Episode 35 | Reframing Unfinished Goals

Welcome to the Better Workday Podcast with your host, Niamh Moynihan. As we come to the end of 2024, a lot of us are looking back at the tasks and goals we wanted to either complete or achieve this only to be overcome with dread as we realize we are falling short of completion, year, and in some cases, we never even started.

Niamh, how can we use the word yet to help us frame these missed deliverables? Hello, hello. And welcome back to the Better Workday Podcast.

This episode is inspired by the kids' show Gabby's Dollhouse. I was sitting down during the week watching it with my son, and at the end of the episode, Gabby and her friends did a song about one of her favorite words.

And the word was yet. And the whole song was centered around the idea that you mightn't have done something yet, but you could still do it. There was still time to achieve it.

So she would say, "I haven't figured it out yet." "I haven't done it yet." "I haven't achieved it yet." And I thought it was such a wonderful and powerful message to share with children, yes, but also I think with us adults.

I thought about how adding a small word like yet to an end of a sentence could change completely how you're looking at a situation. And look, we're at the end of the year. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been reflecting on all the things I did and didn't do over the last 12 months.

And I think this word yet can really help us focus on moving forward as we head into 2025, even if things didn't work out as well as we planned.

There are two scenarios where I feel this word can be especially helpful. The first is when we haven't started something at all, and the second is when we've perhaps fallen short of our own expectations or haven't met the goal.

The first one, if you haven't started something that you wanted to start, so maybe you've set a resolution at the start of 2024 on the 1st of January, you decided you were going to do something, and now it's the end of the year and you still haven't done it.

Well, what if you said, "I haven't started it yet?" That changes it from something you didn't do at all to something that's still in consideration. And then you can re-decide whether or not you want to do it.

Maybe you haven't done it yet because it wasn't a priority in 2024, and that's absolutely fine, now and maybe you might have more room in 2025 to get started.

Or maybe you haven't done it yet because you didn't have the resources or the information you needed, and now you are ready to go take that next step and fill in those gaps.

Or maybe you haven't done it yet because, quite frankly, things happened in 2024 that changed your priorities, and it's no longer something that you feel need, that you need to do.

And if that's the case, you can let go of it guilt-free. And so when it comes to work or ideas or projects that we didn't act on over the year,

I think adding this word yet to the end allows us to, I suppose, analyze or revisit our reasons why we didn't do it, and then make the best decision about whether you want to bring it into the next year or leave it undone.

And remember, that's okay too. Not every good idea needs to be acted on. I always say there's lots and lots of things we could do, than there's a few things that we should do, and there's fewer still that we must do.

And so maybe adding this word yet to the end of the undones for 2024 will allow you to kickstart your motivation to put them back on the list for next year, or perhaps let them go without feeling any guilt whatsoever.

And of course, the second scenario is when we have been working towards something, but we haven't reached the goal or the target or the deadline.

And I find this especially frustrating when I don't reach my previously defined criteria for success. The challenge with this really is when you don't reach your goal, and personally speaking, I often find it very demotivating, and there's a risk that we ignore all the progress that we have made, all the work that we have done.

So let's say, for example, there's a goal to run 10K within three months, to get up to running 10K in three months time, and at the end of that three months, you can run 9K.

Yes, you've missed your goal, but you can now run 9K. Like, that's nine more than 0K. But often we ignore all that. We ignore all the progress we've made, all the work that we've done, and we say, "I haven't met my goal."

But what if we said, "I haven't reached my goal yet." "I haven't reached that target yet." "I haven't reached that level yet."

Again, this opens up a whole different conversation around what's been preventing you from getting to that last kilometer, or what's been preventing you from getting to that last stage.

And are there things you can change in the next three to six months to allow you to get there? Yes, maybe the timeline is changed by three, six months, but that doesn't mean that the goal has disappeared. You can still do the work. You can still achieve the thing. You just haven't done it yet.

And this allows you to bring all the work that you've done with you, to bring all that progress, and then to identify, you know, without judgment really, what's been holding you back, what's needed for that final phase of the project or final phase of the journey?

And so I think this word can really reframe how we're looking at a situation. It allows us to put ourselves back into the driving seat and say, "Well, I haven't done it yet.

What's the next step?" As opposed to, "I haven't done it," and there's a full stop. And for me, I think there's a massive difference in those two sentences in terms of our motivation, yes, but also our critical thinking in terms of what support we need and what we need to do differently, and also maybe the conversations that we need to have with other people around the effort or the time or the resources that have to go into achieving whatever it is we're setting out to achieve.

After this episode, I'd like you to take a few moments to think about what you had planned to do this year. What have you not started at all, and what have you started and haven't yet achieved?

And with this in mind, what are you going to bring forward with you in 2025? And what are you going to leave behind in 2024? Okay, a nice short episode for me for today, but I hope it gets you thinking. It certainly got me thinking.

You just never know where you just get inspiration from, even from kids' shows. So we're back next week with the final episode of 2024. If you found this one helpful, as always, I'd love it if you could share with a friend or colleague.

And until next time, stay well and have a better workday. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode. The Better Workday Podcast is about helping you have a better workday, so we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

You can find our social media details as well as any references from this episode in the show notes.