How to set big goals you'll actually keep in 2023

Buckle up, folks! This is an intense episode that everyone needs to listen to, but I mean that in the best way possible.

You see, the last couple of months of the year are a bit strange. We start winding down as humans and in our professional lives. We make jokes like, "That sounds like a problem for January George!" as we kick projects and tasks to the new year. 

🔎 Related: Change, discomfort, and breakthrough moments (HubHeroes Podcast)

We hyper-focus on goal-setting and resolutions, and we look ahead to January with promise and excitement for a fresh start. There's just a few problems with this approach that seemingly crop up year after year:

• As soon as we are back at the office or at work, we already feel behind. We're setting goals for months that have already started.
• We also have to play catch up by taking care of all of the little tasks we left for the January versions of ourselves. 
• We set resolutions for the sake of it, knowing full well it won't take long for us to totally fall off the wagon ... but hey, we're going to try this year, right?
• Or, we're totally on board with goal-setting and resolutions, but we don't realize how we're mentally undercutting our ability to succeed with our goals — both in mindset and in the goals we choose to chase. 

And this annual emotional rollercoaster of limitless motivation, complete overwhelm, and sinking disappointment is why we're taking a break from HubSpot this week.

Instead, we're talking about how we humans — no matter what roles we play within our organizations or at home — approach goal-setting at New Year's (and all year round!) ... as well as how you're likely getting in your own way on your pathway to success.

By the way, I told you to buckle up at the start of this for a reason. Liz and I dig deep, get personal about our failures and triumphs, and dish out a little tough love. It's an episode you won't want to miss! 

Here's what we cover in this episode ...

• Why do most of us fail with our goals?
• What are the flawed ways in which we approach goal-setting?
• What are the conscious and subconscious ways we sabotage ourselves?
• What does great goal-setting look like?
• How do you wrestle with the two Fs — focus and fear — the two killers of success?
• Are SMART goals actually very smart or very stupid?

And, honestly, that's only the beginning ... 

YOUR ONE THING FROM THIS EPISODE

We actually broke our own rules this week and didn't synthesize our advice into a "one thing." Shame on us, right? Instead, Liz and I opened up and shared our own personal goals about what we're looking to achieve in 2023.

So, with that in mind, here's what I will say — be honest when take stock of how you may be standing in your own way after you listen to this episode. That's where your true journey to success begins.

RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Will by Will Smith

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by silo departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace, Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge. Never fear hub heroes.

Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub heroes, it's time to unite and activate your your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that both Devin and Max are currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin and Max during the show are that of their own and in no way represent those of their employer.

Liz Moorehead: Welcome back to the Hub Heroes podcast. I am Liz Murphy, your official Hub Heroes wrangler and content strategy nerd. And with me today, as always, George b Thomas, HubSpot helper, catalyst for growth.

George B. Thomas: Yes. Yes. I love growth. You know what else I love, Liz? I love coming out of a desert.

And this episode is actually the coming out of the desert episode because I do believe next week, we will have other people with us. Max will be back. Devin might be back. We might have guests happening. All sorts of fun stuff.

But it it has been the season, 'tis the season, Christmas, New Year's, which for some sense of strangeness has been a little bit of a desert where the listeners, although they've gotten value, have only been able to only been able to listen to you and I. Now moving forward, we're gonna go back to our normal scheduled program.

Liz Moorehead: And me being a woman, I'm just gonna take the fact that you called me a desert personally, and that's fine.

George B. Thomas: That's not exactly what I meant.

Liz Moorehead: I am going to remember that when I decide not to throw softballs at you later this afternoon during our conversation today. Yeah.

George B. Thomas: There we go.

Liz Moorehead: You already let the cat out of the bag. We are in the netherworld, the weird in between liminal space between Christmas and New Year's, where everybody is simultaneously the calmest they have ever been because they have zero sense of space and time, and also probably the most stressed they've ever been. But before we dig into our conversation today, I'd like to ask you, have you been able to take any time off? This is you and I were talking about this earlier today about making the point to take time off when you own your own business and how we both challenge been challenged with that.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. It's funny. The short answer, Liz, is yes. I have been able to take some time off. However, there's a longer answer to that shorter answer in that when I was an employee, man, did I love the fact that we could get like this extended amount of time off in between Christmas and New Year's.

Now what's funny as an owner of my own company, that time scares the bejesus out of me. And I can get into why that is, but that slow down time scares me a couple different angles. But I have, again, taken care of myself, taken care of family, and have taken some time.

Liz Moorehead: Yeah. Me too. I was telling you earlier, and I'll just share with the audience. Your girl, Liz, went wild. She went to HomeGoods and bought laundry baskets and utensils, and that's how Liz got some downtime finally.

George B. Thomas: That is hilarious.

Liz Moorehead: I know. I know. I'm super crazy. I haven't changed much since the 24 year old who made a lot of, let's just call them, decisions while living in Fort Lauderdale. But that's another episode.

So today, I already alluded to this. It is a weird week.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: It is a weird time of year. Yeah. Because we spend part of November like, as soon as we get after Halloween, right, we free fall right into Thanksgiving if you celebrate, and then we start heading toward the holidays, And everything's gonna wind down. And we all start making jokes like, that sounds like a problem for January, Liz. And then we kick the can down the rope.

And then January gets here. And as we're sitting in this week, we're sitting here making resolutions. We are thinking about goals. We're looking ahead to this new chapter and this new leaf, and there's just one tiny problem. When everybody gets back to work, it all goes completely out the window because you have 2 things that are happening at the same time.

You are setting goals for a new year that has already started.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Daylight dollar short. Oops.

Liz Moorehead: Yep. And then you're also dealing with all of the little presents you left yourself for January, Liz, for January, George. And you're, like, December, Liz was an asshole. And I do not like her at all.

George B. Thomas: That's the thing. Yeah. You hate yourself. And anytime that you can set yourself up for success is a good thing. But the idea of winding down and the holidays and not loving yourself enough for January, Liz, January, Bobby, January, Chris, January, Rob, whoever, to say, oh, November, December, Liz was freaking rock star.

Hey. What's happening right now, Liz?

Liz Moorehead: No. Liz is having a mild existential crisis sometimes when she looks in the mirror. But that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you today. I'm going to pretend it's really to help our audience, but really, I am the audience.

George B. Thomas: Ah, there you go.

Liz Moorehead: Hi. It's me. I'm the problem. Hi. It's me.

No. I wanted us to have a conversation today about goal setting and Yeah. Diffusing this New Year's overwhelm. Not just because I want advice, but you and I have already been touching on some conversations about this over the past 2 weeks. And you started saying super duper smart things.

I'm like, please zip it. We obviously need to record this. So that's what we're talking about today. The flawed approach with which people take personal and professional goal setting on behalf of themselves or their companies or their teams and also diffusing and taking it down a notch with this overwhelm we feel once we get back.

George B. Thomas: I can't wait for this conversation. The funny thing is it's like a Grand Canyon. You're gonna have people who are listening to this who are like, I don't need no stinking goals. Goals are for chumps. And then you're gonna have the other side of this that people like myself who are, like, super goal oriented.

We live, eat, drink, breathe by our goals, but are also like me for many years, jacking that whole goal system up really bad. And then there's other people who might be listening to me like, yep. I'm good. I don't even know why I'm gonna listen other than George and Liz are funny, so I'm gonna listen to the rest of this podcast because I am the goal king or queen. Those are the people that I think we're talking to, and I think everybody actually has something to learn through this episode.

Liz Moorehead: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because I think there's also something to be said for the in betweeny people. And I almost think you're an in betweeny person, George, because you said something earlier this week that really clicked. It made my brain go, wait.

What? You said, I don't like goals. I'm like, I'm sorry. Hold on a second. So why don't we start there?

What don't you like about goals? Because you just sat there and said you're a hungry, goal oriented machine. And the reason why I went like a confused Corgi, was because you and I talk about your goals all the time.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: And so that was, like, a very confusing thing for me. So let's start there. Let's talk about what's the problem with goal setting in your eyes?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. I've had a love hate relationship. Right? I've loved goals. I've hated goals.

I've loved to hate my goals, but it's because I've had to tweak or turn it into something that works for me. And that in there is the first problem I wanna talk about. When everybody hears the word goals or when most people hear the word goals, it is this very static. It has to be that thing. This is what everybody teaches.

This is what they say. Oh, and if I make it an extra smart goal because it's specific, measurable, attainable. Like, there's the everybody tries to put a blueprint to what a goal is. Everybody treats it as a singular static thing, and so it lacks the ability to be nimble, pivot, transition. So the biggest thing is just the way that people inherently think about goals.

That is a problem. The other thing that I'm gonna add in here is that people will some people. If you're like me, you've done this. You will not wait to get to your goal before you create an additional goal. Therefore, you never really arrive at a place of success, joy, or even being able to measure truly the impact and everything around the goal.

Because now all of a sudden we're back off on, like, leg 2 of what shouldn't be leg 2, but should be race number 2. Anyway, so those are some things that really frustrate me historically about goals.

Liz Moorehead: But you said something there about people getting really hung up, like, it's gotta be a smart goal. Now to be fair, I think there is something to be said for the fact that sometimes there is a goal and then there is fluffy nonsense that makes no sense. And I think the specific, measurable, attainable, time bound, all that stuff, I think that is helpful. But I will say there is a part of me that agrees with you. Because I told you I've told you about this.

I did an experiment earlier this year where for 4 months, every single day, I took 15 minutes at every morning, which is amazing because I literally never keep any habits. But I was gonna challenge myself to do this. I had 2 sets of goals I wrote out every single day. I had 4, 5 year goals that I wanted to attain. And then for each of those goals, I had something I was gonna do that day to move that goal forward.

Your agility piece is absolutely correct because I was convinced that I had the right goals right out of the gate. I was convinced that for 4 months, I was going to be writing down the same 5 year plan with the same types of goals most of the day. And they were all specific a specific well, Jesus. Specific, measurable, attainable, all that good stuff. Right?

It took me a month to realize I had set the wrong goals. And I realized that part of the process for me is that you have to learn what good goals even look like. And then, like you said, be willing to pivot. I also had to sit with some goals for a while to realize, I'm really glad I set this goal because now I realize I don't want it. Or am I going after the wrong thing?

And so I think you brought up a really good point there, George, is that and I wanna split the baby here a little bit. I think it is important to be specific and all of those different things about your goals. But the agility piece is so important. You have to get good at creating goals. And I think a lot of people are just like, well, I set a goal.

I did it. And they don't ever stop to question whether or not the goal was even valid in the first place.

George B. Thomas: So there's so much in there that I wanna unpack on what you said, and I agree with the fact that, yes, it does have to be a smart goal. It should be specific. It should be measurable. It should be attainable. I I'm somewhat jesting at the amount of times that I've heard HubSpot Academy say start with a SMART goal.

So I do agree with all that. Now here's the thing. You dropped little nugget bombs along the way. One is you said the word habit. That's the thing.

If you create a goal and don't have habits daily, weekly, monthly, that align with that goal, you are woefully inadequate to reach where you were trying to go. By the way, if you have made a goal without habits, you've actually set a New Year's resolution that you won't follow. Anyway, that ties back to another piece of content that you can go check out on the website. But here's the thing. You also mentioned past habits.

The fact that you are documented. And I would challenge anybody listening to this podcast. If you don't have your goals and you're tracking them in a notebook, on a whiteboard, on a wall with crayons, on the sidewalk with chalk, I don't care how. But if you are not documenting and tracking and looking at on a daily basis, your journey to that goal, you will get lost along the way.

Liz Moorehead: That is it. Okay. First of all, that reminds me of something a very dear friend of mine. She's the head of web at Media Junction, Jesse Lee Nichols, always said. If a process isn't documented, it's not a process.

And if your goal isn't documented, it's not a goal, it's a wish.

George B. Thomas: Without a doubt. So that a couple of things people can take away. Right? I gotta set a goal. It has to be an intelligent goal.

I have to be limber with that goal to make sure it's truly where I wanna go once I head out on the journey. It's like figuring out that you're heading to Starbucks, but along the way, there was a Dunkin' Donut special buy 1 get 1 free. I'm navigating to the buy 1 get 1 free. I'm just gonna throw that out there. So having that flexibility, forming the habits, the GPS around where you're trying to go, and documenting along the way.

So for instance, as a business owner, you gotta get an app that tracks your mileage when you're on business trips so you can write that junk off. Right? So, like, it's all of these little micro pieces that you can start to put together that will set you up for future success. Then again, we go back to the thing of and what happens when you get there, but we'll get to that.

Liz Moorehead: So I wanna talk to you about something that you alluded to when we first started this discussion, which is this idea of goal setting, but you're looking in the rearview mirror with the wrong lens, with the wrong perspective. Can you talk to me about that and what that means?

George B. Thomas: And I don't even know if it's the wrong lens or the wrong perspective for 90% of the people that might be like me. And that is you're chasing goals, and you don't ever actually turn around and look back. You don't whether it be in your rearview mirror, which things may look larger than they actually are or whatever. Right? Or you're actually stopping and physically pivoting mentally back to look at where you were and where you are now and judge it and look at where you wanna go.

I literally on my whiteboard, Liz, not everybody knows this. I share this with a few people who are close. I have on my whiteboard in my office. I walk in on a daily basis, in and out. And on the whiteboard that I can see when I'm walking in and out, it literally says you've come a long way since 23rd.

And, actually, the funny thing is a boss from back when I was an employee was like, dude, I need you to I need you to write that down. I wrote it down, and it stayed there because it's so impactful to remind me, hey. You've gotta stop. You've gotta have that success moment or at least a breather. Imagine if you were trying to climb Everest and you didn't have 4 points along the way.

You're gonna die. And many of us have put out sales, marketing, or company goals, and we don't have rest points to look at the journey we've made. And guess what? You're I mean, you're not gonna die. It it's not that deep, but it's gonna get stressful.

It's gonna be hard to keep going. You have to stop. You have to look backwards whether if that's in a rearview mirror or literally just stopping long enough to get your feet under you and figure out where you should go next.

Liz Moorehead: I'm having a bit of a moment, and it's funny. I I sometimes wish people or maybe it's good that they don't, because you and I always have a bunch of pretty deep life conversations. Because you and I walked a a similar, albeit staggered entrepreneurial path over the course of this year with both of us going out on our own. And I talked to you earlier this week about how I was really struggling. I prior to going off on my own, I was crazy busy, lots of stuff going on, was working at an agency, and I was really looking forward to going out on my own.

But I also had the structure to create the time for myself, and I had an on and an off switch. And this past week has been exceptionally painful for me because every time I felt like stepping away, I thought I was doing something wrong, that I was criminalizing downtime. And so the funny thing is that I'm as I'm looking toward this year, I think a lot of times when people create goals, they get so focused on output, and they don't realize that balance is a verb. A dear friend of mine, Allison Loft, has taught me that balance is a verb. And I'm looking ahead and I'm really being more holistic about my goals.

Right? I wanna show up and I have revenue goals. I have goals with my clients. I have all of these different things that I'm doing. But none of that matters if I don't counterbalance that with the human piece of it.

And I think that's another thing that people often get wrong. They get so hyper focused on the revenue, the KPIs, the whatever, that they don't balance that out with some sort of, so when are you gonna turn your brain off, chief?

George B. Thomas: Well, so

Liz Moorehead: it's sit down and journal? When are you gonna do your thing?

George B. Thomas: It's it's so funny, Liz, because when I hear you say that, 2 things come to my brain. Number 1 is this. If I chose to drive from Charlotte, North Carolina to, let's just say, Whitehall, Montana, that was my goal And I got in my car and I just started driving. Do you know how far I would get? I would get as

Liz Moorehead: far runs out.

George B. Thomas: As my gas runs out. Because in that goal, I didn't plan to stop at a gas station, or I didn't stop to plan to go to the bathroom, or I didn't stop to plan to go eat. I wasn't paying attention to the micros. I just said, I gotta go. I'm gonna hop in the car.

I'm gonna drive to Whitehall, Montana. I'm not making it because we need those rest areas. There are rest areas along the road of life for a reason. Now the second part of this that I think is terrible because I too have, let's just use the word used, criminalized this ability to take time for myself. And I've battled profusely against this.

And what I figured out and I've learned and I think that historically, many of us humans are bad at this. To not do that, you have to have the ability to give yourself grace.

Liz Moorehead: What does that look like? You know what? I'm gonna push you here for a second, and I know you've got an answer to back it up. I'm not saying you are wrong. What I'm saying is give yourself grace is something I see a lot on Instagram posts.

And I apologize on behalf of white women everywhere for ruining that phrase because that's what's happened. On Instagram, a bunch of women in felt hats, shilling coaching courses are all about giving grace. But honestly, as someone who works a lot and is in this industry, pardon my French, but what the flippity flip does that mean, and what does that actually look like in practice? Give me examples.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. So here's the thing. I mentally have to go through a process. George, you have been owning a business for 6 months. You have been doing 8 to 10 hour days.

Some weekends, you've been working a couple hours a weekend. Yes. You gave yourself the freedom, the ability, the grace to take some downtime and you've even gone on 2 vacations in the last 6 months, which is amazing. However, I got to this week and by the way, those vacations were easy. I got to this week and I had a whole turmoil of things going around in my brain about, oh, this agency is closed for the entire week.

That agency is closed for the entire week. Many of my clients are closed for the entire week. So talk about quiet. Like, my inbox is the most quiet this week it has been, but that's joyous because what that means is no meetings, no inbox to wrangle means I actually have time to work and get caught up or get ahead. Here's the problem.

I sit there and I'm frustrated because I wanna take some time. But I'm like, no. I should be working. This is the opportune time to be working. And so what I have to do is go through that process and be like, hey, big dummy.

You have been laying it on the line for 6 months. An 8 hour period of going and doing lunch with your wife, going to Ikea and doing some shopping, cleaning your office, whatever, is not going to kill you. You have to this is gonna be hard for people to hear. You have to let go. So when I say give grace, I mean, you have to let go of the reins for a hot minute.

You've gotta let go of being a control freak in everything for your business and your marketing and your sales for a minute. Yeah. And you just have I know. But you have to just it'll be okay. Like, I literally posted on social, by the way.

I was gonna work on Christmas Eve, had about 6 hours of thing. Yeah. But guess what? I went ahead and realized Monday will be here in no time flat. So you have to find those times.

And I think a lot of this too. When I say grace, freedom, I also think there's a level of this that is self awareness. I need this more than I need that and definitely more than they need these things.

Liz Moorehead: So the control freaking me, you saw me going through I think I went through the 5 stages of grief when you told me I had to let go. This isn't frozen. I'm not doing it. You can't make me, but also accurate. I feel so seen and heard and understood because that's exactly how I felt this week.

It was just like, who do I get to play with? It's George. That's it. There's no one else around. And it was so weird.

It was so quiet that for one moment, I was like, is everyone mad at me? Why is no one saying anything? Hello. I felt like an insane person, but here is what I wanna get to. Right?

We're sitting here and we're talking about the flawed ideas around goal setting. Right? Where this sense of overwhelm comes from. And it sounds like a lot of it is self inflicted. Like, we do actually all have things to do.

December, Liz, let's be honest, is and will be considered an asshole historically from now and forever. But I'm also an asshole all times of the year, so that's really not new. But let's get into this.

George B. Thomas: Not really. It's fun to say on a podcast, but, no, you're not really. And, also, I have to do a ding. This might be the most a hole using episode that we've ever had thus far. Just gonna tell you.

Liz Moorehead: Welcome to the desert. Welcome to the desert. No. But I would love for us to talk a little bit about what are the other ways in which we are harming ourselves, because we're gonna talk about how you actually set good goals, what that actually looks like. But I think before we can even do that, we need to accept we are the problem and we are inflicting wounds.

So we've talked about giving ourselves grace. We've talked about, do we even understand what good goals look like? What are some of the other self inflicted wounds where it's, let's remove the pain first before we add new processes in?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. It's funny. When you ask me that question, my brain goes in 2 different directions, Liz.

Liz Moorehead: Of course, it does.

George B. Thomas: It always does. It's literally gonna be a t shirt. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want a t shirt that says hub heroes, my brain is going in 2 different directions. You just hit me up on social. Let me know because I think it should be a t shirt.

But here's the thing. And I'm not saying that the listeners have a bad relationship with this or these things or they have a good. I don't know because I don't know all the listeners that are listening. Uh-huh. But there are 2 things that have fundamentally helped me kick goals in the butt.

And that is a healthy relationship with focus and a healthy relationship with fear.

Liz Moorehead: My two favorite f's.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. A lot of people have a relationship when they hear the word focus that it does mean singularity, One thing. That's all we can focus on.

I have this mindset of focus simply means that I have to divide the focus on what might be the most important 2 things or 3 things. Again, in an article that went out earlier that talks about forks. Right? And focusing on the forks in life and spiritually, mentally, physically, personally, professionally. And if you can think about how can you take this brain, this bucket of focus, how can you stop long enough to figure out here are the 2 or 3 things for this time period that help me get to this goal, which by the way, I'll break that down even further in a little bit.

Now all of a sudden, you could be moving micros. I'll talk about 1 brick at a time to build a wall in a little bit too. But you can be moving micros in these forks because you have the designated focus for the thing that you're trying to do. But bigger than focus, I think. It's the all time thing that I've seen paralyze most individual humans and companies is this relationship around fear and that you can actually fail understanding, at least for me personally, fear actually stands for false evidence appearing real.

We never fear things in the past. We only fear things in the future. Therefore, it really can't be real. It's false evidence, shit we're making up in our brain, that appears real. Oh my god.

And is it excitement energy or is it fear? Because it's pretty much the same thing medically if you were to measure what was happening in your brain and body at that time. But here's the thing, it ties into failure. I don't necessarily and this is why, by the way, for the past 10 years, I've been willing to throw out pieces of content that some people might be like, oh, that's half baked. Oh, that's not oh, maybe oh, there's this little tweak and change.

Or now it's update, and it can I don't care?

Liz Moorehead: Because every piece anything.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Every piece of content that I've ever put out there is I know it's not good enough. I know it's not finished, but it's out there because it's a learning lesson. I don't it's not failure. That piece of content didn't fail.

It's just, nope, not gonna make it like that again. But I and as you do it, as you learn along the way, and I am a big advocate of learning it along the way. So focus and fear, like, you have to have a healthy relationship with those. Otherwise, you're killing yourself when you talk about just this fundamental goal conversation that we're having.

Liz Moorehead: I listened to this incredible podcast. It's Adam Grant who wrote Bulls Think Again in Crill, and he does Work Life. It's an incredible podcast. I can't recommend it enough. And there is this one specific episode where they talk about imposter syndrome.

One of the pieces of advice that he gave in that episode, which has stuck with me to this day, is if you were to go to court and your fear had to prove in a court of law that you will fail, would it win? And the answer is always no. And in fact, I have, I have someone in my life who deals with in my family who deals with lots of anxiety and panic. And one of the things that I've talked to them about when they've come to me and we've talked about these things is that if you stack the evidence, the only thing you seem to be bad at is predicting failure. Because so far, on paper, nothing has gone wrong and you've gotten everything you've wanted.

Now that doesn't mean you're not gonna hit bumps in the road. That doesn't mean everything's going to be easy. That doesn't mean a content wizard is gonna come down for the sky and make all that content for you. It won't happen. That wizard doesn't exist unless you hire me.

My name is Liz. But that is the thing I find fascinating about it. And it's something I struggle with a lot. I get into freeze modes with it. And I think you're absolutely right.

One of the reasons why New Year's overwhelm is such a huge feeling, and I have to work on diminishing this within myself as well, is that we are sitting here making up insane stories about expectations, perceived failures that will never happen. And it's distracting ourself us from actually putting energy where it needs to go. Now, to be clear, I sound amazing up on my pedestal and super awesome about it. But I literally was not joking about having an existential crisis earlier. I had a lunch at my desk that went 90 minutes, and I'm like, there goes that time.

Because I got stuck in my head about something that was not real.

George B. Thomas: So much that I have to talk about right there. So first of all and this ties back to almost this whole conversation, but when you were saying your last little bit there, the saying shot into my mind, if you do what is easy and life will be hard, if you do what's hard and life will be easy. If December, George and Liz would just do what's hard, life would get easy in January. But we do what's easy in December, And so January gets difficult. So again, if you do what is easy, life will be hard.

If you do what's hard, life will be easy. And that is professional, personal, all the way around. But you mentioned 2 words that get me fired up.

Liz Moorehead: I am saw it happening.

George B. Thomas: Fired up. When you said imposter syndrome, like, here's the thing. I get it, but it doesn't need to necessarily be a thing. Imposter syndrome happens when you are measuring yourself against others. If I could just be like Dharmesh Shaw, if I could just be like Remington Begg, if I could just be like Liz Murphy, if I could just be like and I could keep naming people that I think are way smarter than I am, that have more potential than I do, but I can't do that.

And one of the things that helped me when because I went on this whole, like, couple year listening to every inspirational, like, speaker known to man trip. And one thing that helped me with imposter syndrome because I I still face it and I used to face it real bad, but I have a way to juke myself back into it. And as Matthew McConaughey tells a story about somebody asking him who his hero is, who like and so he goes on this story about it's me in 10 years. And if you are measuring yourself against yourself in 10 years, there is no impostor syndrome. That person doesn't exist yet.

And what's funny is his story goes on and he says, the guy came back to me in 10 years. He goes, have have you reached your hero? No. My hero is me in 10 years. That's not impostor moment.

Yeah. That's not impostor syndrome because the right focus on the best you instead of the wrong focus, why can't I be like them?

Liz Moorehead: So a couple of things I wanna pack and unpack there because my mind is going in 2 different directions. Look. I can do it too. First one is quick. He has a questionable relationship apparently with showering and deodorant, but damn if Matthew McConaughey isn't also a Bongo playing wise man.

The other thing too, which I think hits on the next piece of this. Right? Because in order to do great goal setting, in order to diffuse the overwhelm that people are feeling right now going into next week and quite frankly, the rest of this month. It really doesn't matter when you're hearing this because let's face it. Do you know what my least favorite joke was when I or not joke, but the least favorite saying that people would say when I worked at an agency?

It's the end of January. We're already through 3rd of the way through the Q1. Oh, my God. I hate you. Please don't say that.

But you're kidding on another thing that is standing in the way, which is the comparison trap. Not giving ourselves credit, looking outside of ourselves instead of looking within ourselves. This is way deeper than I expected this conversation to go, but I am loving this.

George B. Thomas: Well, the thing too, and this goes back to documentation and the fact that when people say nice things about us, when we create moments of just amazing user experience, we're not tracking that. We're not documenting it. We're not internalizing it. And, again, this is something I do. I literally have a Slack channel that is team victories.

And every time somebody says something, does something, and it should make us feel good, it goes in that team victory. And people are like, George, you have a team? Yes. There's already a little bit of a team. Anyway, that's a whole another podcast.

But there's team victory so that everybody can get the feeling and understanding of the impact that they're making in the world with the things that we're doing. Because here's the thing. And, again, this becomes a way bigger conversation than goals, but it's important to the goal conversation because if you are setting your goals on the fact that you wanna be successful or you are setting your goals on the fact that you wanna be significant, those goals will be dramatically different.

Liz Moorehead: Okay. So I'm gonna play devil's advocate here because I know a lot of the people in our Hub Heroes community. Some of them are like us. Right? They're entrepreneurs.

They're the business owner. We feel like I at least remember feeling this way when I was a cog in the machine even at the best organizations. I wasn't the person sitting at the top. I didn't feel like I was enabled or empowered, not because I worked at a bad organization. Trust me, they were all in on professional development.

But when you're the marketer, when you're the mid level, when you're the the knowledge worker inside of an organization, you may not necessarily be the one at the top who gets to decide whether or not the goals are significant or success based. Sometimes, we have their goals that are set for us. So how do you reconcile this do I wanna be successful or significant mindset for someone who isn't at the top directing where we're all gonna go in New Year.

George B. Thomas: See, there's a flawed mindset right there. Fact that the top leads. You can lead from the back seat. Listen. I was a number 2 at several agencies, and I was the leader.

And I've had people say, dude, you've been leading for years. Yeah. But I was leading from the back seat. It's always been about significance even though a manager was handing me KPIs and goals. I just had to figure out how to make their wants fall in line with my strategy and my plan for where I wanted to go and they would go along as well.

K. So first of all, if you're stuck and or feel stuck, because you're not stuck, by the way. It's just a feeling. If you feel stuck, realize, internalize, you can lead from whatever seat you're in. Because let me give you a dirty little secret.

Most people at the top, maybe they're just holding on. They're just holding on because this train is running fast. And they're not sure how to manage 30, 50, a 150 people. They're not sure how to have 7, 1723 meetings in a day. They're not sure how to get 2,000 emails out of their inbox.

So realize, while they're great at forward facing, I got this ish, I'm the leader. In the dark hallway chasm, they can actually curl up in the fetal position and cry. They're probably glad that there's some people in the middle taking the reins and leading.

Liz Moorehead: The other thing I would say to that too, one of my favorite bosses that I ever had, his name was Sean Quill. I worked with him when I was at LivingSocial many moons ago. And he said and this is something where there's a reason why people don't leave bad companies, they leave bad leaders.

Intro: But one of

Liz Moorehead: the things that he stuck with that stuck with me when I embarked on my own people management career, because I used to manage teams of, like, 17 people, was that, I work for you. You don't work for me. And he always said that and that always really stuck with me. But the reality is that whether or not you have your own Sean Quill, someone who has that mentality, someone who allows someone to drive from the back, because some leaders don't, the reality is that you actually are still in control of the goals that you set for you. Yep.

And sometimes that goal can mean things that are for the organization. Or if you do not feel empowered, enabled, uplifted to do the things to grow the way you need and want to grow, maybe one of your goals is, well, as a human, am I in the right place? And that's a scary thing to say because I've spent over a year or so battling against doing taking the step that I needed to take, which was going out on my own. That's why it hurts so dang much. Now I walked the path that I was meant to walk, but this is where we get back to the importance of goal setting.

And that George, I gave you a question I knew that would make you cranky. I knew that. Yeah. Because I think people seed control emotionally. Now granted your sphere of control may not be may but you may not be controlling the things that you want to control.

You may not be in charge of what the KPIs are. But I think you do need to be understand that you are in control of how you show up. You are in control of where you are, and you are in control of when somebody asks you a question, you give an honest answer being that stakeholder at the table. And I think that's a key part of the responsibility piece.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. It's so funny because for me, I can tell you what that looks like. And I can also tell you as I look around the ecosystem that I live in, I find this to be similar in other folks. What that looks like is that you have a rooted, like, foundation in servanthood. Right?

Another thing to Google is servant leadership. And that's the thing. Like, when I have people that work with me, work for me, however you wanna put it, I am willing to take out the trash. I'm willing to look at the 50 forms in HubSpot. I'm willing to redo a 1,000 landing pages if need be because I'm here to serve.

How do I enable you to be the best you can be? By the way, we have this conversation a lot when it's like sales marketing and the c suite looking out externally. How do I enable you as the customer to be able to buy easier? How do I enable you as the potential lead to actually go through the buyer's journey in a streamlined process? The problem here and, again, if we're helping other people inside of a organization hit their goals and if we're trying to focus on the right goals, it has to be not only a conversation of external, but a conversation of internal as well to these things that we're talking about.

Liz, I wanna hit one other piece because you were talking and, like, thing a thing popped in my head. You said something about being, am I in the right place? Right? I think there's a plethora of those types of things, by the way, that could align with your goals. And if you're headed in the right direction, that you may wanna say to yourself.

And it's, am I in the right place? Do I know the right things? Am I doing the right thing? Like, those types of am I's. Am I?

Am I? Am I? Am I? In a positive light, and if too many of those are off kilter, then that's when you start to look at something like, okay, we need to adjust.

Liz Moorehead: So we've talked a lot already about the flawed way in which we look at goals and resolution. We've talked a lot about what are the things that we need to dismantle internally from a mentality and mindset perspective. I wanna now get into, with this last part of our conversation, great. So I'm no longer a fear mongering head case. I'm exerting control over my environment.

I am showing up. I am here. I am not as mad at December Liz. She's done a lot of things this year that were scary and terrifying, and maybe she just cut herself some slack.

George B. Thomas: Grace.

Liz Moorehead: Grace. Yes. Grace. Thank you all the white women on Instagram for ruining that. Really appreciate you.

God, there is nothing we don't ruin. Really, there isn't. What does goal setting look like?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. The simpler, the better. That's the first thing that I'll throw out there. Because as soon as you make something complex, it adds confusion. It's hard to follow through, and it ends up like every other goal or New Year's resolution or whatever you call it, gone.

Just gone and it's you're done. So keep it simple. The other thing that I really like to do, and this is gonna break down into another story that I heard and love and a book that if you have not read it, you should read. If you can take this massive goal. And by the way, let's not even talk about the fact that when you set goals, I need you to dream a little bit.

I need you to push past your comfort zone to what you're placing these goals at. But then what I want you to do, once you have this massive, I dreamt it up, here's the goal that I want to achieve and by the way, if you need training wheels, what I would suggest is that maybe you set your goals in 3 levels. This is what I need. This would be nice. And holy like, I can't believe that just happened.

Right? So there's that. Three layers. That'll give you some training wheels. But dream when you're trying to set these goals.

So then break it down. Right? Break it down into the habits and the life that you have to live on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, yearly basis, depending on how grandiose the goal that you're trying to achieve. So, like, for me, one of my goals I set years years ago, I wanna be on the main stage of inbound. Now I quit talking about it because I decided to put my money where my mouth is and just get to work and start building GBT into whatever it could be.

And maybe someday, instead of Gary v, it'll be me. And that even rhymed, people. I'm just gonna throw that out there. But so here's the thing. That's a dream.

That's a dream goal. Now I have to break it down into the habits, the the daily, the weekly, the monthly things that I have to do that I have to focus on to to reach that level. With that, the story that I love, and you can Google it on YouTube or YouTube it or whatever, you'll find it, is the story that Will Smith talks about where his father breaks down this, like, wall in the shop and him and his brother have to rebuild the wall. It's basically over summer. And their mindset is, this is impossible.

We'll never be able to do this. But once they started to lay 1 brick became 2, 2 became 3, 3 became 6, 6 became 12, 1 brick at a time. And before they knew it, they had built an entire wall. That's the thing. People get frozen, paralyzed in time because they keep looking at this big goal.

It's really hard to measure how close or how far away you've gotten to that big goal. But if you can see each brick you've laid, in my world, each piece of content I've created, each person that I've impacted, each connection that I make on social, each human that I help in some sort of special way by being a good human myself. Like each brick, pretty soon, you'll have that wall. So what wall are you building? What bricks are you laying?

How are you getting to where you want to go? That's what I have to ask you. And again, I'm talking to the business owner. I'm talking to the marketer. I'm talking to the sales professional service center.

More importantly, I'm talking to you as a human. Like, how are you doing it one brick at a time, one habit at a time, one movement at a time. One of the sayings I love to say, Liz, is 1% better each and every day. How are you doing that? How are you incorporating that in your life?

Liz Moorehead: When I think about great goal setting, first of all, I love that story. I read think what you want about him. I don't really care. He's an incredibly inspirational human. And Will's Will Smith's book is fascinating.

I loved it. It resonated a lot with me. And that story really stuck with me. Because, again, often, we feel like we can't achieve our goals because we're just staring at the giant wall and we're not even bothering to take a step. And even if you end up not achieving that goal, even if it only became part of a wall, or maybe you end up building something entirely different, it you only know because you tried.

Now, the other piece of it there are a couple other things I wanna throw in there too. So from the book, which I know you love, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Yes. One of the things that he talks about a lot is that it's easier to instead of, like, goals that are geared around, like, a thing or a milestone, it's better to set goals that are identity based. Because you're not working toward this one thing.

I remember I had this workout goal a long time ago where it's like, I was gonna do a 100 workouts. And I did it. And what am I gonna do? Just set another 100 workouts? Like, it lost its luster?

And I fell off I fell off the path. So I talked a lot about the goal setting that I did earlier this year, where I spent 4 months writing goals. And my most effective goals were I was, like, I am a person who does this. I am healthier or whatever. Like, writing identity goals where it's, I am a runner who has completed an Ironman marathon.

That is a great goal. Right? I am an Ironman marathon champion or whatever. I don't know. Runners can tell me what that is because I believe fun runs are a conspiracy perpetrated by the fitness lobby to sell shoes.

Totally different podcast, totally different day. But I had identity goals that got me to where I am right now. It wasn't I'm going to start my own business. It was I'm a visionary entrepreneur who's going to challenge the way content has always been done. It's visualizing and getting really specific about the person you want to be.

And then if you do something every single day where you just are living as that person, it's weird. Your body catches up, Your environment catches up. Everything around you starts catching up. And what's actually really interesting about it is when I set those goals and started living those goals and instead of being like, I'm gonna check this thing off the list and I did it. Instead, I was saying my goals are based around this is who I wanna be and this is who I am now.

I have committed on this day. This is now who I am. It made it really easy to spot the other thing that's important in goal setting. What are the yeses I'm saying right now that should be noes?

George B. Thomas: Oh, so I gotta jump in here. First of all, if you're listening this and you haven't read the book Atomic Habits, it was on my notes to talk about as well. So I'm glad Liz brought it up. It's it could be life that hang on. The big leap by Gay Hendricks and atomic habits when paired together could be life changing to everybody listening to this podcast episode.

But I have to unpack this because you said the words vision, and then also earlier in the podcast, I said, am I? And you did something very interesting. Listeners, you can rewind but Liz started to say, I am. And when you have a goal and you attach it to your vision and you change your language to a language of affirmation, you are training your brain that you are already that person that you envision that you wanna become. I am strong.

I am powerful. I am smart. I am a HubSpot hero. I am whatever it is you need to put in there, changing the language to that in an effort to expedite the habits and the traction that you're trying to to get on the journey that you're headed with this dream goal that we're talking about, it's like that right there's a ninja tip. Change the way that you talk about yourself and change the way that you talk about the journey that you're on, and it'll be fundamentally far different than you've ever done historically.

Liz Moorehead: Alright. Let's tie this up with a bow. Yeah. I'm actually not gonna ask you what your one thing is because I think there's too much in this episode. You've literally there there's so much here where if I were to extrapolate this out, I don't know.

I don't wanna ask about the one thing. George, I want you to share

George B. Thomas: I'm getting nervous. I'm getting nervous now.

Liz Moorehead: I promise to do the same thing. So instead of a one thing, you and I are each gonna share. Let's get vulnerable and share a real honest goal that we have set for ourselves in the coming year.

George B. Thomas: Oh, wow.

Liz Moorehead: You can share more than 1 if you'd like. But I don't want it to be like, it's brand revenue. Let let's walk the walk. Let's show a let's get a little Victorian trashy, show a little emotional skin.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. So it's interesting. This past 6 months has been amazing and more than I could ever have dreamed of. Yet at the same time, slightly depressing. So let me unpack that because people are like, holy shit.

What just happened? So in one area or multiple areas, it is a skyrocket, and I just can't even believe that this is the journey I'm on. But there are two historical things that have been really important to me that have fallen to the wayside over the last 6 months. 1 is the lack of getting out and walking and moving. And so a lot of people or some people listening to this know that a year and a half or 2 years ago got diagnosed with RA, went on this health kick, lost like £79 in 7 months.

And let's just say this, I've gained some of it back because I've been eating the wrong things, not doing the right things, lost sight of my goal, everything that we've been talking about here. And so one of the things for me is how do I get away from my computer and move more and actually get that weight back off, if not more weight? But, again, I have to tie that to the real reason, Not because I wanna reach 216 and a half pounds, but because when I step on stage, when I do this, when I show up this way, I wanna be able to present my way in this way. So that's 1. 2, I will give you a second one.

By the way, I could give you a third one because there is a whole revenue goal, which is, like, mind blowing to me, but might be a different episode or on the stage of inbound someday or something like that that has been happening. But the second one and again, everybody that knows me knows that education for me has been a key factor in getting me where I am today. The lack of educating myself in a historical way of HubSpot Academy, podcasts, audiobooks, it that's been a desert. That's the freaking Sahara. However, the amount of stuff I've learned in just running a business and the amount of stuff that I've learned about myself, and I'm actually not realizing this until this moment that I'm speaking on this podcast.

I've actually had a brand new college degree in other things. Still felt guilty about the fact that there's an SEO 2 certification and a CMS 2 for developer certification, and and there's all these certifications that are falling off. And I'm like, ah. But then I got people I gotta help. But still, that's an excuse.

Mhmm. So how do I map out the time that I need to be moving and walking and how do I map out the time that I need to educate myself? Because here's the big deal holy field or the real deal holy field. As soon as those two things get into my brain and start to fight, it dissolves the whole situation because it's like now I can't focus on what I wanna focus on because I'm focused on the things that I haven't been focused on, and it's like shooting, like, big freaking bomb torpedoes in my brain when I just need to, like if I went for a walk and listened to a dang certification for even 30 minutes a day, the rest of my day, that war wouldn't be happening.

Liz Moorehead: And we actually spend more time. I I think about it. I don't wanna do laundry. I'll spend 3 hours thinking about how I won't wanna do laundry when literally the physical act where I need to be engaged in doing laundry is 15 minutes.

George B. Thomas: Manimal.

Liz Moorehead: Like, that's the thing. We'll spend more time emotionally killing ourselves over that stuff than actually doing it. My goals this year, I alluded I talked about this earlier about how I did that whole goal setting thing earlier this year, how it was so much easier when I wasn't running my own business to actually create the time. And I am someone who is purposefully creating that time and recommitting myself to goal setting. I know that's a strange goal to have, but I'm letting the car drive me a little bit instead of driving my own car.

And that's I wanna be the driver. I am the driver. That's that's the big goal. The other piece of it is similar to yours. I have always, I think, to get very personal.

I'm 6 feet tall. I've got a big personality. I am a larger woman, but that's never really held me back in a lot of ways. But what would happen if I took my health as seriously as I did my career? What would happen if I applied the same level of annoying tenacity Yes.

To that part of my life? Because it's something I've always I'm always gonna be this way. I'm always gonna be that girl. And the reality is yeah. It's the negative self talk.

But I think the other thing is I'm 40. You know what? I actually more peace with my body now than I've ever been. And also, my goal now is not have the sleek whatever body. Even when I was younger and in my tip top shape like rowing crew, I was still 5 10 and a size like 16, which is healthy and normal because I came from a big Italian family.

So that's the thing where it's I wanna be healthy. I wanna feel more confident. I wanna have more energy. I wanna go on stage and not worry, oh, am I gonna get sweaty? Like, I want to be free and mobile and happy.

And I think what can happen is that and this, I think, wraps it up really nicely. Goes back to what I said about the human piece of it. If you get too goal oriented and too tunnel visioned on only a specific set of goals and not the ones that serve you as a human, you'll be surprised what parts of the rest of your life will fall off or get neglected.

George B. Thomas: Preach. Preach.

Liz Moorehead: And with that, George, happy New Year.

George B. Thomas: Happy New Year, Liz. Happy New Year, everybody.

Liz Moorehead: So don't forget, if you like this show, if you wanna if you have feedback for us, please do not forget to leave a review. And if you're hearing this now and also wanna share in your review what your goals are for this upcoming year, we'd love to hear that. And also, don't forget to go to hubheroes.comforward/seo. We still have some seats available for our SEO content strategy master class. If you don't know what we're talking about, please go back to previous 2 episodes.

Or if you just like content that makes money, you should check it out. But with that, I'm Liz Murphy. George, it's great to talk to you as always.

George B. Thomas: You too, Liz.

Liz Moorehead: Happy New Year.

George B. Thomas: Here. Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of another episode. Will lord lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the hub heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode.

Make sure you head over to the hub heroes dot com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes. FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox, and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag, hashtag hub euros podcast, on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces.

Remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and, of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero. Liz, it's funny because, again, we'll put in the show notes that we forgot to tell them to use the coupon code hub hero or hub heroes. But, yeah, it's funny because I wanna unpack with you real quick one other thing that I wanted to share, but I was scared to share as far as the goals, and that is I didn't bring up the book. I didn't bring up the book, and I know that it's time. Like, it's time for the book.

Mhmm. And just at some point, maybe I'll tell the world.

Liz Moorehead: I think you should tell them now because you've been telling me about this book, god, for years. You told me about this book when I first met you. Is this this book has been in your heart for how long?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. And what's funny is so much of the episode that we just did is a lot of things that I wanna talk about and incorporate into this book that is just everybody that I talk to, they're like, you need to birth that. Yeah. I don't like pain. I don't like pain.

I don't wanna birth it,

Liz Moorehead: but I need to like the kids? But do you

George B. Thomas: like the kids? Kids on some days. No. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Noah, don't edit that out.

Liz Moorehead: So wait. Why don't you tell what could you tell me a little bit about it? I know. But maybe Yeah. For those who were stuck around.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. And it's funny you used the word stuck right there because the book is literally for people who feel like they're stuck in a place in their life, and they wanna go in a different direction. They wanna elevate themselves. They're not sure how to get there. And it's a lot of stories from my life over 50 years now that I've lived.

Understanding that I came from a one room log cabin with no running water. I've gone to school in a one room schoolhouse. I rode my pony to that school, and I've gone from that to, like, literally the HubSpot helper, own your own business, like, where we're at now. Right? And so it's just been this journey.

There's been some lessons along the way, and I just wanna incorporate that into a manual that somebody who is older than me, younger than me, just getting started out, or been doing it forever can go, oh my gosh. I found the blueprint to how I get where I wanna go. I need to create that.

Liz Moorehead: I would read it.

George B. Thomas: I'd read it too.

Liz Moorehead: Do you wanna know what my 3rd goal is?

George B. Thomas: Take a nap.

Liz Moorehead: Take a nap. Bring napping back into my life.

George B. Thomas: Hashtag naps for everyone.

Liz Moorehead: It's also equitable to a book. Am I right? No? Okay. I'm alone on that one.

George B. Thomas: Bye bye.