What Is Your Most Exciting Goal Right Now?

Christi Hegstad January 26th, 2021

What is your most exciting goal right now?

Like many, you may be feeling some ongoing effects – monotony, low motivation, or a low-level hum of concern, for example – from all that we’re experiencing these days.

Add to that a lack of sunshine or an ever-present chill of winter and it’s no wonder our mojo may have taken a dip.

So the last thing you might be thinking about right now is adding to – or diving into – your goals. Wouldn’t that just increase the stress?

Not necessarily.

Science has repeatedly shown us the importance of moving toward meaningful goals for our overall well-being. Look to the work of Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Sonya Lyubomirsky for starters; their research shows we are more likely to flourish when taking action toward goals and projects that feel purposeful, energizing, and challenging in a helpful way.

So if you find yourself in a hum-drum state, ask yourself:

What is my most exciting goal right now? What feels most meaningful? What sounds fun, engaging, delightfully challenging, or purposeful?

If something comes to mind immediately, excellent! You can begin creating a plan and taking actions – even teeny, tiny ones – to advance it.

If nothing rises to the surface right away, don’t worry. Play with the question for a while. Jot down any and all ideas that come to mind, without committing to any at the moment. Imagine what you’d love to say about yourself in three months or a year and see what appears.

Whether your goal involves learning or deepening a skill, completing a business project, enhancing your parenting, or something else entirely, select something that feels meaningful, purposeful, energizing, and perhaps even a bit scary. And if the word ‘should’ shows up with your goal at all, I recommend heading back to the drawing board.

Decades ago, Earl Nightingale defined success as “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.” Notice he doesn’t focus on the achievement of the goal, but rather the ongoing movement towards said achievement. As the saying goes, the joy is in the journey.

So I’ll ask it once again, and would love to hear your response below or on LinkedIn: What’s your most exciting goal right now?

If you need help setting and/or achieving an exciting, meaningful, ridiculously awesome goal, I’d love to help! Click here to contact me today.

Measuring Non-Measurable Goals

Christi Hegstad January 24th, 2021

We all want to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ – wherever ‘there’ is for us. … I love it when I realize I’m standing in a ‘here’ place that used to be a ‘there’ place. – Christine Caine

This week, I am leading a 2021 goal-setting session for achievers. One of my favorite components of this course: How to measure goals that seem unquantifiable.

It can be so easy to discredit growth when we can’t mark it on a spreadsheet, for example, or note it on a bank statement.

But does that make it any less worthwhile, any less significant?

Absolutely not.

In fact, I’d argue that the seemingly non-measurable types of growth typically lead to the greatest successes and transformations!

This week, examine your non-measured growth.

What can you do now that you couldn’t last year at this time?

What has become a habit that, at some point in the past, felt practically impossible to even get started?

What now feels easy – or easier – compared to three years ago?

You have grown in countless ways, even if you can’t always measure it with a number.

This week, acknowledge and celebrate your growth. Let it serve as a springboard for your future ‘from here to there’ experiences!

If you’d like a goal-setting session of your own, contact me ASAP!

How Do We Live And Lead In Integrity?

Christi Hegstad January 18th, 2021

“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity.” – Tom Peters

Do you agree with Peters’ statement above?

When I first saw this quote on the wall of a university, I paused right there in the middle of the hallway. The depth of this phrase really spoke to me.

What it raises for me is the fact that we are the same person …

… whether we are at home, at work, at the store.

… whether we are speaking to someone directly or anonymously from behind a keyboard.

… whether we are with others or we are alone.

Who we are is who we are. We don’t drop our values at the door.

This week, be in integrity with yourself.

Consider the words you choose to speak, the tone you choose to use, the content you choose to share.

Consider what you value most – perhaps respect, or optimism, or integrity – and act accordingly.

Let’s consciously, intentionally be the best version of ourselves, wherever we find ourselves this week!

Ready to stop *thinking* about your ideal future and start taking clear and confident action to create it? Reach out for coaching today!

Begin From Belief

Christi Hegstad January 11th, 2021

Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, “It can’t be done.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I have a vision for my life.

I have a vision for my business.

I have a vision for the world.

In some areas, I know what I need to do. I have set goals, created action plans, sought necessary support, and started my forward movement.

In other areas, I have no clue how the vision will become real.

But I believe it will. I begin from the belief that it can be done – then start figuring out the ‘how’ from there.

This week, believe it can be done.

Your ‘it’ in this case may be your purposeful vision for the future.

It may be the successful completion of a difficult work project.

It may be a health goal, or a relationship issue, or a dream that will not leave you.

Start by believing it can be done.

You can go anywhere – and everywhere – from there.

ASPIRE members – watch your email tomorrow for all our January details! Not an ASPIRE member but would like to be? Email us ASAP for a special opportunity!

Shifting ‘Something Must Be Done’ to ‘Here’s What I’m Doing’

Christi Hegstad January 8th, 2021

‘Something must be done’ is, in my opinion, a phrase of convenience.

To be clear, it’s one I’ve used myself, probably more times than I’d like to admit.

But while we may temporarily feel better saying it, ‘Something must be done’ leaves us powerless and pointing fingers – neither of which do much to elevate humanity or our own sense of personal leadership.

What if we shift ‘Something must be done’ to ‘Here’s what I’m doing’ instead?

Some actions might include:

Educating yourself.

Read well-researched resources, listen to interviews with qualified subject matter experts, ask questions of trusted sources. Take good notes about how to turn the knowledge into action, too.

Engaging in meaningful, respectful conversation.

In a coach training course years ago, we were invited to practice the 80/20 rule: As the coach, spend 80% of the session listening, 20% (if that) talking. Why? We can’t learn anything new if we’re always talking. This applies to scenarios well beyond a coaching session.

Becoming a critical thinker.

Years ago, NPR pulled a telling April Fool’s joke: They posted an article with the headline, ‘Why Doesn’t America Read Anymore?’ and quietly showed how quick people are to respond to and share headlines without actually reading the article. Rather than accepting sound bytes or sharing catchy headlines as fact, commit to digging deeper.

Asking questions.

Some of my dear friends behave, choose, and vote differently than me. I have learned so much by asking them questions – and listening to their responses. Genuine curiosity goes a long way toward personal growth, understanding various viewpoints, strengthening interpersonal relationships, and taking purposeful action.

Tuning in to your values.

When I finish reading a book, I make sure I record my own thoughts before looking at others’ reviews. I love to hear others’ opinions, I just want to make sure I come from a place of values-based authenticity. If your first reaction – when reading a book, or hearing of an event, or whatever – is to see what everyone else thinks, practice tuning inward first. You can be open to possibility while remaining true to your values.

I am continually challenging myself to do all of the above, and I am open to more ideas. What would you add to this list to help us move from ‘Something must be done’ to ‘I am doing something’?

Contact me today if you’d like help expanding and strengthening your personal leadership.

Front-Loading Your Goals

Christi Hegstad January 4th, 2021

One thing I love about working with coaching clients for several months to a year or more is the ebb and flow we experience with goals.

You know how some days you feel high-energy and productive and fired up about your goals?

And other days … not so much?

That’s perfectly natural. It can also be leveraged as part of your achievement strategy.

This week, front-load your goals.

When you first embark on a goal, you likely feel high motivation to make it happen.

Structure your action plan to ride that wave.

For example, if you set a goal to run 1,000 miles in 2021, don’t just break it up into a 250-mile sub-goal every quarter.

Aim for 300 – or even 350 – miles in Q1, taking advantage of your increased energy and motivation at the start.

Not only will this build momentum and set you up for success, it will help future-you when something else momentarily takes precedence or when you simply feel a dip in motivation.

Just like you try to honor your energy rhythms throughout the day, do the same with your ridiculously awesome goals. Your future self will thank you!

Want to achieve a ridiculously awesome goal this year – something that lights you up while making a positive difference? I can help! Contact me today to discuss possibilities!

Before You Set Your Goals, Do This!

Christi Hegstad December 30th, 2020

To accomplish anything, we have to believe we’re up to the challenge. That doesn’t mean it will be easy or that we even know how we’re going to accomplish it. It just means we believe we’re capable.

– Michael Hyatt

We now find ourselves on the cusp of a new year.

New goals.

New opportunities.

New mindsets.

Ready to make next year better than the last?

This week, conduct a Celebration of Triumphs.

Before you kickstart your plans and goals for 2021, take a moment to celebrate all you have accomplished.

Make a list of all the wins you’ve experienced in 2020: large or small, personal or professional. It doesn’t matter if anyone else would consider them wins – this list is for your eyes only.

(Peek at my recent post on Instagram or LinkedIn for our ASPIRE Success Club game card that might help you with this activity.)

Let your list of wins remind you that you are capable. You are resourceful. You are resilient.

Then, from that space of success, dig into your 2021 goals. Let’s make this year the best ever!

If you want guidance and coaching to help you experience meaningful success in 2021, contact me about opportunities!

When You’re Over Overthinking

Christi Hegstad December 13th, 2020

“Hold on, let me overthink about it.”

Have you seen these memes all over the internet? Can you relate?

Overthinking can disrupt our productivity, mess with our confidence, and steal a lot of delight.

We do want to think and conduct our due diligence, yet not become stymied by overthinking. How do we find this magical place of ‘just enough’?

This week, adopt a Goldilocks-level of thinking.

In other words, not underthinking but not overthinking either.

Some ways to reduce overthinking:

* Choose to not compare yourself to others.

* Take an action. Even a teeny-tiny one.

* Break your thought patterns as needed: place your hand on your heart, for example, or visualize a stop sign in your mind.

* Get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper (i.e., journal).

* Ask yourself, “How much will this matter a year from now?”

Here’s to a week of thinking not too much, not too little, but just right!

Due to some last-minute, game-changing additions to the curriculum, we have momentarily re-opened enrollment to the ASPIRE Success Club! Click here to join us.

ASPIRE 2021 – Enrollment Now Open!

Christi Hegstad December 10th, 2020

Have you ever hung up the phone with someone and *immediately* thought of the perfect thing you wished you had said?

Well, that’s kind of what happened with me and ASPIRE 2021. As soon as enrollment closed, ideas rose to the surface regarding the topic that has felt so important in our current heavily-online world:

How can we increase our sense of community, getting to know one another, and one-on-one connection … without adding excessively to everyone’s full schedules?

Long story short, we are adding a few more features to the 2021 ASPIRE Success Club – thus reopening enrollment for a brief time!

In addition to everything on the ASPIRE website, we are ALSO including:

* Member Spotlights!

Throughout the year, I’ll interview various members so we can get to know you better! Interviews may take place via Zoom, Facebook Live, YouTube, or phone – and shared, along with your contact info, in the Elevation newsletter and elsewhere!

* Member-Led Courses!

Whether your expertise is in financial health, yoga, organizing, or elsewhere, let’s teach to / learn from each other! I will provide the Zoom space and announce to our membership, and if you’ve been in ASPIRE for over a year, you can apply to showcase your expertise!

* Recorded Meetings!

We now plan to record one meeting per month, so if you miss attending you can still catch the vibe, even beyond the continued discussion in the Elevation newsletter, Facebook group, etc!

* Plan With Me!

I’ve already announced the new Achieve With Me feature where I’ll give you real-time updates on my own Bold Goal. In addition, we’ll periodically meet (likely via Facebook Live or Zoom) to plan our upcoming month or week together. If you want help with time-blocking, batching, prioritizing, or other aspects of purposeful planning, you’ll especially appreciate these sessions!

* Bold Goal Overhaul!

The Bold Goal is nothing new to ASPIRE. However, for the past 18 months I have been experimenting with an aligned, but different, way of Bold Goal-setting – and this has proven extraordinarily helpful in the ever-changing environment that has been 2020! You’ll learn all about it in our brand-new training in January!

If you are already enrolled for 2021 ASPIRE, this is in your future!

If you haven’t enrolled and would like to, we are re-opening for a brief time – click the button below to join!

Click here for more about ASPIRE, and feel free to reach out with questions. I look forward to working with you in the 2021 ASPIRE Success Club!

To your flourishing!

Dr. Christi

2020: The Year Of … Delight?

Christi Hegstad December 10th, 2020

If I asked you to describe 2020 in a word, would you choose ‘DELIGHTFUL’?

This year has been many things. If ‘delightful’ isn’t the first word that comes to your mind, I understand.

It does, actually, come to mine. Let me give you a little bit of background:

In December of 2019, I looked at the year ahead with fun family activities on the horizon, cool new work projects lined up, airline tickets purchased for some bucket list travel plans. I chose my theme for 2020: DELIGHT. I recorded the word along with my vision, purpose, and goals, where I would see it daily.

I’d love to say that was all it took.

I’d love to say I didn’t consider changing my theme mid-year.

But I kept with it. As all those activities, work projects, and trips I was excited about got cancelled, I stayed with the theme of DELIGHT. And through the challenges of the year, three points stand out as significant factors why ‘delight’ is one of the words that will define 2020 for me. I hope one or more of these helps you as you reflect on the past year and/or plan for the next:

Recording A ‘Daily Delight.’

Every day, I wrote down one thing that made me smile that day – no excuses, no passes.

Much like the Success Journal concept I have shared many times (here, for example), the Daily Delight took about a minute each day, and I cannot tell you how often I find myself perusing this now-long list!

Not every day felt delightful, but I searched for a spark of delight in every day.

Whether ‘delight’ or ‘success’ or a completely different word, jot down a moment of it each day. Side benefit: Exercises like this also connect you more deeply to your purpose.

Asking A New Question.

That question: What would bring delight to this moment?

Let me be clear: Not every moment has to be (nor has been) delightful. As a coach to many business leaders, nonprofit directors, educators, and healthcare professionals – and as a small business owner myself – there were many moments requiring us to simply acknowledge, and sit in, the difficulty.

Glossing over the challenges or pretending they don’t exist does not benefit us. Neither does staying stuck in them.

When the time came to shift gears, asking what would bring delight to a moment proved surprisingly helpful. A brisk walk, a chat with a friend, lighting a scented candle, a tall glass of water, a fun magazine or novel – the answers were often simple, and enough to refresh the mind and change the direction.

Redefining ‘Delight.’

I’ll be honest, around mid-April I considered changing my theme. Delight, at times, felt hard. But as Glennon Doyle has written, and as we have all proven to ourselves countless times over, we can do hard things.

And just like working your dream job doesn’t mean every task, every minute is dreamy; a year of delight doesn’t mean every second feels delightful.

I learned, however, to find and create new forms of delight, and even to reframe challenges into delight. Cutting my kids’ hair is not my strength – but I found delight in taking on this challenge, in the one-on-one time spent with each kiddo, and in experiencing their endless patience with me (it takes me a loooooong time to cut hair!).

While I used to frequently pop into the grocery store for this or that, I found challenge and delight in planning meals more efficiently and reducing store trips to a couple times per month.

And odd as it may sound, sometimes delight has come in the form of tears shared with a close friend or coach. There is delight in feeling fully heard and understood.

Delight doesn’t always mean sunshine and puppies and jellybeans. (Although all of those things can help!) 🙂

We’ve been navigating a lot, friends. It’s not been easy, and my heart is with you.

But perhaps even amid the difficulty, we can find moments of delight. Perhaps in addition to the hardships, we can find spots of happiness. Perhaps beneath and beyond the problems, we can also find purpose.

I encourage you to think about a word or phrase that you would like to describe your coming year – or even your coming week. Jot down an example of it each day. Ask yourself how you could bring it into the present moment. Redefine it so it meets your own personal needs.

I’ll be sharing my 2021 theme soon, so be sure to connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn!

In the meantime, I wish you a meaningful wrap-up to the year and a purposeful start to 2021!

Want to set yourself up for a ridiculously awesome new year? Contact me– even a one-time coaching session can make all the difference!

Category Archives: Uncategorized