So I always think about the hard things that I’ve done in life and doing the bodybuilding shows definitely is one of them as such endurance of discipline and patience over a long period of time. Other things that come to mind that I personally like, like a lot of Army schools, as I’ve never been to Ranger School or Special Forces selection or anything like that. But it’s the same type of long enduring feet, where you don’t even know how you’re going to make it to lunch, let alone make do this for the next six months. So when you think about in the long term, your goal like you know, you think about your goals in five years, 10 years, it can be really overwhelming. And I definitely have been there overwhelmed. So we’ll talk about that.

So when I was in my bodybuilding preps, I was struggling there was a time period where I was just like super low energies super discouraged, because I wasn’t seeing progress, just like I truly like, didn’t know if I had it in me to finish this. And my show was still months away. So I did not understand how I was going to enter and how I was going to keep going to reach the goal that I set for myself. But the thing is, the way that I got through it is I didn’t even think about the next three months. I just thought What do I have to do today to run the play to hit the marks of the system that I’ve set up to lead me to success? And that’s how I got there, as I leaned on the system that I already had in place. So I didn’t have to have I didn’t need to make crazy decisions every day. But wondering like, well, this work, will this not work, I just had to run the play. And I just had to rely on my systems and just put one foot in front of the other and that’s how I made it through just the long endurance of that challenge. And that’s what I’ve heard from every person who’s ever gone through a challenge where it just takes their whole body their whole being for a long period of time. I mentioned those army military schools before selecting Ranger School. I’ve never spoken to a navy seal. I believe that it’d be a similar concept where they literally I’ve heard this you guys as they just think about like, how do I make it to lunch? Like how do I make it to the next time we get to eat they don’t think like how do I make it through this through the next six weeks, but they just think how do I get to the next step and just succeed on all the things I have to do until the next period and day by day. That’s how you accomplish something great.

So I want to break that down for you. And we’ll talk about how you can put this into effect in your Life. So I want to just kind of point out that the goal-setting process, writing down your goals and New Year’s resolutions and deciding what you want in five years, if you could just paint your life however you want it, how would it look that is like the fun sexy part of this, right? Like, that’s the Pinterest pretty like Instagram part of this is let me see my goals, let me tell the world how much I’m going to change my life in the next year or two years or whatever. That’s the hard part. Anybody can do that ideas are a dime, frickin dozen. Everybody wants to be fit. Everybody wants to be rich, everybody wants to be successful, and it’s not a new idea to achieve something great. The difference is the people back and finds it in themselves to set themselves up for success to create an environment and a system that supports their lifestyle in reaching those goals.

So you don’t actually achieve your goals because you have so much willpower or you’re so smart or talented. But it’s because you’ve set up the systems and the environment in place to make it easier for you to do that. So if you guys have never read the book, atomic habits by James clear, I really suggest you do that. That’s a recommended reading for me when you set a great goal, not only do you have to, you know lay that out What do you want? And why do you want it but you need to identify like, what habits Do I need to change in my life to help me achieve that goal?

So for example, obviously, if you want to lose weight because this is a fitness group, if you want to lose weight, you may have to change the way you’re eating or you may have to like pick one habit like oh, I want to get ate that 8000 steps a day. So okay, that’s something that you want to do. So how are you going to do that? go on a walk every morning and every night. Okay, that’s good, that’s a habit to work on. Let’s see what else I want to drink, like a gallon of water a day. So I’ll have a large water bottle with me before each of my meals which could be a habit that you work on. But it needs to be something as specific as of that too, in order to get the system set up so you are not relying on discipline and willpower every single day to be like, Oh gosh, how am I going to get my steps in? How am I going to get my meals and what am I going to eat? You cannot be making those decisions every single day you have to set it up for yourself. So all you have to do is execute when you’re building a new habit. Okay, so that’s kind of the end goal of where we’re going. So I’m just going to give you a few steps to take in the middle. Okay, so number one will go back to my story about bodybuilding. You have to act as if you’ve already won you have to change your identity to change your habit. So I had to think what would a bodybuilder do? Like what would a bodybuilder a champion bodybuilder do in this situation? Or now I think you know, like what an excellent coach does in this situation? Or what would a like excellent army captain leader do in this situation? I have to think like, maybe I’m not there yet. Maybe I don’t feel adequate. Like, I’m not the best but I want to be so I need to think as if or for example, like if you’re in your job always be thinking of like the next promotion like if you got that promotion, what is that person doing? Or like how could you do it better? So not think I could but I am I already am.

So how am I going to change my habits to support this person that I want to become? And we should understand that reaching the goal is not actually like the wind like we’re friggin ambitious people, you guys we are going to be chasing goals for the rest of our lives. Let me break it to you like this process of setting high goals and not reaching them Don’t let that get you down. Like there’s always going to be a goal and you may not recall your goals you probably won’t because life just has a way of working out that way. It’s not even like the accomplishment of the goal that it’s a success. It’s the trajectory what direction are you going in? That’s the success am I getting 1% better every day? Is this getting easier every single day and is in support of the person that I’m becoming and I want to become so number one is just you have to change your like identity into thinking as I’ve already done it so you guys have already all done it You’re all already fit and lean and mean and now you just have to change your daily habits to reflect somebody that lives that way so I know you’re like now it’s like okay, well great. How do I do that? Okay, here we go. We’re gonna get into it now.

So I know a lot of people when they start a habit or when they start something and this is where you guys get overwhelmed is you try to make all these changes all at once. And intensity is so weak compared to the consistency I had a trainer want to you know always had like intensity over everything. And now I can I could not disagree more consistency over intensity any day of the week. It’s small changes every day that is going to get you where you want to be. There’s nothing, no dramatic change has ever had more lasting effects than consistent small change that sticks. So well. Want you to keep that in mind when you’re feeling discouraged? Or when you’re feeling like why aren’t I further right now? Just take a moment and think about what can I do just to make today better just think about what I have to do today to improve for tomorrow. So we need to keep the goals big, but get the measurements and the actions, measure it smaller, stop trying to go from not working out at all to working out seven days a week, and then being upset when you crash and burn. That’s way too dramatic. That’s way too dramatic, small stuff. So maybe start with three days a week, maybe start with walking, maybe start with two days of lifting weights in one day of cardio, but we can’t go from zero to 60. And then be shocked and surprised when we crash and burn. And that’s with anything. It doesn’t have to be just fitness. But we talked about fitness here because we love fitness. Okay, so there’s a quote in the book by James clear that says you will not rise to the level of your goals, but you’ll fall to the level of your systems.

So that’s why we’re going to talk about habits for the next portion of this is like we have our goal in mind. We have like habits that we want to change. But how do we actually change them, that’s how you change your life as you change your habits. So anytime we talk about goal setting, the goal is just like wave top. But everything else like the deep work is in changing your habits. So that’s what we’re going to talk about now how do you set up your system, your environment, or habits to help you live a life successful life and become somebody that the person that you want to become goal is just to continue refining. So you can continue to play on bigger and bigger levels. As I said, there’s always going to be a goal, I have goals, you know, everybody has goals to improve themselves. And you always will. But you want to just continue to be able to play this game at a higher level each round or you know, each year, you want to become better and better and better than you were. And just imagine after like years of compounding interest in trying to improve your habits and trying to improve your life and how you operate in this world, looking back and how far you’ve come. And it will be amazing. So I made a post here a couple of hours ago that showed a graphic of the plateau of latent potential. And I want you guys all to go take a look at that if you can after this. But it shows that people who look like overnight successes have been working and working and working at this for years and years and years and years. And then like they had these breakthroughs, but it doesn’t mean that their work wasn’t compounding the 1% better just all of a sudden you start to see it and see it and see it every time they put in that effort.

So just know that you may feel disappointed like, Oh, this isn’t doing anything, this isn’t doing anything, this isn’t doing anything, but it is doing something every single rep every single day that you wake up and try and don’t give up. You’re improving. You’re improving every day that you try. So I want you to remember that and I want you to not give up no matter how small the progress looks. Beauty is in pursuit. I think that’s the one tree help quote, but we’re going to pursue it but we’re also going to get to your goals. Okay, so what makes up a good habit, let’s just get into the nitty-gritty of it. So you guys can start applying this in your life. Okay, so there are four ways that our brain instills habits in us is that there’s a cue, there’s always a cue for habit, then there’s a craving to want to do it, there’s a response, meaning it’s like not hard to do. We’re very lazy people, humans are very lazy. And then there’s the reward.

So knowing that, like, if there’s something that we want to do want to start doing, we need to set up our system so that it’s easy because we do easy things you repeatedly do. So we need to set ourselves up to repeat this action easily. So we’re going to make it obvious, we’re going to make it fun and attractive, we’re going to make it easy, not inconvenient, by easy and not inconvenient. And then we’re going to make it satisfying. So for example, if you’re trying to like get in the habit of working out, and a lot of you are in such an amazing pursuit, I want you to not give up on that no matter how many times you tried and failed because you’re going to be on this body for life.

So let’s figure it out together. So cue makes it obvious. So let’s say every morning you have your pre-workout ready for you to go, or you have your gym clothes laid out or whatever it is, you have your coffee ready to go. You set up your environment that like you know the next thing you don’t have to think about it. It’s not a question, especially like if you work out after work, there can be no decision. Like, maybe I’ll work out if I feel like it after work. No, because then you’re going to go home and watch TV. That’s what I would do. If I have the choice but the thing is, you can’t give yourself a choice. So like make it obvious you have your system set up after work. I’m going to the gym, I have my gym clothes, it’s part of the schedule, that’s the decision to make it attractive. So you make it fun for you like whatever that may be like you work your gym outfit or you realize like oh after this I’ll feel so good. I’ll get to like brag in the Facebook group about it or I’ll get to like brag to my boyfriend about it. Whatever it is is like you make it fun for you make it easy, so make it convenient. So that can mean following a training plan that is easy for you like from a coach. If you’re interested in coaching get a training plan. Let me know send me a DM, we can set you up and make it even easier than it already is. But you want to take the guesswork out of it. So you want to have a plan going into the gym, you want the gym to be in a convenient location, and not like something completely out of the way that’s going to like the stress you out. And then for your reward, make it satisfying is just give yourself some sort of reward for doing something hard that maybe it’s not hard for everybody, but it’s hard for you because it’s not a habit for you. So a reward can be something as simple as, like I said, taking a selfie. And like posting it and being like, oh, like I got my workout in. I do that every day. works on me too. Or like you can just think of, you know, think of like, yeah, like social proof posting in here, something fun, or like no, after this all like, I’m going to take a bath, I’m gonna let myself relax, or whatever it is you want to like, make it satisfying for you.

So remember your environment. As another quote from the book, your environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. So you have to set up your environment to support these goals, you have to set up your system to support these goals, or you will self-control is a limited resource, you only have so much a day, you can’t keep tapping into self-control, because it’s fine, where you change your life is where you change your system. So that’s an example of how you can like set up a habit. So it’s most likely to stick. Okay, so what are some other tricks to this to set up new habits, there’s something called habit stacking, it’s where you take a habit that you already do. You know, of course, a habit is something you don’t have to think about. So like taking the dog out, I guarantee you don’t have to convince yourself to take the dog out every day or like to brush your teeth or shower or maybe shower. But there are things that you just you never have to convince yourself to do because they’re already a habit for me. Whenever I’m like making my breakfast, I have my vitamins set up in their little tray and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yeah, I have the like pill row. And it’s like anytime I’m making my breakfast, it’s right there. And I’m like, oh, I’ve got to take my vitamins. And that’s like a habit stack. For me. It’s like I’ve already made breakfast, I have to convince myself to make myself food. And that’s how I’ve gotten into the habit of taking my vitamins. As I put it there. It’s easy, and it’s convenient. And it’s just stacked on another habit. So I always remember every time I go do that to take my vitamins. So that’s just a small example. I really encourage habit stacking. Like, if you guys have a habit that you want to try to get into, please comment below and just a way that you’re trying to implement it into your life. Okay, two would be at creating a habit scorecard. So I’ve done this, I did this for most of 2020.

And that really helped me be consistent on social media, to be honest, that’s what that’s like, the only thing that would keep me going sometimes is like wanting to check out these frickin boxes you like just kind of write down. It’s like a calendar. So you write down like your habits every day that you want to do, I want to honestly cap it out, like working on two to three habits. Like I wouldn’t start working on like six habits all at once. But think of like two to three that are going to like pay off most in life in the long term. And you just tried to like every day like you check the box that you do it. And you try not to break the chain. So you try not to like to miss a day, but you will. And it’s okay. So then you can say okay, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna mention two in a row. No matter what I do, I’m not gonna miss two in a row. And if you do, it’s okay, but just keep going. And then from week to week, the days that you hit and the days that you missed, you’ll start hitting more days, more days, more days. And soon you won’t even have to do this anymore. Habit stacking and then habit scorecard are two things that I do that really have helped me change my life and just like be consistent things and I never worked before. And that’s how you reach your goals. It’s just like those little things every single day that you do, like hitting your macros. That’s a perfect thing to have a habit scorecard for how many days a week no shit. How many days a week did I actually hit my nutrition goals you want to see that number go up and that’s what you’re concerned with am I getting better than last time? Not? Am I 5% body fat? Am I like a shredded Kini body? like do I have that Jayla body that I put on my vision board? No, it’s just Am I doing better than last time? Am I being more consistent than last time? Am I doing the things that I know are going to get me to my goals? Number three is just you need to change your environment like thinking about bad habits that you do. So think about this in reverse, you need to eliminate the queue and the bad habits. So my thing guys is freaking chips. I love chips. I will just like eat them out of the bag while I’m meal prepping or like while I’m cooking my actual food, I’ll just eat like three servings of chips. So I just needed to eliminate that cute like, I just stopped buying them and I probably just won’t ever buy them like on a regular basis anymore To be honest, which is fine for me and my goals because I found like making a low-calorie bag of popcorn at the end of the night is much better for me. And also, you know, like hits that craving so so for the bad habits you need to eliminate the cues where you like a bad habit that you’re doing this thing like what makes me go do that, and then you need to change your environment.

I’m going to keep saying it again. Change your systems, change your environment and you’ll change your life-building and rewards. So again, it could be Like logging your workout in your workout app, I frickin feel so satisfied when I was logged my work on my workout app when I hit my macros when I like to see my friggin circles, close, whatever satisfying to me. And when I like to check off Oh, I’ve had all my frickin habits this week, I think that is like a reward. So building a little reward because you deserve it and changing your behavior is hard, guys, it’s not easy. If this was easy, the fitness industry wouldn’t exist, and everyone would be lean and mean and strong, and it’s not easy.

So don’t like give yourself some grace and just keep showing up. And then number five is your support system, your culture, your friends, and your tribe, thankfully, you guys are all in the frickin elite Facebook group where we’re all bad assets. So you have that going for you. And I want you to know that you can always come to this group or a tribe that understands your goals, but we tend to adopt the habits that are praised or approved of by whoever we surround ourselves with because we want to fit in, that’s just like the tendency of being a human is you want to get the people’s approval, you know, you want to get an approval of the people around you. So knowing that I need you to just think hard about the people that you surround yourself with. And I want you to think about the times that you know, you break your habits or you go off track or whatever. And I want you to think about where you are around. And I want you to think about who am I allowed to influence me that maybe doesn’t align with who I want to be going back to that identity who I want to be in 10 years or who am I already, but I just need to change my life to reflect that. That may mean getting rid of the few people or just limiting your exposure to them. If people are in a queue for your bad habits, we may need to think about that. And just think really critically about the time that you spend with them. And just know that there are always people on the other side. Like there are always people you can find your people, you just have to be honest about who you are and what you want in order to find them. But your people that want the same things as you do that want to support you that want to cheer you on so loud. Like if you don’t have those in your real life, you have them here. And you have them out there. You just got to be honest about what you want. And they’ll just come out of the woodwork supporting you. I promise the habit of stacking the habit scorecard, changing your environment, eliminating those negative cues, building in your rewards, and then finding your support system. Those are the five things that I would work on for changing your habits. Please comment below what shattered you spoke to you the most I’d love to hear about it. And yeah, guys, you know that I’m a weight loss coach.

I’m a fitness coach. I’m a captain in the army. I’m really passionate about fitness and leadership. And if you are interested in coaching and talking to me more talking to me about the military or goals, anything like that, I’m happy to get on a call with any of you. I’m so happy to have had this time with you guys. And I know most of you are just gonna watch the replay. So even if you’re just watching the replay, let me know what you thought of it. And here’s the other thing the book atomic habits by James clear, I think it’s super, super valuable. So many of you who leave a rating and review on the fiddley podcast, just screenshot it to me DM me, and then I’m going to pick a winner, one winner and I’m going to send the book atomic habits to you in the mail because I think that you would really benefit from it. So go ahead and do that I’d love for you to leave me a rating and review that mean a lot to me and then you can get entered into that drawing. I can use that 1% battery of course I did this one I have no battery. Okay, guys, appreciate you. God bless you. And we’ll talk soon. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of fatigue elite. Like I said this came straight from inside a live video training of the fatigue lead community I do these every week. Our members help me decide which topics to pick we have Q and A’s and it’s a really great community. So if you’re looking for people who are like-minded as you trying to make an impact on the world and trying to improve your physical fitness goals in the meantime, our group is probably right for you. So go ahead and join us the first link in the description will be to our fertility community and we would love to have you I would be so honored to also have your rating and review on my podcast so if you would be so kind to leave a rating and review then DM me so I can please thank you personally give you a shout out and pay it to forward my friend. So thanks again for listening and we will talk to you soon.

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