Episode Summary:

In this insightful episode, Kristen Boss dives deep into a sneaky and self-sabotaging pattern that shows up in goal-setting—guilt-driven goals. As the end of the year approaches, many people fall into the trap of using shame and guilt to set overcompensating goals, only to end up feeling burned out, unmotivated, and even more disconnected from themselves.

Kristen breaks down how guilt-fueled goals are rooted in shame rather than genuine desire, and why they often lead to failure, burnout, and eroded self-trust. She challenges listeners to shift their goal-setting framework from punishment to purpose, offering tangible questions and mindset shifts to help you set kinder, self-honoring goals that actually stick.

Plus, Kristen shares personal anecdotes, coaching insights from inside her Sonara Signature membership, and offers a sneak peek into her upcoming 3-Day Challenge: The Success Rewire—designed to help you radically shift how you approach goals in 2026.

Key Takeaways:

• Guilt-driven goals are reactionary and come from shame, not purpose.
  
• These goals often ignore your current season, bandwidth, and values.
  
• Guilt only creates short-term compliance—not sustainable change.
  
• Self-compassion and values-based goals create lasting motivation.
  
• Small, kind, consistent goals build self-trust and long-term success.
  

Questions to Reflect On:

• Is this goal coming from shame or desire?
  
• Would I still want this goal if no one was watching?
  
• Does this goal feel kind and aligned with my current season of life?
  

Mentioned in This Episode:

🌟 The Success Rewire — Kristen’s new 3-day event to help you set meaningful goals that align with your values and create lasting results. Just $9 to join!

📅 Dates: December 8–10 | Replay available | Link in show notes to register.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Welcome + intro to guilt-driven goals
01:54 – Year-end urgency and the guilt trap
04:34 – Upcoming 3-day event: The Success Rewire
06:18 – Real-life coaching example of a guilt-driven goal
09:11 – How shame hijacks your objectivity
14:56 – Guilt goals vs. kind, values-based goals
22:36 – How your nervous system reacts to shame
25:23 – The hidden cost: eroded self-trust
29:33 – Turning guilt into sustainable change
32:00 – Anchoring goals in identity and self-love
35:32 – The slow and sustainable path
37:53 – Kristen’s personal reflections on failure and resilience

Connect with Kristen:

• Instagram: @thekristenboss
• Website: www.kristenboss.com or www.sonderalife.com

If this episode moved you, inspired you, or made you rethink success—share it on Instagram and tag @thekristenboss. She might just shout you out!

“Guilt never builds long-term change. It only creates short-term compliance.” – Kristen Boss

Transcript for episode 239: “Guilt Driven Goals: How They Set You Up to Fail“

Kristen Boss (00:03):

I see you with brand new eyes. No, I’ve never been so sure. Take my this. You are listening to the Kristen Boss podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a bestselling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning.

(00:56):

Hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This week we are going to talk about something that comes up a lot for people in all areas of life. This isn’t limited to an online business, it’s more than that. This comes up with your health goals, your financial habits, your eating habits, your relationships. It touches every area of your life. And we’re going to talk about this thing called guilt driven goals. I see it happen all the time and we’re going to get into why they set you up for failure and why they don’t work. But before we get into that, real quick, if you haven’t heard, I am doing a three day challenge. Yes, I’m bringing it back. I haven’t done a challenge in well over about a year. Last year, I think, I don’t think I did a three day. I think I just did a single day, single session.

(01:54):

So it’s been a long time since I’ve done a three day challenge and I didn’t think I’d ever come back to it. But when I started really getting to hearing where people were at, watching patterns that come in for people so often and knowing that this is the time when people start thinking about the new year. And this is why I want to talk about guilt because I think a lot of times at this time of year, there’s this, I see people do one of two things. I either see them sprint to the end of the year to make up for what they feel is lost time. Like, oh my gosh, I should be further along so I’m going to go really hard or this kind of this year didn’t go to plan. I’m just going to put it in cruise and then I’ll reevaluate my goals and what I want and do better, do better next year.

(02:49):

And I’ll reevaluate that between Christmas and the new year. And that is when I think you are most susceptible to setting guilt driven goals that only set you up for failure. So we’re going to talk about that. But my three day events is going to be called the success Rewire. It’s helping you change how you approach your goals so that every goal you set, you can actually meet. So if you’ve ever had a problem with either overcom committing to a goal and later burning out or struggling to even set goals or you fail to consistently implement and follow through on the plans you set for your goals. So if you were that person that gets excited by a goal, sets a goal, makes a plan, and then a week later the plan gets abandoned, or maybe I find usually most people, like 95% of people are out of the running by about six weeks in is what I’ve seen in my years of working with thousands of people.

(03:49):

So this is what it’s designed to help you do. And it’s $9. It is. There will be replays. It’s going to be on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That’s December 8th, ninth and 10th. So yeah, it’s not going to be between Christmas and New Year. It’s a little bit before too much chaos, about an hour a day. Join me. I know it’s going to be incredibly insightful for you. Bring a friend, bring in accountability, buddy. If you are sick of setting goals that you are not meeting and you are weaponizing those goals against yourself, you’re going to find this to be incredibly insightful, freeing, and I’m excited to teach you a framework that is pretty much guaranteed to give you results because I’ve seen it over and over and over again. All right, so the link for that is in the show notes. Start sharing it. Let’s go.

(04:34):

If you’re like, how will it help me? It will help you in business. It will help you in life. It will help you with your health. If you have a goal towards anything, it’s going to help you. So if you’re like, Hey, I struggle with procrastination, overthinking, people pleasing, overanalyzing, perfectionism and burnout when it comes to the goals I set, this is perfect. We’ll see you there. So check the link out in the show notes. All right, let’s get into today’s topic. Guilt driven goals and why they always fail. This is inspired from a coaching that was happening inside of our Sonara signature membership, and that’s where we do, there’s weekly live coaching to support you as you are utilizing the tools we have. It’s not a course, it’s not this robust thing where you’re taking a course every week and catching up. You’re learning to integrate and use the tools in your everyday life.

(05:24):

And so the coaching came up as I was coaching someone and I noticed that, and this wasn’t the first time. It’s a trend I’m noticing. And someone said, oh, well, I have this goal. And she was struggling with a goal and I said, well, why do you have that goal? She said, well, this person told me that this is what everyone should do and this is what successful people do. I said, oh, okay. So because it worked for that person, you took it on and assumed you needed to have the same goal without taking into account your season of life, what you’re currently going through. And she had been going through quite a lot in her personal life and she had a season where she was taking on the care of a baby that had special needs and she was setting this huge goal. Even how she was talking about her goals.

(06:18):

She was like, well, I’ve abandoned my business for the last year. I was like, have you abandoned it or have you prioritized other things that were more important at the time? I don’t want to disclose any confidentiality, but I’m like, sounds like you were going through some pretty significant family emergencies at the time. So were you really neglecting your business? Is that narrative actually true? And why are you saying it as if you were being lazy and irresponsible? And even how she was talking about her habits and her her goals or even her business, she was like, yeah, she was speaking as if she was being lazy and neglectful. I was like, but that’s not true. You actually were dealing with a severe family crisis and you entered into a new season of life that included you bringing on a child with special needs and that became your full-time job or is that not true?

(07:15):

And she wasn’t even allowing herself to have that narrative. And so what happened was because she had the narrative of I have neglected my business for the last year, which isn’t even a whole and true picture or a full picture, and it was a picture cloaked in shame and I’m a bad person or I suck. What happened was it triggered what I’m calling a guilt driven goal. And so she all of a sudden was like, I got to get back into it. I got to wake this up. And I’m just like, well, hold on. Let’s, has your circumstances changed? No. She still is caring for a special needs child that is requiring her full-time work. And so I said, when you tell me about this goal and you think about it in your everyday life, does it actually fit? And what’s interesting is when she was dealing with her shame or beating herself up, it triggered a guilt driven goal of like, oh, I have so much ground to make up for, therefore I’m going to overcompensate and do this huge goal.

(08:17):

And then I had to remind her, Hey, let’s evaluate your season. Is that still the right goal? And what’s interesting is when we’re naming a guilt driven goal, we tend to not be objective or honest about our reality, our bandwidth or our seasons. We tend to overcompensate to address a feeling we currently have about ourselves. So I see this even happens with wellness. People are like, I’m so lazy. I haven’t worked out in a year and my pants don’t fit. I’m so disgusted with myself. And so that’s the shame narrative. And then the overcompensation into a guilt driven goal is becomes, that’s it. Now hear me if you’ve ever done this, I have been guilty of this at a time of my life. That’s it. No bread, no sugar, no alcohol and gym every day for, and I’m going to the gym five days a week.

(09:11):

And that is when guilt, we lose our ability to be objective about our season, our bandwidth and those things, and we overcompensate and we set ourselves up for failure because the person that’s like, all right, no bread, no sugar, no carbs, and I’m going to go to the gym five days a week where the person who set that goal is someone who hasn’t been to the gym in six months, every meal is car bloated and they have sugary drinks all day. We are talking about literally turning their life around completely in every area, overhauling their life overnight instead of if we were to not have guilt naming the goal, we would actually be a lot kinder. I always ask, it’s so funny. I said, I’ve been saying this to our members inside of our program. I said, does that goal, when you tell me that goal, does that feel kind?

(10:06):

Does that feel like a kind goal towards yourself? And we don’t have this language around goals. We just don’t. We have this, grind it out, prove your worth, prove something, stick it to the man. We have a very hustling narrative around goal setting instead of a kinder, self-compassionate view around goal setting. I think maybe because we perceive that as weakness or we perceive like this, if we’re not taking the go big or go home approach to goals, why bother the all or nothing and how bad do you want it? I’m like, well, I don’t care how bad you want it. If you start out the gates strong and burn out two weeks later, clearly that’s not a formula that works. This is also what we’re talking about at the three day challenge. And so when I’ve been asking people, is that a kind goal or does that feel a punishment towards yourself? You’re whipping yourself for this is what I get. So what feels like a kindness? And I’ve given health, I’ve given business as an example. I’ll give another one.

(11:10):

Another one of my members was talking about how they in order to cope with their stress, they find themselves doing a lot of online shopping. They were on Amazon impulsive purchasing, and she kind of was saying it. She was really ashamed. And I said, Hey, you are one in millions that adds to cart when you are feeling a certain kind of way. We have way too much the amount of dopamine. We get a click of a button where there’s not enough delay between our actions and the dopamine. It’s like we’re not having to work very hard to scroll around on Amazon before we make a and know that the thing we want is coming in our way. Depending on how close you are to a fulfillment center, it could be the next morning. I can’t even begin to tell you about that. Sometimes I’ll shop being like, what can be at my doorstep between four and 8:00 AM?

(12:05):

That’s another conversation. But she was talking about like, okay, this has got to stop. And I want to speak to, I don’t know what debt or financial things are, and I’m not going to sit here and say I’m a financial expert. However, what I am an expert in is understanding human behavior and our impulses that are driven by emotion and standing our intolerance for boredom. We don’t have a tolerance for it anymore. We used to not anymore our intolerance for feeling uncertainty and unease and it feels so uncomfortable in our body, we will do anything to create that relief. And so our brain knows clicking add to cart fixes it. So I just said, instead of telling yourself you’re not allowed to spend, which for a while had become a self-soothing behavior, the brain sees a lot of relief in that. I was like, okay, we have to A find other activities that give you dopamine.

(13:02):

It’s going to be a slower release of dopamine. It’s not going to be the same quick release. I was like, so work on a dopamine menu for lack of a better term. And then I said, what if you didn’t ban yourself from making purchases, but you did make the rule that you do not make purchases from your phone? And if you want to purchase something that you will go to your desktop or your MacBook or your laptop, which interrupts your loop. Now, if you were somebody that shops while at work, you might have to put a different buffer there. But anyways, it was just like what is the kinder thing to at least create pause between the impulse I feel and the action? How can we invite a pause? Guys, this is everything. If you can learn to bring more of an intentional pause to more areas of your life, your life would change, your life would change.

(13:57):

Before you shove the Oreo in your mouth, asking yourself, what is it that I actually need in this moment? What is going on? Am I sad? Am I bored? Am I angry? Am I frustrated? Am I stressed? Just the pause can do so much for ourselves. It takes our life from being a creature of impulse into a creature of being a person, not a creature, but a person with intent. So I say this, so that was kind of a long explanation to guilt driven goals, but I’m hoping I’m giving you very clear pictures of how guilt driven goals are set. And I think a guilt driven goal is a goal you set to fix a feeling you currently have, not create a future. I’ll say that again. A guilt driven goal is a goal you set to fix a feeling that is often shame, regret or some form of self-loathing and is not to create a future with intent.

(14:56):

Think of I need to work out because I’m so lazy. That is a guilt driven goal versus I want to work out because I want to feel stronger walking up and down my stairs every day because I want to be able to lift. I’m a caregiver and I have to lift this person and I can’t afford to get hurt, and I want to be a strong caregiver. Notice how one is from self-loathing and one is from a place of empowerment or I need to stop over spending because I’m so irresponsible. The shame, the shame. Or I need to get more organized because I’m failing and I suck, or I need to grow my business because everyone else is further along than me. I need to show up on social media because I’ve been inconsistent. How many of you say this? I need to show up.

(15:39):

I’ve just been so inconsistent. These aren’t goals. I think these are ways of trying to fix or punish yourself for areas where you have perceived failure. They come from shame, not real desire. And so we wonder, so when you start off the starting block and you go strong and you quote lose motivation, I think it’s because what’s happening is you’ve ran far enough away from your shame where the intensity of that shame is no longer strong enough to continue to propel your forward movement. And if shame was your driver and there wasn’t enough desire, well, it makes sense that once you’ve removed yourself far enough away from the shame, there’s not a desire that’s compelling you to move forward from a place of self-love and being intentional. You guys get what I’m saying? Right? And so is it coming from fear and lack or is it coming towards gratitude and excitement for creating a different future?

(16:48):

Is it coming from pressure or is it coming from purpose? I will tell you, I think there’s a healthy sense of urgency where you show up every day without acting like it’s an emergency without being in scarcity, and you’ll know the difference. It’s a different feeling in your body. One feels focused, the other feels frantic. And it is so important that you check in with yourself because your drivers, your internal drivers are everything we say. We aren’t. So many people deny that they are emotional. And I’m like, but everything you do in your life is driven by some kind of emotion. Why? Because when people are like, I need to get more motivated, what they’re looking for is an emotion. They’re looking for a feeling to drive their behavior. And so when people are like, I’m not an emotional person, I’m like, okay, then are you a robot?

(17:50):

I promise you’re an emotional person. I think we just have a culture. I do think we are getting better about it. I think the millennials, you say what you want about millennials and Gen X, but millennials, I do think we are the generation that is willing to have emotional literacy and emotional language and create emotional intellect with our children because we were raised by a generation that didn’t have that language because they were raised by the silent generation. So I do believe there’s like every generation is doing the best they can, but I do believe the millennials are at least willing to acknowledge emotions. But I still think there are, I don’t know if you want to call it internalized oppression towards certain emotions. And oftentimes that’s from your upbringing of these emotions were allowed in my home. But these were not normalized, but these were not.

(18:45):

And so if you want to get to know yourself, I’m going to do a quick little rabbit trail here. If you ever want to get to know yourself and understand yourself, and you might have to create a safe space for yourself to do this, but an interesting exercise for you to do might be writing down like emotions that were allowed in my home, emotions that were praised, emotions that weren’t allowed, emotions that were never discussed. And if you were to create two columns, like emotions that I was allowed to have, emotions that I was not allowed to have, emotions that I saw happening in my home, emotions I never saw happening in my home. And you end up creating rules for yourself about how you’re supposed to feel about yourself and feel about the world. So if there was never a place for disappointment, you weren’t allowed to feel disappointed and you had to go and sort that out in your room or there wasn’t a place or you weren’t allowed to feel sadness or a sense of rejection or whatever, maybe even anger or maybe anger was the only acceptable emotion in your home, but maybe you weren’t allowed to feel fear or rejection, whatever it is, interesting thing for you to do.

(19:58):

But here’s the thing I think you’ve learned by now, why guilt driven goals always fail is because, and I’m going to summarize it for you, is because guilt never builds long-term change. It really only creates short-term compliance. If you think about it, the guilt propels. You make a snap judgment from the guilt that often overcompensates beyond what your current bandwidth can even do. It feels like a punishment and then you comply to it in order to, because now it becomes this thing where you have to prove something to yourself of like, I’m not lazy. I don’t suck as a human and I’m not irresponsible. Well, now it’s a high stakes game where not only have you set yourself up to fail at the end of it, when you do fail, you have now proven to yourself in your, see, this is why I suck as a person.

(20:49):

Do you see how shame only creates more future shame operating from present shame only creates and compounds more future shame. This is why Brene Brown is like, I don’t think I understood in my early twenties why she was so big on shame, but now being 40, I’m like, shame is everywhere. Shame is the driver between almost every decision because as humans, we are so it is one of the most intolerable emotions that we could possibly experience. And unless we know how to house that in our bodies and be compassionate about it, we’re always going to continue to operate from shame. So guilt never builds long-term change. And the thing is, with a guilt based goal, the goal is a reaction. The goal is a reaction, not a choice. Meaning you set a goal simply to get away from a feeling, not move towards a better life for yourself. That feels loving.

(21:46):

So then guilt. So the goal is really out of a reaction. The second thing is it creates urgency but not direction. Oftentimes, this is where people are like they overcompensate create this insane list of standards of what they’re going to do, but they don’t have a fail plan. They don’t have a fall plan. They don’t have what does this look like on a bad day plan so that when a bad day happens, they’re like, look, I suck. I failed again. Guilt also will can activate your nervous system or propel you into some form of stress response. And this is what we do inside of our Sandara membership is we help you understand where your fight flight, fawn or freeze is hijacking your better reasoning and your decision making in your life. So guilt will activate for a fight type. They’ll overcommit and push too hard and inevitably burn out.

(22:36):

They will go beyond what natural boundaries and energy can actually sustain flight types. They will end up avoiding procrastinating. They become the start tomorrow. And I find that flight types will still create a big plan, but they end up, they get overwhelmed by the very plan they create, and then they either take no action or they’re very inconsistent freeze. They will plan and research their new plan, but never act on it. They’ll just overthink it, maybe do more research, maybe they’re getting ready to get ready to change their life. And then fond types, they will typically either take on someone else’s goal or recommendation because they think that’s what they should be doing, or they will bail when their goal starts to feel like an inconvenience to other people in their life. They’re like, well, I can’t do that because my family needs me. My spouse mate needs me.

(23:35):

This person needs me. This person needs me. It’s selfish to pursue this. I can’t put those. In order for me to have this goal, I’m going to have to have boundaries, and I’m going to have to tell people no. So instead of doing that, I’ll just give up on the goal and my calling you out. This is what we’re going to learn more about in the three day. So this guilt driven goal not only does, it also has you running away from yourself, it’s essentially saying, this is who I am. I suck as who I am. And so therefore the solution has to be stop being who I am instead of how do I understand my wiring and who I am and how I operate in the world, and how do I set myself up for a win? I don’t think anybody asks themselves this question when they set goals like go bigger, go home, grind it out.

(24:20):

I’m just like, wait, wait, wait. How can you set yourself up for a win so that we can build rather than erode self-trust? Because the huge hidden cost with guilt driven goals is it destroys your relationship with yourself and your self-trust because every time you set a guilt driven goal and you inevitably fail because you will, your brain logs that as evidence that you can’t count on yourself being like, here we go. And then once you have that piece of evidence, what does that do? Well, now it’s compounding your shame and then your self-trust erodes. And then this is why I believe people, I think they will go through a goal setting era and then they will stop setting goals entirely because they’re so emotionally depleted by them because all it does for them is create shame. I really think this is why people stop setting goals in their life because all they experience around goal setting is shame.

(25:23):

Instead of, wow, I love who I’m becoming. Look at all these things I’m learning about myself. It’s just like we’ve weaponized goal setting in so many areas. So let me give you a different way to approach goals. So this isn’t about eliminating discomfort because I think when shame is having us set the goal, we’re trying to run away from the discomfort of our current life instead of understanding, okay, how do we embrace discomfort and work on eliminating guilt as the fuel for our goals? Stop using guilt as fuel. Stop it. Okay, so here’s what I’m going to ask you. So when you go to set a goal, first of all, ask, is there any part of me that is setting this goal because I feel comparison, overwhelm, lonely? Do I feel pressure? Do I feel insecure?

(26:22):

Is there any part of this goal that I’m setting from a place of judgment or shame or a rejection of myself as I currently am? If so, it’s a guilt driven goal. Instead of is this about wanting better for myself because I love myself because I care about my future because I want to create new opportunities for myself because I want to have healthier relationships? That’s a different conversation. There’s a desire based goal versus a guilt based goal. Okay? Now my other thing I want to ask you, so once you kind of identify, is there any part of this goal that’s being set from a place of guilt, shame, or rejection? The second thing is, would I still want this? This is a big one. Would I still set this goal if no one else was watching?

(27:21):

I can’t tell you how many people I have coached in my years where I have asked them a bunch of questions to only realize the reason why they keep quitting on their goal is because they never had their own buy-in to the goal because it was never a goal they set or they wanted. It was a goal they thought they should have, or they looked at what someone else was doing beat themselves up from a place of comparison and shame and they thought I should do that too. And so of course they’re like, I don’t know why I’m inconsistent. I’m like, it makes so much sense to me because this was never your goal to begin with. You took on this goal as like this is, I should do this last. I checked anytime I’m operating from that place, it never sticks. You don’t have your own.

(28:11):

If you’re not bought in towards your goal, of course you’re going to quit on yourself. I was just telling someone the other day, I was like, Hey, if you considered, come up with a goal and then I want you to date that goal. See if you like it, see if it sticks, see if there’s any part of it that feels icky to you and investigate why. But we jump into these big commitments to these goals that look really great on paper, kind of like dating look really great on paper and be like, this is so good. This is so good. And then when it comes to trying to integrate the goal in our everyday life, it’s not working and we wonder why, and then we think we’re the problem, maybe not. Maybe the goal you set is the problem. Okay, the next thing, okay, so one is evaluate what’s your real feeling driving the goal?

(28:55):

Two, ask what? I still want this. If no one was watching, no one was watching. The next one is, choose goals that are rooted in your values, not in your fears. So let me give you an example. I need to get more organized in my day because I’m a mess. No, switch it to, I want more ease in my day. I want to be able to have set downtime that isn’t filled with panic. Oh, I like that for myself. Or I need to lose weight because I’ve let myself go. Or like I was saying earlier, I want to be strong people who are counting on me. I want to run around and chase my kids. It’s very different.

(29:33):

What about I need to stop scrolling, I’m wasting my time versus I want my evenings to feel restorative. And I notice that every time I do scroll kind of grouchy and feel gross about myself. And so the most loving thing for me to do would be not to scroll during certain times. So setting goals that help you feel at peace and create desire. Now you’re still going to experience discomfort because you are pursuing change. And anytime we leave status quo, our brain and our body resists that because it just wants to move into a predictable, safe place. So this isn’t about goals that are comfortable per se. These are about goals that are calling you up and to something versus a goal that is shaming you and making you feel small. So here’s what I would have you do for setting a more self-honoring goal, so to speak.

(30:25):

A kinder goal is what I’ve been saying. Why aren’t we setting kind goals? Because if we set a kind goal, the chance that we’re going to actually meet the goal actually becomes quite high, and then we build a new data point, we build a new piece of evidence. I am somebody who can set a goal and reach the goal. This is all about building new data for your brain. So make the goal smaller and kinder. So take this big thing, shame makes it big, make it smaller. And if your ego’s like, but that’s not impressive enough, who cares? Who cares? Your ego has already taken a beating because you’re not following through on the big things you’ve said. Stop that. Okay? Focus on how you want to feel. Not all the things you want to stop. So here’s an example. I need to stop overeating.

(31:14):

Instead of that, maybe I want to feel nourished and energized and not lethargic and overstuffed and uncomfortable after my meals. That makes sense, right? I need to get my act together, or I want to feel in control of my day and not feel reactive. And I want to be able to be more present with my family. And I know the only way I do that is when I have a plan. When I have a plan, I’m actually a really pleasant person to be around. But when I’m putting out fires all day, I am overstimulated, touched out, angry, pissed off, and no one wants that person. So then the last thing is anchoring goals, not based on your guilt, but the identity you’re working on creating for yourself out of a place of self-love. Okay?

(32:00):

When you do that, when you set kinder goals, you actually generate momentum. This isn’t about turning your life over in one night. It’s like, how can I start to create small, sustainable, meaningful change with time that can compound, but some of you all are out there, and I get it. This is so hard with our instant dopamine, instant fast fix culture because fast fix culture praise on your shame because they know people that feel ashamed are going to swing the pendulum into overcommitment and from shame. They’re going to buy things they don’t need, commit to programs that they have no intention of following through on, but they know they can make a quick buck off of your shame. Welcome to if you haven’t listened to the moral crisis of marketing. I was kind of talking about this. I believe we, we are a culture that capitalizes on shame.

(32:58):

If I can get you to feel bad enough about yourself, then I can get you to pay me money so I can get you out of this bad feeling about yourself. And it’s like I do think there is a line of like, okay, how do we help people understand you’re in pain. There’s a way to fix this, but I’m not going to do this by shaming you and it’s going to be a more gentle path forward. And your ego is going to fight that because your ego is going to tell you, or your shame is going to tell you, that’s too slow. That’s not fast enough, that’s not big enough, and I’m not going to be able to escape this reality soon enough. So I don’t want slow, I want fast. And then my thing to ask you is how has fast worked for you?

(33:36):

Has it worked for you? It has not because most people that go fast end up falling back or burning out or ending back up where they are. Choose slow, unsustainable friends. I get it. It is not sexy, but this is the path forward. My first business that was all that I spoke about was just sustainable. Sustainable, what’s sustainable, what’s sustainable? And then I think it just got lost a little bit in the noise of the pressure. And I get it When there is economic pressure, when you’ve got bills to pay, I get how hard it is to check in with yourself to not have scarcity, naming every goal you set, but it hasn’t worked for you. So maybe we need to go about things differently. And it’s more than just this one podcast episode. This you don’t rewire how your body handles goals and shame overnight.

(34:35):

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Your nervous system and your emotional capacity to handle hard things wasn’t built in a day either. This is a lifetime, it’s a lifetime. Friends. And so I’ll close with this, you don’t need bigger goals. And maybe someone’s going to be really triggered by that being like, all I’ve known is big goals and be like, cool. Then all you probably are familiar with is the huge shame drop on the other side of a big goal that you didn’t meet. And I know some people that set such huge goals that when they don’t meet the goal, it puts them out of the game for years. Or some of them never come back because the emotional devastation behind missing the big goal that they went all in for, they were never able to recover from it. And they were like, so in order to protect me from that kind of pain, I will never set a big goal like that again.

(35:32):

Or I just won’t set goals. I’ve seen it so many times. You don’t need bigger goals. You need kinder goals. You need self-aware goals. If you’re setting a goal, if you set a goal that feels compulsive and fast and urgent, and that’s it. I’m telling you right now, that’s a goal. That totally lacks self-awareness. We’ve all been there. I know, I get it. Trust me, I’ve been somebody that has had 45 extra pounds packed on my body and for too long, disgust and shame was the driver that I thought would propel me out of that. And it wasn’t until I chose slow and sustainable and boring and committing to losing half a pound a week instead of being the girl who used to cut bread and lose five pounds in five days. You know what I’m talking about? And so I’m like, yeah, is it less sexy to lose half a pound a week?

(36:30):

Yep. Way less sexy. Way less gratifying in the short run because half a pound feels like nothing. When you’ve got like 45 or more to lose. You’re like, oh my God, but this, I’m never going to get there. But you compound it and now two years later, I’m 45 pounds down. Okay, all right. Eventually the half a pound at a time slow, suddenly it’s stacking up to 10 pounds, then 12, then 15, then 20, then 25, then 30. You know what I’m saying? But no one wants to sell you that because they know you’re too impatient. People know you’re impatient, and so they want to monetize off of your impatience and off of your desperation. And I want to wake you up and invite you into a different way of being because how you’ve done things obviously hasn’t been serving you. Maybe it’s worked in some areas. Listen, fast and fix can work, but does it last? And at what cost? That’s the story. So friends, stop using goals to punish yourself. Stop using goals to make it a proving ground of your worthiness. You are already a worthy human being simply because you exist in the world. That is it. This has been my work. I think I have full honesty, full disclosure with you. I think I have failed every goal I’ve set this year.

(37:53):

And coming from years never of exceeding every goal I set, this has been a different kind of proving ground, not a proving ground of my worthiness, but a proving ground of just how resilient I am. And I never knew how resilient I could be until I started failing. And maybe failure isn’t the worst thing in the world. So friends, come to the three day event. Come to the success rewire. Invite your friends, invite your people. Get loud. Go to the show notes. We will see you there, and I’ll see you in the next episode. That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to www.kristenboss.com starts right here.