#2 From Vision to Action: Smarter Goal Planning

What if we stopped chasing perfect resolutions and started building goals that actually fit our life? 

We dive into a practical, values-first approach to planning that trades pressure for purpose and turns vague wishes into steps you can repeat on your busiest days. Using the SMART framework as our backbone, we walk through each letter with a real-world example—improving cooking skills—so you can mirror the process for your own priorities.

If you’re ready to design goals that support your life instead of controlling it, this conversation will help you build a plan you can trust. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to tell us the one SMART goal you’re starting this week.

Journal Prompt: If my goals were designed to support my life instead of control it, what would they look like?

Resources Used Today:

The Ultimate Guide To S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Chapters

• 0:00 Birthday Check-In And Format Updates
• 1:19 From Vision To Action Overview
• 2:12 Why Resolutions Fail
• 2:49 SMART Goals And Values Alignment
• 3:53 S Is For Specific
• 5:24 M Is For Measurable
• 6:23 A Is For Achievable
• 7:54 R Is For Relevant
• 9:00 T Is For Time Bound
• 10:03 Combine Into A SMART Statement
• 10:26 Plan With Purpose Not Pressure
• 12:00 Minimum Success And Flexibility
• 13:15 Journal Prompt And Next Week Tease
• 13:59 Resources And Farewell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard a self-growth train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions, and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Francis Vareysi Vera Pacheco, and I am your tar God. First, I just want to say thank you for tuning back for another episode of the podcast. My dear passengers, yesterday, yes, yesterday, I finally turned 31. And oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I'm so happy. I'm looking forward to everything this new year of life is going to bring into my life. I just want to know what did you think about the first episode of the year? Because I gave you a lot of updates and I changed the format and I brought back the shushu part because honestly, I've been missing that part so much. And I just want to know like, did you like it? Did you not like it? Like, what are your thoughts so far? So make sure that you go to my social medias at the Self Growth Train Podcast and also check out the new website created by Carrie McCutcheon, the self-growth trainpodcast.com, and let me know what you think. Without further ado, here's today's episode. Welcome aboard, my dear passenger. Today's episode's title is From Vision to Action: Smarter Goal Planning. My dear passengers, last week we talked a lot about why our goals or New Year's resolutions do not come to fruition. And it's because there is this all or nothing mentality. And there's also this comparison that we inevitably do against others. We feel that we should be at a certain place because that's our fantasy, that's our dream. But we do not take care of our current selves. We do not take into consideration our current capacity whenever we're creating goals, which is why a lot of times we fail at them. But today, yes, today we're going to be learning how to create smart goals. We're going to learn how to develop smart goals that are align with our values. Because that's another thing, my dear passengers. If your goals don't align with your values, what are you doing? This is not the right way. You want goals that are aligning with the person that you currently are while you're working on the person that you're becoming. You don't want goals that are being pressured on you by society, by family, by friends, by your romantic partner, whomever. You want goals that are aligned with what you are striving to get out of life. So we're going to make sure that by the end of this episode, you have created at least three. Yes, I said three smart goals that you can work on for the near future. You'll get to decide how long, but it's not gonna be longer than a year. So that is the goal, okay? That is the goal. So hold me up to it. So I went online and I found an article on smart goals, and it's from Forbes. If you have never heard of Forbes, Forbes is a magazine for business and also for business-minded people. And I think that for the purpose of this episode and also for goals as a whole, you have to think of yourself as a business. Like you want to see yourself profit. So you have to start thinking of yourself as an entity that is a business, and your goal planning again needs to be aligned to your values. And this title of the article that I'm using today, it's called The Ultimate Guide to Smart Goals. And again, when I say smart goals, just remember it's s.m.r.t.goals. It's not just smart goals, it's just smart goals, okay? And it was written by their staff writer Brett Day. You see, according to Brett Day, sometimes people find SMART goal designing to be quite complicated. But if you take each letter and what it stands for as a separate compartment and you focus on that one specific letter and start writing your goal, then in the end, you're able to step back and combine all of them into a goal that is going to be possible to achieve. Therefore, what we're going to do is that we're going to discuss each one of the letters and what each one of them means. The first letter of Smart Goals is S, which stands for specific. And my dear passengers, for the purpose of this episode, I will be focusing on my goal of learning how to cook. Yes, I know it's surprising. I'm 31. I should know how to cook something. And I do know how to cook a couple of things, but I want to like really be good at it. But me saying I want to learn how to cook, that's not our goal. Okay. However, me saying I will improve my cooking skills by dedicating time and effort on a daily basis is specific. So try it with me. What goal are you thinking and how can we make it specific? Letter number two is M, which stands for measurable. In order for you to know whether your goal is coming true or not, you need to have a metric. Now, in my case, with learning how to cook, the metric that I have decided on is the amount of meals I cook in a week. So for me, I will be successful in my goal if I cook seven meals in a week. Okay. So how does that look like as a sentence? It will look like I will improve my cooking skills by having made seven meals in a week. That's doable. I'm not telling myself I have to cook three times a day or five times a day. Like I'm literally saying if you cook once a day, you have achieved your goal. What about you, my dear passenger? What is your metric? Letter number three is A for achievable. And now, my dear passengers, I've already said that I'm going to dedicate time and effort on a daily basis, right? To cook seven meals in a week, right? So that's that's what I have just said. But now we're gonna go a little bit deeper, and again, I want to go back on my daily basis structure, right? So now what I'm going to say for my attainable aspect of this goal is that I want to promise or commit to 30 minutes a day in the kitchen, okay? That is achievable. I can do 30 minutes a day in the kitchen without cooking a meal. Now, I might not be able to create a whole luster mist, but you know what? I can make an egg bacon cheese sandwich that takes less than 30 minutes, but I don't know, maybe I want to fluff it up with vegetables and I don't know, some other stuff. Nothing's coming to mind right now. But what about you, my dear passengers? How can you make your goal achievable? Like, let's think about it on a daily basis. Like, what little change can you make to make sure that you are heading the right way with your goal? Letter number four is R, which stands for relevant. My dear passengers, again, I have to ask you, is your goal aligning with your values, or are you deciding on a goal because you feel like society is telling you to do it, or maybe somebody else is telling you to do it? You need to make sure that whatever goal you're choosing is aligned with the person that you currently are and with the person that you are becoming, right? So, having said that, in my case, the sentence for relevance, right, would be I am committing to learning how to cook because I understand that it is something essential for my health and well-being. And I'm also cognizant of the fact that one day I want to have a family and I want to be able to provide healthy and fulfilling comfy food for them. What about you, my dear passengers? What does your goal look like when we focus on the relevancy of it to your life? We are finally at the last letter, and that is letter number five, which is T, and it stands for time bound. My dear passengers, in order for you to know whether you have achieved the goal or not, you need to set a time frame. And in my case, with the cooking goal, I want three months. Why? Because during the first month, I'm going to learn the basics, I'm going to have a lot of mistakes, and I'm going to face a couple of hurdles and obstacles. By the second month, I'm going to feel a little bit better in the kitchen. I'm going to get playful. I'm going to start exploring new methods, new techniques, and even new recipes. And then by the third month, I'm going to be so confident in the kitchen. I'm going to say, to 30 minutes, I can do an hour. And that is what I fantasize about. What about you, my dear passengers? What is your time frame and how does it look like in regards to your goal? Now that we know what each letter stands for and we have an idea of what each letter means to us, we're able to combine all of them together and make a SMART goal. And in my case, my SMART goal when it comes to learning how to cook looks something like this. I will improve my cooking skills over the next three months by spending 30 minutes a day making a meal. Talk about sweet, short, simple. That is exactly what your SMART goal should look like. And now I am wondering, my dear passenger, what does your SMART goal look like? Share it with me. Go ahead, send me an email, send me a message on social media, or even post it on my website. Let me know because I am here sharing you. You see, my dear passengers, the main message today is that we're planning with purpose, not pressure. Because alignment sustains what hustle can't, okay? Listen, goals are expressions of values, and this is why systems matter more than outcomes. Okay, it is important for you to design a system that is gonna work with your life. You cannot work from fantasy energy, you have to work with your current capacity, okay? Yes, at some point you're going to be able to do your goals in a very small time frame because you have spent time, effort, and skills have increased over the years. But where you are right now is exactly where you need to be, and you need to work with the person that is right here right now, which means that you need to define what the minimum version of success looks like for you and your goals at this moment. For me personally, with the cooking goal, my minimum version of success is cooking seven meals in a week. Again, I'm not holding myself to the standard that I have to do it on a daily basis. That again, that is the goal. But let's say I forget to cook one day or I'm not able to cook one day, then the next day I cook two meals instead of one meal. I am emphasizing that flexibility and adaptability is essential when it comes to our goals, okay? And last but not least, you have to remind yourself that you are showing up imperfectly. You're showing up imperfectly even when it feels that you want to give up. No, you are showing up imperfectly as you work towards becoming better, and that's it. I want to hear nothing about it. You are showing up and you're not giving up because we are in this together. Now, my dear passengers, let me give you the journal prompt of the day. So go ahead and grab your notebooks and grab your pens and write this down because this is a good one. All right, here we go. If my goals were designed to support my life instead of control them, what would they look like? Let me say this again for the people in the back. If my goals were designed to support my life instead of control it, what would they look like? Can I get a shhu shoo? My dear passengers, that was the end of today's episode. And let me tell you, I know what you're thinking. Francis, that was amazing. That was great. What do you have for me for next week? Well, let me tell you, next week we're going to be discussing motivation, why it is unreliable, and what works better. So make sure you put it on your calendar, you put it on your reminders, wherever it is that you get your notices, I guess. And make sure you tune in for next week's episode because it's going to be a good one as well. As always, all the resources used today have been added to the episode's description. Well, until the next step, dear passengers. Safe travels.

unknown: 14:08

Bye.