Hey, welcome to another episode of the balanced growth show I'm Dr parry. Have you struggled with after you set a goal, or tried to put some things into prioritized order to actually go through with it? Take the action that you need to achieve it? Maybe it was a financial goal of saving or investing, or it could be a health goal of trying to reach a certain weight or lifting. You know, certain weights, whatever it is, what is it that you struggle with? Why do we all struggle with consistency, with actually going through and living out the action that you want to see in your life. Today, I'm going to break down some thoughts that I've been having, and a lot of these solo podcasts come from me working with my clients and struggling with them as they go through the process and make changes in their life, because change is a struggle. But one thing recently that has come up is this idea of, once we set goals and we have priorities in life, how do we continue to be motivated to achieve them? I know we all struggle with this, and I have some thoughts on this that are very, very helpful, that I believe have a framework and that you can utilize. So I talk in my first book, achieving balance, all about values and goals and priorities. And in my coaching, we we spend a great deal of time discussing, what are values? Well, values guide our life. They're principles, goals, though, those are actions. Those are things that actually help us to align our current reality with our values. Most people actually do this exercise backwards. They set a goal, and then they begin thinking about how they're going to achieve it without giving much thought to does that action actually line up with my thought process, my belief system, my values, the principles that we hold dear. So some people actually never achieve a goal because they lack that internal motivation that drives them forward, saying, This is good. This is where I want to be, this is who I'm supposed to be. Okay.

Now I'm a I'm a faith based coach, and so we talk a lot about God, and I believe that God has a great deal to do with our internal motivation. We can be motivated by what God wants us to become. So if that's not there, then some people will just give up on the goal. And they think, well, goal setting is is whack. It doesn't work. It doesn't work for me. And whenever I set a goal, I just give up after a certain period of time. Okay? This happens every January, February. As people set resolutions, they just, they're setting goals without values attached. So I see this a lot with my own clients, and I wrote the balance in achieving, you know, balance, my number one best selling book that, if you haven't picked up already, go to achieving balance book.com. You can still get it. It's, it's free. Just pay the shipping. We'll send it out to you. But more important to that, once you have values, I talk about that, how you, you know, figure out what your values are in all areas of life, then you set these goals or actions, okay, to actually become those values. Well, then you have to prioritize them, because we have so many areas of life, if we don't prioritize them, we might be working on goals that are much less priority and giving excuses for the things that are the most important. I've done this exercise literally 1000s of times with clients, speaking on stages, on podcasts, whatever it is. And when I do this training, I have found out that there are really three of the top that show up all the time. It's a spiritual it's a physical health and it typically is a relationship with spouse and family like those. Those three or four are always your top. Typically, a married person with with children, is never going to put business at the top. However, if that is your priority, I'm not going to priority shame you and tell you that's wrong. I believe you have to go through, but go through and do the exercise the way I outline it in achieving balance. That said, if you have those values, goals and priorities lined up, and you're like, Well, I have, I have goals that are based on my values, and I know what my priorities are, then you are likely going to succeed probably five, six times. You know, more than if you never had these things ever written out, right? We know for a fact. And I. In this from Brian Tracy, 25 years ago, ish, that when we write our goals down, we're much more likely to be able to accomplish them. So this is where I get to when we talk about goals and achieving them, and having this, you know, great satisfaction of becoming somebody different, becoming someone that achieves the things that they want in their life, we feel balanced. That's the whole premise of achieving balance, that we will feel balanced. Balance is not a 5050, it's not time. You know equilibrium, although I believe you should manage time so you can achieve those goals. It is a sense of psychological well being. I've studied psychology for years and years, and I understand so much of what's going on in our brain is really connected to our spirit, to what it is driving us forward, and who we want to become, or need to become in this life. So then, how do we consistently? Is the first question. How do we consistently hit these goals? What is it that's holding us back?

Okay, now you have that as a foundation. My number one idea here, that is not in this book, achieving balance, and I've talked about it in my coaching. I have my clients do this exercise is something called a values, vision board. Now visions board. Vision boards have been around for decades. This is nothing new. I met the guy that made this famous. He was a part of the movie The Secret. And when, when I heard about vision boards, you know, years and years ago, I thought was a great idea. And now, if you don't believe in vision boards, ask any teenager what they have on their walls. That's their vision board, right? They may have, you know, dreams of visiting some exotic location. They may have a picture of a car that they eventually want, or they have, you know, a rock star or or some famous person on their wall that they idolize, okay, all of those things, whether you know, it's not in some neat board, you know, pasted together, that is what they're dreaming about. What are you dreaming about? What's on your wall, what's on your wall before you go to bed, what's on your screens, right? What are your screen savers? Is it just the standard you know? What? What you know, gets placed on your computer? What about your phone that you probably pick up 95 times a day? Okay? For me, it's a picture of my wife and I, you know, I think, you know. And sometimes my wife has a picture of us, sometimes she has a picture of Christ on there, or a scripture. So if you think about what it is that you are seeing, what you are visualizing, this helps to remind yourself of the internal motivation. So I have a lot of clients who they'll go through these exercises, and all this is awesome. It's life changing, but it's not sustaining.

So I added this exercise of doing a values vision board. Now here's how I suggest you do it, and here's why, before I tell you how, the reason why is you don't just throw all of your hopes and dreams on a board that's a that's a Dream Vision Board. And maybe there's a place for that, someplace I don't know. Like, maybe you want to just dream, and you don't want to have any anything attached with fine. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't have that, but if you do not have your goals in a values vision board in priority, then you're likely to forget them. You're likely to remember them when you go to a conference or church or once in a while and you're like, oh, yeah, I need to do that thing. I really want to work on that goal, right? But you don't stay consistent. What I suggest is you have a cork board. Just grab a cork board and write down all the goals that you have for yourself and put them in priority order, top to bottom, okay. And again, in my book and in the coaching, I talk about achieving balance, you know how to prioritize your goals, etc, and then have a picture with each goal that you have in each area of your life, have a picture that describes what it is that looks like at the end.

Okay, maybe not the pain of what's going through, but the vision of what is at the end. I spent a year learning how to pole vault when I was in high school as a sophomore, I was okay at it. I placed fifth in in in our region, which, for the first year, my dad was like, I You should, you're gonna get college, you know, scholarship. I go for the gold on this one and, and maybe I should have continued, you know, I could sprint, I could jump. I'm light, you know. I. Kind of had all those things, but I will tell you that that only got me past like five feet. Like anybody that's ever pole vaulted, it's really hard. It's really difficult. There's all these technical things. You have to know exactly your steps, you have to know exactly your speed, you have to know exactly when to jump, when to turn upside down, how to flip over the bar without touching it, how to push the pole fault. The pole back down so it doesn't hit the bar after you've cleared it. And then how to land, not land on your head. Okay, there's all these things. So what I would do, and what I was taught, is a little bit of sports psychology. I would sit down and I would visualize, I would visualize the ending, yes, I would visualize the steps, I would visualize the jump. I would visualize turning upside down. I'd visualize the whole process, but then I'd visualize clearing that okay, and that's exactly what I believe sports psychology has taught me through the years. Is this visualization It is imperative if you're struggling to reach your goals consistently. It's likely because you're not visualizing the outcome. So when you create this vision board, you put your most important goals, your top priority goals, at the top. You put your second one, maybe second or third, kind of like in a, you know, maybe an award ceremony, that first, second, third, and then you go, 6789, 10, like, you know, 45689, 10, all the way down with a picture with the value. And a value is a characteristic that describes you. It's a principle that drives you. So it might be, you know, for me, spiritual health. It might be learning this year. Like to be a learner, right? So learner is the word. I just totally making this up. And then maybe it is that I want to read 12 books, or I want to read all the scriptures, like just whatever that goal is for the year you put the value learner read all the scriptures, right in a year, fantastic. Well, then I, I'll take a picture of like the scriptures, or me reading the scriptures, and that will be my picture the next one's physical health fit, right? And maybe it is race three mountain bike races. I, I'm not an expert, I'm definitely an amateur, but it pushes me.

So I have, you know, this goal that race, three mountain bike races. I also have a goal to have three mountain bike trips just for fun with my boys and my family, my wife, whatever, and friends and so those things are on the vision board. So I have a picture of me at a race or done with the race, like, whatever it is. Like have that vision there. So before you go to bed, you look at the vision board and put it right by your bed on the wall. You know, some place where the wife approves, but some place where you can see it okay? And I, my wife and I both have our vision boards on the opposite sides, right. We have our bed there, and the walls on the side when we have the vision boards up, so we can just pause, take a moment and look at it. Maybe you want to put in the bathroom, in the closet, whatever I I don't really care. Just have it someplace you can see it every day before I go to bed, I ponder, I meditate, I look at the those, those goals, the vision that I have for the future, and I journal, and I write down how I'm doing on this. Yes, some people use a journal as a diary, and like, I felt good about this, or I did this, and there's some of that for me, but I also write, like, what I can do to be improving on these goals that that's very helpful. And so what happens? Well, instead of me thinking about the Facebook reel or the text message or something on the phone, I avoid that at least a half an hour before we go to going to bed and do my bedtime routine. And the last thing that I have is on my mind in my visualization are my goals. I journal and I pray, and my wife and I, we read scriptures, and then, you know, go to sleep when I wake up and praying, and I'm looking at my goals, okay? It's, it's the thing that I do, just like brushing the teeth. You brush your teeth at night. You brush your teeth in the morning, you know, hopefully after lunch, if you can best practice, right? All the dentists out there going, yes, yes, yes.

So why not look at the goals? Why not see them? Why not visualize them? You want to take this to the next level with 2.0 take a picture of those goals and put it on your screen saver. I have it as my screen saver. I love it. Why? Because I'm I'm focused. I know what I'm looking at. I know what I'm doing every day. I've got a whole lot more in achieving balance. I have a whole lot more in my book, marry and Grow Rich. You can find more details about this at MAKE TIME institute.com, I really, really enjoy being able to share these with you. Go home. Set your goals based on your values. Prioritize them. Go. Create a vision board for your future. If you need help with any of that, you can find me at maketimeinstitute.com, again, I'm your host, Dr Travis Parry, until next time, remember, live life on purpose. Together.