Hi everyone. Shawn Mcguire here from new vision counseling consulting with our Fabulous Summer Smith. He just got back from New Zealand and we have, hey you make Google and she is going to be back there making sure that summer doesn’t get into too much trouble today as he did this video. So guys, we were excited because this is the beginning of a new year and we all know that these cameras need to make, there you go. It’s the beginning of a new year and we want to just share ways for you to really make 2019 the best year of your life, how to make it better than 2018 and part of that is developing simple strategies, right? Of How do we accomplish your goals. And since she lives a very simple, clean life, she has a lot of Edmond Christian Counseling strategies that she’s going to bring from her own personal experience, whether it’s New Zealand, Jamaica, or wherever you been these last few months, she’s going to bring that to the forefront to kind of help you.
Now, many of you may say, Sean, I’ve never been able to accomplish goals. There’s no way, let me just say, you’ve not met Summer Smith. She’s not only a phenomenal therapist, she’s a great communicator. And around here with all of our people, we call her the professor. So I just want you guys to just sit back, relax, and you know, a new vision counseling part of our, our theme and our belief, our vision statement is we want to help you discover what better looks like for you and equip you with the tools to create it. So without any further ado, our very own summer Smith. Thank you
man. You created a lot of pressure and no expectations. Apparently I took a trip to New Zealand,
say hi, wherever you guys are from, say hi, let us know you’re from.
So yes, we’re talking about personal goals today. As you know, January here at New Vision, we’ve been talking about visions. Uh, and so today I wanna talk to you about bringing your personal goals to life. And the reason I gave it that title is because I think a lot of times we keep our personal goals up here. We have all of these tremendous goals and ideas, but we do not bring them to life. I stay up there. And so we want to talk about bringing them to life. Um, so we’re going to talk about the, you know, the wrong way to do things first because here we are in January. We’ve got all these resolutions. Everybody I think has a new year’s resolution, whether you want to admit it or not. But the thing is that 80% of new year’s resolutions fail 80%. Um, and so I think one good way for us to learn when we know that 80% of new year’s resolutions fail is to learn by what not to do. So we’re going to look at the wrong way to approach goals and then we’re going to look at the right way to approach goals. And then we’re going to talk about specific strategies for bringing those approaches to life. So again, knowing that 80% of new year’s resolutions fail, want to tell you about one that I had the failed. Oh yeah, yeah. I get excited.
it’s just really a small, simple one. But last year my news, New Year’s resolution was to drink more water. That was it. Right. What I failed to do, I mean that seems simple, but what I failed to do was decide how much water I needed to drink in a day. And so I thought you were going to say your husband kept turning water into wine or you prayed, but it was, you just didn’t drink enough. Huh? Unfortunately, there was no wine involved, but, um, I didn’t specify how much water I needed to drink. So if you ask me right now, did I accomplish my new year’s resolution last year? I honestly have no idea because I didn’t say how much this year. Yeah. This year I actually know that I want to drink between a hundred and 120 ounces of water a day. So I know exactly if I’m accomplishing that or another.
And like the number one new year’s resolution is that people want to lose weight or they have a fitness goal of some sorts. So typically that’s the number one about 40% of people every year, we’ll say that they, that their goal is in that realm of fitness or, yeah, but again, if you just say I’m going to lose weight this year or I’m going to go to the gym more often, then that’s not, that’s another one that we may be setting ourselves up to fail because that’s abroad. How much weight in what timeframe? How many times a week am I going to the gym? How many calories am I eating a day? So, so looking at these reasons are these examples of where we have failed? I think the problem that we have when we set our approach to goals is that we go too big, too broad, and we focused on, we focus on best.
So for example, we say we might say this year I’m going to get my life together, right? Again. Um, you probably have, I don’t know, 100,000 different things going on in your life. Literally, if you break it down 100,000 different things. So when you say, I’m going to get my life together, this study to mean what does that even mean? That’s too broad a, I’m going to rise to the top of this year. I’ve heard people say that and rising to the top this year, whatever that means for them. Again, too broad and too big because again, where do we begin with that? I’m going to become the best version of myself, right? That’s one that we hear a lot. When we go straight to best, we forget that better comes before best. So again, too big, too broad, and we often go straight to best when we go straight to best.
We forget all those little steps that come before that. So what do you say? A New Vision we specialize in. What better looks like for you? We don’t say we specialize in what best looks like. That’s a lot of pressure though. It’s a lot of pressure and there’s so many steps between there. We could get to better in one session we could get to better in every single session. I like taking a long nap, recalibrate. You could do better by going to sleep and waking up and you have a fresh store, you absolute, there’s a tangible best. I mean, there’s a lot of steps. If you keep taking the steps to get better, eventually for whatever your definition of best is, you PR, you might wake up and be there because of all those small steps. Um, so again, we’re not going to go big, broad, or best.
What are we focusing on? We should focus on our approach on being small, specific, and satisfying. So again, we’ve heard we’ve heard these types of strategies before, but let me just tell you why. Again, when we say we want to go small, a lot of people will say, what happened to go big or go home, right? I mean, you’re telling people homo, right? Right. Yeah. You’re telling me to set my goals small. Um, that goes against everything that we heard of or, or what happened to keep my eye on the prize or keep my eye on the goal walled. Again, what we’re focusing on is small beginnings in job chapter eight. The Bible says, your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous. Your future will be those small beginnings are extremely important, right? The very first, you know, making that phone call to come to your first counseling session, that phone call is just as huge as the first counseling session, which is just as huge as what you get from the first counseling session. These are small beginnings that take us
the bigger goal. You know, there’s a scripture that says, do not despise the day of small beginnings. That’s where I think oftentimes, I don’t know about you guys, but I get frustrated that I’m not further along than where I’m at. I feel like, ah, man, this stage in my life, I should be further along and x, y, z. And so I think that prevents a lot of us from really putting in the due diligence now of building, of building the a building. Because if we’re going to climb a mountain or anything that everybody wants to summit the mountain of course, but how many steps are between the first and the less like 50,000 steps, however many thousands of steps that you’ve got to go from here to here. And each one of those steps is needed to go to the next level to reach the summit. I think that’s the way God called us to live life. So that’s really good. Better, better, better. You can accomplish better today, right?
And when you start bringing down that mountain into, um, today I’m going this mini steps, once you go that many steps, you’ve got an accomplishment right there. You’re already starting to be, you know, to feel that gratification that you get instead of not getting the gratification because you didn’t reach the top of the mountain and then you’re, you know, you feel discouraged. So again, we start small because those are manageable. Um, and then the next step is that we go specific. So the small steps make it manageable. The specific niche, creating a specific step gives us the roadmap because that tells us exactly where to go. So again, if we look at, if we’re looking at the, the number one Edmond Christian Counseling resolution that we have losing weight or, or um, giving in proving our fitness, we have to identify something specific about that. How many, you know, I’m going to count my macros each day and I know how many carbs, how much fat, how much protein when I’m trying to accomplish each day.
That’s a very, very specific use in Jamaica. I think you’ve met my husband. It looks like a football bodybuilder. Yeah. Yeah. He’s all about the macros. Write macros are specific. I know exactly what I’m striving for each day that makes it specific and manageable. That creates that roadmap to my weight loss. If I need or I need a specific fitness plan, what I do on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, what do I, you know, is Monday. Chest Day is uh, you know, Wednesdays back day, Friday’s leg day. That’s specific. You know exactly when you walk into the gym on a Friday, what you’re doing that day. Um, another goal that people have is more prayer will, if I just say more prayer, how do I know if I’m accomplishing that or not? Honestly, you have to, you have to specify the exact number of minutes each day you’re striving for. Right.
What are some other, I mean, any, any goals that you guys have or that come to mind that, you know, maybe you’re seeing with your clients that just goals that you see often. What are some goals that clients set forth or that you have set forth for yourself or maybe for your family? I live in a world of lots of girls every day, personally and with clients. I’m just, that’s the way I think God wired me to, to help people achieve. But I want to say he’s a fountain of Wisdom. The Fountain of Wisdom. I don’t know about that, but I was thinking, I was also thinking about fitness, um, and I was trying to think of something else, but that’s what’s coming to mind. So I’ll go with that. Um, I go to a lot of fitness classes and so one of the goals that I have for myself is attending a certain number of classes per week.
So that even though, and through that there are a lot of other things like, um, you know, wanting to be able to do more squats or like do whatever it is, you know, like certain goals or being a common yes. But if I set a certain number of classes per week, that really helps me. And one thing for me that’s good about that is I, so, um, right now my goal is to attend five classes per week. So if I, but I always schedule in about six or seven classes because chances are some crazy thing is going to happen where I’m not going to be able to attend at least one and then maybe I get a bonus in and I get six I’m in. But if I don’t schedule more than my gold and it never happens. Right. But I saw, I mean, January 7th a lot of people and I that go to the same classes, we January 1st it was packed in these classes.
I’m not kidding that January seven it was like half right, half dropped off. So I agree that New Year’s resolutions are very quickly they do. But probably the reason you’re still in the class Katie, is because you set a very specific goal. You knew that you wanted to attend five a week. Right? Those others may have just identified their goal is I’m going to go to the gym more often. And so, you know, again, those are the people that start to drop off because they didn’t set small, specific satisfying goals to get them to the bigger goal. Um, so, and, and one thing to keep in mind, if you’re, if you, if your goal is to drink more water or hit five times at the gym or hit a certain number of calories or increasing intimacy with your spouse or increasing talk times with your spouse or you name it, don’t be afraid to set phone reminders for these things or to use APP for meal tracking. I think, you know, again, we’re just trying to keep things up here and we don’t have to. Um, there are all kinds of technology. Um, you know, and, and it may seem tedious, but there have been many times when I was tracking water then my phone would pop up and remind me to drink water. I mean why not right.
Sound of watches or watches? Largely. Yeah. Your, your wash will tell you to drink water or tell you when to eat. Oh, I have a, I have a alerts set every day. I forget what they are, but no one of them is, it says fine. Three positive things when I first get home, cause my tendency is to walk into an environment and whatever needs it can be improved, just screams at me. He’s like, look at me, look at me. That’s right. So that’s the last thing my wife and kids want to hear when I first walked through the door and that’s the last environment that I want to create. So the environment I want to walk into is a celebrate Tory one or we all celebrate and are able to enjoy. So I have it pop up on my phone, find three positive things and so that’s been a goal that’s really helped create a culture that I walk into.
Small and specific. You didn’t just say look for positive things at some random time during the day. It’s when you get home and it was three positive things, which brings me to the next step. Small, specific, satisfying, right? Satisfying is important and why? Why in the world are we adding this random satisfying section? It’s because if our small specific goals do not satisfy us pretty quickly, we’re going to get bored and give up because we live in a generation of immediate gratification. Yeah. More than ever. Every other question, Google will answer our question and about half a second Siri will interrupt. Even when you’re not talking, I’m sure probably will sell, will shine through Amazon prime. You order something, it’s on your doorstep via drone and like 17 seconds. You know, Uber shows up on your door much quicker than you could ever get a taxi or even get to your own car and drive away.
We live in a world of immediate gratification. So really when we think of a big goal, we break it down into small, specific, satisfying steps. That way we don’t get bored and give up. You know, we need to feel some level of gratification and satisfaction fairly quickly. So if I set a goal to pray more often and I decide that I’m going to pray for three minutes every single morning, small and specific, it only takes three minutes before I start to feel that gratification because I’m glad that I met that goal and that makes it more likely that I’m going to do it again. So moving into then we know that we know spa small, specific, satisfying. How do we start again? If you’ve already failed, if you’re, you know, we fall in that 80% of people who who’ve already failed maybe their new year’s resolution.
Let’s start over. We’re going to try a new strategy. I want you to identify the area that needs work. You can do this in two ways. You can pray about it. Psalm 32 I woke. He said, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. So sit down and ask God, what area of your life needs work. Pray about it. Ask him, trust him. Listen for an answer. That’s one strategy for where do I begin? Another strategy for where to begin is to use your f six goals. So have you heard clay clay Clark talking about the f six goals? I love this so much because really for the most part, all of us have the same goals. They’re probably in one of six categories. You use f six to remember them, family, fitness, finances, faith, friendship and fun.
Those are our f six goals. So again, you can pray about it or you can say, let me just look at these f six and decide which area in my life needs the most work right now. Right? Um, Clay Clark actually looks at his f six goals every single morning and decided which one he’s going to. He’s amazing. Anyway. And then so you decide which area and then you find a quiet place with your coffee. You sit down and you close your eyes, get comfortable, and then you do what we EMDR, Emdr, therapist, call a future template where you visualize you successfully achieving whatever it is. So if you’ve decided that faith is the area that you’re going to work on, close your eyes and give yourself a, in your, in your mind, run a movie of you, what it looks like for you to be in. You’re the best version of yourself doing that or the better version of yourself.
When your faith, your faith life has improved, your fitness life has improved a, your family life has improved. So run a movie of what that looks like when your your in it, whenever you’re on point with that and then ask yourself, what did I see myself doing in that visualization that I am not doing now? What one little thing did I see myself doing in that movie, in my mind that I am not doing now? And that’s the perfect place to start, right? It could have been that, well, I got up an hour earlier. It could have been that I, I saw myself praying for three minutes in the morning. Um, and then choose that. Something that is small, no civic unsatisfying. Exactly. And one is what goes back to the idea of small. If we choose 10, that’s not small, that’s big. Then we’re back to big, broad and best start doing that action every single day.
Gretchen Ruben said, what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. So you choose that small action. You do it every single day. And then before you know it, it’s a habit. It’s a thing that you do. Um, and then it’s time to, to repeat that process. And she was a new small action. Um, so I’ll give you an example. I’ll throw my husband under the bus here. His goal, I don’t think he’ll mind me sharing with several thousand people on the Internet. His goal most recently was that he wanted, it was in his f six category of faith. He wanted to improve his faith practices. So the big and broad goal is I want to improve my faith practices, but we broke it down and he chose the small, simple, a small, specific, satisfying step of I will pray outlier out loud with my wife every morning after breakfast. Small, specific, satisfying. It’s small. It’s one short prayer. It’s specific. Not only because he’s going to do it out loud and after breakfast, but it’s satisfying also because he feels good right after. And I think him and our mood is lifted and our kids see that. So that small thing makes a large impact on the faithfulness of our family. So small things,
big results, that’s really good. And He’s good thoughts on that? Well, I think that you gave these nice ladies and men some amazing material to think about. You know, what are the, what are the areas that I get stuck in and I see a lot of patients get stuck into is we do like the thing that you said that really resonates is the best because even in my daily affirmation, I have a tendency to want to put, I naturally surrender control to God because that allowed, that empowers me to live giving my best effort. But really it’s not true. It’s to give high effort so that I can enjoy life without the stress of performance. So I think if, if you guys take a few things that I took and maybe Katie has one, but I think just set one goal. It’s specific and, and as a time on it and that you know what it is you, you, you know when you hit it, you know when you don’t and it’s not really complicated, that’s really good.
And then make it a goal that that is, is there that like is the next step of the better you not the the 10 10 years down the road better you the millionaire, the the lady that has already lost 50 pounds or the the mom that has all this time to date, her husband know then whatever the next best version of you, that’s the one that you reach for because that’s where God’s going to give you the grace to move. And I think if, if you guys would take those and just put them in your pocket and look at him all throughout the day, metaphorically, and if you have an apple watch or something, you can do that realistic link, then I think it will impact the way you function, live your life and then you’ll begin to develop these habits that create a lifestyle and a life that you are so glad to be a part of a man.
Well, Hey, I hope this was really helpful and you mentioned counseling, Edmond Christian Counseling. We have a team of therapists that Mary Biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques to join you or ever you’re at and your story today. Now for a lot of you, these videos are they suffice and they are great and I mean we welcome you to go to her Instagram page. Nuvision counseling Okc as well and check it out. We have a lot of good content there as well. But for some of you, you need more, and this is a great start, but for you and you know who you are, this isn’t the finish or maybe a friend that you want to recommend counseling too. So for those of you that needed the next step, reach out to us. You can do that through Facebook and the link. You can go to our website and nuvision counseling that Org.
We have videos and some resources and blogs that we love for you to check out and then contact us. Set up a time to talk to one of our amazing Edmond Christian Counseling therapists that would really, truly love to join you and your story and see what God can do when you guys joined together and allow them the freedom to move those obstacles out of the way and move towards his best life for you, a better life for you today. Hey, God bless. Have a happy new year. I’ll get where the out until February 1st then it’s thinking about love and Valentine’s Day and celebrating that car. So you guys have an amazing time to talk to you soon. Bye.