This is the Mindset for Life podcast, a place for personal stories, coaching, neuroscience and my favorite positive psychology tools to master life, relationships and work. I'm your host. Bethanie Hansen. Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. We're going to talk about a mindset to do something new.

Have you ever set a goal before, and you thought like, I'll start Monday, or I'll start January 1, or I'll start at the first of the month, that'll be a good time to measure my progress?

But whatever it is that you want to take up to the next level, the first step is today, and the mindset I want to share with you today is that ongoing, continuous improvement mindset. So, maybe you've been coached before, or maybe not. Either way, I'm glad you're here, and I want to talk about Coach philosophy a little bit.

I have had so many coaches in my life because I've gone to coach trainings and schools. I've had peer coach partners that have worked with me, and I've been coached a lot, so I have set a lot of goals. And sometimes I've done those goals for a week or two, or even a few months, and I've come away from some coaching sessions with totally new ideas, but a lot of times I have good intentions. I'll set a goal with a coach and it'll last a day or two.

Has that ever happened with your goals? I would really like to make a big change, a permanent change, and that's going to take more than just a little bit of resolve.

Today, if that's you, if you're looking for taking something up a level, let's do a little bit of inventory.

The first thing to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement is to realize it's a journey instead of a destination. Some of the goals we used to set for ourselves might have been destination-oriented. Like, we want to achieve a certain ability physically, like run under a certain time limit, or be able to do a certain number of crunches or push ups or pull ups, or maybe to lose a little bit of weight or get a certain amount of sleep. There are a lot of physical goals we can set, and they're easy to measure because we either do them or we don't do them.

But other goals about improving ourselves, personally and professionally, a lot of those goals don't have destinations. They're what I call “process goals.”

They're the kind of goals where we have to become the kind of person who would do that sort of thing to reach that goal.

One of those things is leadership. For example, if you want to be a really good leader and you're thinking about becoming a better speaker publicly, the first step is actually learning to listen better. So if I was going to set a goal around my listening, I would have to start there. And I don't want to wait till Monday morning or the first of the month, or even wait clear till January 1. What I want to do is start today. The first step is today, in the next hour, two hours, or even in the next five minutes.

Taking this all the way means committing now and just working on it intentionally. That first step is to intentionally move in the direction that you want to go. That intention is everything. As soon as you decide you're really gonna do it, and you think about it, you reflect on it, you journal about it, you learn more about that thing, you study it out, and you start to occupy your mind with that goal.

Pretty soon your subconscious brain becomes your partner, and it helps you to get there. And all kinds of opportunities come into your life to give you chances to grow in that way.

You might not be sure what you really want, but you probably know what you don't want, and we could start right there.

So whatever it is you don't want, what is it that's going to fill that space? So whatever your goal is, in whether it's a physical, intellectual, emotional, social or spiritual goal, you could decide, well, what, what don't you want first? And what would you want instead of that?

Even if it's not the end goal,