Forget the New Year’s resolution (we all know they don’t work anyway!) and use Pua’s method for Evolution in 2023. We constantly evolve, so why not make your evolution this year intentional? In this episode, Pua is walking you through her five-step method to pre-pave the way for your biggest, most important goals this year. Grab a pen and paper and carve out some time for you and your dreams.
Pua explains how vision casting works, why it’s important to approach the exercise with a limitless mindset, and how to set yourself up for success. It’s not enough to just write a goal down and never look at it again - you need to include a mechanism for accountability, and Pua tells you how to do just that!
Resources:
Alice Inoue
Atomic Habits - James Clear
Pualena - Planner
David Goggins
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Pua Pakele - Pualena Digital Design: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin
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Transcript:
Pualena 00:00
Because if we don't create awareness around our obstacles and our challenges and our goals and our wins and our celebrations, we tend to just continue to let them happen to us. Right? Creating intention around this entire process is what allows us to evolve with intention.
Intro 00:20
Welcome to the Course Creators Academy podcast, with digital design and course creation expert, Pualena. Tune in for strategies on how you can use online courses to grow your business, you'll hear how impact driven entrepreneurs are using online courses to transform lives. Now, let's get started. Here's your host, Pualena.
Pualena 00:48
Hello, and welcome back to the Course Creators Academy podcast. I'm your host Pua. And this is the first solo episode of 2023 ... 2023. Remember, when you were a kid, and you would write the previous year on like all of your papers and homework for like, four months, I feel like I was just about to do that. Actually, I did do that this is my second take because I was like this is the first recording of 2022. 2023 is here. That is wild, I can't even believe it. And yet I can because it's been a crazy, last few years has it not? We are back to normal, we're traveling, we are meeting in person like and we have all of these new tools at our disposal. Because of what happened in 2020, '21, '22. People are meeting internationally on Zoom every single day, we have an international team, this is something that I'm so grateful that the world has sort of caught up to specifically the generation just above mine. And it's that means like my mom's doing Zoom calls, she's doing, you know, foreign language classes with a group virtually. And so she can join it as she is, you know, traveling or taking care of her mom, or you know, there's just so many ways that this world has brought us together. I agree there are a lot of ways that this world sort of like pulled us apart and pit us against each other and, you know, created isolation. I'm not saying that this was a great thing for for, you know, us to go through. I do want to highlight though, that that is one of the benefits of the pandemic and everything that happened. With that being said, I'm excited today to dive into the new year. I'm excited today to talk you through a tool and a strategy that I've been using for many, many, many years. I started using this when I co-hosted my very, very first podcast with my previous business partner. And this process is what I'm going to share with you today, is part of a larger process. And this has evolved and evolved. And I believe that my business partner Kimi still does a version of this, I still do a version of this. So it's just something that, you know, a good invention, picks up and holds on and evolves over time. And so I feel I'm pretty proud that we created this and that it's useful for both of us. And I hope that this part of the process will also be useful for you.
Pualena 3:41
So as we talk about the new year, I have to confess something to you. I do not believe in or support new year's resolutions. I think they're a bunch of BS. They have good intentions, they come from a good place. I honestly, like think about any new year's resolution that you've set in the past, have you accomplished it? I don't doubt that the answer can be yes, for some of us. And I would bet that if you accomplished it, it's not because you set it as a New Year's resolution. It's because it's something that you focused on and you wanted to achieve regardless of what time of year it was. In fact, let's take my favorite and most relatable example that I use all the time. Let's say you want it to get fit in 2022 and it's the beginning of '23 and your fit. Right let's say you'll say that happened. Are you fit because you set that as a New Year's resolution? Or are you fit because a few times during the year you came back to the idea that you wanted to feel good in your body and it was independent of the fact that you said that in the new year? Am I fishing for ways to support my theory? Maybe? I think most of us can agree though. New Year's resolutions. They're not, they're not real, right? We don't we don't actually do them. I do think also, okay, you know how Valentine's Day is kind of like that holiday that Hallmark decided to take and run with. And now it's like this huge billion dollar day of like chocolates and, and flowers and stuffed animals and cards and stuff. I think fitness facilities and gyms have really taken the New Year's resolution thing and run with it. Have you ever gone to the gym on January 2? January 2, through like January 9, go to the gym that week, and then go to the gym at the end of January or beginning of February. And tell me what it's different. I used to work at a gym. And that specific gym that I worked at, I actually joined after participating in what they called a New Year's resolution challenge. Where that was supposed to be I think it was a 30 day or four week or a six week challenge. And it was designed, again, with good intentions to set you up with tools and strategies and habits that you carry with you for the rest of the year and the rest of your life. Right. So there was meal plans. There were like, workout special workouts and, and consistency trackers and all of this. Those are great. But why did I join it? Because I wanted to get fit in the new year, right? So, anyway, I digress.
Pualena 6:42
What do I believe in? Then? If I'm going to be such a Grinch about this? I believe in New Year's evolution. What is your New Year's evolution? Okay, and you're like, well, I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. Exactly. We're going to evolve we always do. You evolve last year, you evolved. Since you were born, we as humans evolved over 1000s of years, your business has evolved. Evolution is it's just truth, it just will happen. What we can do is create a vision for the type of evolution that we want to experience. And then set a plan in place to guide your evolution in the direction of your dreams. That's what I believe in. And that's what today is about. So I'm going to walk you through this process. And even this process has evolved. And it's five steps. So have either you know, if you're listening to this in the car, or on a run or whatever, great, keep listening to it all the way through, just start thinking about these things. And then I encourage you to come back to this episode later, when you have maybe an hour to sit down. Yes, an hour a whole hour. You know what that means for everybody who's like, Okay, I won't be coming back to this because I don't have that kind of time. Guess what 4am is? It's your hour. Okay? So either stay up late, wake up early, you know, find a quiet space on your lunch break, take a walk, grab a notebook, bring your laptop, it's worth it, it is worth finding that hour creating that hour for yourself. So come back to this when you have a quiet space to think where you can Tony Robbins, pause this recording, and do some of these exercises. I promise it is super fun. It is very, very impactful. And a lot of cool things will come up for you. Okay, please let me know if you do it. I'd really like to hear.
Pualena 8:41
Okay, so step one. Step one is a recap of 2022 in the form of gratitude, okay, so just think that we're not going to, we're not going to recap everything, there are things that we probably want to forget, there are things that we probably want to remember that we can't. And what I encourage you to do is hold space for gratitude for everything that comes up to you like in your mind, as you think about last year. Just hold space for it because it happened. We can't pretend that it didn't. A lot of us had a really challenging year last year, a lot of things happened last year. Personally, globally in our communities, a lot of great things, a lot of good things, a lot of things that may have been bad and they can turn out good a lot of things that were supposed to be good and they turned out bad, right? That's just life. Think about these things, remember them and find space for gratitude for all of them. Okay, this is really, really important. I need you to start here. So take as much time as you need it pause and just sit in this gratitude for all the things that you can think of that you remember that you want to reflect on. For last year... okay, that was your pause space.
Pualena 10:05
Step two, you are now going to do the same exact thing, you're going to do a 2023 recap, in the form of gratitude. Okay, this is where it gets really, really fun. Okay, so you're like, I think you spoke wrong because 2023 just started like, it hasn't happened yet. I, I know. This is called, you know what? Okay, so I had a teacher and a friend and a, I guess, a colleague, we used to teach at her her school called happiness University, here in Honolulu. Her name is Alice Inoue. And she is a like thought leader, and just community leader in the space of happiness. Look her up Google her, she is so fascinating. She's phenomenal. I love this woman so much. And I can't for the life of me remember what she calls this. And I keep wanting to say like, pre-loading or pre-paving ... oh! Pre-paving. So you essentially talk about things as if it already happened. So if I want to, let's say, travel to Alaska, this year, which I do, I'm gonna say I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to travel to Alaska to meet my client there, right? Like, you're essentially going to make up a story in your head and you're like, What is this possibly going to do? Just trust me, just trust the process. This is something that will create, it will start to build a story around the reality that you want to see come true. This is going to create confidence around you actually, knowing that you can achieve these things. It's going to it's like a vision board. Right? A vision board is something that you create out of something that you want, that hasn't happened yet. And you look at it every day. And you start to just you focus on those things, and you create a plan of action to bring them to life. So this is this is just your vision board in words, right? Start to talk about and be grateful for the things that have happened this year as if they've already happened. Okay. Now, I'd don't want you to hold back. That's really, really important here. Be limitless with with this exercise. I want to make a million dollars a month. Is that crazy? Sure is? Is it possible? Sure is, if that's what you want. Say I'm so grateful that I was able to create a business that would allow me to bring in a million dollars of revenue every month. It already happened. Do you feel what that lights up inside of you? Don't let doubt tarnish that feeling. This is supposed to be expansive, it's supposed to light a fire a spark with like within your mind and heart. And a lot of times we're like, oh god, yeah, right, that could never happen and that like smolders, the fires that would smoke, smothers, smolder? Somebody tell me what this means. Okay, so that was step two, pause 2023 recap in the form of gratitude, go.
Pualena 13:32
Okay, step three, it's time to chunk this down. Okay, so, go back through step two, and circle or highlight, let's say three things that you're really, really excited to start focusing on one to three. And remember, you can come back to this list, you can create a new list, you can do this as often as you want. I actually do a version of this process a couple times a week. And this full process about every quarter every two to three months. Because we change because we evolve, okay? So chunk it down, pick, pick a couple of things that you want to focus on, and start to outline what bold actions that you need to take in the next 30 days to start to create these things in your reality. Okay? You can make like when I do this, sometimes I will focus on like, what bold actions do I need to do today to get closer to this reality or to achieve this goal? Right? Use 30 days if you want because these are designed to be bigger goals and bigger visions or chunk it down even further. Totally up to you. I would outline three bold actions, five max. Because I want you to have these written somewhere that you can see them every day so that you know that they're things that you have to do.
Pualena 15:03
Okay, step four, step four, here's where we set our future selves up for success. And I want you to consider your future self. The same way that you would look at a co-worker or a family member or a friend, this is somebody that you value that you prioritize that you make sure is happy is healthy, is supported, right? We often put ourselves last. And if not last, at least we put ourselves below other people in our lives, co-workers, families, friends, right? This is your opportunity to start to practice a little bit of self-love, and self-care. If that's not your thing. That's cool. It's something that I encourage you to focus on that I'm going to work on focusing on this year. So set your future self up for success, the same way you would prepare a meal for your family, if you were going out of town, or, you know, I don't know whatever nice things you do for other people, do them for yourselves. Okay, so identify... these lead ins are way too long. Identify obstacles that might get in your way of taking these actions. Okay, so this is where we're planning ahead. We're trying to foresee the fires and we're not going to, we're not going to see all of them, it's not possible. But if we can foresee some of them, if we can try to plan around the things that might come up or dissolve anything that might come up that's within our control, that is going to help us to create a lower barrier to entry to actually doing the things that are going to help us achieve these visions. Okay, so spend some time really thinking about this, what could possibly get in your way. This is different for everybody. It could be scheduling things, it could be life events, it could be family stuff, travel, who knows, try your best. Again, this is something you can do regularly. So this is also a place that we can look for patterns. If you revisit this exercise, you know, next month, next quarter, whatever. And you see patterns start to come up. What obstacles have consistently showed up that maybe you didn't notice this time around, but you are going to start noticing them that the more you do this exercise, that's powerful as well. Because if we don't create awareness around our obstacles and our challenges, and our goals and our wins and our celebrations, we tend to just continue to let them happen to us. Right? Creating intention around this entire process is what allows us to evolve with intention.
Pualena 17:53
Okay, this is the most important and last step, you can't get to this step without doing the first four. So congratulations, you're here. This step is schedule it and tell someone, okay? This plays on the two most important factors of achieving goals: consistency, and accountability. Okay, you can look at consistency in any way that you'd like you can approach it gently with like, so if you've read the book, Atomic Habits, they talk about creating consistent habits in a in an approachable, digestible way. Right? Start small build on the habit, if that feels in alignment to how you want to start to create consistency around these things. Do that. If you are more of the like David Goggins, and you just put your nose to the grindstone and you do it because you know, you have to do that. Do whatever works for you. Okay? And tell someone, for a lot of us, we stop at telling ourselves, right? I wrote it down. I put it in my calendar. Some people, for some people, that's enough. For some people, they will hold commitments to themselves. For some people their calendar is like that is the golden notebook of truth. Is that a thing? For a lot of us though, that isn't enough, I can sadly break a commitment to myself, but I will not make a commitment to someone else. So I have to tell someone, and I'm not going to tell them like "hey, make sure I do this." It's not your responsibility to parent me. But I'm going to say hey, this is something that I am looking to achieve in the next 7, 30 days, 90 days, whatever.
Pualena 19:54
I'm telling you for accountability. Usually that's enough for somebody to say like okay, cool. I'm Can I check in with you in a week or so? Or do you mind if I check in with like, you can ask like, hey, could I keep you updated on my progress? Unless they're a total, like a-hole, they're probably gonna say, yeah, no problem. That's awesome. I'd love to support you. Okay? Because we're not going to ask people that we don't trust and love, probably. Okay, so schedule it and tell someone you need to do both. For me if it's in my schedule, and I can like, sort of put it off, I might do that if it's for myself. But at least it's there and I see it and I'm reminded, and then I'm like, Oh, my gosh, but I cannot do that. Because I told so and so that I was going to do it. And you can't just tell someone to not schedule it. Wait, did I just say that? You can't schedule it and not tell someone. Okay, you get it. I don't need to beat that dead horse. Yeah, I'm looking at my notes. I think I did it. This is it. Those are the five steps. Again, there's more to this process. If you'd like for me to do an episode on the 2023 version of this, what I call a weekly check in, let me know I'm happy to do that. It's, it's it's kind of because if we don't create awareness around our obstacles and our challenges, and our goals and our wins and our celebrations, we tend to just continue to let them happen to us. Right? Creating intention around this entire process is what allows us to evolve with intention. Okay? This is the most important and last step, you can't get to this step without doing the first four. So congratulations, you're here. This step is schedule it and tell someone. Okay, this plays on the two most important factors of achieving goals, consistency, and accountability. Okay, you can look at consistency in any way that you'd like you can approach it gently with like, so if you've read the book, atomic habits, they talk about creating consistent habits in a in an approachable, digestible way. Right? Start small build on the habit, if that feels in alignment to how you want to start to create consistency around these things. Do that if you are more of the like David Goggins, and you just put your nose to the grindstone and you do it, because you know, you have to do that. Do whatever works for you. Okay? And tell someone, for a lot of us, we stop at telling ourselves, right, I wrote it down. I put it in my calendar. Some people, for some people, that's enough. For some people, they will hold commitments to themselves. For some people their calendar is like that is the golden notebook of truth. Is that a thing? For a lot of us, though, that isn't enough, I can, sadly break a commitment to myself, but I will not break a commitment to someone else. So I have to tell someone, and I'm not going to tell them like Hey, make sure I do this. It's not your responsibility, responsibility to parent me. But I'm going to say, Hey, this is something that I am looking to achieve in the next 730 30 days, 90 days, whatever. I'm telling you for accountability. Usually, that's enough for somebody to say like, okay, cool. Um, can I check in with you in a week or so? Or do you mind if I check in with like, you can ask like, hey, could I keep you updated on my progress? Unless they're a total? Like, a whole? They're probably gonna say, yeah, no problem. That's awesome. I'd love to support you. Okay. Because we're not going to ask people that we don't trust and love, probably. Okay, so schedule it and tell someone you need to do both. For me if it's in my schedule, and I can like, sort of put it off, I might do that if it's for myself. But at least it's there and I see it and I'm reminded, and then I'm like, Oh my gosh, but I can't not do that. Because I told so and so that I was going to do it. And you can't just tell someone to not schedule it. Wait, 30 just say that. You can't schedule it. Not tell someone okay, you get it? I don't need to beat that dead horse. Yeah, I'm looking at my notes. I think he did it. This is it. Those are the five steps. Again, there's more to this process. If you'd like for me to do an episode on the 2023 version of this, what I call a weekly check in. Let me know I'm happy to do that. It's it's it's kind of lengthy. You can download the 2022 version. I haven't updated it yet. I should. If you go to pualena.com/planner I, like created one, it was like the beginning of last year. So I do need to sort of open that and see what it looks like because it has changed. It's still like it was great then. So if you download that version, you're off to the races. But you'll notice even with this, this process at the very beginning of the planner, it does look a little bit different. So I, I'd love for you to do that. Go ahead and grab a copy for yourself. And let me know what evolutions are you working on in the next month, quarter, six months year. drop me a note on Instagram @pualena.co I'm really excited to hear from you. I'm excited to be a part of your journey this year. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of the Course Creators Academy. And I look forward to growing together. All right, keep crushing talk to you soon.
Outro 25:55
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the course creators Academy podcast. Join the conversation in the course creators clubhouse on Facebook. And if you love this podcast don't forget to subscribe and share the love with a five star review and tag us on Instagram at @pualena.co For a shout out on the next episode. And be sure to visit pualena.com For more info. Thanks again for listening.