Start a goal club

Create accountability and make your priorities happen

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that if you are working toward a goal,
you should consider forming a club with other people pursuing

(00:24):
their goals. Even if they're pursuing different goals, you can
all support each other as you try to succeed. So
it's no secret that many of us fall by the
wayside with our goals. You meant to train for that
half marathon, or eat five servings of fruit and vegetables,

(00:45):
or apply to go back to school, but you know,
life gets busy. We tend to prioritize the things that
we know other people care about or expect. A goal
club helps create that accountability. Think of something like weight watchers. Yes,
the organization has provided education and such, but the group

(01:09):
meetings are a big reasons some people find it effective.
You're not trying to lose weight on your own, You're
doing it with a group of people who share your
goals and who are cheering you on. So if you
have a goal that you are perhaps struggling with, consider
forming a goal club of people who can help you
in your pursuit. This could look different for different situations,

(01:32):
but one possibility is to recruit a group of friends
or colleagues who share the same goal as you. Maybe
you and two of your colleagues are all trying to
save up for down payments for your first homes. You
can check in with each other weekly to make sure
you are keeping spending reined in and that you have
moved the proper chunk of each paycheck into a savings account.

(01:56):
Or maybe you and two friends are all trying to
write books. That's the goal club I am familiar with.
For fiction or memoir, you can check in weekly on
how many pages you have written, or perhaps for nonfiction,
the steps you have taken toward producing a proposal, finding
an agent, and so forth. You could also have a
goal club composed of people working toward different goals. Your

(02:19):
goal might be to save up for a down payment
on a house within three years. One friend might be
looking for another job, another might be trying to declutter
her house. But all of you are setting a goal,
identifying action steps, and tracking your efforts and progress, so
you are well positioned to encourage and support each other.

(02:41):
You can meet up for coffee once a week or so,
and discuss what you've done, or else text or email
your encouragement. For busy people, goal pursuit can fall to
the bottom of the to do list, But if you
know you're getting together with a goal club, you won't
want to go to the gathering unprepared, so you are
more likely to take the goal related actions you intended

(03:04):
to do. When you encounter obstacles or get discouraged, a
team of people is there to help you keep from
giving up. To make this work, it might help to
have a recurring agenda to keep your gatherings focused. First,
every one reports on the intentions they set at the
last meeting and what they've done since. Then, next, people

(03:26):
take turns reporting on any obstacles they've encountered, as well
as any questions or challenges they want feedback on. For
a smaller group, people could troubleshoot right after each person reports.
For a larger group, you could rotate which person you
troubleshoot for as a group during the session. Then every
one can set their intentions for what they'll do before

(03:47):
the next meeting. You may be wondering how a goal
club is different from the organic support you'd get from
your friends as you pursued a goal. But I think
the main way to think about this is to consider
a book club. You could just get together with friends
and maybe discuss books or maybe not, but people join

(04:07):
book clubs in order to know that everyone is expecting
to read the same thing and that they will be
getting together to discuss what they have read. In a
goal club, you meet regularly and with an agenda to
focus on your goals. You are not catching up on
life in general and maybe discussing your goal pursuits and
maybe not. Everyone is aligned on why you are getting

(04:31):
together and how you'll spend your time, and that makes
it more likely that you will achieve your goals. If
you create a goal club, I'd love to hear about it.
You can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

(04:55):
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(05:19):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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