Hi Brooke!

I love SCS. I’ve worked through the podcast guide and have been doing thought downloads and models every day. The answers in my models always surprise me. I’ve learned so much.

The goal I committed to is “I will love showing up in the world.” I am still working on clarifying this to make it more concrete and would like your advice.

Background: I was a little bummed when I learned that this month would be about setting big goals and making a commitment, and I almost didn’t set a goal. I feel like one of my issues is that I can over-achieve. I always say that I want to “coast” at work but then I will pour energy into my job and get a promotion, new role, etc. I never planned to have kids, but now we have three beautiful (and very busy) little boys. I always get to a point of saying, “this is what I want, I don’t need anymore” but then I sign up for the next thing and have even more on my plate. And I’ve been happy with a lot of my decisions (having my kids, learning a ton from being challenged at work, etc.) but at the same time feel like purposely setting a big goal is the last thing that I need.

So I’d like to make my goal about self care. Or maybe even a goal about being content with who I am and what I have now? I chose “I will love showing up in the world” as my goal because I want to give myself permission to be myself. I want to feel like I can just show up and be myself, instead of feeling like I need to achieve or people please. I’m very adaptable and it’s easy for me to go along with (my perception) of what other people want rather than making the effort to choose what I want.

When I think about ways to take better care of myself, I notice them sliding back into people pleasing. For example, I’ve been thinking about getting more clothes that I love. But it quickly changes (in my mind) from something that would make me feel good, to me imagining that I could get more validation from other people if I dressed better. And so then I have the same goal – getting new clothes – but it’s changed from being something for me to being about approval.

Any advice on setting goals around self care and making them specific?

Thanks!