179. Clean vs Dirty Goals Setting Yourself Up for Success

Are you feeling a little bit stressed about making goals for the new year? And you see this title of the podcast and think, oh, I haven’t done very well in that area. Well, if that’s you, don’t worry. I got you. My name is Dara Thomason and this is called the Quilter’s Coach Podcast, episode 179, Making Goals.

Okay. So I have a very interesting way of looking at goals that I share with all of my members as soon as they join the membership that I wanted to share with you here because I want to set you up for success and I want you to not shrink and shudder when you think about making goals. But before I go into the goodness of the podcast.

I do want to share a win. And this is of a client who made a goal back at the beginning of 2024 to, she has six children and she wanted to make each one of them A quilt and she didn’t just like we’re gonna make you slap a bunch of fabric together kind of quilt she customized each quilt for her each one of her children their personalities they think the things that they love and she used like a lot of really cool strategies and Different techniques and patterns and she was able to finish the sixth quilt to her, her free motion quilter or her long armor before December 1st.

It is so exciting and she has been able to do it because she’s really been learning these, um, tools and ways of looking She was also part of my reboot, which was kind of a specialized, um, look at goals that I actually, it’s an extra program on top of the membership. And we just really focus on goals and that’s an option if any of any of you are interested.

All right, so let’s go into this concept of clean and dirty goals. And I learned this from, uh, Lauren, uh, Cash, in this course that I took from her on how to make goals, how to really look at things, and I learned a lot. And so basically she talks about a clean goal if you have a very clear objective. So that you know that you can get, uh, you can say this is the result.

The second one is everyone could agree that you have accomplished it. So that’s when you know it’s a clean goal. The third way to know if it’s a clean goal is you do the goal for yourself, for who you will become in the process of working towards creating it, not for the purpose of achieving the end result.

The fourth way you know it’s a clean goal is even if you don’t accomplish the goal in the initial time frame you set. You are willing to continue to go after it. So think about that one. How many of us make a goal, we don’t finish it, and then we just throw it away because it didn’t happen in the time set, time frame we had set.

The fifth is through the process of working on creating the goal. You learn so much. Number six, you are not the same person you were when you started. So are you allowing that transformation? And number seven for a clean goal is, you know, that while you want to achieve this goal, and while you think it’s worth creating, your life won’t be infinitely better, Or infinitely worse just because you’ve accomplished it.

And I have a client who made one goal for the year. That was it. And she put so much pressure on herself to accomplish that one goal. That was that she put way too much

pressure on it. on herself and on the goal and there wasn’t that balance. So that’s if you know you have a clean goal. Now you’re like, okay, Dara, that’s great.

But what about this dirty goal? I want to know about that because when you look up dirty goals, uh, in sports, it’s, uh, it’s actually a hockey term where it’s, uh, kind of a messy goal. Like you’re, there’s a bunch of people in front of the goalie and there’s some backhanded stuff and it’s not super clean.

That’s what the hockey term for dirty goals is. Um, so this one is not in written form, so it’s not known if it’s achieved or not. Okay. Another way to know if it’s a dirty goal is you believe you will be better in some way when it’s achieved. So how does that feel? Number three, you fantasize about how much better your life will be once you complete this goal.

So this is one I encounter a lot with weight loss. A lot of us will think, well, once I lose the weight, it doesn’t matter how I lose it, but once I’ve lost it, then I can relax, then I can feel good about myself. So that’s a tricky one. And then the fourth one to know if you’re, it’s a dirty goal, if you are in a hurry to finish it.

So now that we’ve kind of looked at that, I want you to, um, we’re gonna do an activity called reverse engineer. Okay? So I want you to write down or think about three goals that you have made for yourself and you’ve accomplished. So maybe it. It’s finishing a certain quilt or maybe it’s getting a degree or maybe it’s, um, retiring.

I don’t know. But I want you to think you made a goal and you accomplished it now. So write those three things down or get them in your head. And now I want you to ask, how did you accomplish that goal? So what did you have to do so that you could have success? Okay, and now I want you to, so write with, write those down.

So maybe, um, you asked for help or you, um, yeah, you asked for help. Maybe you modified the goal. Maybe you delegated certain parts or maybe you eliminated certain things that you realized weren’t as necessary. And so I want you to just, Um, kind of have a, uh, an idea in your mind of, oh, that’s how I accomplished that.

Um, and then now I want you to write down or think about, I just like writing things down because I can’t always keep everything in my head. Um, so what are some goals that you had that you didn’t accomplish? Now, this is really interesting. You’re like, I don’t want to think about that, Dara. It’s okay. You don’t have to want to think about it, but what were the things you’d set a goal and you didn’t accomplish?

And I want you to understand, understand why didn’t you accomplish that thing? Now, um, the, we’re getting our floors done right now. And um, one of the, the, the, the owner of the flooring company had his daughter with him today because. Okay. It’s a day off of school and, um, his other daughter and wife are at the, um, Taylor Swift concert.

And then in 2010 she had another album. So, she had some albums in 2006, 2008, and then in 2010, she started doing a little bit more of the rock music, and, uh, 2014, 2017, she

actually got, in 2017, got in the top 100. We are never ever getting back together. Um, and a few other songs. And then she shifted her record dealer in 2018 to electric pop.

And, um, so she’s, she’s really gone through this transformation and, um, and she’s actually sold over 200 million records, which is insane. She’s 34 years old. She is the highest grossing female touring act, the first billionaire with music as primary income and the world’s richest female musician. And, um, it’s interesting when you look at her, there’s many times where she was like, she had disappointments.

And at one point she didn’t get, um, a certain accolade and her record didn’t go very well. They said, Oh, well, you know what’s wrong. And she said, I guess it just wasn’t good enough. I’m just going to make it better. And I think that, um, as we think about our, um, as we think about our own life, and I’m going to, I’m going to reference weight loss.

And just because that is something that people. Are attracted to me because they like this idea of waiting a minute. She’s talking about weight loss without counting calories or tracking steps. She’s talking about going into getting to the root of the problem. She’s talking about, we don’t have a knowledge problem.

We have a feeling problem. We don’t know how to feel our feelings. So you, you resonate with what I’m talking about. But the thing that makes such a difference with the life coaching aspect of weight loss is it’s you finally get to the root of the problem and on the coaching calls and the last two weeks or so inside the membership We’ve really been dialing in on figuring out What?

is really going on. We are really good at distracting ourselves. And now we have these phones and some of us have these electric watches and we’ve got people zinging and dipping and, you know, messaging and buzzing and all of this constantly. It’s so hard to be with ourselves and so it’s so much easier to get distracted.

And so I want to just be here with this voice saying, listen, you’re not broken. You are totally capable of creating whatever kind of result you want, but if you are making goals that are dirty goals and they’re not cleaned up, you will, you could be putting a ton of effort, a ton of work into something and you’re not going to, you’re not going to move the dial because.

you’re not in a space that is clean and healthy for you. And the problem, a lot of us don’t even realize we’re falling into those dirty goals. Don’t even realize that we’re having these, um, difficulties in the first place because we don’t know the difference between a clean goal and a dirty goal. So, um, I’m going to just leave it there.

Because I want to, I want you to spend your time really thinking, going back to the beginning of the podcast and thinking, okay, am I making a goal with these seven parameters of what a clean goal is? Or am I operating from this dirty goal? And it. then looking back at what are the goals that you have achieved and how did you achieve them?

What are the goals you haven’t achieved and why didn’t you achieve them? And then when you can really start thinking about your thinking, that’s going to give you so much traction. It’s going to give you so much leeway, um, into, or so much evidence, sorry, into really figuring out what’s going on. And this is the kind of work we do inside the membership.

And so if this is resonating with you and you’re deciding, I really need to clean up these things. I really need to figure out why I keep tripping over and you have all the best intentions. I get it. But if you can’t get that objectivity or if you can’t have that difference between a clean goal and a dirty goal.

That’s going to be trouble. So, all right. I am so excited for, uh, 2025. I would love you to share this podcast with your friends. Mindset makes all the difference. It is, I, when I look back at what I have been able to accomplish and more importantly what my members in the membership have accomplished because they focus on mindset, it makes all the difference.

And I cannot wait to help you as we continue on with these podcasts. And if you decide to come to the membership, you’re welcome with welcome arms. All right, take care. Bye.