3 Powerful Strategies to Crush Your 2024 Goals
Episode 149
Are you tired of setting New Year's resolutions only to find them gathering dust by February? Does the fear of another year slipping by without real progress on your dreams keep you up at night? You are not alone in this cycle. In fact, a staggering 87% of us abandon our lofty goals by the second week of February. But what if this year could be different?
In this power-packed solo episode, you learn 3 powerful strategies to crush your 2024 goals.
After this Episode, You Will Be Able to ...
Craft a vision board that launches you into action.
Set courageous goals that stretch you.
Cultivate an environment that fuels your motivation
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About the host:
Danielle Cobo is an international female speaker for organizations, associations, and the public sector. She works with audiences to harness the grit and resilience to lead through change.
With over 15 years of corporate experience in the medical sales industry, she knows how to build high-performing teams that increase sales, productivity, and employee retention. Her expertise includes corporate resilience and burnout prevention.
Danielle is the author of “Unstoppable Grit: Breakthrough the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals” and hosts the globally top-rated podcast "Unstoppable Grit Podcast with Danielle Cobo.”
As a former Fortune 500 Senior Sales Manager, she led her team through downsizing, restructuring, and acquisitions to become the #1 sales team in the nation. As a result, she was awarded Region Manager of the Year. Her resiliency motivated her to earn four consecutive national Sales Excellence Awards in a male-dominated industry.
While her husband, a Blackhawk pilot in the Army, deployed to Iraq for a year, Danielle learned to balance a demanding job while caring for their energetic 1.5-year-old twin boys, who possess more energy than a squirrel after a triple espresso.
Danielle’s resilience led her to start her own business, helping others develop the grit, resilience, and courage to thrive in life and business.
Her tenacious attitude stems from being raised by an ambitious mother and recovering from being taken from her father and cast out at 17 years of age.
She is a two-time 60-mile walker and a monster truck driver in Louboutin’s.
Danielle has a bachelor’s in communication with a minor in psychology from the California State University of Fullerton, Certification in Inclusive and Ethical Leadership from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business, and accreditation in Human Behavior from Personality Insights. Inc., and Leadership from Boston Breakthrough Academy.
She is a member of the National Speakers Association, the Central Florida National Speakers Association Chapter, Innovation Women, and a former member of Working Women of Tampa Bay. Danielle serves on the Military Advisory, Workforce Development, and Women of Influence Committees of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce. She is also a contributing writer for Women's Quarterly Magazine.
Her experience includes serving as a Training Pillar on the Military Spouse Economic Empowerment Zone Committee and Career Transition Advisor for Dallas Professional Women.
Through Danielle's captivating storytelling, content-rich and motivational style, she empowers individuals and organizations to cultivate unwavering resilience, igniting a transformative path towards increased sales, productivity, employee retention, and collaboration.
About the show:
The Unstoppable Grit Podcast with Danielle Cobo explores the journeys of people who have overcome adversity and harnessed the grit and resilience to thrive in all areas of their lives, Guests share how they overcame difficult times - the strategies, mindset shifts, lessons they learned along the way, and actions that propelled them forward. From navigating career setbacks to overcoming personal obstacles, each episode is a testament to grit and resilience.
You'll learn how to develop the grit and resilience to lead yourself and others through change.
Join host Danielle Cobo, keynote speaker and author of "Unstoppable Grit: Break Through the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Your Goals." A new episode is released every Wednesday at 4:00 AM EST.
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Today, we're diving into the allure and the reality of New Year's resolutions.
According to U. S. News, the failure rate for New Year's resolutions is estimated at about 80%.
A study by the University of Scranton has found that 8% of people achieve their New Year's resolutions. That's only 8%.
Today we're diving into how to set and achieve New Year's resolutions, but we have a different take on it. Because our goal is to aim to be that 8 percent in 2024.
Exciting News! Unstoppable Grit Book is an Instant Bestseller!
Before we dive into today's episode, I'm excited to share some news with you. My book, Unstoppable Grit, hit the bestseller list within its first week of release. It hit the bestseller list in a couple of categories, including women in business and job hunting and career development, and it hit the top three within women in business and job hunting and the top new release for motivational self-help.
This is such an achievement, and I'm so excited to share this news with you.
What I'm most excited about is the feedback that I'm hearing from readers. Readers are sharing that this book has been transformative in their lives. They've said they've been able to read it within a couple of days and have found that the practical advice has helped them accelerate their career, setting themselves up for success in 2024, and helping them learn the tools and strategies so that they can prevent burnout and overcome it.
What I'm excited about is hearing what all of you think of the book Unstoppable Grit, which is available on Amazon for pre-order. Now, it doesn't ship until February 21st. However, I've got some exciting incentives when you pre-order and some giveaways. When you pre-order one book, you receive an advanced copy of Chapter 1 and a goal-setting guide, which is valued at $15, which is the price of the book.
When you order a copy for yourself, and one for a friend, you also receive the Break the Burnout Cycle Workbook, with a total value is 40.
Now, if you decide to do a book club, this is exciting.
When you order 10 copies or more you also receive the Unstoppable Success Master Course. So a lot of the principles that I teach in the book, there are activities and exercises throughout the book, but you'll also have the complements of the Master Course.
So you'll be able to see recordings and take the course. and also have additional workbooks to support and apply all the tools that I share in the book.
Again, my goal is that with this book, there's a transformation that happens within your life, if you are leading a team where you work for an organization where you want to provide your employees with the practical advice, tools, and strategies to transform their life,
Envision Your Victory
Becoming a bestselling author is a testament to the power of the principles.
When I started writing the book, I envisioned myself becoming a bestseller. It's something that I put on my vision board. And it's something that I looked at every single day, anytime I was feeling overwhelmed or exhausted or second guessing writing the book.
I poured my heart and soul into this book. It was 20 hours a week on average that I was writing for a year and a half. On top of running a business and serving my clients and also being a mom to twin boys and being a military spouse where the majority of the time I am the primary caretaker of our kids because my husband works a lot.
So there was a lot of heart time and effort poured into this book. And when I envisioned myself writing the book, I envisioned being the best-selling author. And while the title was something that I strived for and what comes with that title is when you become a best-selling author, it means that a lot of people find value in your book, and they're encouraging other people to purchase it as well.
So that's what the correlation meant for me and why I wanted to achieve it.
At the end of the day, I think about what I want my legacy to be in this world when that time comes and people are celebrating my life, and that is making an impact.
Intentionality as Your Compass
We're going to explore practical strategies and insights inspired by my experience of corporate resilience and personal transformation to make 2024 your year of real change and achievement.
Again, we want to aim to be a part of that top 8 percent that is achieving their goals, but I want to make sure that you stay till the end because I'm going to reveal the number one step that can make you part of the elite 8 percent by turning resolutions into realities.
Top 3 Steps To Achieving Your Goals In 2024
1. Creating a Vision Board
A vision board is a collection of pictures, words, and phrases of the goals that you want to achieve.
How you envision your life
What a vision board might be, and this is what I do every single year, I sit down with either my friends, my husband, or even my kids. We're starting to get into creating vision boards and I will cut out a bunch of magazines and cut out and print out images from the computer and create a vision board of images. It could be phrases, words, and pictures. So if there's a particular location that you want to visit. For me, it's Capri, Italy. It's always been on my vision board. And so that is an area that I want to visit.
Possibly it's time with your family. Maybe it's a particular vacation that you want to go on and spend more time with your friends. Maybe there are some career goals that you have, either getting promoted, going for a raise, or getting additional certifications or skill sets that you want, that you want to learn as well.
A vision board is a great way of manifesting what you want
I love the activity of doing it with friends because it engages in conversations. You get to hear what their goals are. You also get to see how you get to support each other as well.
It's a great way to spend some time with some friends and some family, share your goals, and get to know each other better.
So a vision board is one of the steps in creating the goals that you want and achieving the goals for 2024. And this is an exercise I do every single year.
I'll take my board and it's fun taking off all of the words and the images from what I have accomplished throughout the year. And every year I'm almost down to a completely fresh board because I've been so focused and intentional on what those goals are and ensuring that I am achieving them throughout the year.
It helps me stay focused
2. Creating Goals
Now I have a framework for creating goals. There are SMART goals, which are:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time Bound
However, I take a slightly different approach to this, and the reason is when I think about achieving goals, it's not just about achieving the goal that you want, but it's envisioning goals who you get to be when you achieve that goal, the COBO framework for goal setting.
C for Courageous Goal
Envision what is a courageous goal that you have that you want to achieve. Perhaps it's starting a new business and growing your existing business within a certain revenue.
What is that courageous goal that you have?
And when you're thinking of what that goal is, stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone.
I want you to think big. Attainable, but also big the C, that's the courageous goal.
O as Objective
What are the objective steps that you're going to take to achieve your goal?
I'm going to give you some specific examples. One of them may be starting a business. So perhaps that is Investing in a business coach. Perhaps it's building a business plan and creating your brand positioning. If you're creating different products, that would be an objective step that you're going to take.
If you're looking to get a new job, perhaps it's optimizing your LinkedIn profile and working with a career consultant.
Perhaps if you're looking for a promotion, it's practicing your interview questions or meeting with a mentor. But think about the objective steps that you're going to take and this is supported by the next step.
B for Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a way that you get to progress and measure the progress of achieving your goal.
So if your goal is to start a business, then put together some specific timelines of when you're going to get your LLC, when you're going to open up your bank account, and when you're going to work with a business coach on developing a business plan.
Put some specific time-bound times on when you're going to be accomplishing each of those objective steps so that you can monitor your progress. If you're looking for a new job or to get promoted, then the objective step that you're going to take is to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
Now, benchmarking might look like meeting with a career consultant and discussing ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile for SEO.
Looking at different strategies to build brand awareness, looking for different strategies on connecting with recruiters and hiring managers, so that you are optimizing your time and getting the results that you want faster.
If you're looking to start a business, then maybe your benchmark goal is a specific time and date that you're going to Build your business plan.
And the reason is I've always aligned myself with people who have had the success that I want to achieve and I want to learn from them so that I know what strategies work and what don't.
I suggest investing in yourself because I've seen firsthand the benefits when somebody is guiding us through the process.
O for Opportunities
And this is my favorite part about goal setting, envisioning the opportunities that are going to come about when you achieve your goal because that's who gets, that's who you get to be when you achieve the goals.
So if your particular goal is to start a business, then maybe it's an additional revenue stream for your family, and what that possibly means is maybe more freedom because you're getting out of debt, and perhaps it means you leave the corporate world and have more control over your time because you are now a business owner, or perhaps you're looking for a new job or a promotion, and you get to envision the opportunities from you taking the steps of working with a career consultant, optimizing your LinkedIn profile, and investing in new skills.
These steps are the backbone of how I have achieved my own goals from leading a top sales team to publishing a best-selling book.
So I share this with you because I'm a firm believer and I've seen firsthand how creating a vision board and creating Kobo Goals has helped me achieve the success that I have achieved as well as my clients.
3. Redefining your year by choosing one word
John Gordon, the author of One Word That Will Change Your Life, who is also an endorser of my book Unstoppable Grit, talked about the concept of finding a word that gives you meaning, passion, mission, and purpose.
The one word helps you focus on what matters most. And here's how you can find your word.
First, reflect on the year past and think about the upcoming one. Ask yourself what one word will give you meaning, purpose, and focus. Write down your thoughts and don't skip this step because this step is really important in achieving your goals for 2024 and being among that elite 8%.
You'll be amazed how one word can guide and transform your year. And this is a practice that I've also incorporated into my life for the past couple of years. And I found it to help me be in alignment with my vision by being hyper-focused on what is important to me and alignment with my core values as well.
So my one word for 2024 is intention and living with intention means deliberately choosing how to spend our time and where to direct our energy. It's about reducing burnout, deepening connections, and achieving aspirations.
The number one question I always get asked is, how do you run a business, be a mom to twins, be a military spouse, write a book, I've come to realize that being intentional with my time has always benefited me in preventing burnout.
And the times I do have burnout, going back to intention has always benefited my life and has helped me achieve the goals that I've achieved over the years.
So my word for 2024 is intention.
Specific Ways To Embody The Spirit Of Intentionality In Your Daily Life
1. Prioritizing Family Time
Being intentional about carving out moments for your loved one, strengthens the bonds and keeps us grounded. When my husband was deployed in 2019, there, I was very intentional about how I spent my time.
2. Establishing clear boundaries
Now, this can sometimes be a hard one. I know that I am a recovering people pleaser, so there have been many, many years that I have said yes to absolutely everything and have burnt myself out. But to set clear boundaries is to know when to work, when to rest, and when to play. Again, knowing when to work, when to rest, and when to play.
In today's world, the demands of work are increasingly growing. And it's no surprise that Deloitte did a study and found that 77% of people have reported burnout and experiencing burnout.
And so it's important that when we are being intentional about our time, that we're ensuring that while we are working, we're also intentional about setting aside time to rest and to play.
3. Choose your company wisely
Surround yourself with positive influences and distance yourself from negativity.
They say that when you're driving a car and you get road rage, that road rage fills up the car, and anybody that's in the car absorbs it as well.
And so when we're thinking about our mental health and we're thinking about what's the best way to achieve our goals, that's going to be choosing the company that we are around wisely and ensuring that we are limiting our interactions with negative people.
4. Begin with your top priorities
Each day identify and focus on the top three priorities for balanced progress. This has been a step that has helped create intention in helping me with time management and being focused.
5. Practice Mindfulness
Incorporate moments of mindfulness to stay present and reduce stress. We live in a world where we are constantly vying for attention. Some objects are constantly vying for our attention. Whether it's our phone or social media, Business meetings, conference calls, emails, whatever it is—family, kids, friends.
We must take moments to sit in silence and be present in the moment.
6. Cultivate gratitude
Research shows that when we focus on what we have, versus what we don't have, we live happier lives.
Be Intentional About Being Your Guiding Light
It's not about doing more. It's about doing what truly adds value to your life. And when we are intentional, that is one way of preventing burnout, overcoming burnout, and achieving our goals.
So when you're thinking about what are the goals that you want to achieve for 2024, ensure that you're doing the COBO framework, the courageous, objective, benchmark, and opportunities that are going to open up.
I believe that the demands of life are not about surviving. It's finding ways to thrive.
And this is your opportunity to write the success story that you are destined to be.
