Episode 84: Before You Set Goals, Listen to This
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
Feeling the pressure to set your goals for the new year? In this episode, we’re rethinking resolutions and exploring a gentler, more intentional way to start 2026. Whether you’re craving a fresh start or just trying to survive winter break, this conversation will help you reflect, reset, and move at your own pace.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode 17: Note Taking - The Simple Habit That'll Save You Time & Energy
Learn more about Beyond Balance - my small group coaching program for working moms
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📍 You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode. .
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I hope you're doing well
I am recording this episode a little earlier than I had planned because it is about New Year's resolutions and goal setting for the new year, and I thought everyone's gonna be so busy this week with the holidays, but.
The topic came up several times in coaching sessions last week, and so I know my clients aren't the only ones who are already starting to think about 2026, about the new year, and so I thought, let me just get this episode out to you then you have plenty of time over the next couple of weeks as we wrap up the year.
To listen, to reflect, and to think about how you want to approach this.
I have many thoughts on goals, on resolutions, on intentions, and I will be upfront and say that. They do change year to year. I am not committed or married to any one approach or way of doing things. I do tend to shift the way I approach all of this, and the longer that I do this, the more I think it is less about the turning of the calendar page, the start of the new year.
And more about craving a fresh start, wanting simple solutions or being more inwardly focused after a season of so much extra, extra stuff, extra calories, extra time with people. And I think so many of you. I know I do crave that time and space with ourselves, especially as it's so dark, at least here in the Northern hemisphere.
We just had the solstice, the shortest day of the year over the weekend, and so. I think it's natural that these thoughts and these reflections and these questions about what do I want out of my life, what do I wanna create, that those are coming up for us right now.
Now, as I said, I've, I've tried all sorts of things over the years. I've made lists of the things that I will give up. I've chosen a word of the year.
I have set specific goals that are very measurable and action oriented. I have made resolutions I learned this last year. That resolution, the word resolution is actually focused more on giving up than on doing something new or adding anything to your life.
So if there is a habit or some other action or activity that you do that you, you don't want anymore, that's where a resolution would be a great fit for you in one year. too, I remember, I. Made a list of the things that I wanted to see more of in my life,
and then several years ago, this was probably in my post pandemic burnout. I know so many of you can relate. I rebelled against setting any goals at this time of year. I even put a post up on Instagram that was like, your goals, your timeline to just give permission. That nothing has to happen January one if you're not quite ready for it too.
And I still have some of that feeling today. There are certain things that I am really excited about, thinking goals or intentions, and then , other areas where it just feels like too much pressure. If you are or have been a client of mine, or maybe you've just picked up on this from listening to the podcast, you know that.
What we do in coaching is all about progress, and it is so important to remember that you can start to make change any day of the week,
any time of the month. If there is something in your life that you want to change, you don't have to wait, and it doesn't have to be this grand. Change, like I'm gonna start going to the gym five days a week as your goal, that you will actually be more successful in the long run if you start small and you slowly build over time.
If you haven't listened to way, way back in the podcast, episode two called Finding Time for Your Goals, this would be a great time to check out that episode or re-listen to it. If you are an OG podcast listener and you've been around for a long time, I love to re-listen to some of my,
what I think is most helpful. To remember that it's actually about iterating on the routines in your life and when you have the capacity to add in a small tweak, a small update, or something that is just fun and new and that it's also about being content with where you are. If you are not in a season to make a bunch of changes, there's nothing wrong with that either.
It is totally fine and normal and acceptable to just practice being content with what you have, with what you're doing, and maybe the stretch or the goal for you is to settle on what is enough for you.
But I do acknowledge that there is something to turning the page on the calendar to a new year that sparks thoughts of what you might want to make of it. It is standing at the beginning and doing some dreaming. What will this year hold? So for those of you who are feeling that, let's talk about or explore some options that might get you thinking about those possibilities, those dreams and those ideas.
Then let's balance that with what is actually going on around January one. If you are a parent, as I am sure you are, since you're listening to this podcast, January one isn't exactly the fresh start that it is for others outside of it just being the start of a new month, you are likely coming off of the holidays, as I said, with lots of time together.
Maybe out of routine, eating some sugar, a calendar full of commitments, a wallet that might be recovering from what has happened over the last month. And if your kids are like mine who are school aged, we will still be in the middle of their winter break on January one. So as much as I would like a fresh start back to my routines and into my habits again, it will still very much feel like that stretch of time where you don't know what day it is.
And then for me, when I do go back to the office, because my kids go back to school on January 6th, not a Monday, on a Tuesday, our family will be celebrating my youngest son's birthday. So even then, it won't necessarily be about me and we won't be back into routine because we'll be having cake and presents and all of the things that we just did for the holidays.
But even when you are back to work, whatever date that is, you probably need some time to decompress, to just remember what it's like to get up and do drop offs and sit at your desk and have a daily routine again. So let's start with this reminder. There is no rush and no deadline to having any sort of intention, goals, or plans mapped out for yourself.
On January one, you can take the first couple of weeks. You could take all of January if you need to. You can take even longer In some ways, I think taking longer makes a lot of sense because it is still winter and we are in hibernation season during this time.
I host an intention setting slash dreaming workshop for my year long, in-depth coaching program, momentum coaching, and we don't do that until the second week of January because I want everyone to be more settled back into routine with the capacity to even think about these things. So again, permission to go at your own pace and maybe what you do prioritize right now.
Is some reflection. So holidays or winter break, whatever this time of year looks like for you, it's a great time to look back at your photos from the year I did this recently, I like to do that , on a monthly basis where I clean out and, you know, delete the duplicates and the blurry photos or the things that I just, you know, took a photo of where I parked my car in the parking garage.
I don't need that long term, but. At the end of the year, I do like to go back through the whole year because it is so easy to forget. Maybe you use this time to update your budget or to review any stats that you've been tracking or any notes that you took or need to take. Still about the year. I have a whole episode on note taking.
It's episode 17. Another great one to listen or re-listen to as we wrap up the year.
So as you do some of these activities, just reflect and notice what comes up for you. Are there things that you did that you wanna do again, because, oh, that was so great and you forgot about it. Are there ideas for this next year or areas of your life that keep coming up as a theme, something that maybe you're pulled toward or just keep thinking about?
For me, travel is coming up because as I am reflecting, I have realized that I didn't make as much progress last year on this as I had hoped. So this was one of my areas of intention for 2025. And so for 2026, I wanna revisit this. I want to bring more intentionality toward this topic, and then I want to actually take action.
I also made progress last year as I was looking through my photos on finishing many overdue house projects and I added some color to our house, which was something that I wanted to do, and there's more here that I am still excited to do, and so I'm noticing this as another area again for the next year.
I've not set any specific goals or mapped out what that will look like. I probably will at some point, but just not now. That is not the headspace that I am in just yet, but I am noting down that those are areas that have come up for me.
If you've done that or it doesn't take you very long and you want to move beyond just gentle reflecting and noticing. I do love the idea of intentions that get at how you want to feel or what you want to feel more of. Maybe this goes along with a word of the year. Maybe you start to think about how you want this next year to feel, and a word surfaces for you.
Maybe it's a thought or a phrase or a quote that encapsulates that. I love to write a letter. To my future self. So I act as if it is December 31st, 2026. And I will describe in a letter to myself how this last year felt, how 2026 felt. Um, I'm imagining, I'm dreaming. I'm thinking of the possibilities I tell my future self, what happened, what I'm really proud of myself for what I won't believe that occurred in this year.
And what I'm mostly getting at through this letter is vibes. I'm mostly getting at the vibes, what were the vibes of 2026 as if they are already done. So that can be a fun exercise maybe for you to experiment or play with, especially during this time of reflection.
I mentioned earlier on that in one year, I, I wrote a list of things that I wanted more of in my life. I was inspired by a poem on Instagram, and I remember it listed things like more champagne, more laughs, more spontaneous trips, more romance, more color, et cetera. I do love that it doesn't have to be in place of goals.
It could supplement or go along with them. I could probably repurpose the list that I made a couple of years ago and just reuse it again because I don't think there are things that you ever just check off and complete. It's more of a way of living and experiencing life, and I love that as a reminder.
So this year, as I have been and will continue to reflect, there are a couple of words that keep popping out at me. And again, I'm just gonna kind of hold onto these in the coming weeks and see if I really want to own or claim one of these for the year ahead. But words like awe or the word leap keeps coming up for me.
I'm thinking about finding more whimsy in my life. I wrote about that in my Working Mom Journal newsletter recently, looking for those moments of awe in my everyday life. There's so much research that shows that recognizing awe and experiencing awe is a great way to navigate stress, and that is.
Always top of mind for me as I know it is for many of you as well. I'm also experimenting more. I want to take more action. I want to leap without overthinking or over researching so much. The phrase, taking calculated risks resonates with me right now. And so again, to get back to that word leap.
And so words like these are just worth paying attention to. Maybe they will become a word of the year. I don't know yet. Maybe also as you're reflecting, there's a mindset or perspective shift that you want to think about or consider for this next year.
I've mentioned this one before, but I, I love the perspective shift of challenging yourself to imagine the positive outcome as much, if not more than you do, imagining the worst case scenario. What would that look like and how would that show up or influence your life in this next year? Maybe you're looking for a mindset shift around guilt and something that you could practice this next year would be to acknowledge the guilt that you feel whenever you leave your kids, or you put yourself first and.
Shifting your thoughts about that, that it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, but that it is perhaps just a part of the process and something that you can learn to feel your way through
now if you are ready and really into some specific measurable goal setting. I think that's great. As I said, I do that in my life. I coach my clients toward goals that we're making progress toward and achieving, and my encouragement to you would be to make them shorter term. When we start a new year, the tendency is to make them annual goals, things that we want to have completed at the end of 12 months.
But our lives, especially with young kids, are constantly changing. So instead of setting a goal for the entire year, can you start with a brain dump of all of your ideas? Make a list of the possibilities of the areas of your life where you might want to focus or give your attention to this year, and then break them down and start small.
What makes sense for you to focus on maybe this first quarter of the new year?
My clients have access to a training that I created on quarterly goals and focus areas, and that's because I think 12 weeks
is a really effective length of time and a great starting point. It's enough time to really make some significant progress. It's also long enough that it can absorb a week where everyone is sick, or you have a business trip, or there's some unexpected deadline that consumes your time.
You can make real meaningful progress in 12 weeks, and then at the end of 12 weeks you can continue to work on that goal. You can expand it, you can pivot to something else, or you can just sustain the progress that you made. So instead of thinking about the year, I would encourage you to think about the quarter or the next couple of months, what makes sense or fits in with this time of year.
Sometimes you'll have a great goal, , an intention or an idea, but right now is just not the best time. The circumstances don't align or maybe your energy isn't there. Put those goals on a list and revisit them in 12 weeks. Maybe then it will be the perfect time and you can pull that one forward. In the meantime, can you choose something that fits the season, the circumstances of your life, and what you've got going on?
It's similar to how I encourage and all of you to get all of your tasks out of your head and onto a running list that you can choose from each day and each week. You can do the same thing with potential goals or focus areas for your life.
I think the things that we are meant to focus on and work on are presented to us often at the right time, and it is up to us to really notice that. And so when you are feeling drawn to something or really excited about something or you're feeling less excited or some resistance around something, that those are important indicators to notice, listen to that.
So for me this year, honestly, I'm gonna be revisiting a lot of my intentions from last year through the lens of leaping or taking more risks. I spent time this year overthinking more things than I wanted to, or waiting for circumstances to be optimal, and they weren't. And life threw me a lot of curve balls.
So. This year, I just wanna leap. I don't want to wait. So similar to last year around our home, I'm looking to add more color, more art, and more personality. Take some more design risks in my marriage. I want to again. Try quarterly life planning retreats or, or days or whatever we can fit in. Honestly, I'll take it and a trip for just the two of us.
I want to host dinner parties. I wanna go camping with friends. I wanna take more walks with friends. I wanna focus again or refocus on our finances with some bigger. Savings goals that I want to map out for us. I have some really clear business goals for this year. I have several really exciting updates happening, and I am so pumped to see those.
Come to fruition this year. I'm always focusing on or thinking about how I can be the best parent that I can be and for my health. This one, I am always so pleased with my progress, and so this year I'm gonna be focusing on cardio. Something that I don't love. Give me all the heavy weights. Cardio is hard for me, and also a recommitment to my mornings and crafting what I really want those to look like.
It's all super fun to think about and exciting, and I just try to remind myself, and I'll remind you as well, that it starts with one thing. It starts with small changes or additions or updates, and that also my life right now as it is, is enough. These ideas are icing on the cake. What is most important is my presence in my life and being content in the here and now while also adding in some fun challenges.
I see this sometimes that when we are too fixated on our goals, it can take you out of the moment and instead has you just striving for what's next and what's ahead. And so it's about both. Two things are true. Can you be satisfied with where you are, present with where you are , and enjoy that journey and balance it with.
Something new, something different, something that you are excited about.
My whole relationship to the new year, to goals and intentions and words of the year. It's always changing. It's always evolving. I reserve the right to change my mind about the whole framework as well as my specific goals, whatever they might end up being, and, and so do you. You can write a bunch of things down for January one, and at the end of the first quarter or in six months, decide that those things don't matter to you anymore, or life has changed and that is okay.
Changing your mind isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you've given up just as long as it's your choice and it's one that you've made consciously. It's one that you've thought through. That's what matters. If you have some ideas for your Q1 intentions or you want help figuring out what's realistic and reasonable for your season of life, I would love to support you.
This is exactly what we'll be doing in my small group coaching program for working moms. It's called Beyond Balance. It's a 12 week program, which is the exact length of time that I. Love for goals. I will be helping you set your goals at the start of the program and then teaching you how to manage your time and schedule so you can make progress without sacrificing the other things in your life.
If you're interested or you want to learn more, fill out a quick interest form over on my website at themothernurture.com/interest. I hope you enjoy these next couple weeks of reflecting and noticing and jotting down all of your ideas, and remember that there is no deadline. There is no rush. You have time, and you have
the possibility of another great year ahead of you. All right. I will talk with you in the next episode. Until then, take care. 📍 Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast,
you can also find information about how I support working moms just like you through one-on-one, and group coaching, as well as access a number of resources and articles all on my website at themothernurture.com.
I will see you again next week for another episode of the podcast
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