Episode 32: The One Mental Shift You Need To Start Achieving Your Goals

Oh boy, we've got golf analogies this week! This episode explores the ONE major mental shift necessary to stick with your goals so that you actually get results. It’s easy to focus on the outcomes we want, but outcomes only happen when we learn to love the process. I’ve got three tips to get you started!

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hello, you beautiful, wonderful, lovely, smart, talented human being. All the good adjectives that I could think of today. Welcome to this week's episode of The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. Today's episode, we are talking about the shift that you need to make in order to make your health and wellness goals actually achievable.

This is a topic that I have been thinking about quite a bit; it comes up all the time with coaching. But I started formulating this episode after watching an episode of Full Swing on Netflix. If you know anything about me, you know someone in my house (that's not me) is obsessed with golf. And thus we watch Full Swing together. So I don't know a ton about golf. But I try. In this episode that we were watching, it's in the most recent season, season two, they are featuring a new golfer, well, he's a young golfer that's new-ish to the PGA Tour. And this golfer is talking about (his name's Tom Kim), he's talking about how he knows his swing really well. But now that he's on the PGA Tour, he's starting to focus on winning and getting the ball exactly where it needs to go the precision that's needed and it's starting to kind of mess with him mentally. It sounds like he's getting in kind of a hard place because he's so focused on winning and doing well on the PGA Tour.

So in the episode, they go to a driving range, and he has a coach come out. And this coach used to be Tiger Woods coach, his name was Chris Como, I believe, hopefully I'm saying that right. But he has this coach come out. And they're talking about this shift that now that he's focused on winning, it puts him in this weird place mentally, and how it takes a lot of awareness and a lot of focus to be able to unravel that mental game and get back into playing at your top level. One of the things that the coach tells Tom Kim, is that the desire he has for perfection is a positive thing. Because it does help him have the strong work ethic. He shows up, he really does try hard to be the best golfer that he can be. That's part of what makes him such a good player is this push for perfection. But Chris Como, the coach, tells him that the push for perfection really needs to be on the process, right? Perfecting the process is where you will see a difference, not perfecting the outcome.

If the focus is always on getting a good score, or on winning, or being perfect, then there's always this pressure to improve without actually having the focus on the actionable items that can help you to be the best golfer possible to win on the PGA Tour.

I was in love with this episode, because this is what we talk about in health and well-being coaching all the time. We all have outcomes we want to see, the process is the hard part. And it's often the part that we don't tend to focus on as much because we just want whatever outcome we're aiming for.

So to give just some other examples that may be more common than being a professional golfer, in case you're not a professional golfer, like I am not. Here are some of the things I hear more often.

Let's say that I start changing my eating habits because I want to lose weight. That's a very common one. In this case, losing weight is my desired outcome. Changing my eating habits is the process that I'm using to get that outcome. The problem is that outcome goals, when we focus on the outcome, those take time, and they're not always in our control. We can control some of the things (like maybe the process, as we're getting to), but I can't ultimately control the outcome. I can control my eating habits, my sleeping, my stress my exercise, but I cannot force my body to lose weight. You see what I'm saying there?

The problem becomes that if I'm looking at my weight loss, to tell me how I'm doing on my goals, to tell me if I'm succeeding or if I'm failing at changing my eating habits, then I might conclude that I'm not doing very well, because my weight isn't changing. The process that I'm putting into practice isn't working, because the outcome that I want isn't there. And the outcome, I don't have full control over, and it takes a lot of time to achieve.

Another example might be that I start exercising because I want to improve my mental health. If I have a hard few days, where things feel really heavy, I feel very anxious. I'm worrying about all types of things, I'm down, I don't feel like myself, then I might conclude that exercising is not helping me with the mental health. And so why am I doing it? What is the purpose? I lose the point of the process, when I don't do, when I don't see the outcome happening.

The shift that we need is to learn to love the process. Even if you still care about the outcome, it's important to focus on and learn to love that process. Going back to that episode of Full Swing, one of the things that the swing coach talked about (who used to work with Tiger Woods) is that Tiger Woods was obsessed with the process. He loved the process. I don't think, I've never talked to Tiger Woods, but I don't imagine that means he didn't love the outcome. I don't think Tiger Woods stopped wanting to win just because he fell in love with his process. I actually think that he probably won so much because he loved the process. If you're so obsessed with learning to perfect your golf swing and to be the best golfer possible. I would imagine that increases your odds of winning a lot as a professional golfer.

So how do we change this focus and shift from looking at the outcomes to looking at and learning to love the process. I've got three tips for you today.

The first one is that you have to stop believing the process has to be miserable for it to be effective. If the process leads to your outcome, and you hate the process, that outcome will never be sustainable. If you feel like you have to be starving and exhaust yourself in the gym for hours a day, to achieve the health goal that you have in mind, that health goal is never going to stick with you long term. Eventually, you will get sick of being miserable and tired of that process. And if you quit the process, the outcome never happens. So we have to wrap our minds around the fact that the process can be enjoyable. It doesn't have to be miserable for us to be successful. And it can't be miserable for us to be successful really.

The second tip I have for you is to start with one step in the process. Because we have a golf theme going in this episode, golf swings are super complicated. Trust me, I have taken a total of six golf lessons in my life. Clearly, I'm an expert. (Not really). But I know enough in those six lessons to know that golf is very hard. Golf swings look so natural and easy when you watch it on TV. And then, maybe it's just me, I don't think it is because I've seen some good TikToks, but you try a golf swing and it's just like a comedy of errors like I don't even know what happens. It's very hard to do, even if it looks easy. But when I would go to these golf lessons as I was trying to improve, what I noticed is they teach you basic basic movements, and you repeat them and repeat them and repeat them and repeat them some more until they feel a little bit more natural. They feel a little bit more normal for you. And you build and you get better and better and better. You don't become a professional golfer from one golf lesson. You do years and years of building and practicing and improving and getting better. And that's how we reach the outcome. But it starts with one step in that process. So when you're thinking about what your process might look like and what to focus on, start wherever you are and build from there.

So can you add 10 minutes of walking today? Can you add a vegetable at lunch? One thing that you can practice doing consistently and over and over again until it be feels normal and natural to you. And then you add more and that's how the process is built.

The third tip is to look for wins within your process. You might not have the end outcome YET, but I guarantee that you are progressing. Those wins are valuable and it's important that we notice and that we celebrate them. Maybe you still have hard mental health days, maybe you still want to lose weight. But are you able to walk faster or longer than you used to? Are you less out of breath when you get to the top of the stairs? Are you not eating until you're uncomfortably full as often as you used to? Or are you sleeping better at night? Are you feeling like you're better able to manage stress? Progress is happening, I guarantee there is progress happening. It's up to us to find it and to recognize it and to celebrate it so that we see the joy in the process, not just in achieving an outcome.

So to recap, those three tips, we have to stop believing the process has to be miserable. Start with one step in the process and look for the wins within your process.

One element of mindfulness is non-attachment. When we are so attached to the outcome, we lose the present moment. We don't see the joy and the gratitude and the excitement and the positivity that is available to us right now in this present moment. It's available to you right now! And those positive emotions are what enable us to continue pushing forward when times are challenging, and they will be challenging. There are always ups and downs in a health and wellness journey. Having those positive emotions and being able to be present with the things that you're feeling now and not relying on joy to come later, is what's going to help you get through the hard times to the joy that comes later as well. It's more joy all the way around. Focusing on the process instead of the outcome brings us more mindfulness and joy in the efforts of achieving our health and wellness goals and ultimately is what makes them sustainable in the long term.

That is what I have for you today. I hope this helps to shift that mindset from being more outcome focused into more process focused, and how that can help you to achieve the things that you want.

If you are listening to this podcast and resonating and nodding your head along with me this week, why have we not chatted yet?! For real, I want to hear your story. I want to help you make your goals happen. I am here I am a resource and I would love to chat with you. Even if you are not interested in a full coaching program, send me a message let's chat about your goals. I'm happy just to check in and get to know you I would truly be honored to have that experience. If you are interested in scheduling some time that we can chat together for a little bit more focused of a conversation, there is a link in the show notes to schedule some time with me. I cannot wait to catch up with you and see how I can best support you in your goals.

I hope that you have a wonderful week this week and I look forward to talking with you again next week!

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.