Focus on This

The first few weeks of the year are critical for building momentum toward your goals—but how do you make progress that lasts? In this solo episode, host Ken Freire shares three simple actions to help you start strong and stay on track in 2025. These practical tips are easy to implement and designed to keep you motivated all year long.

Key Takeaways

  1. Start Immediately. Procrastination kills momentum. Take a small action today—even if it’s as simple as doing one squat or buying a journal.
  2. Make Your Goals Visible. Keep your goals front and center by posting them where you’ll see them daily—on your phone, bathroom mirror, or workspace.
  3. Write Down Next Steps. Break your goals into actionable steps, starting with the first three. Focus on one step at a time to maintain clarity and progress.
  4. Celebrate Small Wins. Sharing milestones with someone helps build motivation and accountability.
  5. Find an Accountability Partner. Share your next step with a friend, family member, or the Full Focus Planner Community to stay committed.

Resources


Watch on YouTube at:  https://youtu.be/jPIVQNAWdiI


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 Director of Marketing 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] Happy new year, everyone, for all of you who have been joining in on the focus on this podcast. Thank you so much for being a part of it. And for those of you who are new listening to it, because you are ready for 2025 to crush your goals. Thank you for joining us. Today's episode is a takeover. I'm doing a solo episode.
[00:00:22] My co host is But in her goals in 2025, and we are getting ready to talk about something that is super important for you. We all know it's been a few days that everybody's excited about their new year's resolutions, but what we really want to make sure you do is that you are getting your butt in gear and you are doing the actions necessary to build goal momentum today, not tomorrow, not next week.
[00:00:53] So let's jump into this conversation because it's going to be fantastic.[00:01:00]
[00:01:02] 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 Ken Freire, and usually here with my host, Marissa Hyatt, but today we are doing another solo episode. You've heard Marissa for a little bit, now you're hearing me.
[00:01:23] I am so excited to be able to kick off the new year with you. And here's the reality. Goals, when you create them, are meant to challenge us. But building momentum doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, it's not. Everything we're going to talk about today will take less than 10 minutes because we want to make sure that you are crushing your goals.
[00:01:49] So let's jump right into it. Action number one that you want to be thinking about when it comes to building goal momentum is start immediately. Here's the [00:02:00] reality. Our resolve fades the longer we wait. Has this ever happened to you when you are creating your goals? You're like, you know what? I'm going to start this goal next week.
[00:02:12] Right? This used to happen to me all the time. Whenever I'm trying to exercise or do health diets, anything like that. It's like, it's a Wednesday and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to start eating healthy next Monday. Right. So then we have all these days that we start cheating until we get to Monday.
[00:02:29] And it's like, no, no, no, no. Like our resolve starts to fade away. Cause what typically happens on Monday shows up, right? Someone offers you a cookie. Someone offers you something unhealthy and you eat it and you're like, okay, I'll start the following Monday. Right. And, and all of a sudden you just keep kicking the can down the road.
[00:02:47] And you're just like, wow, three months have passed. Six months have passed. Don't do that. Okay. If you're determined. To make a change, you need to start today and if possible right now, right. And now if [00:03:00] you're driving, I get it. You got it. You're driving to work. You're listening to this. You can't necessarily stop the car, but do something today.
[00:03:06] Here's the reality. You want to make the first step so easy that you can just trip over it. Here's a couple examples, right? If you want to start journaling, buy a journal. If you want to start cooking, just one recipe. And if you don't know what to pick, just ask chat GPT in chat, GPT, you could tell them all the prerequisites.
[00:03:28] You're like, Hey, I want to eat healthy. Here's my dietary restrictions. Here's all this stuff. And you're like, I just need one simple recipe. Here's the other cool thing that you can do with ChatGPT. I'm just using this as a cooking example. You can actually take a picture of your pantry or your fridge and say, make a healthy meal that's super simple within 30 minutes to make based off of these ingredients.
[00:03:54] And then it's going to look at all your ingredients and it'll give you a recipe. That's super simple for you [00:04:00] to do. All you have to do is take a picture, right? And just ask it some questions. So make it easy that you can trip over. You want to start therapy, ask a friend to help you find someone. Just get some recommendations.
[00:04:12] Another easy step that you can do, right? You want to start exercising, just do one squat. Hear me out. I know this sounds crazy, but how many times have we thought about let's start exercising and you're like, I got to go get new running shoes. I'm going to go start running at least five miles. You're going to go walk.
[00:04:29] Oh, I got to wake up early in the morning so I could get my walks in and you start building this whole new routine and habit. And lo and behold, all of a sudden you don't want to do it. Why? Because you're trying to change so many things, but what if you just did one squat? Most of us could do it right now.
[00:04:47] And then after you do that one squat, ask yourself, can I do another one? Yeah, you can probably. And then maybe you do five squats. This is how easy the action should be. It should be something that you can [00:05:00] just do right now in this moment or today. And it doesn't take a lot of effort. That's the beauty right now.
[00:05:07] When you have a really big goal, yes, there's effort to it. And when it's risky, yes, there's stuff that you need to do. The way to build momentum is not to try to accomplish the biggest thing. It's like, no, no. How do we start small? What's the next best thing that you can do? One of the things that I like to do is when I wake up in the morning, I have a stretching routine.
[00:05:30] So it's just easy for me, right before I jump in the shower, I do my stretch routine and I'm off to the races because I want to start moving my body. That's all we're asking you to do. Start immediately. That's action number one, action number two. Make your goals visible, make them really visible. And why do you need to do this?
[00:05:52] Because the more interaction you have with your goals, the more reminders are there to keep you making [00:06:00] progress. How many of you have this has happened? This has happened to me quite a bit when I've worked in organizations. I used to help build strategic plans for companies. And one of the things that I found is that we would create these lofty, amazing strategic plans.
[00:06:16] They would only be stored in a Google Drive or in a drawer somewhere in this beautiful binder. No one ever looked at it. Until six months or a year later, and because there was no visibility, people just forgot. And you then start focusing on the urgent task in front of you. We want to avoid that. And the best way to avoid that is by making sure that you have visibility.
[00:06:43] So how do you do this? Just post it somewhere that you will regularly see it. Here's a couple of ideas of spots that you can do it. Number one, if you're using the new plan, a wellness planner at the beginning of it, right, you could have your goals right there and also, or it has your mission and vision, [00:07:00] and then you have your goals, the other plan or the regular planner.
[00:07:03] Also, you could have your goals there that you can make it really visible. Right? Another idea. If you have your phone, your phone wallpaper. Just make it your phone wallpaper, right? Like how amazing would that be if every time you pick up your phone, it just says goals for 2025, right? That's gonna be pretty awesome.
[00:07:22] Another one, tape a piece of paper to your screen, right? If you have a home screen and or maybe even on your laptop, but tape it there so that you have to flip it over every single time, right? So you're flipping it back and forth. But the thing is you want to keep looking at a popular one that people do is the bathroom mirror.
[00:07:41] Every single time you're brushing your teeth or you're doing your morning hygiene routine, you're just looking at your goals.[00:08:00]
[00:08:01] Here's the thing, just because you post them somewhere doesn't mean you're automatically going to look at them and read them, which leads to the next step is that you want to make sure you create a ritual of reviewing your goals daily. Because for some of us, let's just take the phone one example, right?
[00:08:20] You might be like, Oh, it's a great idea to put my goals as a wallpaper on your phone. But how many times do we just pick up our phone and we just get distracted and we don't even look at that. You want to build a new habit where you're just saying, no, no. Every time I do pick it up, I'm going to read it.
[00:08:36] Or when you're in the bathroom and you put it in the bathroom mirror, right? It, this one's a great example why people do this is because while you're brushing your teeth, you could just be reading your goals. Yeah. Every single moment of the day when you're doing this, so make sure you create a ritual of reviewing it for some people.
[00:08:54] I believe Marissa does this sometime during her morning routine, right? She listens to an [00:09:00] audio recording of her mission, values and goals. So every morning she's being reminded of what she wants to do. And you could just simply make a recording on your phone, a voice memo. And from there, it's just so powerful for you because all of a sudden you start to be like, yes, this is really what I want.
[00:09:20] Because like I said earlier, man, motivation fades. All of a sudden, the thing that you really want can get derailed just because you're so busy with all of the work that needs to happen, uh, with maybe your family or work life, your personal life. All the fires of today can consume you if you don't stay focused on the goals at hand.
[00:09:43] So make sure you make them visible, which then leads to the third action. Write down the next Right. Okay. Make sure you write down the next right thing. We do this a lot with the weekly and daily big three, but the reality is that [00:10:00] any of you can walk through this process. You don't need to be using the planner for this.
[00:10:05] But if you have a goal, the best thing you can do is write down the first step that you think is best for it. And then write down the next one. And then write down the next one. Write down the first three next steps. And then just look at step number one. And once that step is done, focus on the other one.
[00:10:23] And then focus on the next one. And the reason why you want to write it down is because it does create some self accountability for yourself. Cause the reality is for many of us, we tend to keep stuff in our head and we're just like, Oh, that's our internal checklist. And what ends up happening is that men, we just forget stuff.
[00:10:43] I have. For little kids at home, and they're constantly asking me for stuff and because of work and my wife and just the home chores that we have to do when my kids start asking me stuff, if I don't do it either right away or write it down, I guarantee you within [00:11:00] 10 minutes, I forget, right? It just happens.
[00:11:02] And then they have to come back and they're like, Dad, did you do this? Dad, did you do this? And I'm like, yeah. Listen, I am not your butler or your waiter, you go do it. And then I remember they're three years old and they can't do those things. That's why they're asking me. And this is why you want to write it down because it keeps you accountable.
[00:11:20] It keeps you forcing you to remind you like, this is the stuff that I actually want to get done. Now, I know I said there's three actions, but I'm going to give you two bonus actions because they're going to be super helpful once you write them done and you do the task. So bonus action number one is celebrate your win with someone.
[00:11:40] This could be a family, a friend, right? Like it could be anyone close to you that you want to just celebrate with, right? So let's just even take an example of buying a journal. You may think to yourself, like, that's so weird to celebrate that win, but here's the reality. Most of us, we give each other a hard time [00:12:00] all the time, right?
[00:12:01] If you beat yourself up constantly, you don't celebrate yourself enough. So you want to find someone who could celebrate with you. And you might just send a text to a friend and be like, Hey, I know this sounds super small, but I'm focusing my goal on journaling. I just bought a journal and I'm so excited for myself.
[00:12:19] And you want your friend to be like, that's awesome. Congrats. Like you want people to be like your hype man. And listen, if you don't have anyone, I would say go to the full focus planner community, post it there and you can tag me if you want. And I will be your biggest hype person, right? Like I want to be your encourager.
[00:12:37] I want to be the person who's like, yes, that's the progress that you want to make. And I know it feels small. You're like, why should I be celebrating that thing? Because those little wins. Build momentum and that celebration gets you excited for the next step and then the next step and then when things get harder, right?
[00:12:55] You have all these wins built upon each other and these celebrations that you [00:13:00] can just keep Motivating yourself with so celebrate your win with someone and then the next bonus Action step is that you share your next step with that same person to keep you accountable So now all of a sudden this person that you're telling them, like, Hey, I just bought a journal.
[00:13:16] It's going to come in on Monday. And by Monday, I'm going to be journaling. That's my next thing. I'm going to take five minutes to journal. And then you let them know that you journaled and they're just celebrating with you. And imagine if they tell you their stuff that they're trying to accomplish, and now you're celebrating and keeping each other accountable.
[00:13:34] This is the momentum that you want to keep building in order to accomplish your goals. Because quite frankly, I have found most people, they want to accomplish their goals, but what ends up happening is week one, they're really motivated. Week two, ah, they kind of falter. By week three or week four, you know, of January, all of a sudden, they're like, I've missed a couple of things, but I'll try to get back in February.
[00:13:58] And then, you know what happens in [00:14:00] February? Everything happens in February and you're just like, I've lost track of any goals that I had. And then March happens. You're like in a totally new world. You don't even have those goals. You forgot that you even wrote those goals. But imagine if you had someone keeping you accountable, a friend that you guys are celebrating wins and celebrating your next steps and just working with one another.
[00:14:26] That's where power is. That's where the momentum builds. So again, here are the action steps. Action one, start immediately. What's something that you can do today, right now. Action number two, make your goals visible. Put it somewhere. Action number three, Write down the next right thing and then the bonus actions celebrate it with someone and share the next step with that same person to keep you accountable.
[00:14:54] And man, if you do these things, the momentum it builds, the [00:15:00] encouragement that it builds and the confidence that you have when you're in yourself is going to grow exponentially. Because you are finally starting to see what you're capable of. And most importantly, when you think about your goals, it's not necessarily the achievement, but it's who you're becoming in that process.
[00:15:20] And these people around you that are helping you, these, that momentum that you are creating for yourself is going to build a confidence that you know, that if you can do that today, you could keep doing it tomorrow. And then the next day and the next day and a year from now, you're crushing all your goals.
[00:15:39] And that's what we want for you. So with that, I'm super excited. If you guys have any questions about this, or you just need some motivation again, go to the full focus planner community, post it there. Let us encourage you and let us keep you moving forward.
[00:15:59] Thanks for joining us [00:16:00] on focus on this. This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So please share it with your friends. And be sure to join the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook so you can benefit from the creativity and encouragement of people chasing big goals just like you. We'll be here next week with another great episode.
[00:16:20] Until then, stay focused.