We’ve all been there—excited to chase a big goal, only to quit when things get hard. Why do we do it? And, more importantly, what can we do about it? In this episode, Marissa Hyatt and Ken Freire take a vulnerable, insightful look at what drives us to give up and reveal practical strategies for staying the course.
Key Takeaways
- You Can Do Hard Things. Big goals require big growth. You’re not yet who you need to become to achieve your goal. The key? Staying connected to your why.
- Progress Takes Time. Instead of getting discouraged, celebrate small wins and track how far you’ve come. If you quit too soon, failure is guaranteed.
- Focus On the Next Right Thing. Goals are supposed to be risky—and that can make them overwhelming. Choose simple actions that move you forward.
- Shame Will Try to Stop You. You’ll have to battle the belief that your worth is tied to your success (but don’t worry, we’ve got ideas to help).
- Growth Can Feel Isolating. Not everyone wants to grow, because growth is uncomfortable. The key? Finding the right tribe to journey with you.
Resources
Watch on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/aXzs1mShBLs
This episode was produced by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound
Creators & Guests
Host
Ken Freire
From the Big Apple to Middle Tennessee, Ken Freire is the Director of Memberships at Full Focus and the co-host of the Focus on This podcast. Ken has been in ministry for 15 years. He has always been passionate about leading and developing individuals to see their God-given potential and purpose in life. He loves speaking, coaching, and scaling companies. He’s been married for 12 years and is the father of four energetic little kids. In his spare time, he loves to read books on theology, leadership, and spiritual development. He also loves Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Host
Marissa Hyatt
Born and raised south of Nashville, Marissa is the Chief Marketing Officer at Full Focus. She is super passionate about helping people get outside their comfort zones, find their own power, and achieve their dreams. In her free time, she enjoys cooking for friends, baking sourdough bread, and hiking. She geeks out on natural wellness, skincare, personal growth, gardening, and traveling.
What is Focus on This?
Start loving Mondays! Marissa & Ken give you practical tips and proven strategies for increasing your focus so you can be more productive than ever before. Based on the proven Full Focus method used in the Full Focus Planner™, they'll help you banish distractions and get the right stuff done so you can start loving Mondays again. They also speak with guests and listeners who share their own productivity tips to help you make the most of every day. It's the most productive podcast on the internet!
[00:00:00] Marissa: All right, so be honest with me. Have you ever quit a goal? And how recently, I guess, did you quit on a goal?
[00:00:09] Ken: Yeah, Marissa, um, you know me. I'm perfect. I don't quit. I'm great. Amazing.
[00:00:17] Marissa: Wow. Yeah. Well, you can just go ahead and leave now and I'll stay on the honest planet and talk to the people.
[00:00:23] Ken: All right. See ya.
[00:00:24] Bye. I feel like I've had to quit on a lot of things. Sometimes it was for really good reasons and it was beneficial.
[00:00:31] But
[00:00:31] Ken: other times, if I'm truly honest, I quit because I had a bunch of limiting beliefs or I struggled with what I wanted to do. Um, for me, one of the most recent things that I quit on, this was a few years ago now, but.
[00:00:45] I remember when I started my own coaching business, I was trying to like, figure out how to do everything and, uh, someone hired me to be their COO. And I, I remember distinctively thinking to myself, I'm going to do this because it's going to help me as a launching pad. And was that true? [00:01:00] Yes. But deep down inside, I did it because I was afraid of like being by myself and trying to figure this whole thing out.
[00:01:07] And it derailed me to my longer term goals.
[00:01:10] Marissa: Totally. Well, we had a conversation about, you know, a not to do list, like stopping certain things because they don't add value. And you know, here's the truth is that sometimes we're not being strategic. We're giving up. We've all done it. It sounds like you've done it.
[00:01:29] I've certainly done this. I have probably last year at least half of my goals, if I'm honest, I put on. I just was so in a challenging season of my life, whether it was work related or We had a lot of challenges going on. It required a lot more of my energy than typical. And then I had a lot of health stuff popping up last year that kind of derailed a lot of my goals and it quit.
[00:01:57] And I had a lot of guilt [00:02:00] and. It sucks to quit. It doesn't feel good typically, unless you're being strategic about it. And in that case, great. But we're talking today about those times where you're not really strategic and you just give up.
[00:02:13] Ken: Yeah. And why and how to fix it.
[00:02:15] Marissa: Totally. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and dive in because I want to get to the actual.
[00:02:20] Good stuff.
[00:02:27] Welcome to another episode of focus on this, the most productive podcast on the internet. So you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I'm Marissa Hyatt and here with the perfect and amazing, Ken Ferey. Hey. Happy Monday.
[00:02:46] Ken: Happy Monday. Thank you for acknowledging the true part of me, the real part of me, the perfection of me.
[00:02:52] Ken
[00:02:52] Marissa: is an Enneagram One and the perfectionist, not the perfect, but we'll let him be perfect [00:03:00] today.
[00:03:00] Ken: Yes. I can be perfect for like 0. 1 millisecond
[00:03:04] Marissa: and
[00:03:05] Ken: then I ruin it because of my pride. So like it, it doesn't work out. But the reality is that quitting is something that we've all done. It's human, and for some of us, it's a lot harder.
[00:03:16] To deal with the quitting.
[00:03:18] Yeah,
[00:03:18] Ken: especially because you know, we we see this all over social media We see it in in movies. We have like this massive respect for ultra marathoners navy seals superhuman athletes
[00:03:29] that
[00:03:30] Ken: like they don't ever quit but we feel like We are lesser than because we do acknowledge and we do feel that emotion of quitting,
[00:03:39] the
[00:03:39] Ken: regret that we couldn't actually achieve something.
[00:03:42] So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk through a few reasons why people quit and strategies to actually help.
[00:03:48] Marissa: I am so excited about this. I had a personal trainer She has a phrase, and I'm sure this didn't originate with her, but she said, if you're sick of starting over, stop quitting. [00:04:00] And I always love that quote.
[00:04:02] It sucks to quit, right? Like there's a lot of shame and a lot of guilt in it. And it's hard to continue to feel like we're starting over. So hopefully what we're going to talk about today will help you to understand better why you're quitting. And hopefully we can give you some good strategies. To kind of combat this and not quit on yourself or your goals.
[00:04:24] So Kim, let's dive into reason. Number one,
[00:04:26] Ken: reason. Number one, it's harder than we expected. The reality is that sometimes we find we've underestimated the difficulty of a goal. I know this has been me a thousand times. I'm like, Oh, it's so simple. Just do X, Y, and Z. And then I'm like, Nope, it's a thousand times harder.
[00:04:44] So we're, we're hitting roadblocks and they're hard. And when that happens, our goal starts to cost us something. We actually have to sacrifice things in our lives. Maybe it's time, maybe it's money. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to sacrifice things [00:05:00] in your family or friendships. And that's when you realize that you get frustrated.
[00:05:05] And you think to yourself, and you feel this way, that like, it shouldn't be this hard. But because it is hard, right, you end up giving up.
[00:05:14] Because
[00:05:15] Ken: you didn't realize how hard it was going to be. One of the things you have to realize is that when this happens, this frustration of hardship, one mindset shift that you have to have is you need to realize you're not yet the person you'll have to become to actually achieve this goal.
[00:05:32] Marissa: Okay, that's worth repeating. So say that again.
[00:05:34] Ken: Yeah, you're not yet the person you'll have to become to achieve this goal. And I think what ends up happening many times is we like being where we're at. We're comfortable. But if you actually chose a smarter goal where you're challenging yourself, that challenge means that there's a gap in who you are and then who you're supposed to become.
[00:05:54] Marissa: Totally. This is why we want your goals to be risky. Guys, like this is kind of [00:06:00] a, a reality check moment. If your goal is smarter and it follows that smarter framework of which one of the R's means risky,
[00:06:09] it
[00:06:09] Marissa: will require a different part of you. It's going to be hard. Your new personal mantra needs to become, I can do hard things because it is going to get hard.
[00:06:22] If it was easy, this wouldn't be a goal. You wouldn't have to make this a goal. And it's easy to forget that when you're in the moment and you have to go do the thing to make progress on your goal and it's hard and it's painful or you feel like you don't want to. And I think we need to kind of flip this and start expecting that that's going to happen.
[00:06:44] Like anticipate that at some point along the journey, it's going to be hard and then ask yourself, what am I going to do?
[00:06:51] Ken: Yeah, I don't know if I told you this, but in January, my wife and I, we revamped our family core values. And one of our core values is do hard [00:07:00] things. So for the last, you know, two or three months, every three months, we're going to kind of going through a new core value.
[00:07:07] So right now we're in do hard things. And every time I, my kids are complaining or they're whining about something, I'm like, Hey, we can do hard things.
[00:07:15] This
[00:07:15] Ken: is your hard thing today, but like, Oh, I don't want to wash the dishes. I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is your hard thing today. Go do hard things. Like just pushing them, like challenging them.
[00:07:23] Cause we need to build that persevering muscle, that grit,
[00:07:27] Marissa: the same
[00:07:27] Ken: thing for our goals.
[00:07:28] Marissa: And one of the best strategies, if you find yourself struggling to push through when it does get hard, is to remember your why, you know, my mom is kind of like famous in our tribe for saying people lose their way when they lose their why.
[00:07:43] And this is really true. If you kind of forget why this goal is important, why it's worth achieving what's at stake, if you don't achieve it, it's going to be really easy to just give up on it. Right? Like we've all been there where we kind of lose, we lose [00:08:00] reference point to why we even wanted this goal in the first place.
[00:08:04] And it's like, yeah, forget about it. So it's so critical for us to keep our why front and center. So asking yourself questions like, why did you set this goal? What are you wanting from it? You know, like what's the goal kind of behind the goal? You're obviously not doing the goal just to do the goal. Like you're not going to go run an ultra marathon just to run an ultra marathon.
[00:08:28] You're doing that for a specific reason. You don't want to just get out of debt to just get out of debt for the sake of getting out of debt. You want that because it's going to give you more freedom, right? Or you don't want to just create a habit of exercising daily for the sake of it. No, you want more energy, right?
[00:08:44] There's something behind that. You want to be able to get up and play with your kids or your grandkids. So what will this goal make possible? And what's at stake if you don't accomplish it? I think getting really intimate and, you know, as you're creating your [00:09:00] goal, if you're like us and you use the full focus planner, we walk you through this question as part of creating your goal detail.
[00:09:08] So remember your why. When it gets hard.
[00:09:12] Now,
[00:09:12] Marissa: reason number two is that it's taking longer than we expected. I have totally had this happen.
[00:09:20] Ken: This is me all the time.
[00:09:21] Marissa: Totally. I mean, I've had this happen so many times and honestly, a lot of times it's professional goals where this shows up, where we think, you know, we have a specific timeline.
[00:09:31] We think we know what we're, you know, how long stuff's going to take. And then we get in and we realize this is taking a lot longer than we thought. This is true, especially when we're talking about goals, because you might like come out of the gate, super motivated, really excited. You get some quick wins under your belt.
[00:09:49] You're like, yes, yes, yes. And then progress slows down. And the truth is like growth takes time. And I love this [00:10:00] concept that you can't microwave. your maturity.
[00:10:04] Ken: That's so hard because our whole society is predicated on right now. What's in it for me right now? How can we get everything right now?
[00:10:12] Marissa: When is yesterday a good time to get this thing done?
[00:10:15] Ken: I was working on something and my friend, uh, asked me, he's like, Hey, when do you want to get, get this done? I'm like, uh, yesterday. He's like, he's like, Ken, you know better. I'm like, okay, fine. Tomorrow. Yeah. But he's like, no, it's gonna take four weeks. I'm like, fine.
[00:10:28] Marissa: Well, it really is true. And you know, I, I've talked several times this year about, I'm working on a goal to work out every single week.
[00:10:37] And I've been really consistent minus the week that I was sick recently, but I've been super consistent in that. And I had some kind of, um, It wasn't the goal necessarily, but some things that I wanted to, with the working out for that, to translate into, you know, some certain physical results I wanted to see in my body.
[00:10:58] And my progress on that [00:11:00] has actually been slower than what I thought. And I have several times thought like, you know, if I just give up, okay, well done. It'd be easier to just be done than to keep going. But the truth is, If I quit now, failure is guaranteed. I'll never get to those things. Now, it may take me longer, you know, than I initially anticipated.
[00:11:21] But if I keep going, I know that my success is inevitable. It will happen over time. So one of the strategies that you can implement here, when this happens, when stuff takes longer than you thought, when progress is seeming really slow, It's extra important to count every win. So no matter how small it is, you've got to count those wins.
[00:11:46] So for instance, if you have a weight loss goal and the scale isn't moving, or it's taking longer, for instance, rather than just saying, well, this is a fail, I should just give up. What are some non scale wins that you've [00:12:00] had? Like, did you take measurements and you're seeing inches drop? Are you feeling stronger?
[00:12:05] Like for me, one of the things that I have noticed, My pushups are getting better. You know, that's something that when I got back into working out this year and started, my pushups were pretty weak, you know, struggling a little bit. And those have gotten a lot better. Specifically my tricep pushups, which are very hard for me.
[00:12:24] I'm still doing them on my knees. I'm still modifying. But like I am getting so much better at those, my progress is slow, but it's still progress. So I've got to measure those wins, um, as they come along.
[00:12:36] Ken: Especially for those of you who are perfectionist or more critical of yourself. This is 100 percent something you should be focused on.
[00:12:45] You can always look at the negative. Oh, I didn't do X, Y, and Z today. Well, okay, cool. What did you do? And make that a muscle. I think, again, going back to the full focus planner, sometimes people skip this part, and this is probably one of the most important parts for you to feel successful [00:13:00] is answering the question, like, what was your daily win?
[00:13:03] What was your big win today? So that you can just get that repped in of like, man, I'm doing well. I'm actually making progress. And then the second thing I would actually say is making sure every week you review all your daily wins. You're like, wow, I actually made a lot of progress this week. It sometimes doesn't feel like it, but when you look back and say, I did this.
[00:13:23] There's a huge accomplishment.
[00:13:24] Marissa: There is. Well, and like Dan Sullivan has a great quote about this. He talks about measuring the gain and not the gap. So it's like, instead of looking at how far you have left to go, Like if you're, you know, just using the weight loss, cause it's an easy goal to talk about rather than thinking, gosh, I still have 10 pounds to lose.
[00:13:46] Look at how far you've come. You know, if you have already lost some weight and this is your goal, then focus on that or focus on the things that you have accomplished so far. Like I said, those may be non scale victories that you've had. [00:14:00] So measuring the gain and not the gap and realizing like change is probably going to be slow.
[00:14:06] That's okay, but it's still happening. So even though it may not be happening at the rate that you were originally hoping, it's still happening.
[00:14:15] Ken: Which brings us to reason number three, even though you might be Measuring the gain and not the gap. Sometimes the reason you quit is because it's more overwhelming than we expected.
[00:14:26] You see, when you set those risky goals in your discomfort zone, you experienced so many different emotions, like fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And sometimes how big that goal is keeps us from starting. And the reality is that sometimes the goal may be a little bit too risky. It may be way too out of your discomfort zone.
[00:14:46] And it's what we call the delusional zone, right? So we have to recognize that if you're in this place, you're going to feel intimidated, you're going to feel overwhelmed. You don't know where to begin because you got all these emotions that you have [00:15:00] to wrestle with. And when you have those emotions and you don't know how to deal with them properly, that's why you quit.
[00:15:06] So the strategy on how to fix this is focus on the next right thing.
[00:15:11] Marissa: I love this strategy
[00:15:14] Ken: because what happens is right, Marissa, like people look at this thing and then they think, Oh my gosh, I gotta do 10, 000 tasks. It's like, no, no, no, no. Don't look at the big scary goal. Think about one easy thing you can do today.
[00:15:26] This is why we talk about the daily big three so much, but like you gotta figure out what's the one thing. And sometimes I tell people like, Hey, if you're so overwhelmed about the daily big three, what's just the one thing, just do one thing that can move the ball forward.
[00:15:38] Totally.
[00:15:39] Ken: I had a person that I was coaching a couple weeks ago and they're like, Ken, I am so overwhelmed by my list of tasks that I have.
[00:15:47] I don't know where to begin. And I just paused and I said, okay, I took a step back and I said, which is more important right now to you, your family or your work? It's just like they all seem important. I'm like, okay, let me take another step back [00:16:00] 10 years from now. Which one of these is gonna be more important?
[00:16:02] The fact that you did this task or the fact that you spend time with your kid? And she's like, Oh, the fact that I spent time with my kid. I'm like, okay, so let's come back to today. What's the one thing you could do today to focus on your kid? And she was like, Oh, I just need to do this. I'm like, cool.
[00:16:17] That's your daily big three. Can you do that today? And she's like, yeah, that's super easy. And like all the other tasks just fell away. She's like, I know exactly what I need to do. And she felt so much peace because we took something that felt so overwhelming, so big and just broke it down and made it smaller.
[00:16:33] Marissa: Yes, it's all about taking like this big goal that feels potentially overwhelming or intimidating and bringing it really, really down to earth and making it small and easy to accomplish. And you talked about, Ken, Like we want your goals to feel risky. We want you to feel that sense of fear, not terror.
[00:16:54] Okay. We're not talking about like being terrified, but we're talking about having like a little angst inside. That's like, Oh, I don't [00:17:00] know. You know, we want you to feel a sense of uncertainty and that doubt it should be in your discomfort zone. But the key thing here that you're talking about is we need to make sure our next steps our daily big three are in our comfort zone.
[00:17:15] These shouldn't be also in our discomfort zone because if that's the case, the likelihood that you're going to want to continue to make progress is really slim to none. You're likely going to go ahead and quit. If that happens, if you have to muster up like major courage every single day to go work on this thing, like be honest, you might be like okay with that for a week or a couple of weeks, but like, After like a month of that, you're going to be exhausted and burnt out, frankly.
[00:17:43] We want you to be setting steps, your next steps in your comfort zone. And I love how you helped her, you know, take this big vision that she had and make it a reality today. And you guys can be asking yourself, like think about the goals that you have that [00:18:00] you've set. And if there's one that maybe feels kind of like Oh gosh, I don't even know where to, where to begin.
[00:18:06] Just ask yourself, what's one little thing I can do today? And maybe all it is, is scheduling time on your calendar to work on it. I mean, that's literally could be a next step for you. The other thing I want to mention here that could be really helpful if you're really genuinely struggling, like I don't even know how to get started.
[00:18:21] Go to chat GPT you guys. This is such a good use case for this, where you can take your goal and say, how can I get started? Give me some next steps to get started on this that are easy, small, non intimidating, you know, actions to take. And you guys might be surprised at what comes out of that. And this could be something that you say, Oh, I could go do that right now.
[00:18:43] I can make progress right now. It'll take me five minutes on this goal. I know for me, I had this quarter. One of my goals is to pay off two credit cards that I have some debt on that I am really ready and motivated to be done with. Frankly, this is a goal I've quit on [00:19:00] for over a year. I've started it several times and then I quit and I started and I quit and I started to quit in this quarter.
[00:19:05] I was like, I'm done. I'm sick of my own story. I'm sick of hearing myself complain about this. Like I got so fed up with me that I was like, it is time. It's finally the quarter for me to accomplish this. And it felt really intimidating. Like this was not going to be an easy task for me. And so I had to figure out how can I make progress on this?
[00:19:26] And so one of the first things I did was I just watched a video on YouTube about from this space. I use the app YNAB for my budgeting. And I watched a whole video on that, on how to get out of debt. That helped me figure out the next step. So even though you may not know what it's going to look like to accomplish this whole thing in totality, all you need to know is the next right thing to focus on.
[00:19:53] Ken: There's a lot of people in our Double Wind coaching program who sometimes they don't know what the next right step is, and they could just post it in the community that [00:20:00] we have. Private community is just like, hey, here's what I'm struggling with. Here's where I need help with. What should I do, right? I have my own personal group of friends that sometimes I'm stuck and I'm like, Hey, what do you think I should do next?
[00:20:10] And they're like, do this. I'm like, okay, great. You know, uh, you and I were talking about working out earlier today and I was like, I hate working out by myself. And you were like, well, why don't you just try this, this or this? I'm like, okay, yeah. You know, I could try those things. Cause it's just helpful. to have people that you can go back and forth with.
[00:20:37] Marissa: Reason number four, your goal might bring up more shame than you originally expected.
[00:20:43] Ken: Oh yeah.
[00:20:44] Marissa: And I think this is a really kind of overlooked one.
[00:20:46] Ken: Yeah, because the reality is that shame gets loud when we're trying to do something different or new. The inner thoughts, the negative self talk that we have is like, I'm so dumb.
[00:20:57] Why can't I do this? What's the matter with me? [00:21:00] I should be smarter than this. Or maybe I'm not good enough for this. Maybe I should quit. Like all my friends told me to quit.
[00:21:06] Marissa: Or why haven't I been able to succeed at this? Before.
[00:21:10] Ken: Yeah, before you know,
[00:21:10] Marissa: especially if this is a goal that you've quit on multiple times, that can really start to creep in.
[00:21:18] So just a super short little story. So this workout goal that I've been working on this quarter, I have a group of girls that are my girlfriends. There's five of us total that we have a text ad that we're keeping each other accountable. And one of my friends. This is new for her, this type of workout that we're doing, which is primarily strength training.
[00:21:34] She's done like mostly like Peloton stuff and all that, but this is like a new type of working out. And she was beating herself up the other day about that. She should be stronger. And she was like talking about how her shoulders are really weak. And she was like, gosh, like, I just feel like I'm, I should be farther along than this.
[00:21:51] Like, why is this so hard? And a few of us in the group reminded her. This is literally [00:22:00] the first time in your life that you're working out and doing strength training. Like you have never ever done this. So why would you expect to just be like immediately, you know, but we do this, like it obviously is, you know, so clear when you're on the outside looking in, but when it's us, you know, or maybe it's like with me, with my financial goal, like I know better, like why the heck am I in this debt?
[00:22:25] I know better. Why can't I actually. Accomplish this. I've tried so many times and frankly, I've actually done this in the past. I did this in 2020. I paid off a decent amount of consumer debt, both credit card and my car at the time. It was like, I can't remember 28, 000 or something of debt that I paid off that year.
[00:22:44] Phenomenal. So it's like, why did I somehow get back in this? And I could beat myself up all day about that.
[00:22:51] Ken: And that could be the worst sometimes for most people, right? Because you're like, I know better. I should have stopped this. And you went back into it. I mean, there's people who have done that [00:23:00] with weight loss, right?
[00:23:00] They're like, I lost 30 pounds and then I gained 20 back. What happened? What should I do? And that's where all the disappointment and discouragement happens. Because shame, right, this says that there's a problem with who we are, right? So we need to figure out how to reframe this and figure out how do we separate this?
[00:23:18] So the strategy that I love to do is reminding people who they are.
[00:23:22] Yes.
[00:23:23] Ken: You have to separate what you do from who you are. And setbacks, guys, as you're listening to this, setbacks are normal. It's part of life. Like you're gonna have troubles no matter what goal you have, right? If you Don't it's not a goal, right?
[00:23:37] It's just you're probably dead because life is always hard, right? But here's one of the things that I have found and I tell this to people when I'm on calls with them. Coaching them and I have found this to be so true. This is, I went to a counselor many years ago to go through some healing to figure out some things that that were in my Life and I had a huge identity problem because I tied [00:24:00] everything to who I was to what I did
[00:24:02] Yeah and
[00:24:03] Ken: it was super hard to separate it and then I remember one time the counselor was like Ken if you were a Paraplegic right now and you couldn't do anything.
[00:24:11] Who would you be? And I was like, well, God forbid that would ever happen to someone and for those people. But he was trying to prove a point that I was trying to achieve so much for my identity. And it's like, no, I can't. My value intrinsically has to come separately from what we do.
[00:24:28] Yeah. We
[00:24:29] Ken: can get value, of course, from a little bit of what we do in our work, but it can't be the ultimate place where we find our identity.
[00:24:35] Marissa: It's really true.
[00:24:36] Ken: So we have to separate those two that's going to be huge The second thing is just remember your values. Like what do you actually care about?
[00:24:43] Who
[00:24:44] Ken: do you actually want to become? Uh, because so many times when we are trying to achieve a goal There might be certain things that rub against our values and you you might actually have to quit that goal and that's okay But then hopefully the goals that you do pick are [00:25:00] aligned with your values So it reminds you like no no I want this goal because it's gonna get me closer to who I actually want to become
[00:25:06] Marissa: well And I think thinking through those qualities like we've already mentioned those ideas of like I can do hard things You know, I have tenacity I can finish what I started.
[00:25:18] Breathing life into yourself through, you know, important, powerful affirmations like that. And I'm not talking about like, Telling yourself an untrue story or like living in a fantasy land here. I'm talking about really speaking life into yourself. Yeah. And if you feel like you're struggling to do this, I want to encourage you to find a group of people who can help you do this.
[00:25:42] So whether that is your super close friends, you know, I talked about we have this kind of accountability group that we're all working the same workout program and there's five of us and, you know, we sit in there and we, you know, complain about the workouts and how sore we are and all that kind of stuff.
[00:25:58] And we poke fun at it [00:26:00] and whatever. And we're having a hard time where we start that shame spiral starts to play. We're able to really speak life over one another and pull each other out. And you know, whether that's a good group of friends, like you had a counselor who can help a good coach. You know, or a community is so helpful to really breathe life into you, which really perfectly leans us into the last reason that you might feel like you want to just give up on your goal and quit.
[00:26:33] Which is that it might be lonelier than you originally expected, and I think it's really important here. Growth can be lonely, you know, sometimes the truth is like the people around us can actually make it harder to change, especially if they're not in the same head space that we are. I know we probably can have a lot of people listening who are in this place.
[00:26:57] where they feel like, gosh, you know, my spouse [00:27:00] or my best friend, my roommate, my coworkers, they're just not on this same growth path that I am. And we feel like we're the only person that we know in the world out here tackling this type of goal, or we're trying to go after this and make our life meaningful, live out of our values.
[00:27:17] I mean, we are in a lot of ways, the 1 percent and going at it alone. If you're continually feeling that You will fail. That is totally a recipe for failure. We're not made to do things in isolation. We need to do things in the context of community. So that's your strategy here, is seeking out a community.
[00:27:40] You know, we're truly designed to change and to grow and to heal in the context of community. So who can you ask to come alongside you during this process?
[00:27:51] Ken: Yeah, and that's going to be super important because you might be like, man, I don't have anyone. And here's the deal. Some of you would actually say, yes, I [00:28:00] do have some people.
[00:28:00] And we would actually say there's a difference between support and accountability to help you not feel lonely. You know, support is the encouragement like, Hey, you got this. You can make this happen. We're going to need that at times, which is super important. Your spouse may be able to do that, but then there's the accountability aspect to the community where they're helping you actually achieve your goal.
[00:28:20] They're keeping you on track. That's what you need.
[00:28:24] And for those
[00:28:24] Ken: of you who might be like, man. I don't have anyone like that. I don't have a good community of people to keep me accountable, but I would encourage you to come check out the double wind coaching program. You could get connected with Michael Hyatt, Marissa.
[00:28:36] They are in there quite often. We have an, in our community, I'm in there and constantly helping one another, encouraging with support and also the accountability to achieve your goals. Because I know how it feels when you have this goal that you feel like it is this God inspired goal that you want to achieve sometimes and you're like I need someone to be along with me [00:29:00] when that going gets tough
[00:29:02] totally
[00:29:02] Ken: or when you just feel overwhelmed
[00:29:04] Or
[00:29:05] Ken: when you feel stressed out or you just don't know what step to take.
[00:29:08] That's when true accountability sets in and that's what we do in the Double One Coaching Program. We help you for the whole year to actually accomplish what you want to accomplish. So if you're interested come check us out. You can go to uh, fullfocus. co That's co forward slash session. So full focus. co co forward slash session.
[00:29:29] And we'll put that in the show notes as well.
[00:29:30] Marissa: Well, and it's such a great program. Like Ken said, I'm in there every single week. I do coaching calls every week and I'm in our community every single day working with our clients, you know, to. Help not only encourage them, but help them strategize, help reconnect people with their why, and be able to have that sense of tenacity to keep going.
[00:29:55] What I want you guys to hear before we wrap up is Who you're becoming [00:30:00] in this process is more important than the thing that you're trying to accomplish. So those moments when you feel tempted to give up and quit on yourself, remember, it's not necessarily about that thing, it's about who you're becoming in the process.
[00:30:19] You're worth it. Your future is worth it. So prove it to yourself. And just remember quitting and the temptation to quit is normal. It doesn't have to mean you give in. So expect that that's going to happen, that this is going to pop up for you. And as a reminder, when it gets harder than you expected, remember your why.
[00:30:41] When it's taking longer than you expected, measure your gains and count your wins. When it's more overwhelming than you expected, focus on just the next right thing. When it brings up more shame than you expected, remember who you are, not just what you're doing. [00:31:00] And when it's lonelier than you expected, seek out community.
[00:31:06] So as we wrap up this week, we want you to focus on picking one thing off of your goal list that you may feel tempted to quit. And we want to coach yourself into pushing through. So using these strategies we talked about today, coaching yourself through success and pushing through. You can do it. We believe in you.
[00:31:32] You're worth it. Don't give up on yourself. Don't quit on yourself.
[00:31:35] Ken: You're right. You got this. For those of you I know because I've talked to you guys, you're struggling, and you're like, I want this win so bad. Trust me, you can do it. Keep going, one step at a time. Sometimes it's going to feel like it's two steps forward and one step backwards.
[00:31:52] But as long as you're being consistent, you get that community, you're going to make it through. You're going to achieve your goals. You're going to find that [00:32:00] satisfaction of truly achieving. The double win of winning at work and succeeding in life. And again, if you can't find anyone to help you, please reach out to us.
[00:32:08] We'd love to help you. It's the thing that we live for. Like we wake up every morning. We get excited to come to work and coach you guys and walk through you and help you. It's so much fun. To see when your eyes just open wide and you're like, I did it! Or when people, I might, so my favorite times, Marissa, is when people come to me and they're like, Ken, I feel like I can breathe again.
[00:32:27] Yeah.
[00:32:27] Ken: Like I have margin in my life to actually do the things that I want to do.
[00:32:32] Yep.
[00:32:32] Ken: And it's so beautiful. I mean, I had one lady who I was talking to and she's like, I just wish I had a Sunday where I didn't have anything on my list. Cause I'm working seven days a week, 10 hours a day. Like that was her normal.
[00:32:46] And I'm like, yeah, imagine what it would look like if, and like, I did this whole exercise of just imagine what it would look like if she had one whole day where she didn't have to work and she's a business owner, so she could totally do it. [00:33:00] And she just started crying. She's like, that's what I want. And I'm like, that's what we could do for you.
[00:33:05] If you follow our systems, get the right accountability. It is doable. It's possible.
[00:33:14] Thanks for joining us on Focus on This.
[00:33:16] Marissa: This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So please be sure to share it with your friends. Be sure to join us in the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook, so you can benefit from the creativity and encouragement of people just like you, chasing big goals.
[00:33:31] Ken: We'll be here next week with another great episode.
[00:33:34] Marissa: So until then, stay focused.