Ep. 217: 2022 GOALS

It’s the first Sunday of 2022 and you know what that means, right?  We’re launching into a NEW YEAR full of wonder🤗, excitement🌟 and NEW GOALS🏆!

In today’s goal-setting episode of the Fitness Matters podcast, we’re digging into:
🤩  Why LANGUAGE MATTERS
🤩  How to MOVE FORWARD even if you didn’t get your 2021 goals
🤩  What I learned about LOOKING FOR LESSONS (instead of doing this other crucial thing!), and
🤩  How “messing up as much as possible” is a KEY STRATEGY for achieving my 2022 goals

Ready to find out what I’m aiming🎯 for this year?  Grab your headphones and let’s GO! 

NOTE:  Pahla B’s Book Club pick for January is “How Emotions are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett.  First-time Chirp Audiobooks users can get $5 off any purchase by using the code PAHLA5 – this link will take you directly there AND apply the discount:
https://bit.ly/JanuaryChirpBookClub

(And previous Chirp users can snag this title at just $2.99 for a limited time!)

Canadian friends: this book is available on Chirp in Canada too!

REGISTER this month’s LIVE Book Club event on January 30th here: https://bit.ly/JANBookClubReg

Do you have friends and family who are making goals for the coming year, too?  Point them👉 to this podcast so that they can start off 2022 in the best of ways!  💛

2022 GOALS (full transcript) 

You’re listening to The Fitness Matters Podcast, and this is episode number 217, “2022 Goals.” 

Welcome to The Fitness Matters Podcast where every week we talk about the fitness matters that matter to you. I’m Pahla B., YouTuber, Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach, soon to be author, and your best middle-aged fitness friend. Are you ready to talk about the fitness mindset that matters to you? Me too. Let’s go.

Hello, hello, hello my friends. We are talking about goals today [singing]. I don’t know why I’m singing that as a song, except I’m so excited to talk to you about setting goals for 2022. I saw a meme today – I’m distracting myself here in the first 30 seconds. I saw a meme today and I don’t remember . . .  Oh, it was a picture of Ben Affleck looking just thoroughly dejected as sometimes Ben Affleck does.

And it says “When you realize that 2022 is actually here” – and this is much easier to see when it’s visual – “but it’s ‘twenty-twenty’ too.” Oh my gosh, we could have a replay of 2020. That would’ve been so much funnier if you would’ve seen it, it doesn’t really translate verbally, does it? I’m sorry about that. Rosie didn’t think so either. I don’t know if you can hear her. She is just meowing.

She’s probably hungry, but she’s going to wait because I’m in the middle of recording a podcast, and I am so excited to talk to you [singing]. Here I am singing again. So you guys, when we left off last week, we were actually having a book club and I wanted to tell you something super quickly. The book club this month, the month of January in partnership with Chirp audio books, we are reading “How Emotions Are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett. And I don’t have that in front of me, and I really hope that’s her name.

I am so excited to read this book. I have not read it. I want to be really clear. I’m not necessarily recommending it to you like, “Oh, this was a book that I read and loved.” I am excited to read this because I think it’s going to challenge a lot of what I know, and I really hope that it also corroborates at least some of what I know because otherwise, this could be lots of fun.

I’m looking for a really nice mix of both challenging and corroborating because I think that would feel good, right? That’s what I always hope for is to feel good. And then sometimes along the way it feels messy and that is a little bit of foreshadowing for the rest of our podcast. But let me tell you, I’m super excited because this book is really specifically for my new Chirp audiobook users.

You can have $5 off either this or any books in your first purchase with the code Pahla5, it’s P-A-H-L-A and the number 5 with no spaces. And this book really specifically, my dear Canadian friends, this one is available in Canada. I know that the last two books have not been. So while I was working with Chirp to try and figure out like, “Hey, what are we doing in January? And what’s going on with it?” I was like, “We have to have a book that’s at least available in Canada.” Because that is where Chirp distributes to. They’re a relatively small subsection of a larger book company whose name I don’t know, and it’s not me trying to be oblique. I literally can’t come up with it right now. And so they only distribute in the US and Canada which means that the audience is always going to be limited as opposed to my fully international audience, and so I do first of all, just apologize for that.

But also, because it is limited, I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t even more limited than that. So this month’s book is available in Canada also. I’m super, super excited about reading it. Depending on where you’re watching or listening, there will be some kind of link and a reminder. You don’t have to go back and listen again. It’s got the code written out for you so that you can go directly to Chirp if you’d like to.

And let me just clarify – I feel like I’ve said this before, but let me make it really clear especially for my fully international audience – you don’t have to listen to the book on audio to participate as part of the book club. I want to hear your opinions.

No matter how you take in this book, whether you read it a year ago or you’re reading it now, whether you get it from your library or Chirp or wherever, I invite you to be part of the conversation because it was so much fun last week. If you haven’t listened to it, let me tell you that episode 216 (Pahla B’s Book Club Reads “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown (https://getyourgoal.com/podcasts/216-book-club-gifts-of-imperfection/) where we talked live on Zoom, was so much fun, such a fun conversation.

I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about it. I was super nervous about going into it, and that was really interesting for me to have the mind management of, “Why do I feel nervous? What do I think could possibly go wrong?” And the things that could possibly go wrong did. Meaning that I had forgotten to look up beforehand the name or the number of the episode.

So I looked that up, not entirely live. I was live on camera, but I was not recording yet. So in front of my live studio audience, I went and looked up the episode number. And then for the life of me, I was trying to say in partnership with Chirp because that is the wording that I have worked out with Chirp on to how to present this book club, I couldn’t come up with it.

I said “with participation” or something like that which was super funny to me. Even while the words were coming out of my mouth, I was like, “Yeah, this is what I was nervous about. I was nervous I was going to mess up, and then I did. And it was fine.” So you guys, you guys, hey, let’s talk about 2022.

One of my goals is to mess up as much as possible, live if possible because I feel like a fully alive human being when I am making mistakes. And when I am living in those mistakes that are never mistakes because here’s what I want to tell you about when last we were together about 2021, 2022, setting goals, setting resolutions.

Just a quick note to the aside. I want to tell you that I am actually using the word “goals” this year. Over the past several years, I have called them resolutions. And this year, first of all, it’s on brand, and second of all, it’s how I think about things. You are welcome to use the word “resolution.” I have in the past done exactly that, and I am telling you that the word that I am using this year and probably going forward is just going to be goals because that’s me.

I’m the “Get your Goal” kind of girl, which we’re going to talk about also. Anyway, when last we were together, I was telling you about the wrapup of 2021. And I noticed after I recorded that, that I still felt like I had some unfinished business. I have noticed I have observed myself behaving a certain way and feeling certain ways and not done a lot of mind management on it, but simply been aware of, “Well, isn’t this interesting? I wonder what’s going on with me around my goals, around it being the end of the year and kind of wrapping up.”

And I’ve noticed that since I recorded that episode and officially wrapped up 2021, that I still had some feelings about it which means, of course, that I had some thoughts about it because your thoughts always create your feelings. When you feel something, there’s a thought there. And I had done very little exploring about what that thought was or what those thoughts were because if there’s one, there’s always a party of them.

So I had done very little exploring, and I finally sat down and explored what was in my brain. What was it that felt like unfinished business? I will tell you, it was literally unfinished business. I was trying so hard to manage my mind around how to look forward even while I was wrapping up and looking back. I was trying so hard to create a lesson out of it. I literally even called the podcast episode “Lessons from 2021” (https://getyourgoal.com/podcasts/215-lessons-from-2021/). I was trying to find, “Hey, what can I take from this? How can I grow from this?” And the thing that I missed out on was very, very simple, and it was that I felt disappointed. I had a thought, “I missed the mark.” That was my thought. “I missed the mark.” Meaning, that I had not met my stated goal of attracting 500,000 subscribers.

And the thing that was really interesting about this is that I knew going into the year that I wasn’t likely to hit 500,000 subscribers. It was always a pie in the sky so far, just not out of reach, but out of reality. It was an impossible goal that I set for myself.

So why in the world could I be disappointed? This is what I kept telling myself. I kept arguing with myself about, “You’ve got nothing to be disappointed about. You practically doubled your subscribers; you doubled your income. You succeeded in so many ways.” I created an entire podcast about all the ways in which I succeeded. And yet, there was still this thought of “I missed the mark” that created a feeling of disappointment for me.

Now I know that lots of you, lots of us, lots of me in fact, feel that the point of managing your mind is so that you don’t have to feel disappointed, so that you can take that thought and be like, “Well, this is an unhelpful thought. And now I don’t have to think it, and now I don’t have to feel that.” But I will tell you that what that created for me – trying not to feel that disappointment – was another layer of feeling like I hadn’t finished things, like I wasn’t done with 2021.

And soon I felt that disappointment and acknowledged that, of course, the disappointment came from a thought; it didn’t come from not meeting my goals. It didn’t come from the number of subscribers I have in much the same way that feeling accomplished and successful is not going to come from having 500,000 subscribers, but rather the thought that I will have when I see the number 500,000. I will think something along the lines of, “I did it.” I accomplished the thing I set out to do, and then I will feel successful and accomplished.

The number itself, it’s just a number. 500K. That could relate to so many things. 500,000 could be feathers. It could be anything. It is literally meaningless as a number and devoid of value or meaning until I have a thought about it. So yes, I could outthink myself from feeling this disappointment, except for the fact that I had something to learn there. And the thing that I had to learn is that it’s totally okay to feel disappointment and that I’m capable.

I’m literally, physically capable of feeling disappointment and it doesn’t kill me, and it doesn’t ruin my day, and it doesn’t mean anything about me and it doesn’t mean that I can’t move forward and it doesn’t mean anything. I’m capable, and I did feel my disappointment. And the thing that’s really funny about that is because I’ve heard and I think I’ve even said to you out loud that on your way to getting your goal, you’re going to feel lots of uncomfortable emotions.

You’re going to feel lots of discomfort, lots of disappointment, lots of discouragement. You’re going to feel lots of things that you don’t really want to feel, and you have to be willing to feel those things. And intellectually, I was 100% willing to feel those things. In fact, no, I didn’t think that I had felt it. I thought that I had managed myself out of it.

I thought I had fooled myself, but I was simultaneously saying the words I’m willing to feel disappointment and avoiding the actual feeling in my body of the vibration of disappointment. So when I sat down to actually feel the disappointment, not just be intellectually willing to feel it, but feeling it in my physical body, it was like, “Oh, this is what I had to do in order to move forward.”

This was the thing that was unfinished with that business of 2021. I had to feel the feelings generated only by the thoughts, generated not by the outcomes that I created for myself only because of my thoughts. But I had those thoughts. Finding them, feeling them all the way through, letting them dissipate has created for me now, not the act of feeling it, but it helped spark the feeling of, “Oh, okay. Well now I’m done with that and I can move forward.”

So you guys moving forward, I’m so excited about 2022. And let me tell you, let me just tell you right straight up. It’s another impossible one. I am already looking forward to feeling disappointment at the end of 2022 because I am setting myself another impossible goal. I think we just talked about it when we were talking about wrapping up 2021, but I know for sure we talked about it at the beginning of 2021 when I was telling you the reasons why we would set a time-bound goal or not a time-bound goal.

I am officially not setting myself a time-bound goal this year for a couple of reasons. And really, the main one is that I want to feel both challenged and corroborated really a lot like the book club throughout this, however long it takes rather than spending the lion’s share of my time thinking about time. I’ve noticed that I have a lot to resolve around time, and I want to give myself the space to resolve that as it comes up and simultaneously allow myself frankly to feel successful.

That is probably the biggest thing that I take away from 2021 is that I put myself in a position where I knew I had a lot of work to do. I knew I had a lot of mental work to do. I knew there was going to be a lot of discomfort. I knew there was going to be a lot of growth. I knew there was going to be a lot of challenging and a lot of looking for my thoughts and a lot of feeling uncomfortable and apparently disappointed.

And I did not offer myself quite enough space to feel successful. And I think that’s really interesting because at the time, it didn’t really occur to me. And this is actually where I want to start before I even tell you about my goals for 2022. One of the other, again, many, many thoughts that I had at this thought party regarding my 2021 goals and my 2022 goals is that I had a thought that because I didn’t meet my goals, I can’t teach you how to set and get your goals.

I thought that was a very interesting thought, and it created all kinds of imposter feelings in me which I have felt through numerous times. So that one actually dissipated pretty quickly, but it allowed me the chance to explore that thought. What do I think about being a person who has not created a specific goal that I set for myself that I told the world that I was going to set for myself and then moving forward from there even though I didn’t get that goal.

Does that mean I quit? Does that mean that I’m just never going to get that goal? Does that mean that I’m, well, mostly just quitting? That was the word that came to me numerous times which is why I’m sharing it with you. Am I a quitter because of that? Which for long-time listeners of the podcast, you will know that I thought I had resolved all of my “I’m a quitter” feelings. All of my “I’m a quitter” thoughts. This was something, gosh, that I dealt with many, many, many, many years ago which is part of why I felt like I was ready last year to do this time-bound goal so that I could get it or not, and deal with the repercussions. And here I am dealing with the repercussions.

Truly, I suspect that my 2021 goal has far-reaching consequences into 2022 as far as the things that I am still going to learn from myself about setting a goal that I didn’t achieve. So to clarify the answer to that one, I’m not quitting on the goal. I’m not quitting YouTube and really, as long as I am on YouTube, I am still striving to gain subscribers and grow my channel. So therefore the word “quit” really doesn’t apply and, or possibly but, I’m changing the wording of the goal to still be inclusive of attracting basically as many followers as I can or as will come to me in a way that, again, I won’t have to work as hard for. That sounds like such a funny way of putting it.

And I hope that I’m being as clear as . . .   Well, I am being as clear as I can be, which is to say that some of you will get it; some of you won’t. Maybe I get it; maybe I don’t. It’s hard to say. What I want to do with my goals this year is find a balance between pushing myself and being really loving and gentle with myself. And it’s funny because I had not come up with my word of the year for myself yet.

I have my goals, but I have not created words of the year which I don’t know if I shared with you last year and I will share with you really briefly. Oh, I think on episode number 215 (Lessons from 2021 https://getyourgoal.com/podcasts/215-lessons-from-2021/ ) I talk about my words of the year which were “love, gratitude, spaciousness, generosity, giving, decisive, open and clear.”

I’m pretty sure that one of my words this year is going to be “gentle.” That word is starting to really create for me a feeling that I want to cultivate even more gentleness towards myself, gentleness towards the world, gentleness towards you, just a gentler touch with my brand, my approach, my life, my humanness, my world, everything. I’m not sure what the other words are going to be.

I’m still really giving myself the space, which again, “spaciousness” was a word last year. “Spaciousness” was actually a word for me in 2019 as well. I suspect there will be some . . .  The word was “space” in 2020 rather, and then it was “spaciousness” in 2021. It’s probably going to be some other variation on that theme this year because I am still looking for that feeling of expansiveness and that feeling of white space again with the gentleness – that feeling of “I have room around me where I’m not crowded, I’m not claustrophobic.”

I’m not squeezing. I’m not pushing. I’m allowing myself to expand in a way that feels natural and gentle and open and spacious. But it’s funny because I’m hearing, I’m sorry. I’m listening to my own head right now where it’s like, “Well you can’t have the same word two years in a row.” Of course I can. Of course I can. “What rule is that, Pahla?” That’s hilarious. My brain offers me interesting rules.

Anyway, let’s talk about my goals. Let’s talk about my goals because I’m very excited about them because they are more singular this year. Again, coming with this gentleness and this expansiveness is that I am stating one goal and allowing it to unfold in the way that it’s going to unfold. My goal this year is that “I am creating” and I just want to stop really quickly right here. Language matters, you guys. This was such a lesson.

It’s a lesson that’s been brought to me every day over the past two weeks, where I’m noticing how often language matters. This phrase “I am creating” feels a million times more powerful than “I am attracting.” That was one of the many things that I worked on last year and never fully resolved and might continue to work on because part of my “I am creating” still of course involves YouTube and still of course involves attracting subscribers and attracting a following, and I’m going to get to that in a minute. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s my goal. I am creating a million dollar business. The way that that will unfold is the way that that will unfold. The things that I will be focusing on in an effort to create a million dollar business is that I will of course be publishing my book. That is happening, and it is so funny because it didn’t even make the original goal list because I have so much certainty about that goal with zero evidence to support it.

You guys, I’m querying agents right now and it’s a weird time of the year to be querying agents. From everything that I have heard, publishing just shuts down at the end of the year. I don’t know if that’s actually true or not. I’m going with it because there you go, I’m going with it.

I have queried five agents so far and received two rejection letters so far which means that I still have three queries out. So really, as of right now, I have a hundred percent rejection rate because I haven’t heard from the other three. So I have absolutely no reason to believe that my book is going to be published, except for the fact that of course it is. And truly, if I could give you any gift in the world, it would be the gift of this kind of certainty.

It just doesn’t even occur to me that this isn’t going to happen. And I tell you that in an effort to remind myself that I do still need to do some work to make this happen. I feel very certain about it, and sometimes that certainty translates to like, “Oh, I actually kind of thought it was already done.”

So I do still need for my own sake to remind myself to continue to work towards it. But anyway, I am publishing my book this year. Meaning that I’m going to have a contract signed with a publishing house. Not necessarily that the book will come out this year. Again, because of supply chain problems and things that are outside of my control.

One of the many things that I worked on in 2021 – and will continue to work on – is the language around what is in my control and what is out of my control. And even the wording of “I am publishing my book” –  I am not because I am not self-publishing. What I will do is continue to query until I find an agent, and then I will continue to be with that agent until I sign with a publisher.

Therefore, it is my stated goal to sign with a publisher presumably this year. This is my 2022 goal, but again, I’m being a little bit softer and gentler and more expansive with myself about these goals. It’s going to take as long as it takes. The book is being published traditionally through a publishing house when it gets published.

The other thing that I’m doing while I am creating a million dollar business is I’m really focusing on the Get Your Goal group. I call it a private group because it is private. It is my private paid coaching and accountability group that is a source of deep pleasure for me.

I love the Get Your Goal group, and I’ve loved it since its fruition. Not fruition – that’s not the right word. Since its inception. Gosh, those words don’t sound anything alike. That was super funny. Since its inception, which has already been two years, which is so crazy to me. But since I created the Get Your Goal group, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about where it might go and what I might do with it that I haven’t fully realized even yet, and I noticed that my drive and my energy is really being pulled towards that group.

And I want to go with that. I want to flow with the energy of that because it is so pleasurable to me to run that group, to create that group, to be in that group, to coach in that group. I find myself thinking about it a lot. So I am already very naturally focusing on it and what I would like to aim my focus on is really specifically growing the group and growing it in a way that still feels as good as it feels right now while helping me meet my monetary goals of creating a million dollar business.

Another part, the third arm of my creating my million dollar business is that I am . . .   and here’s where the wording really matters. And I know already that this wording needs work, and I have not put in the time just yet to figure out exactly what this is going to sound like in its final incarnation. Here’s what I have right now, here’s what’s going on the vision board right now that might get changed:  “I am attracting a million friends.” And that’s problematic for two reasons, and neither one of them is the word million. I’ve become incredibly comfortable with the word million. I’ve been around people who have really normalized that word. And by “been around,” I mean I listen to podcasts. I have been around and listened to podcasts from people who have really normalized running a million dollar business.

Three people come to mind really quickly off the top of my head. In fact, there are four that come to mind really quickly off the top of my head. And there are probably way more. But Corinne Crabtree who runs a weight loss business, she is also a – not also, because I am not – she is a master certified coach through the Life Coach School.

Another person who runs a million dollar business – or actually multimillion dollar business – is Denise Duffield-Thomas, who if you’ve been around, you know that I’ve been following her for years. Brooke Castillo who runs The Life Coach School. By the way, Denise Duffield-Thomas, she runs Money Bootcamp. Sorry, I’m “umming” here because I’m trying to think of the name of her actual business.

I believe that the name of her actual business is just her name. She used to call the Money Bootcamp the Lucky Bitch Bootcamp because that was her thing about lucky B’s and creating money for yourself because she was so lucky and stuff like that. And the book that I have referenced numerous times which was how I found her at all was “Get Rich, Lucky Bitch.” Love her.

So she has completely normalized just talking about running a million dollar business. The other one is Stacy Beaman who runs the podcast “Make Money As A Life Coach.” Absolutely love her. It seems to me I was thinking about somebody else also which means that I can tell you several people that I listen to who have just normalized that word million for me.

I see myself as a person who is capable of dealing with the word million. But the two words that I find problematic in that sentence, “I’m attracting a million friends” is the word “attracting” because this is work that I’ve been doing for a while now. And still haven’t fully resolved about how I see myself as being attractive, which is not just like physically attractive, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually attractive.

And really specifically the combination of “attractive” and “friends.” You guys, this is something . . .  we’ve touched on this on the podcast before when I talked to you about my thought about being unlikable. But the corollary thought with being unlikable is the thought that I don’t have any friends. And even as I’m saying that sentence, my brain is offering me just tons of evidence for it – historical evidence from years ago, current evidence from how many people I see on a weekly basis or get text messages from or anything like that. 

This thought “I don’t have any friends” – it’s not a stated goal to work on that word “friends” in my mind, but that is going to be one of the byproducts of having this stated goal of attracting a million friends.

Sometime this year I will be resolving my thoughts and feelings around the word “friends.” And the other thing that I’m doing this year, this is so funny. There was no segue there, sorry. There was just a really long pause, because I was like, “Do I have more to say about friends?” I don’t right now, I haven’t explored it enough to even share with you which is why I feel like I’m just leaving it there.

It’s just a little bit of information, and I’m not going to resolve that for you because I don’t feel resolved about it myself. So moving on, I have one other goal. Now, we have talked about this. Where’s your focus? Where are your goals? How many things can you do at once? I know, but here’s what I learned in 2021:  I really like checking boxes.

It feels so satisfying to me, and I wanted to offer myself in the spirit of gentleness, the spirit of spaciousness. I wanted to offer myself another checkbox goal this year. I really thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted it to have anything to do with running or racing. And this year, I don’t.  Which is not to say that I’m not going to be running or racing – I am – but I didn’t want it to be something that I focused on.

Partly because I love running and racing so much that I knew that it was therefore going to be my number one goal. I knew that it would just take over naturally because I wouldn’t be managing my mind around it. Therefore, I specifically gave myself a checkbox goal that I think is going to be that beautiful balance. I suspect that “balance” might be one of my words this year. That’s an interesting thought – that beautiful balance of challenge and corroboration.

I am perfectly capable of achieving this goal, and it’s going to take focus and effort on my part. I will be doing strength training twice a week every single week the entire year of 2022. And I know some of you are like, “Wait, what? You don’t?” I probably do. I’ve never quantified it.

Over the average of my year, I absolutely 100% did 104 strength training workouts this year. 100. Well, not quite this year; I’m recording this right before the end of the year. So technically speaking, no, I have not done twice this week or whatever, but really, even then, I feel like I’ve probably already done 104. The recommended dosage for strength training is two to three times a week.

I suspect that I probably even average three times a week. But I bet you it’s not three. I bet I average two and a half, but I know for a fact that there are occasional weeks that I don’t pick up the dumbbells twice; I pick them up once. And then on the one end of the week that I’ve got four and on the other end of that week, I had two or three or whatever.

I know my average over the course of the year is definitely two, probably as much as two and a half times a week. But the actual sitting down and not sitting down, standing up, and picking up dumbbells two times a week every single week is going to be just the right amount of challenging. Partly, just because focusing on it at all. I have just assumed for the last 10 years that I’m doing enough strength training because I know I am, but I want to see those checkboxes.

I want to see myself get to the end of a week where I was like, “Oh yeah, I was busy with this. I was busy with that. I thought I was going to film. And then the weather was bad.” And then, “Oh yeah, maybe I’ll get to it. Blah-blah-blah.” I want to see myself wrestle with that.

I want to see myself look at those checkboxes because I actually – I’ve not done it yet, but this is what I’m doing for me again before the end of the year – I will be creating a chart with 52 weeks and two checkboxes every single week. It’s not that I’m doing 104 strength training workouts this year. It is that I am doing two strength training workouts every single week no matter what. I’m very excited about that one.

I think I almost feel more excited about that one than the million dollar business right now, just because of the checkboxes, just because it feels very neat and tidy and finishable and doable and challenging, but the right kind of challenging. So I’m right this minute, I’m more excited about that one. Tell me what you’re excited about. Tell me what you’re excited about, and tell me what you think you’re going to wrestle with.

I think this might be the first year. I don’t remember. I listened, I re-listened to my own podcasts, and already don’t remember exactly what I said. I feel like I was excited about the challenge of the mental work that I was going to have to do. In fact, I do remember talking about that, about the challenge of becoming half a milli-Pahla and I knew which things I was going to wrestle with.

I think what I’m excited about this year is some of the not knowing. What is going to be hard for me? What is going to be challenging for me? What will I feel disappointed about? What other feelings are there that I will find myself not being willing to feel or trying to avoid feeling that I think I’m perfectly capable intellectually of doing. I’m sitting here right now recording this podcast.

There are no feelings that I avoid anymore. I’m totally willing to feel my feelings. No, I’m not. I literally have evidence from the last several weeks. I’ve been avoiding feeling something as simple as disappointment. And as soon as I felt that, I felt a million times better. Come on, I know this is going to come up again. So I’m excited to get to the end of 2022 and realize that there were feelings that I really wasn’t willing to feel that I felt anyway.

I’m excited to really wrestle with my idea of what is a friend and how I fit that definition of being a friend to myself and to others, which I think is the real work there. Just so you know I think the real work is thinking of myself as a friend to myself. That’s really interesting. That just popped into my head. I’m going to write that down before I forget.

Anyway, I’m excited to see how this year unfolds because I don’t know how I’m going to make these things happen. I know I am. I know I’m aiming in the right direction. I know there will be boxes to check. I know there will be tears to cry. I know there will be lessons to learn that I don’t want to learn.

There will be frustrations to be had. Gosh, here’s the challenge I really hope I have. There will be times when I will feel too happy. You guys, I know for a fact, I know for a fact that is one of the feelings that I think I’m willing to feel. And yet, even as I’m saying these words, massive resistance is welling up inside of me, I hope that this year offers me the opportunity to feel overjoyed, over-successful, over-happy, over-excited so that my brain can wrestle with that, so that I can feel those feelings and really allow them to be part of me in a way that I have and also haven’t.

I have watched myself process happiness and I’ve seen myself struggle with it, and I’m excited to see how that will manifest for me this year. I’m excited to see it all. I’m excited about 2022. Not because it’s 2020-also, but because it’s 2022. We’re moving forward, we’re doing some things, we’re getting some goals.

So you guys, you know I want to hear about yours, wherever you see me, wherever we are together, wherever we are friends. Because, my friends, we ARE friends. And I’m really happy about that. Oh, am I over-happy about that? Oh my gosh, is that part of why that word is hard for me? Because it makes me feel happy? Oh my gosh, you guys.

Okay, for me, it’s not even 2022 yet, and I’m already offering myself opportunities to work towards this stuff. Anyway, I’m talking about you. You, come talk to me, come tell me your things. I want to hear your goals. I hope that it’s singular even though mine are plural. I hope you have a goal this year, and I hope that you have challenges.

I hope that you have corroborations. I hope that you have balance. I hope that you have gentleness. I hope that you have space. I hope that you have friends and love and self-love. This is a good one. Thank you for listening. Thank you always for being here. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for coming along with me in 2022. I will talk to you again soon.

If you are getting a lot out of The Fitness Matters Podcast and you’re ready to take it to the next level, you are going to love the Get Your Goal Coaching and Accountability Group. We take all the theory and knowledge here on the podcast and actually apply it in real life on your real weight loss and fitness goals. It’s hands on, it’s fun, and it works. Find out more at pahlabfitness.com/get-your-goal and let’s get your goal.