E38 - When you're ambitious but exhausted: a gentle approach to goals

Struggling with New Year’s resolutions, goal setting, or motivation as a PhD student, academic, or ambitious parent? In this solo episode of Moms, Mats & Manuscripts, I talk about what is not working with traditional goal setting when you’re exhausted, and how to approach goals more gently and sustainably.

We explore goals without burnout, realistic planning for busy seasons of life, and how to stay ambitious without falling into perfectionism or all-or-nothing thinking. This episode covers gentle goals, self-compassion, productivity for academics (or parents of young kids!), and planning the year ahead when your capacity is limited.

Perfect for:

• PhD students and early-career researchers
• Academic mums and parents
• Ambitious women feeling tired, overwhelmed, or stuck
• Anyone rethinking productivity, discipline, and success

_________

If you resonate with this topic, I'm hosting a Gentle Goals online event on February 15th.

Join the waitlist here: https://shantiscienceyoga.lpages.co/gentlegoals-waitlist/

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:05

Hello, welcome back to Mom's Maths and Manuscripts. Today is a solo reflection on goals, New Year's resolutions, ambition, planning for the year ahead, and I just wanted to talk to you about these topics because we did have this episode last year. We did talk about it with Ina, my former co-host last year, around the same time, also mid-January. But some things have evolved. Even though I re-listened to this episode and I realized that I actually agree with most of the things that we said, some things did evolve, and I wanted to maybe give more language to some things that I didn't have language for last year. So, first of all, yeah, as I said, a lot of the things still stand. I still agree with many, many things that we said, which is, for example, there is this pressure, there is this environment that kind of pressures you to set goals now in January. And January 1st is a very arbitrary date, and it is the middle of winter. And in our bodies, kind of evolutionary, it doesn't really make sense to start this big ambitious project of the year ahead and make these goals and like be very active and immediately kind of push forward towards achieving these goals now. And me and Ivna discussed last year, and I also still feel the same this year that actually I don't want to rush into it. I don't want to do it all by January 1st, which is something that I used to do. I used to start the new year always already with a list, or and maybe even with a calendar and with everything planned for the year ahead. And then I would get to the deadline or get to the milestone that I set for myself and be like, ooh, actually, I haven't done anything. I haven't achieved anything. I haven't gotten here. This approach didn't really work. And now what I'm doing is I'm really, really, really not rushing. I think and agree with the past last year's version of myself that we cannot uh start planning, we cannot dream big and set goals without a very careful reflection on the past year. And I've been going through this process since the end of December. I've been journaling a lot about all the things personal and all the things professional, everything that happened last year, what didn't happen, what I wanted to do and what I didn't accomplish. I have been really carefully documenting everything and thinking about it. And only now, so today is January 18th, only now I feel like I have some clarity, at least about the behaviors, the habits, the patterns that contributed to maybe me accomplishing certain things and not accomplishing others. So these are behaviors and habits that I want to either take with me into this year, into 2026, or leave behind. And so now I have clarity on these habits and I know like what I need to work on, what I need to do when it comes to that. And only informed by that and informed by the past year, I can start thinking about this year and what I want to achieve. And here I'm talking more about my personal goals. Of course, you know, professional, professional goals, professional milestones are also going to be in part informed by that. And I need to think about you know what kept me stuck, what kept me behind, what made me write down also a lot of ambitious goals for professional life, for my work last year, and not achieve many of them. I'll give you examples a little bit later, but um mainly I'm talking about this process for my personal goals and for kind of health and relationships and travel and everything else. So, one example of um the pattern that I gained a lot of clarity on by the going through this very protracted, very long process of reflection is all or nothing thinking about consistency. And for example, I would want to meditate daily and I will put it on like my, I don't know, a tracker that I have to tick off daily. And I would be so upset with myself and feeling so bad and feeling like a failure if I skip a day or you know, life happens, you might be skipping a week. And then how it works for me usually is that I just abandon this habit because I already failed. That's it, I'm not even going to pick it back up and come back to it. And this all or nothing thinking about consistency costs me, obviously. And I realized that okay, this this has to stay behind. Consistency looks very different for me in this season, and it's about you know coming back to the habit, practicing self-compassion, and self-compassion doesn't have to be opposite of discipline, you know, and things also if we if we take the example of meditation, the action that I'm practicing might also be looking different from day to day. You know, today I have the capacity to meditate for 10 minutes. Tomorrow I have the capacity to meditate for half an hour. Perfect, will never happen, but in my imaginary example, um, great, half an hour, that's great. And the day after tomorrow, I only have the capacity for three deep breaths before going to sleep, and that's fine, and that is still consistency. And I need to write it on a post-it and put it in front of my desk because I need this reminder regularly, and I need this reminder that, you know, again, depending on the season of life, this is how it looks like for me today, and it is okay. And this all or all or nothing thinking, this you know, consistency has to happen in exactly the same way. So, like let's say meditation has to happen in exactly the same way, 30 minutes every day at the same time, it just doesn't work for me. And, you know, that stays that stays in the past. My my work this year is to try to rewire and change the habits that hold me behind. And obviously, this is something like you know, my example of consistency. It's not something that I'm going to snap my fingers and it's just gone. Like you cannot, you know, get rid of perfectionism or get rid of imposter syndrome, get rid of overthinking, whatever, add the wave of a magic wand. And it's not it's not the goal, but the goal is to notice it and be aware of it and start consciously rewiring this uh this habit, this pattern in my in my brain. And the second thing that I mean, we did also talk about this last year, and we I still agree with this. It's obviously the fact that our goals have to be important for us and they have to align with our values. And this is in contrast with past Ksenia, who would sometimes put goals or put New Year's resolutions that had nothing to do with what I wanted and were more what I think I should be doing. So let's say when I started practicing yoga or when I started teaching yoga, I thought as a teacher, I have to be able to do fancy poses. So some of my New Year's resolutions list, like from 2020, 2021, they had like master handstands or master splits or whatever. Uh, whatever the crazy pretzel pose that I wanted to do. And I still cannot do these things. And it's fine because again, yoga, I know that yoga is not about that. I know that this goal was not uh kind of mine, it was more Instagram inspired, it was more what I thought I should be doing, and that's why it hasn't been accomplished because I don't care about that, and I'm not even going to, but you know, it still contributed to me feeling bad because I was looking at my lists and being like, huh, I didn't do this, I'm I'm a failure. So this year, and as it has been for the past couple of years, I'm not writing down, I'm not even thinking about such things. I always try to put goals that are really in line with my values. So let's say travel, and something that I mentioned last year was that I every year I have a goal of visiting at least one new country, or if a new country is not happening that year for whatever reason, like in corona times, I uh have a goal visiting two new cities. So, you know, discovering the country that we live in, or maybe exploring more Portugal if we visit family, exploring more Estonia if we visit my side of the family, this kind of stuff. And it's in line with my values. It's also realistic, even despite changing seasons of life. Like with my son, it's still realistic. And that's why I think that you know it can be going from one New Year's resolutions list to the next one because it still fits, it's still fine with my capacity, so it's going to stay with me, I think, for a long time until we run out of the countries, which is not going to happen in this lifetime. And another thing is I did think about that last year, but I feel like I was still not very honest with myself, is that your goals have to be informed by your capacity. I mentioned that, you know, now I have a son, so I need to think about like what I can achieve when he's at home, what I can achieve on like the worst possible day when everybody is sick and there is no energy and um a lot of cartoons on repeat and stuff like that. Everybody is dysregulated. What I still can do on such a day. I cannot set goals from the place of pre-baby Xenia that had all the time in the world and all the freedom in the world didn't have like this responsibility and yeah, was not a caretaker. So I didn't need to think, okay, if I if I want to take like two dance classes a week, now I need a nanny. Back then, obviously, I didn't need to think about that. So I could take two classes a week or something. So again, this year the goals are very, very, very honest about my capacity and what I can do when my son is in kindergarten or when my husband can take over some caretaking duties or or stuff like that. So I need to be much more honest with myself and be very discerning. And this is something that I have to credit an acquaintance of mine. We had a really long chat about goal setting and about the fact that we can only hold maybe two or three things at a time. And I was like, what two or three things? I'm so ambitious. I have a huge list of everything personal, professional, yada, yada, yada. And no, I honestly like I can be super ambitious and write this list, and they're never going to happen. And it's true that we obviously all have different capacities, all have different life situations, life stages, but we cannot hold a 25-point list. So if we are writing a 25-point list, we're kind of already setting ourselves up for a failure unless you know our resolutions on that list are super simple, like go to brunch once, you know. And nobody does this, right? I hope. So if we are setting ambitious goals, we need to be discerning about the capacity, about the season of life that we're in. If there is something like, you know, you're preparing for a wedding and it takes up so much time, and um you need to be very like present with this and very on, don't set a huge list of other goals outside of that. But then, you know, that has a natural deadline. So as soon as you're married, then you can you can set other goals. That was just an example of that acquaintance of mine. And obviously, you know, you can uh insert your examples in in here. For me, I did fight with this for a while, and I was like, no, but I want to do this and I want to do that, and I want to do so many things. And I decided that actually I'm going to try. I'm going to try to really limit myself and see how it goes this year. So I chose three areas of life that I want to work on, and I didn't even, so I'm still in the process, you know, I'm still getting clarity on like exact goals and exact plan for the year. But I chose three areas of life that are the most important for me right now is health, relationships, and then my work. And I will only work on like one thing at a time in these three areas of life. Again, no 25-point lists as in the past. And I think that should be much more in line with what I can do in this season. That's also obviously automatically in line with my values. And something that comes to mind here is that I used to think, so when I learned about SMART goals, I used to think that everything has to be automatically SMART goals. And obviously, in this case, I think, again, maybe in the season, I think that putting timelines and deadlines and sort of making the goals very measurable doesn't really work for me right now. Again, it's coming back to the all or nothing thinking about consistency, because I think that's just going to put a lot more pressure on myself, create more anxiety. And that doesn't work, but it it depends on the kind of goals that you have, I think. So obviously, there are some things that can have a deadline, like if you're training for some race or if you're preparing for a specific, very specific thing at very specific event, like the beginning of a new job or move to a new country or whatever that has a natural deadline. But for me personally, like there's nothing like that happening this year. So all my goals are more process goals, and they are also informed with a sort of aspirational future version of myself. So, one example, let's say, when it comes to health, this aspirational future version of myself moves her body regularly and in a way that is not punishing, in a way that is not to lose weight or achieve a certain physical goal, like again, splits or handstands or something. She moves her body regularly to maintain health, to maintain muscles, to feel good and feel confident in her body. And I am gonna move like that. I'm gonna move in a way as my future aspirational version moves. And that you notice that you know, regularly is a bit vague. But at this point, for me, it works because again, no all or nothing thinking about consistency, no setting things like I'm going to move for 30 minutes every day or five times a week or whatever. Because again, I'm not going to like there will there will be weeks when I don't move my body at all. Because everybody is sick, my daughter is sick, I'm sick, everybody is just ah, no energy on the sofa watching cartoons all day. That's fine. That's a week out of 52. And then the next week I'm going to pick it back up without feeling pressured, without feeling anxious, without feeling like, ah, I'm already a failure, I'm this, I'm that, without beating myself up. And it might be feeling a little bit counterintuitive because we are so used to thinking like, ah, discipline and you know, daily and this and that. I don't, I don't think it's the opposite of discipline. I think it's still discipline, it's just the one that is informed with your capacity, with your nervous system, like how it's feeling. Because the all the things that you see on social media, like 75 hard and all that, it might work for single men. But it doesn't work for a lot, a lot, a lot of people out there who have very different lives and very different mental and physical and nervous system capacities. And we have to be honest with ourselves. Like, of course, this can be really aspirational and really inspiring and wow, amazing. People can do that. But can I do that? Do I need to do that? Am I gonna feel better or am I just gonna stop it after three days and feel like crap? Why do I even why am I even going to start something that I'm going to feel like crap about? So I think about a lot, like how I want to be feeling at the end of the year, how physically, you know, emotionally, everything, you know, I arrive to December 31st, I how I want to feel in that moment when I look back at the year. And I try really hard to set goals. At least this year, I try very I will try very hard to set goals that are informed by this feeling, informed by this, like again, aspirational future version of myself, and how does she feel on December 31st, 2026? And from there, you know, I don't think that I need to be punishing myself. I don't think I need to be pushing myself really hard and thinking that if I am gentle with myself, if I'm compassionate with myself, I'm going to stagnate. Because I know that feeling safe, like having energy, feeling not burned out and not like you're just moving because, or you know, doing something, doing anything because you're being pressured by outside voices, outside perspectives into this, it will increase consistency, it will increase motivation. And again, in line with being sort of gentle and compassionate and not thinking in this all or nothing way about consistency, uh, we did discuss this last year, is that fresh starts can happen anytime. And we are now in this bubble of like everybody is sharing their goals, everybody is is planning, and um, it's you know, it's a fresh start effect, new year, it's always like this, it's natural. But what I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, it's not really natural to do it now in winter when the nature is sleepy and hibernating, and we are also feeling a little bit sleepy and hibernaty. So um maybe waiting a little bit and seeing how you're feeling, like when it is aligned, when it is more aligned with you know, spring or your own personal cycles of energy. Um, you know, you can do it anytime. You can begin at the end again at any time. It has, you know, it doesn't have to be Monday, doesn't have to be new season, doesn't have to be new month, can be like in the next hour, can be next week, it can be on a Thursday, it can be on the whatever. It and it is so freeing to think about it in this way, because again, you are not you know abandoning your goals or whatever in the middle of the year or on January 19th or whenever, and then feeling like I'm a failure for the rest of the year. Of course, there's there's this natural seasons when it feels better, when it feels easier to set goals. Of course, beginnings are always better because they do give you this psychological boost, this fresh start effect. Um, it is easier to um feel inspired, to feel motivated to to push yourself. But you know, maybe we don't always need to push ourselves. Maybe sometimes we need to wait a little bit and things will come, inspiration will pour, and the the goals will just feel natural and and this process will not feel like you're doing it as a punishment to yourself for you know whatever you didn't accomplish last year. And if this feels like something that you want to try this year, if this feels like something that you are like, okay, that's interesting. I just need a bit of of time and space to actually think about it and reflect and plan and just do all these things. Um I am going to have an event to help us do just that. It's going to happen in February, on February 15th, I think, Sunday. And it is, again, intentional because I don't want to do it now in January, so that we are still in this kind of pressure cooker of environment of goal setting, you know, has to be now. February is already a little bit closer to spring. It's a little bit closer to when the energy is gonna come up and kind of reawaken when nature is going to reawaken, and again gives you a bit of space. And this event is not necessarily, you know, me teaching a framework or uh teaching you how to set goals, but it is more about just having that time, the having having structured time for reflection, having um maybe some support with discerning what works, what doesn't, and having a permission slip to maybe, you know, maybe you did something in the beginning of the year, and it will give you a permission slip to revisit that and see, you know, what's working, what doesn't. Can I, if I if I abandon some of the goals, can I begin again? And so on. So it is more of a of a like yoga and journaling and self-reflection retreat rather rather than a workshop. And I want it to be interactive, I want it to be very uh reflective and and you know useful for you to just really give you space and give you time for yourself. I will have all the details ready very soon, but for now I will have a wait list link in the description of the video and the description of the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever. And if you are interested, just you know sign up for the wait list and you will hear when the doors open in a few days or in a in about a week. So we are going to talk about all these things a bit more in the event, but let's revisit quickly what I talked about when it comes to goal setting and planning the year. What I am doing this year is I'm really intentionally not rushing and I'm doing a lot of reflection and realizing what was working last year, what didn't work last year, and what needs a little bit of love and rewiring this year. I am making sure that my goals are really mine and they're not coming from outside voices or outside pressure, that they are really aligned with my values, with what I want to achieve, and mainly and most importantly, with how I want to feel rather than maybe some more um precise and rigid number kind of thing. So I'm not thinking about like number on the scale or number in the bank account necessarily. I'm thinking more about my feelings and how I want to be showing up, how I want to uh feel looking back on the year on December 31st. And my goals this year take form of more process goals. So how I want to be moving, how I want to be doing things instead of again very precise outcome goals. And they are really informed by my capacity, by the time that I have, by my nervous system, the state that I'm in, and I um am practicing a lot of self-compassion and a lot of like gentleness with myself. And I don't think that gentle and self-compassionate means not disciplined, not motivated, not ambitious. It's actually counterintuitively going to help me feel more motivated, help me feel more disciplined. You know, maybe this is something that you need to try for yourself to believe me. Or maybe you see how that can be true, and if that's the case, you know, try it and see where you're going to end up on December 31st. I think this needs another reflection. So maybe at the end of the year, I will actually come back with this, with a part two of this episode, and we will talk about what worked, what didn't, you know, if this approach actually worked for me this year and if it was better than all my 25-point lists in the past and all my deadlines and very specific, very measurable outcomes uh that I used to do in the past. Let's see. I'm actually also really curious. I think last year, when it comes to sort of more personal goals, this approach worked really well. When it comes to professional goals, I do think that I didn't take this route and I just wrote kind of a whole list of really ambitious things. One example that I can give you is uh one of my professional goals last year was to pay more attention to my YouTube channel. Not the podcast, but the the actual YouTube channel and put yoga videos on the on YouTube and start kind of growing the channel there. And very silly. It's just it's just very silly because it's not really what I wanted. I feel like it was more because my husband keeps pestering me about it and telling me you have to be on YouTube, you have to be on YouTube, you have to start putting yoga videos out there. And I, you know, somewhat agree, but I also understand that this like this is not going to happen in in this season, not yet. Like I I don't have time for this. And I would rather put my efforts into something that is more personal and that is more about connecting with people and helping them on a one-to-one level, on a personal level. And so this goal was on the list, and then nothing happened. No work was done towards that goal, nothing happened towards it. And again, you know, not in line with really like my values and not taking into account my capacity because filming, editing, uh, all that, like YouTube learning the platform and learning how to do it and how to make it work, learning the the search engine optimization and everything that would take me so much time. It's completely not reasonable and not realistic for me right now. So of course it didn't work. And this year there is no YouTube on my list. Because yeah, this year we are not setting goals like that. We are trying to be very, very intentional and very limited. So, you know, just one thing at a time, on we go, and let's see how that works. All right, thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much for listening. I hope this little chat uh made you think about something, made you maybe inspired a little bit. And yeah, there is this event wait list, the gentle goals event wait list in the description below. Join me and we can talk about it more. And I hope that whichever goals you are setting for yourself, you are going to be able to accomplish them all if they are in line with your values, of course. And thank you for being here with me today. I'll see you very soon. Bye.