Strategies to get Unstuck in 2025

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:

Set yourself up for success, look at the context in which those goals are going to need to live in and then make those goals and commit like your life depends on it to those goals. Because making a little bit of progress is better than trying to make a ton of progress and getting stuck practically before you start and quitting altogether.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:21]:

I'm a small town kid, born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:26]:

Awesome roles in life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:27]:

Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor and mentor. Seventeen years ago I founded a marketing consultancy and ever since, my husband JR and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you too. I'm Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared confident.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:04]:

Here we are you guys. New year, fresh starts, new goals, you know, all of the things, which is mostly lots of good stuff. But as we start to look at a fresh year in 2025, we can sometimes romanticize like how perfectly everything is going to go and how we're going to show up for ourselves and our families and our careers and like literally 2025, best year yet, like rock and roll here we come. Maybe that's just me, but I will tell you that sometimes this time of year, as we're thinking about goals and we're looking at our lives and looking like, what do I want myself to feel like at the end of 2025, 365 some days from now? Where do I want to move myself towards? We can sometimes are like planning self. The person who is looking at, you know, my goals and where do I want to get and how fit do I want to be and how much money do I want to make and how much time do I want to make for my my planning brain is sometimes disconnected from my has to live in the real world part of myself. And when those two things can't clip together, like the plans I've made and the real world that they have to exist in, we set ourselves up for failure because our plans are unattached to the context, the resources and the imperfection of our actual lives. And so I want to spend this episode exporting just a few things that I have learned in my own journey of needing to make a lot of progress in my life in a lot of key areas like my health and my relationships and the amount of money that I make every year and the businesses that I'm growing the same goals that you have for your life and family. The same stuff in and around, a lot of stuff going on.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:45]:

Like, I think most people who listen to this, but like, as women, I just had breakfast with somebody this morning. It was me and another female leader and a shared male colleague of ours that we both respect and has been wildly successful. And he was like, hey, just kind of like move through some of this intuitively. And I was like, we don't have that luxury. There is literally something competing for my time and attention all of the time. Practice. I need to get somebody ready for a lunch, that I need to pack a gift, I need to buy a birthday party invitation that I need to respond to or just like something I had to go buy a plaid shirt and muted colors and deliver it to the high school today. Like so many random things that are competing for our attention when we are not locked and loaded on our goals and priorities, and those are not made in the context of the actual environment that they're going to live in.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:41]:

We set ourselves up for these debilitating, soul crushing failure cycles because the goals we set are devoid of the context they're going to live in. And so then we just start to say, maybe I can't get there, maybe I can't be anything else, maybe I can't lose the weight, maybe I can't have a great marriage, maybe I can't make that much money. Like, maybe I can't, whatever the thing is. Because our plans cannot exist in the context that we're putting them in. And so we experience this failure cycle over and over again. So I'm going to share a couple of things that I've learned. I do believe 2025 can be both of our best year yet. I've got some things that I'm also going to get much better at this year.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:23]:

And I'm going to set those intentions and share them with you in a podcast later in January. But I want to be really intentional about that. So I'm doing a little preparation and planning. But okay, here's what I've learned. The first one. You can thrive without leaving. You can thrive without needing to throw away the environment that you're currently in. Here's what I mean by this.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:45]:

There's a common narrative, I think just in today's everywhere, that if you're unhappy with something, you should leave. If you're unhappy with your marriage, you should leave. If you're unhappy with your job, you should leave. If you're frustrated with your boss you should leave. If you don't like your house, move to a new one. If you don't like your church, you should leave. If you don't like insert, then you should leave. And I think that is a really.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:10]:

Yes, sometimes that is true. But I think oftentimes we have not really stopped and asked some really important questions to make sure that the thing that sucks about that is not going to follow us when we leave. Because we are part of what's creating that environment. So that's the first thing actually is to say what is the role that I am playing in this environment? Actually, I want to step up back for a second before I start getting into fixes. There were times I wanted to leave so badly. There were times we'll take my marriage. There were times that leaving my marriage looked a lot easier than working on it. And the reason I didn't was probably two reasons.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:53]:

The embarrassment factor, if I'm being really honest, and the other is my kids. There was something that made me stay in the hard longer than I would have on my own because it was hard and it sucked. But changing was also going to be hard and suck. It's just I couldn't see that hard because it looked easier than what I was currently in. In Element Three, in our business when we were growing it, there were seasons where shutting it down, leaving looked so much easier than fixing it, but I couldn't leave it, or I chose not to leave it because requiring it would require me filing for bankruptcy. There was debts that I owed, people that I would have not been okay walking away from. So because of that, I stayed in the pain much longer than I would have, like on my own volition because those things needed to be solved. And I was like, I'm not letting those people down.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:49]:

Like, I'm not not paying that bill. But for myself, it would have been much easier to walk away. So what I've learned in seasons of fixing where I already am, and I've told this story a couple of different times, but like fixing our marriage required us to both look at this first thing, what are we both doing to contribute to where we are? And it does require everybody to ask that question, what am I doing? What role am I playing? That is contributing to where we are right now, that is contributing to this current situation. The second is to look at what's the real problem. And that's kind of like they're probably like first cousins to one another. I say that all the time. But like, what's the real problem at stake? I Hate the culture. Okay, that could be fine.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:38]:

Maybe you hate the culture. Maybe another way of framing that is it is a very sales oriented culture. I am not a sales minded individual or that's not the competitive environment that I thrive in. And so I am going to do better in a culture that is more, I don't know, nurturing or familial or less sales driven. I'm using this as an example because I do very well in sales environments. But you get the idea. It's one thing to say I don't like their culture. Okay, cool, you don't need to like it.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:13]:

But getting to a better definition of that, like what I was just saying is I don't thrive well in an environment that is sales dominant. I do better in an environment that is more heavily, operationally at least allows you to define the problem in a way where you can set yourself up for success the next time around. So define the real problem. Ask yourself, what role am I playing in creating this current situation? And then begin to establish inside of this environment what are our priorities? How do we make incremental steps towards where it is that we want to go? So back to my marriage and professional example. Even like my your own health journey. Like we don't get to just go to the store and buy a new body. Well, sort of. Actually, I guess you can like lots of plastic surgery and weight loss medication, so I guess you kind of can.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:07]:

But there's also like doing the work and saying, where is my behavior? I've started doing a, a little bit more in my health and some of it is I just don't want to. I just don't want. I hate like read like recording all my food, counting my macros, counting every calorie. I just like really hate it. I really hate it. I really hate it. And I have to admit to myself there is a certain level of fitness of like body composition, of refining this aging body. There's a certain level I'm not going to be able to get to.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:44]:

If I'm not willing to do those things that are uncomfortable to me, I don't have to do it. But I have to say the real problem is I like doing what I want to do and I don't like having rules in a place that brings me a lot of pleasure. I love eating. Like I'm, I am a live to eat, not eat to live person. I think that's one thing the real problem is I'm like rebellious against rules. I hate them. They make me feel constrained. The role I'M playing in this current situation.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:15]:

And this is where I kind of got to this ownership in my head of, like, I have to own that there is a certain level I will not be able to get to unless I'm willing to do those things that I do not like. And if I want to do them, I'm going to have to make tiny increments of change towards it because a big universal, like doing all the things perfectly is going to make me drown because I can't make all that change at one time. Like, it'll just be too much stress in my. Like, it'll be too much change elasticity for me. It just doesn't work. So how do you define the real problem? How do you make change where you are and you not have to leave every single time that you want something to change in your life? What's the real problem? What role are you playing in the current situation? And how do you establish priorities and begin to incrementally move yourself towards it? Another key area is, and I was kind of just talking about this, but I am like an all or nothing kind of a gal. You know, I'm like training for a marathon or I'm not running at all. I am recording every single thing that passes by my face or I'm doing nothing at all.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:21]:

Like, instead of doing things moderately. That's very challenging for me. But what I have learned, and you already know this, is that small changes are what create lasting impact. I talk about minimums in particular in a life of. And how do you take the smallest thing that you can do all the time and make that your goal and begin to slowly move that up over time. I use health and fitness all the time here. My minimum for working out is lifting 60 minutes two times a week. That is still my minimum.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:53]:

That has been my minimum for four years. I don't think until my kids live the house that my minimum will be able to be anything more than that. Some weeks I deliver much more than that. But that is my minimum. I can manage that every single week. So as you look at your goals, as you look at how you are working to become closer to your best self in 2025, yes, it is good to set clear ambitions for where you want to get. But when you start thinking about your behaviors, those things that you're going to do day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, when it's hard, when you're tired, when you're sick, when you're behind, when it was a kid Puked all night long. That version of yourself, what is that person gonna be able to deliver on? Because the sun is shining, everything is perfect, you're well rested, and every morsel as food is prepped.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:43]:

It's easy in those weeks to move ourselves towards who we want to become. But what about those tough weeks? So, small changes for lasting impact, Define your minimums. Define those minimum behaviors that you know you can almost do blindfolded and then begin to ratchet it up from there. Okay, small changes for lasting impact. Set your minimum, establish your priorities. This is what I want. What's the smallest increment of behavior that I can do every single week to move myself towards that? And honestly, if you over deliver for like 14 weeks in a row, you're just like, I am crushing it. Then move your minimum up if you want to.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:22]:

That is no problem in that. But this goes back to what we talked about at the beginning, is when your planning self sets goals. Like if I set the goal of working out four times every week, I would miss that goal probably a third of the time, which means I would experience failure 30% of the weeks out of the year. Because I set my minimum at two. And I literally always do two. I always feel a sense of accomplishment. I did the thing, I kept my agreement with myself. I was able to do that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:53]:

And two thirds of the time I'm able to feel like, dang, I am crushing it. I'm getting like four workouts a weekend, which is really what I prefer, but sometimes it doesn't work. I'm sick, Junior's gone, something happened, we need to travel. Who knows? I got lazy, I slept in. I mean, a thousand things could happen, but I always can deliver to. So small changes for lasting impact, that's what you want to focus on. The last one is context. What is the season of your life? The season of your kids, the season of your career, the season of your financial situation, the season of your spouse? What is the context in which these goals are going to need to live? And how do you embrace and love and settle into this season of life and not create so much friction with it that it makes your goals impossible and it has you give up completely? What do I mean by that? I mean by that when none of my kids were in school and all of them were home, and my nanny came to my house every morning at 8, I basically had 6 to 8am to myself every day.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:00]:

I could get up, do my Bible study, work out, get dressed and showered and all the things, work on some work, whatever it was, I had like 6 to 8am, 5, 30 to 8, whatever it is, all to myself. Manana came, fed the kids, I went off with my job and there was like no friction in the morning. In this season of my life, I've got three kids getting on the bus. One that if she's not on the bus, needs to go to be at the high school by 6am and all morning long I'm getting kids ready for school. I am not blissfully just with myself for two hours. That's a season of life. It is not going to be like that. And definitely it's a season of life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:36]:

Think about at your work, if you've ever been part of a new team, a new company, a new department, a new division, a new product, that team doesn't know how to solve together nearly as well in the first 90 days as they do if they've been together for five or six years. Solving velocity is totally different. The ease at which they communicate, the speed at which priorities can be determined, all the things just work better when they've been working together for a long time. That's the context. Think about how much quicker things can happen with a team that's been together for six years versus a team that has only been together for six days. So the context in which those business objectives, the context and when, the context in which those challenges can be solved, the trust that is in those environments are completely different. Think about that. What is the context, the season that your goals need to sit in and be realistic? It's okay if you can't go balls to the walls 12 months out of the year because there's a season where work requires travel, your kids are going to need you to be more available, your spouse is going to be away for more, or there's just a bigger project at work, like, it's okay, set yourself up for success.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:16:53]:

Look at the context in which those goals are going to need to live in and then make those goals and commit like your life depends on it to those goals. Because making a little bit of progress is better than trying to make a ton of progress and getting stuck practically before you start and quitting altogether. So these are some things I've learned, you guys. In this game of goal setting, of this life of becoming, you're trying to push for more. You're trying to push for more out of this precious, precious, amazing gift that we have that is called life. I have been to three funerals in the last three weeks and that will maybe be a different episode, but man, there is something powerful about seeing people at three different times in their life. One was in their 90s, one in their 60s, and one 20 years old. When you see people at the end of their life, you start to see, man, what a life lived.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:17:48]:

One life has a ton of impact. And when life is taken too early for me as maybe say, like, man, I just want to be the best I can be in these days, in these minutes, in these hours, in these seconds that I have on earth. And I know you feel the exact same way. So as we look into 2025, we have this benefit of a fresh start. A fresh view, a fresh planner, a fresh calendar, a fresh journal, a fresh start. I hope that these principles, these ideas of looking at your time and saying, what if I don't have to leave for it to be different? What if I start small instead of making these big sweeping changes and programs and set myself up for incremental success? And what if I plan understanding the season and context in which these goals need to live in so I'm not creating friction with my family, I'm not creating friction against other areas of my life, but the beginning to work together. What would your goals sound like if you did that? Let's go get 2,025. Thanks for listening.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:51]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling Fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:19:00]:

I will.