WHO Before HOW: How Goals Grow You from the Inside Out

What if the purpose of your goal isn’t to achieve it? What if the purpose is to meet yourself in a new way?

This show is for women who’ve been labeled, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood. Whether you have a diagnosis or just know deep down that you experience life differently, this is your space to stop fixing yourself and start trusting who you already are. My name is Amanda Hess. Let’s go.

Hey my friend. Last week we talked about fear, and we talked about how setting big goals wakes up all the parts of your brain that want to keep you safe. But today, I want to zoom out. I want to talk about what happens between setting the goal and achieving it, and why that space is actually where the real transformation happens.

What I want you to know is that this isn’t just another step-by-step episode. It’s going to be a reflection on what goals do to us internally, the reason behind them, why you want to think about setting them, why it’s important to lean into them. I want to tell you about a few different experiences that I’ve personally had with setting goals.

The first is a skating example. So, I figure skate as an adult, and it’s something that I started doing because I wanted to do something in the evenings here when it’s dark and cold and when I didn’t know a soul. And so I found this master skating program, and then I found out that you could enter competitions. So, I got a program. I had music cut. I did choreography with my coach. And then I registered for a skating competition, and I went, and I skated. And I think that this is actually exactly the process of setting a goal. Okay?

So the goal would be to compete at the skating competition and get a gold, to get a gold medal in my division, right? But the reality is that the only goal I really had for myself for that first competition was just to do it. And so I went and I had my music played on that big speaker and stepped out on that big sheet of ice with a bunch of people watching me and a bunch of judges actually judging me, and I skated to my music, and I was terrified. I shook. Okay? I shook.

When I do things like my spiral, I have to be strong on that leg, and I could barely get it up because I was shaking so bad, and it was videotaped so I could go home and watch it later. My family could watch it on the livestream. People in my club watched it on the livestream. But that was the goal that I had set. So I decided to set the goal of going out and doing this.

And the reality is that I skated for like two minutes, right? I skated for two minutes. But the experience of it deeply changed me. And why it deeply changed me is for many, many reasons. Number one, it was something that I had not done since I was a kid, and I remembered being terrified doing it as a kid, okay?

Number two, it gave me something to work towards. So when I would go to the arena and I would get on the ice and skate, there was a reason why I was trying to land my jumps. There was a reason why I was trying to improve my spins. There was a reason for what I was doing.

And it allowed me to come to the ice and to come to my lessons with purpose. And that purpose drove me to learning musicality, learning how to skate with some artistry, having some grace, doing really hard things. And then on top of that, being able to come to an event and be able to be the type of person that could step out onto the ice and feel all of that adrenaline and be able to be with myself through it and to actually do it. And it was incredible. It was both terrifying and amazing. I’ve never felt so good. I’ve never felt so afraid.

And why I tell you this is because this changed me. This grew me. This made me into a different version of myself. I am now the person that is able to get out on the ice, put sharp blades on my feet, put on a tiny little costume, and skate to music and be willing to be judged.

And that is something that I now get to own about myself. I can do hard things. I can go out and skate as an adult. I can do things that are only for me, that aren’t for my family, that aren’t for my business, that aren’t for making money, that are not for anybody else but for me. And this is the beauty of setting a goal because of what it does to you.

I want to give you another example because, and I think I’ll keep in the skating lane for this for you. The other example I want to give you is a competition that I did a couple of years ago. So a couple of years ago, I decided to go and register for a competition. And when I went to that competition, it was a little chaotic. My dad and his wife had come to visit. I can’t remember why they didn’t come and watch this competition. They watched the other skate that I did, but they didn’t watch the first one.

And my first one was my free skate. So my free skate, in case you don’t skate because you probably don’t, a free skate just means that I’m jumping. There are actual jump requirements and there are spinning requirements and there are movement requirements as a part of the competition, as a part of the judging. So I’m going to get judged on the difficulty of my jumps, the execution of my jumps, the difficulty of my spins, the execution of those spins, my skating prowess, like all of those things get judged.

So I skated out onto the ice and my coach told me that the judges were on one side and the audience was on the other. And why that matters is because typically when you skate, the audience and the judges are on the same side. But at this rink, they were not. And she said to me, “You are used to performing to the audience, so you could just perform to the audience or you could flip your program and you could perform to the judges.” I knew that I knew this program really well, and I thought, you know what, it’s no problem. I’ll do it to the judges.

But the thing is is that adrenaline comes when you skate, and it is very, very noticeable in your body, as it is whenever you feel any kind of fear, right? Any kind of excitement. And so as that was happening, something went wrong with one of my moves, and I got turned around. And then when I got turned around, I felt a lot of panic. And then when I felt a lot of panic, I did a lot of haphazard things that were not my program on the ice.

I did not complete all of my elements. I finished my skate. I was mortified. The embarrassment that I felt is really hard to describe. It was all encompassing. I was both embarrassed and disappointed all at once. And so when I stepped off the ice, I started crying immediately.

So there I am, a woman in her mid-forties in her little dress, stepping off the ice, and I burst into tears just as all the kids in my skating club are rushing up to me to tell me that I did a great job. My friends, that was mortifying because I could not contain the emotion, the adrenaline, the embarrassment, the disappointment. It all just came together and it was so intense.

Now, you might ask me like, what is good about that? If that happens to me again, and it might, I am the kind of person that can get through that. I was able to prove that to myself. In the moment, incredibly painful. Days after, still painful, but it grew me.

My ability to feel embarrassment, I feel, is one of my biggest accomplishments. Because if I’m willing to feel embarrassed, I’m willing to do a lot more things, and I’m willing to try things and get them wrong. And then I get to have the success that also comes with that because I skated other programs, other competitions that year. And in one of them, I won. I think in more than one. I think I won after that every single time.

Now there’s not a lot of people in my group, but what I will say is that I was stronger, I knew what to do, I knew how to handle it. I grew into the version of myself that could do that and keep going. I was the version of me that could experience this massive amount of embarrassment, disappointment, mortification, and keep going. And that is who I am. I am the person that does all that and keeps going and has my own back and loves myself through it. I am that person.

So I’m really passionate about this because what happens for so many of us is that we will set a goal that maybe we think is achievable, and then we won’t really go all the way with ourselves. We won’t do all the things. I coach on this very often, and what happens is somebody will come to me and say, “This is what I want to do.” And I’m like, “That’s amazing. Let’s set the goal.” And we set the goal. And then self-doubt shows up, and then fear shows up.

And so we get to be the masters of those emotions. We get to learn how to navigate that. And then when we go for it and we do go all the way, and maybe we fall flat on our face, we get to be the person that picks ourselves up, that learns how to have our own back, that learns how to be there for ourselves. You just get to become this magical new version of you. You get through the fear, and you get through the doubt, and you get through the mess.

And the outcome wasn’t what mattered anyways. It was actually more important the person you became by being willing to stay with yourself through it all. I can’t tell you how many times I have had that experience and watched other people come through that. It’s incredible.

Here’s what I’ve realized. Goals are really just containers. They hold space for you to meet every part of yourself: the excited part, the scared part, the doubtful part, the resilient part. So the real skill isn’t really even achieving the goal. It’s learning how to stay with yourself through the entire process.

One of the things that I see come up for so many of us is even the fear of succeeding. Well, if I do do that thing, if I, say, write that book, if I find that relationship, if I make that fitness goal, if I make the money, right? If I buy the house, if I go on the vacation, I’m afraid that it won’t be as good as I thought it was going to be. I’m afraid that it won’t be everything that I wanted. I’m afraid of what’s on the other side of it, and then we’ll hold ourselves back from the fear of that, which is fascinating, right? Like so, so fascinating. But it is what we do, which is the most interesting part.

I think that it is incredible to be able to meet your edges. When you set a goal, you’re signing up to feel. You’re signing up to meet your edges. You’re building the muscle of self-relationship. And that’s how you actually create self-trust. And that’s what grows that feeling. If you want to feel more self-trust, setting a goal is the best way to get there.

One thing I want to add here, because this trips so many of us up, is that our brains love to get stuck on how. We set the goal and immediately the brain goes, “But how? How will I do this? What steps do I take? What if I don’t know how?” And that’s usually where we start to spin, stall, or shut down.

But here’s the truth. The how always unfolds from the who. The real question isn’t, how do I make this happen? It’s – who is the version of me that’s already made it happen? And how does she show up? It’s not about having all the steps. There are a hundred ways to achieve any goal. And I have seen this many, many times in a row. But you’re going to have to figure out how you’re going to create that result for yourself, how you’re going to meet the goal.

So we want to instead think about who is she on the way to the goal? So when you’re thinking about the goal that you set for yourself, what does she believe about herself? What does she believe about herself as she’s experiencing failure? What does she believe about herself that gets her off the couch? What does she believe about herself that she puts her in the way of embarrassment, right?

What does she believe about herself? How does this future version of you, how does she handle fear? How does she handle setbacks? How does she handle uncertainty? How does she talk to herself when things get messy? What small choices does she make from love rather than fear?

When you anchor into the who, the how starts to reveal itself one step at a time. You stop trying to build the whole staircase in your head, and you start walking as her. Now, I want to really put a caveat here. The version of you who’s already achieved the goal isn’t harder on herself. She’s more loving. She doesn’t abandon herself when it gets hard. And that’s something you can practice right now before the outcome exists.

So what I want you to do is I want you to take a deep breath and think about a goal you’re holding right now. Maybe it’s big and stretchy, or maybe it’s quietly sitting in the back of your mind. It doesn’t matter how big it is or how small it is.

How is this goal growing you right now, even before anything has happened on the outside? What parts of you is it inviting to the surface? There is a piece of you already inside of you that wants to grow, that wants to go for it. When we start being able to understand that it has nothing to do with us being a better person because we’ve actually achieved the goal, but instead just a more resonant version of ourselves, then we get to be able to play here.

This is a playground in your brain that’s accessible to you if you see it as a playground. But all too often what I see is people approaching it like it’s a gym. So you know how kids go to the playground, and they go and jump onto pieces of equipment and there’s like the monkey bars and there’s the slide, and then there’s the climbing apparatus, and there’s the swings, right?

The interesting thing about a park is a park is fun, but a park is still a workout. You’re still going and using your upper body to do the monkey bars. You still have to work to climb up onto the climbing apparatus. You still have to pump your legs and use your core to get the swing to go. You’re still running around the park, playing tag, playing grounders, playing whatever you played when you went to the park.

But when we approach it like a park, we approach it like it’s play. When we approach it like a gym, we approach it like it’s work. When’s the last time you went to the gym and you’re like, “I’m so excited to get on this piece of equipment.” It’s not real. We don’t do that. We’re not excited to go to the gym, but we are excited when we’re kids to go to the park. So what I would like to do is to invite that kid inside of you to go to the park.

My friend, it can be anything. I was even thinking the other day, as I was, you know, thinking about things I could do for myself because I’m such an active person, that adding another activity to my life feels like something I don’t want to do right now. I want to find things to do that are good for my brain and good for my heart that are not all movement-based.

And one of the things that I do is I crochet, not well, which is perfect. And I decided I’m going to make everyone little washcloths for Christmas this year. That’s the goal, to make at least one for every family member. I love this goal for myself because it’s fun. I can pick fun yarn. I can have them be mismatched and not the right size and not the same space, but the goal is to try to make them all the same size, but it’s fun. It’s just ’cause. It’s just because I want to do that, because I want to be the person that can just sit down and crochet a washcloth.

But I’ve also been considering like maybe I want to play guitar. I’ve always wanted to play the guitar. And I can’t read music. So this would be something that I could do, a goal I could set, to play a song on the guitar. And that would be something that I could work toward.

And doing that, I become the person that can read music. I become the person that knows the chords. I become the person that’s more musical. Do you see what I’m saying? This can be really serious and still be fun as well. So if you think about wanting to make more money, make a career change, go and find a significant other, could you approach dating from this place? Who’s the person that shows up to this if they’re going to the park and not the gym?

Here are a few prompts that you could journal on that could help you this week. Number one, who is the woman who has already done this? Number two, what does this woman believe, think, and choose each day? Number three, how can I practice being her today, even in the smallest way?

The biggest thing you need to know is I promise you, you don’t need to know how right now. You need to know the who. And you can step into that version of you in this moment and you can do it every day. Your goal doesn’t have to be achieved to change your life. The growth is already happening if you’re willing to be present for it.

Goals grow you because they teach you how to be with yourself through fear, through doubt, through action, through evaluation. And that’s what we really want to do here. That’s the muscle that will take you anywhere you want to go. You grow into that version of you, and now she’s always there with you.

Now listen, if this resonated, I’d love to hear what goal is growing you right now. So send me a DM on Instagram. It’s @theamandahess or email me at coach@amandahess.ca. I read every message. And if you want to have a conversation about this, I want to invite you in to a free discovery call. You can just go to amandahess.ca to sign up. My friend, that’s what I’ve got for you today. I hope you have a beautiful day, and I will see you here next time. Bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening today. If this podcast is helping you, please follow wherever you listen and consider leaving a review. It truly helps this community grow and allows me to support more women like you. I’m excited to see you back here next week with a brand new episode. Until then, take care, friend.