123. Self-Kindness and Big Goals
How do you relate to your biggest goals?
Do you …
Shame yourself for not having gotten started yet?
Lament all the obstacles in your way?
Criticize yourself and obsess about all the ways you’re inadequate to the task?
Chances are, whatever your approach is, it’s not self-kindness.
You probably think self-kindness sounds nice, but not necessary.
Or maybe you think it’s for later, after you’ve achieved your goals.
But the truth is: self-kindness is an essential ingredient in achieving big goals.
Big goals are, by definition, BIG.
They require putting in the time, navigating obstacles, picking yourself back up when inevitably you fall down along the way.
And it’s hard to do those things and keep doing them until you succeed.
It’s hard to fail, feel disappointed, and yet keep going when the person you’re with all the time — you — refuses to treat you with kindness and support.
Self-kindness isn’t a cure all. It doesn’t make failure feel awesome.
But it does help you keep going when the going is tough.
And keeping going is how we achieve all the big things.
Also: self-kindess makes the journey feel a hell of a lot more fun.
And that’s also important. Because when you’re working on a big goal, most of the time you’re spending on it is time on the journey.
Why not find a way to enjoy that time, even if it’s also hard?
This isn’t about pretending everything is perfect and that you love every minute of pursuing your goal.
(You probably won’t.)
This is about switching up your perspective so you can sustain the inevitable bumps along the way with as much satisfaction and delight as possible.
This is what we’re exploring on the podcast today, so tune in to learn why self-kindness is essential if you’re working on big goals, and how to begin developing it.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why self-kindness is essential when you want to work on big goals.
The reason so many people fall behind on their big goals.
What self-kindness doesn’t mean.
How practicing self-kindness provides a different perspective on your goals.
Why you’ll likely give up on your big goals without self-kindness.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about self-kindness and big goals.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. Y’all, I have been having a week. How are you? This week has just been interesting. So we’ve had, I think I’ve talked about this before, we are getting our upstairs bathroom remodeled or renovated or whatever you want to call it because when we moved in the bathtub was broken and not working. So we took that out. And then Alex pulled the floor up because she wanted to understand what was happening under the floor in case there were any leaks or anything.
And then Alex, I think y’all know, has been doing lots of renovations to the house on her own. But she decided to hire out getting the bathroom done. And we’re really glad she did because sometimes when you pull up the floor, you discover some interesting things. So Alex had pulled up the floor and looked at the subfloor, but when the people came and pulled up the subfloor and looked at what was under that, we had some surprises.
And so it’s just been a really interesting situation, very stop-and-go. So in the original timeline, the bathroom would have been done by now, of course, it’s not done. And then for a while, they weren’t able to work on it at all, they sort of had this challenge that they had to tackle and then now they’re able to work on it again. And I had forgotten, in the period of time when they were not working on it I had forgotten that it’s very loud.
And so I’ve been trying to navigate that, doing my coaching calls in a different room. It’s just life, there’s always stuff that you’re like, this is not going according to plan. Yeah, so it’s been really loud here this week. But we’re also grateful because that means work is actually happening and we’re making progress. And we’re getting closer to being a household with an upstairs bathroom that actually works, which will be great because since we moved in, almost two years ago, that bathroom has never been fully functional.
So pretty excited about the end product, not loving the path that we’re taking. Going to try to have as enjoyable and satisfying of a path as I can. But sometimes there are things on the path to where you want to go that just aren’t your favorite and we’re sort of in that part now with the bathroom remodel. So that’s what’s been going on with us.
And it’s interesting because it does kind of tie into what we’re going to talk about this week. So what we’re going to talk about this week is self-kindness and why self-kindness is so, so essential when you want to work on big goals. So, something I see a lot in my line of work is that people have goals they want to work on, sometimes they’re really big goals, sometimes they’re sort of smaller tweaks and things like that. But let’s focus on big goals for the sake of this podcast at first. Maybe we’ll circle back to the smaller stuff.
And when people want to work on big goals, they often don’t do it, right? So they often will talk a lot about the big goal or think a lot about the fantasy version of what it’s going to be like when they get there. Maybe even get going a little bit, but they give up or they stop taking action or they sort of spin out.
And I think that one of the reasons that this happens is because people are not being kind enough to themselves about their goals and about the path towards their goals. And it’s interesting because the more you’re not doing the goal, the more you’re falling behind on the plan or the imaginary fantasy version that you have been thinking about, daydreaming for like years in your head, the more tempted, I think, we are to be mean to ourselves.
To judge ourselves, to tell ourselves, it’s never going to happen, to belittle ourselves, to say we’re not smart enough, we’re not disciplined enough, we’re not cool enough, we’re not whatever enough, right? We’re just like, why can’t I do it if I want to do it so badly? And we get really stuck there in focusing on it’s not working. Why isn’t it working? Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s not possible. Maybe I should stop believing in it because believing in something that’s impossible is so embarrassing, blah, blah, blah.
And I talk a lot about self-kindness and making things fun and satisfying and delightful on this podcast and one of the objections I just get all the time is, but if I’m kind to myself, I just won’t do it. And I think that’s so interesting since so many people aren’t doing the things anyways sometimes. Or if they can get themselves to do it, it’s a really negative experience which then often results in later them not doing it because it felt so unpleasant, and they run out of willpower to sort of force themselves to do it.
And so kind of what I want to pitch for you here today is the bigger your goal is, the more self-kindness you need, not less. We all think, people all think the bigger your goal is the more you need self-discipline, the more you need a plan, and the more you need a budget and a line item so you can pay for the goal. And they get so caught up in all those things.
And I think what they forget about is, we’re human beings and goals are hard usually. Like if it’s a big goal, if it’s something you haven’t achieved yet, haven’t achieved already, or don’t know how to achieve, it’s probably going to feel hard. And the thing that you need the most, I would argue, is like a sweet social mammal and a human with a body that gets worn out.
We don’t have unlimited resources. We don’t have unlimited supplies of energy. If you study psychology books and stuff, we don’t have unlimited sources of motivation, we don’t have unlimited willpower, we don’t have unlimited self-discipline. So I think what we actually need in order to hit goals, in order to achieve them, yes, but also in order to keep going until we achieve them is self-kindness.
Because think about it, if you’re on this journey and then someone’s yelling at you the whole time and telling you you’re not smart enough, and telling you you’re not good enough, and telling you you should have started earlier, and telling you you’re never going to get there and it’s a pipe dream, that’s not a very fun journey to be on.
It’s not going to make the journey a great place for you. And you may be tempted to just give up on the journey altogether and be like, never mind, this is very unenjoyable. Or you may believe that voice. You may believe that yelling voice of like, you’re like, oh, I’m never going to get there anyways, so why am I putting myself through all this bullshit, right?
Versus imagine taking that journey, that road trip, that adventure, with a voice of self-kindness that’s like, wow, it’s so brave that you’re working on this. Or like, wow, it’s so impressive that you’re willing to go after what you want when you don’t even know if you’re going to get it. Or like, wow, you tried really hard today.
And I think sometimes when I say self-kindness, what people think is lying to yourself. Like, wow, you did the best job and everything you did was perfect. That’s not what the fuck we’re talking about, right? We’re not talking about being deceitful towards yourself, that’s not going to help.
But I think even if you didn’t do it perfectly, being able to focus on the kindness part of it of like, wow, you took some actions today and it turns out that those actions did not create the results you wanted. But I’m so proud of you for taking the actions because the way you become the person who achieves this goal is by trying things until something works.
And sometimes you don’t know what will work until you start trying. And sometimes the things that worked for somebody else don’t work for you. And sometimes things that didn’t work for somebody else do work for you. And the way you figure that out is through effort. And you’re doing effort and that’s a beautiful thing.
So in that example I’ve just given you, you don’t have to lie to yourself. You don’t have to pretend everything’s perfect. You don’t have to pretend you love everything you’ve done in pursuit of the goal. You don’t have to pretend it was all effective even. But what you’re doing is focusing on treating yourself with positive regard, and focusing on how you’re getting yourself closer to the goal, whereas most people focus on how they’re far away from the goal, or they’re never going to get there, or it’s too hard, right?
So it’s like really switching the perspective, which, obviously, is what we talked about literally all the time here. But I just don’t think we can ever say it enough because so many of us just slip back into that habit of seeing the negative, seeing how far away we are. And we get so caught up in our fears, like we have these fear voices in our head, right? Like, what if it doesn’t work?
And I think for so many of us it’s so easy to sort of get caught in that loop and stuck in that idea of like, oh yeah, what if it doesn’t work? I’ll be so humiliated, or I’ll have wasted all this time trying, or blah, blah, blah. But anytime you’re thinking about what if it doesn’t work, that’s time you’re not spending achieving your goal.
So listen, maybe spend a little bit of time thinking about it. Like okay, it might not work do I actually want to go for it anyways? Do I want to dedicate XYZ amount of time every day or every week to the goal, knowing it might not work? Which literally, everything might not work, y’all.
The car when you get into it, sometimes it might not work. The grocery store when you get there, sometimes they might not have the frozen cauliflower. Your significant other that you married that you thought you were going to be married to forever, sometimes that doesn’t work out either.
I’m not saying that it’s great, it’s a really hard part of life. Like, for me, I’m like, fuck, uncertainty is everywhere, it’s everything. But if that’s true, then there’s just as much uncertainty that it might not work as it might work. You might be able to do it. You know, if you want to get married and be married and have a great relationship with your significant other, you’ve got to try in order to get there, right? You can’t just sit around focusing about how it might not work and have that lead to the result of having a really great relationship.
That’s generally, maybe there’s an exception, but that’s generally not how it goes. Usually, you have to be like, okay, here’s where it’s working, here’s where we have some opportunities to maybe connect more deeply or differently. Here’s how we can learn to communicate a little bit better. Here’s a struggle we’re having, maybe we need to talk to a couples therapist, or maybe we need to talk to a coach, or maybe we need to talk to someone else or each other more about how we’re going to solve this.
But coming at it through the lens of maybe it could work and maybe I can be kind to myself along the way. Here’s the thing, this is also, I think, very true with small goals. But for a lot of us, we can get ourselves to do a small goal because the leap isn’t that big.
We’re sort of like, okay, and we can push ourselves through with being mean to ourselves. We can push ourselves through with discipline, with willpower, we can push ourselves through with negative self-talk, or we can push ourselves through with, like, I’ll judge you and shame you later if you don’t do that. And we’re like, oh, okay, because it’s such a small leap.
But with a big goal, with an insane goal, with a like quit my job and start a business and get that business to six figures and then get that business to multiple six figures. Or if you’re single and you really want to be married, that’s a pretty big goal, right? So if that’s the goal, okay, first, you have to get on the apps or find another way to meet people.
And then you have to go on the dates. And then you have to be discerning on the dates and you have to be honest with people about your preferences and desires, and what kind of relationship you’re looking for, and what your deal breakers are. And then you have to keep going.
And then you find someone you connect with and then you have to build the relationship you want to have with them, which when you watch a lot of movies or TV, which, listen, I love movies and TV, so I do watch a lot. And what they’re always like is like, oh, and then the relationship just unfolds, ta-da. But that’s not how it is in real life. In real life, you have to build the relationship you want to be in with the person.
And what we usually do is first things first, we build a relationship that mirrors the relationships that we’ve seen. So maybe it mirrors our parents’ relationship, or it mirrors our previous relationship. And then we’re like, oh, that’s not the blueprint I wanted. And then we have to sort of renovate the relationship.
I actually had to do this with my business. When I first started my business I brought all these ways of being from when I’d worked in corporate tech. And so the first version of my business I built, the first several versions, they had these things in the blueprint that I didn’t mean to put there. And then I had to renovate. I had to remodel. I had to be like, oh, we’ve got to fucking take that wall out. I didn’t even mean to bring that wall over here. I didn’t even mean to bring that thought or belief over here, right?
So that happens in relationships, too, right? And then you get married. Okay, guess what? Then you have to be married. Then you have to continue to build the relationship with that person and you have to continue to deepen and love them and deal with the conflicts that come up and blah, blah, blah.
So, that’s what I’m saying when I’m talking about these really big goals. Little goals, we can sometimes push ourselves over the thing, right? With a really, really big goal, if you’re not willing to be kind to yourself, you’re probably going to give up.
Now, maybe not. Some of us are really good at willpowering our way through things. And I would know because I used to be one of those people. Here’s the thing though, when I used to willpower my way through everything, I felt really fucking miserable a lot of the time. And I felt tired, right? Just deeply exhausted because it takes a lot of mental, emotional, and often physical energy to willpower your way through.
And even when you get what you want, it’s just not a very fun way to live. And that’s also often where we wind up in burnout later because we’re sort of burning our own energy to do the thing while being mean to ourselves generally, right? Whereas, when you have self-kindness, then you have sort of this renewable energy to go on the journey with you. And the journey can feel much more pleasant, right?
It’s like, can you imagine dating to try to find a significant other while yelling at yourself every day all day long about it, which I happen to know is the experience that many people have. Versus dating, but every day, all day long you’re being kind to yourself about it.
And you’re telling yourself how brave you are, and you’re giving yourself shiny gold stickers to be like, you know what? You went on that date, and you said what was true, even though you knew that the other person might not like it, and I’m so fucking proud of you. And if that person doesn’t like it, that’s okay because you’re building something really beautiful here and you’re taking steps toward it every day.
Now, there would still be things about achieving your big goal that would feel hard. Like when we’ve been dating and maybe we get rejected or we get ghosted, whatever. Yeah, that’s hard. It doesn’t feel super yummy. But when you have self-kindness on your side, you can sustain the difficulties, you can sustain the ups and downs, you can sustain the bumps.
And so I think that’s why it’s so key, and that’s why it’s so key for any goal. Literally, anything you can’t do in five minutes or less, you’re probably going to need self-kindness to actually achieve it. And, honestly, even if you can achieve it in five minutes or less, why not just have self-kindness? I’m doing this whole podcast to basically pitch you on the idea that being kind to yourself is productive.
And listen, it is, I think that’s real and true. But also, what if you were just kind to yourself because? What if you were just kind to yourself because that’s a nice thing to do for the human being that you are? What if you were just kind to yourself because that’s a basic standard of like, oh, yeah, a human, what if I’m just kind to that human? So I kind of want to come at that both ways for you.
Again, I know a lot of y’all have big goals. I know a lot of y’all are very practical, you’re like, I’m just going to fucking, I want to go after this shit. I want to get the raise. I want to get the promotion. I want to switch industries. I want to double my revenue in my business, are some work examples. Or looking for your significant other is one of the personal life examples.
I know y’all have big shit you’re working on, and I just think you can have a more delicious, more effective experience with a delicious and satisfying journey to get there, too. And so that’s what this podcast episode is all about.
How can you use kindness, not as a way to lie to yourself about what’s not working, but as a way to love yourself and support yourself as you go out and do big things? Which, again, usually do involve facing difficulties. They usually do involve ups and downs, and bumps, and things not working, and putting ourselves in a position where we might be rejected, whether personally or professionally.
It’s so much easier to do those things when we have someone in our corner. And it’s great if you have a community too, obviously, I’m a huge fan of community. But what if you were a part of your support community? And what if the way you were part of your support community was through self-kindness?
That’s what I have for y’all today. Now, listen, I know that for a lot of us, we have had the habit of being hard on ourselves for literally decades. And I know that that habit can be hard to shake. I think it’s extremely worth it to shake that habit. That being said, if you’re really struggling to shake that habit alone, or if it’s just not super fun to shake that habit alone, or if you want someone to come in and model for you exactly what your self-kindness could look like, or if you want someone to help you pick that apart, I am the person for that.
And I currently do have openings for a few one on one clients. So you should scoot on over to my website and sign up for a consult call and we will talk all about your big goals and how you can develop self-kindness so that you can achieve those, I would argue probably faster, but also on a much more delightful, delicious, enjoyable journey. And so you can actually fucking enjoy them when you get there.
All right, y’all, that’s what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week, and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. Y’all, I have been having a week. How are you? This week has just been interesting. So we’ve had, I think I’ve talked about this before, we are getting our upstairs bathroom remodeled or renovated or whatever you want to call it because when we moved in the bathtub was broken and not working. So we took that out. And then Alex pulled the floor up because she wanted to understand what was happening under the floor in case there were any leaks or anything.
And then Alex, I think y’all know, has been doing lots of renovations to the house on her own. But she decided to hire out getting the bathroom done. And we’re really glad she did because sometimes when you pull up the floor, you discover some interesting things. So Alex had pulled up the floor and looked at the subfloor, but when the people came and pulled up the subfloor and looked at what was under that, we had some surprises.
And so it’s just been a really interesting situation, very stop-and-go. So in the original timeline, the bathroom would have been done by now, of course, it’s not done. And then for a while, they weren’t able to work on it at all, they sort of had this challenge that they had to tackle and then now they’re able to work on it again. And I had forgotten, in the period of time when they were not working on it I had forgotten that it’s very loud.
And so I’ve been trying to navigate that, doing my coaching calls in a different room. It’s just life, there’s always stuff that you’re like, this is not going according to plan. Yeah, so it’s been really loud here this week. But we’re also grateful because that means work is actually happening and we’re making progress. And we’re getting closer to being a household with an upstairs bathroom that actually works, which will be great because since we moved in, almost two years ago, that bathroom has never been fully functional.
So pretty excited about the end product, not loving the path that we’re taking. Going to try to have as enjoyable and satisfying of a path as I can. But sometimes there are things on the path to where you want to go that just aren’t your favorite and we’re sort of in that part now with the bathroom remodel. So that’s what’s been going on with us.
And it’s interesting because it does kind of tie into what we’re going to talk about this week. So what we’re going to talk about this week is self-kindness and why self-kindness is so, so essential when you want to work on big goals. So, something I see a lot in my line of work is that people have goals they want to work on, sometimes they’re really big goals, sometimes they’re sort of smaller tweaks and things like that. But let’s focus on big goals for the sake of this podcast at first. Maybe we’ll circle back to the smaller stuff.
And when people want to work on big goals, they often don’t do it, right? So they often will talk a lot about the big goal or think a lot about the fantasy version of what it’s going to be like when they get there. Maybe even get going a little bit, but they give up or they stop taking action or they sort of spin out.
And I think that one of the reasons that this happens is because people are not being kind enough to themselves about their goals and about the path towards their goals. And it’s interesting because the more you’re not doing the goal, the more you’re falling behind on the plan or the imaginary fantasy version that you have been thinking about, daydreaming for like years in your head, the more tempted, I think, we are to be mean to ourselves.
To judge ourselves, to tell ourselves, it’s never going to happen, to belittle ourselves, to say we’re not smart enough, we’re not disciplined enough, we’re not cool enough, we’re not whatever enough, right? We’re just like, why can’t I do it if I want to do it so badly? And we get really stuck there in focusing on it’s not working. Why isn’t it working? Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s not possible. Maybe I should stop believing in it because believing in something that’s impossible is so embarrassing, blah, blah, blah.
And I talk a lot about self-kindness and making things fun and satisfying and delightful on this podcast and one of the objections I just get all the time is, but if I’m kind to myself, I just won’t do it. And I think that’s so interesting since so many people aren’t doing the things anyways sometimes. Or if they can get themselves to do it, it’s a really negative experience which then often results in later them not doing it because it felt so unpleasant, and they run out of willpower to sort of force themselves to do it.
And so kind of what I want to pitch for you here today is the bigger your goal is, the more self-kindness you need, not less. We all think, people all think the bigger your goal is the more you need self-discipline, the more you need a plan, and the more you need a budget and a line item so you can pay for the goal. And they get so caught up in all those things.
And I think what they forget about is, we’re human beings and goals are hard usually. Like if it’s a big goal, if it’s something you haven’t achieved yet, haven’t achieved already, or don’t know how to achieve, it’s probably going to feel hard. And the thing that you need the most, I would argue, is like a sweet social mammal and a human with a body that gets worn out.
We don’t have unlimited resources. We don’t have unlimited supplies of energy. If you study psychology books and stuff, we don’t have unlimited sources of motivation, we don’t have unlimited willpower, we don’t have unlimited self-discipline. So I think what we actually need in order to hit goals, in order to achieve them, yes, but also in order to keep going until we achieve them is self-kindness.
Because think about it, if you’re on this journey and then someone’s yelling at you the whole time and telling you you’re not smart enough, and telling you you’re not good enough, and telling you you should have started earlier, and telling you you’re never going to get there and it’s a pipe dream, that’s not a very fun journey to be on.
It’s not going to make the journey a great place for you. And you may be tempted to just give up on the journey altogether and be like, never mind, this is very unenjoyable. Or you may believe that voice. You may believe that yelling voice of like, you’re like, oh, I’m never going to get there anyways, so why am I putting myself through all this bullshit, right?
Versus imagine taking that journey, that road trip, that adventure, with a voice of self-kindness that’s like, wow, it’s so brave that you’re working on this. Or like, wow, it’s so impressive that you’re willing to go after what you want when you don’t even know if you’re going to get it. Or like, wow, you tried really hard today.
And I think sometimes when I say self-kindness, what people think is lying to yourself. Like, wow, you did the best job and everything you did was perfect. That’s not what the fuck we’re talking about, right? We’re not talking about being deceitful towards yourself, that’s not going to help.
But I think even if you didn’t do it perfectly, being able to focus on the kindness part of it of like, wow, you took some actions today and it turns out that those actions did not create the results you wanted. But I’m so proud of you for taking the actions because the way you become the person who achieves this goal is by trying things until something works.
And sometimes you don’t know what will work until you start trying. And sometimes the things that worked for somebody else don’t work for you. And sometimes things that didn’t work for somebody else do work for you. And the way you figure that out is through effort. And you’re doing effort and that’s a beautiful thing.
So in that example I’ve just given you, you don’t have to lie to yourself. You don’t have to pretend everything’s perfect. You don’t have to pretend you love everything you’ve done in pursuit of the goal. You don’t have to pretend it was all effective even. But what you’re doing is focusing on treating yourself with positive regard, and focusing on how you’re getting yourself closer to the goal, whereas most people focus on how they’re far away from the goal, or they’re never going to get there, or it’s too hard, right?
So it’s like really switching the perspective, which, obviously, is what we talked about literally all the time here. But I just don’t think we can ever say it enough because so many of us just slip back into that habit of seeing the negative, seeing how far away we are. And we get so caught up in our fears, like we have these fear voices in our head, right? Like, what if it doesn’t work?
And I think for so many of us it’s so easy to sort of get caught in that loop and stuck in that idea of like, oh yeah, what if it doesn’t work? I’ll be so humiliated, or I’ll have wasted all this time trying, or blah, blah, blah. But anytime you’re thinking about what if it doesn’t work, that’s time you’re not spending achieving your goal.
So listen, maybe spend a little bit of time thinking about it. Like okay, it might not work do I actually want to go for it anyways? Do I want to dedicate XYZ amount of time every day or every week to the goal, knowing it might not work? Which literally, everything might not work, y’all.
The car when you get into it, sometimes it might not work. The grocery store when you get there, sometimes they might not have the frozen cauliflower. Your significant other that you married that you thought you were going to be married to forever, sometimes that doesn’t work out either.
I’m not saying that it’s great, it’s a really hard part of life. Like, for me, I’m like, fuck, uncertainty is everywhere, it’s everything. But if that’s true, then there’s just as much uncertainty that it might not work as it might work. You might be able to do it. You know, if you want to get married and be married and have a great relationship with your significant other, you’ve got to try in order to get there, right? You can’t just sit around focusing about how it might not work and have that lead to the result of having a really great relationship.
That’s generally, maybe there’s an exception, but that’s generally not how it goes. Usually, you have to be like, okay, here’s where it’s working, here’s where we have some opportunities to maybe connect more deeply or differently. Here’s how we can learn to communicate a little bit better. Here’s a struggle we’re having, maybe we need to talk to a couples therapist, or maybe we need to talk to a coach, or maybe we need to talk to someone else or each other more about how we’re going to solve this.
But coming at it through the lens of maybe it could work and maybe I can be kind to myself along the way. Here’s the thing, this is also, I think, very true with small goals. But for a lot of us, we can get ourselves to do a small goal because the leap isn’t that big.
We’re sort of like, okay, and we can push ourselves through with being mean to ourselves. We can push ourselves through with discipline, with willpower, we can push ourselves through with negative self-talk, or we can push ourselves through with, like, I’ll judge you and shame you later if you don’t do that. And we’re like, oh, okay, because it’s such a small leap.
But with a big goal, with an insane goal, with a like quit my job and start a business and get that business to six figures and then get that business to multiple six figures. Or if you’re single and you really want to be married, that’s a pretty big goal, right? So if that’s the goal, okay, first, you have to get on the apps or find another way to meet people.
And then you have to go on the dates. And then you have to be discerning on the dates and you have to be honest with people about your preferences and desires, and what kind of relationship you’re looking for, and what your deal breakers are. And then you have to keep going.
And then you find someone you connect with and then you have to build the relationship you want to have with them, which when you watch a lot of movies or TV, which, listen, I love movies and TV, so I do watch a lot. And what they’re always like is like, oh, and then the relationship just unfolds, ta-da. But that’s not how it is in real life. In real life, you have to build the relationship you want to be in with the person.
And what we usually do is first things first, we build a relationship that mirrors the relationships that we’ve seen. So maybe it mirrors our parents’ relationship, or it mirrors our previous relationship. And then we’re like, oh, that’s not the blueprint I wanted. And then we have to sort of renovate the relationship.
I actually had to do this with my business. When I first started my business I brought all these ways of being from when I’d worked in corporate tech. And so the first version of my business I built, the first several versions, they had these things in the blueprint that I didn’t mean to put there. And then I had to renovate. I had to remodel. I had to be like, oh, we’ve got to fucking take that wall out. I didn’t even mean to bring that wall over here. I didn’t even mean to bring that thought or belief over here, right?
So that happens in relationships, too, right? And then you get married. Okay, guess what? Then you have to be married. Then you have to continue to build the relationship with that person and you have to continue to deepen and love them and deal with the conflicts that come up and blah, blah, blah.
So, that’s what I’m saying when I’m talking about these really big goals. Little goals, we can sometimes push ourselves over the thing, right? With a really, really big goal, if you’re not willing to be kind to yourself, you’re probably going to give up.
Now, maybe not. Some of us are really good at willpowering our way through things. And I would know because I used to be one of those people. Here’s the thing though, when I used to willpower my way through everything, I felt really fucking miserable a lot of the time. And I felt tired, right? Just deeply exhausted because it takes a lot of mental, emotional, and often physical energy to willpower your way through.
And even when you get what you want, it’s just not a very fun way to live. And that’s also often where we wind up in burnout later because we’re sort of burning our own energy to do the thing while being mean to ourselves generally, right? Whereas, when you have self-kindness, then you have sort of this renewable energy to go on the journey with you. And the journey can feel much more pleasant, right?
It’s like, can you imagine dating to try to find a significant other while yelling at yourself every day all day long about it, which I happen to know is the experience that many people have. Versus dating, but every day, all day long you’re being kind to yourself about it.
And you’re telling yourself how brave you are, and you’re giving yourself shiny gold stickers to be like, you know what? You went on that date, and you said what was true, even though you knew that the other person might not like it, and I’m so fucking proud of you. And if that person doesn’t like it, that’s okay because you’re building something really beautiful here and you’re taking steps toward it every day.
Now, there would still be things about achieving your big goal that would feel hard. Like when we’ve been dating and maybe we get rejected or we get ghosted, whatever. Yeah, that’s hard. It doesn’t feel super yummy. But when you have self-kindness on your side, you can sustain the difficulties, you can sustain the ups and downs, you can sustain the bumps.
And so I think that’s why it’s so key, and that’s why it’s so key for any goal. Literally, anything you can’t do in five minutes or less, you’re probably going to need self-kindness to actually achieve it. And, honestly, even if you can achieve it in five minutes or less, why not just have self-kindness? I’m doing this whole podcast to basically pitch you on the idea that being kind to yourself is productive.
And listen, it is, I think that’s real and true. But also, what if you were just kind to yourself because? What if you were just kind to yourself because that’s a nice thing to do for the human being that you are? What if you were just kind to yourself because that’s a basic standard of like, oh, yeah, a human, what if I’m just kind to that human? So I kind of want to come at that both ways for you.
Again, I know a lot of y’all have big goals. I know a lot of y’all are very practical, you’re like, I’m just going to fucking, I want to go after this shit. I want to get the raise. I want to get the promotion. I want to switch industries. I want to double my revenue in my business, are some work examples. Or looking for your significant other is one of the personal life examples.
I know y’all have big shit you’re working on, and I just think you can have a more delicious, more effective experience with a delicious and satisfying journey to get there, too. And so that’s what this podcast episode is all about.
How can you use kindness, not as a way to lie to yourself about what’s not working, but as a way to love yourself and support yourself as you go out and do big things? Which, again, usually do involve facing difficulties. They usually do involve ups and downs, and bumps, and things not working, and putting ourselves in a position where we might be rejected, whether personally or professionally.
It’s so much easier to do those things when we have someone in our corner. And it’s great if you have a community too, obviously, I’m a huge fan of community. But what if you were a part of your support community? And what if the way you were part of your support community was through self-kindness?
That’s what I have for y’all today. Now, listen, I know that for a lot of us, we have had the habit of being hard on ourselves for literally decades. And I know that that habit can be hard to shake. I think it’s extremely worth it to shake that habit. That being said, if you’re really struggling to shake that habit alone, or if it’s just not super fun to shake that habit alone, or if you want someone to come in and model for you exactly what your self-kindness could look like, or if you want someone to help you pick that apart, I am the person for that.
And I currently do have openings for a few one on one clients. So you should scoot on over to my website and sign up for a consult call and we will talk all about your big goals and how you can develop self-kindness so that you can achieve those, I would argue probably faster, but also on a much more delightful, delicious, enjoyable journey. And so you can actually fucking enjoy them when you get there.
All right, y’all, that’s what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week, and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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