The Secret to Goals That Stick
The Secret to Goals That Stick
If you’ve ever found yourself setting a goal with excitement, only to let it fall apart a few weeks later, or if you avoid goal-setting altogether because it feels overwhelming, you’re not alone.
I’ve been there, and in this blog post, I share a fresh approach that completely changed how I set and stick to goals.
Why Do Most Goals Fail?
Most traditional goal-setting methods focus on the outcome. While having a goal is important, focusing solely on the end result often leads to burnout or disappointment. For example, when I set vague goals like "I want to read more," I struggled to stay consistent and eventually gave up.
These types of goals don’t address the deeper issue: how you see yourself. If your self-talk says, "I’m not organized" or "I never follow through," no to-do list in the world can change that. That’s where identity-based goals come in.
What Are Identity-Based Goals?
Instead of focusing on the outcome (e.g., "read 52 books this year"), identity-based goals focus on the kind of person you want to become.
This approach, inspired by James Clear’s Atomic Habits, focuses on who you want to become, not just what you want to achieve.
When I shifted my mindset to, "I’m a reader," everything changed. I started asking myself, "What would a reader do?" Readers get library cards, create Goodreads accounts, talk about books with friends, and pack a book for downtime.
By taking small, specific actions aligned with this identity, I began to see myself as a reader. Each small win—whether it was choosing a book over scrolling on my phone or chatting with my friends about their latest reads—reinforced my new identity.
How to Set Identity-Based Goals
Ready to try this for yourself? Here are five practical steps to set identity-based goals:
Decide Who You Want to Be
Think beyond what you want to achieve and focus on the type of person you want to become. Maybe you want to be mindful, organized, or someone who prioritizes self-care.Create Specific Actions
Break your identity into small, actionable steps. For me, being a reader meant getting a library card, reconnecting with my Kindle, and finding books that excited me.Reframe Your Self-Talk
Your thoughts shape your actions. If you catch yourself saying, "I’m not organized," reframe it to, "I’m someone working on being organized."Celebrate Small Wins
Every step you take is a vote for your new identity. Whether it’s reading for five minutes or adding a book to your to-read shelf, give yourself credit.Be Kind to Yourself When Life Happens
Progress isn’t linear, and that’s okay. Some weeks I didn’t read at all, but I still embraced my identity as a reader by talking about books or looking for recommendations.
Why Identity-Based Goals Are More Sustainable
Identity-based goals aren’t about quick fixes; they’re about creating long-term, sustainable change.
By focusing on who you want to be and build systems that support your identity, you can set goals that stick—even when life gets busy.
Take the Next Step Toward Your Goals
If you’re ready to embrace this approach and want support along the way, check out Stuck to Start It membership. With a full year of coaching, workshops, and a supportive community, you’ll have everything you need to stick to your goals.
Let’s make your goals work for you—starting today.
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Sarah Lovell (00:00)
Welcome back. This episode is for you if you fall into one of two categories. One, you love setting goals. You get super excited about your new goal for about a two week honeymoon period when you're all in and then something happens, it starts falling apart and you abandon the goal altogether and it does not feel good. Or two, the idea of setting goals is stressful and terrifying and you avoid it at all costs.
So today I am talking about a totally new way for you to set goals that you will actually feel good about and strategies to help you stick to your goals in a realistic way because I know your life is busy. So let's do it.
So I used to be a decently avid reader for fun many, many, years ago. And life got busy and reading just kind of like fell off of my radar. Like it was always something that I was like, I want to read more. I should read more.
It was kind of this wish washy goal of like, I would like to do it, I should do it, but I just didn't do it.
Basically, I didn't really set a goal to read. I thought about it. I started taking some half-hearted action on it, but I just didn't do it. But last year, I changed how I set my goal and I changed how I thought about my goal and I started reading pretty regularly. I was reading one to two books a month, which if you're an active...
reader, you're like, Sarah, that's barely reading. I was more than what I was doing. And I was feeling good about it. Like was getting back into reading. I was connecting with it and it started feeling good. And this year I have been reading almost every day.
There are definitely some periods of time where I don't pick up a book, but I am on track to read 52 books this year. And it is not about the numbers. I wanna like throw that out there. Like for me, the goal was to just reconnect with reading, but I am pretty proud of that number
If you told me three to four years ago when I was like, I should read, I'd like to read, like, I wanna get back into it. If you told that version of me that I'd be reading a book a week, I wouldn't believe you because my self talk around reading was not great. And so let me tell you how I made this change. At first, I totally changed how I thought about my goals.
I really shifted my mindset and my self-talk. Two, I focused on the type of person I wanted to be rather than the outcome. So instead of saying, I want to read more or I should read, which is like what my automatic self-talk was, or I want to read a book a week, that wasn't even on my radar, I shifted what I was saying to myself.
and said, I'm someone who reads for fun. I'm a reader. And that is a subtle change, but it makes a huge difference because basically I would ask myself in situations, what would a reader do? And then I did those things. So it wasn't just about how much I was reading, right? It wasn't about the number of books I was checking off.
It was about all of these different action steps that really supported my goal. So I got a library card, which if you do not have a library card, let me just get on my soap box really quick. I can't believe I went so many years without a library card. I'm obsessed with my public library. Like go get a library card. Even if you're not a reader, there are so many resources there. It's a whole other topic.
But yeah, getting a library card was huge, obsessed with my library. I also reconnected with my Kindle, literally. the Kindle charger was lost and I was like, I can't read because I don't have my Kindle charger. So silly to let
barrier like that pop up. But I found my Kindle charger and I started using my Kindle again.
I asked for book recommendations from friends and some of them I definitely ignored and that's okay. I think again, that self-talk piece of like, if somebody recommends a book, I have to read it. Like, no, there were some books that I definitely was like, cool, thanks for sharing. And then like not my cup of tea. But then I also like challenged myself on that a little bit and said like, could I try a different genre?
and shout out to my sister for getting me into a totally new series of books that I shut down for a while. But I was like, what would a reader do? A reader would try a different genre, right? So letting myself set boundaries sometimes and then challenging myself on them other times. I also started having conversations with people when I saw they were reading. so shout out to my CSA, which is Community Supported Agriculture. Every week I would go pick up
fresh veggies from my local farm. And the women who worked the farm stand pickup always had their book and their Kindle out. And I'm a pretty extroverted person. So I just started asking them what they were reading each week. And it became an unofficial book club. We would make recommendations to each other. We would talk about what we liked about books, our main takeaways from books.
And when I left that end of the season, I was like, can we be friends on Goodreads? Right? So even like that part of my identity of being a reader, like grew and expanded. It wasn't just about, am I making time to read each week? It became all of these other areas of my life. And so I gave myself credit.
each time I did something a reader would do. So yeah, each time I sat down to actually read, I gave myself credit, especially when I was choosing a book over doom scrolling or kind of like when I had a weird window of time to be like, could I read for five minutes, right? Even challenging some of myself talk on, have to read for a half hour. No, I could sit down and read part of a chapter and that's okay.
Each time I added a book to my to read, to be read shelf on Goodreads, I gave myself some credit. Like that's what a reader would do. Each time I packed my Kindle in my purse and read when I was in a waiting room or when I had downtime, like out and about, I gave myself credit.
So that self-talk piece is huge I adjusted systems I was using, definitely. Like I made my goal more obvious. I left a book out on top of the TV remote. I have my Goodreads app on my
So those systems definitely helped me take action on reading, but I also challenged some of my self-talk around it.
So if you've listened to my other episodes, you know I'm a recovering perfectionist. And some of my old self-talk was if I started a book, I needed to finish it. And I no longer do that. I no longer waste my time with a book that I'm not enjoying or a book that isn't connecting with me. So whether it's 15, 20 pages in, or there was one book that I read.
I was almost done. I was like 80 % of the way through and I was like, I just can't stand this character anymore. And I was like, why? Why do I keep pushing myself to read this book even though I'm not enjoying it? And I wanted to know how it ended. So I literally, I Googled how the book ended so that I wouldn't have to keep pushing through some pretty painful character arcs. So letting myself like noticing what challenges...
held me back from reading in the past. Like if I had invested hours into a book that I was actively disliking, that kept me from reading again in the future. So I allowed myself to shift that thinking. I also did not focus on my numbers at first. So if I had set the goal initially of I'm going to read a book a week from when I hadn't been reading at all, like for years,
When I tell you that I reconnected with reading, there was a long period of time where I was not reading at all for fun, which now looking back on it, I'm like, that's so sad. missed out on so many opportunities to read books during that period of time.
if you had told me then, you're gonna go from not reading at all to reading a book a week, I probably would have fallen into that first category of goal setting.
where it's like, okay, I'm super like, let's do this. I'm here for the challenge. And I maybe would have read two books and then dropped off. Just because that's, can't set goals that way. That's not sustainable for me. So I did not focus on the numbers at all. I didn't track what I was reading. I didn't count how many books I was reading. It was really just about, am I doing something that a reader would do, even if it wasn't picking up a book? So I think that's a really important piece.
And so if you're listening to me talk about this goal setting and you're like, Hey, that sounds familiar. this, this type of goal setting is an example of an identity based goal. And this is the work of James Clear. I did not invent this. I'm not taking credit for this. James Clear wrote the book Atomic Habits, and this is like one of the main, focuses of the book and
I am obsessed with this way of thinking and setting goals. And so not only is it something that I practice in my own life, it's something that I help clients with as well. This is how we talk about goals. Whether I'm working with you one on one, or if you're in my membership, or if you're here for the podcast and on Instagram, you will hear me talk about this. Because that self talk piece is huge.
And you know that that's something I talk about a lot because truly self-talk is the foundation of everything that we do. You've heard me say it before and I'll say it again. What you say to yourself matters. And so your brain has some ingrained hardwired messages in there that might not be the most helpful for you. And so...
that's an extremely important part of goal setting is noticing your self-talk, being aware of it, and then having tools, strategies, and support to reframe it. So if your automatic thoughts, the thoughts that are popping up are things like, I'm not organized, it's going to be really hard to try a new organization system or to set a new goal around.
organizing your space because your brain is telling you you're not that person. And that's not true. That's, that's, I will help you challenge that thought. Right? If your brain is telling you I'm always late, it's going to be really hard to set a goal to get to work on time until you reframe that thought. So reframing I'm not organized to I'm a person.
who is working on being organized. If it's not comfortable yet to say, I'm someone who's organized or I'm someone who is working on time management.
So those automatic thoughts can hold you back from taking action. And I'm a broken record on it, but that's why starting with the self-talk piece is so important. And identity-based goals start with adjusting how you think about yourself first, and then you create systems to support your goals and your identity and your self-talk.
This is easier said than done. Reframing your thoughts takes a lot of practice and patience and kindness with yourself.
So if you're someone who is having a hard time noticing and shifting your self-talk, I'm gonna share a quote from James Clear that I think is an important reminder.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.
So good. I'm going to repeat the first part of it again because I'm guessing you're multitasking, whether you're driving, folding laundry, cutting up vegetables, whatever you're doing while you're listening to me. I wanna repeat this and good for you for multitasking. Like this is a great thing to multitask with. So let me repeat it again just so you hear it a second time. I want this to get ingrained in there. Every action you take is a vote.
for the type of person you wish to become. And so going back to my reading example, even though there were days that I didn't sit down and read, if I talked to my friends at the CSA about what they were reading, or if I read a short article, I gave myself credit because those are things that readers do.
And this is for a lot of us, a new way of thinking because our brain autopilots to the things that we're not doing and kind of poking at like, you didn't do this thing so it doesn't count. So this is a totally different way of thinking. Like you're looking for evidence
All of that evidence is going to build up. And then that helps you shift your thinking.
So there are three levels of behavior change that James Clear outlines in his book, Atomic Habits, which highly recommend. It is a great audio book if you are somebody that enjoys multitasking, audio books with tasks, Atomic Habits is a wonderful one to listen to. Also great to read if you're a hard copy reader. So there are three levels of behavior change that James Clear talks about. The first is changing your outcomes. And that is basically your
your goal. And that's what we think about in traditional goal setting. So what do you get? And so that's why for me, setting the goal of I'm going to read a book a week would not have been helpful because I would have been focusing on the metric of am I hitting this, right? it's definitely part of goal setting. What do you get? What is the outcome?
but it can't be our primary focus. But you can change the second level of behavior change is changing your process. So that's changing what you're doing to get the outcome. And then the third is changing your identity. That's what you believe about yourself. So in order to change your behavior for good sustainably in the long run,
you need to start believing new things about yourself. Because when you believe new things about yourself, you take different action and then you get a different outcome. And you have control over the journey, right? Like what you're telling yourself, what you're doing, but you don't necessarily have control over the results. And so that's why it's so important to give yourself lots of credit for changing your thoughts.
changing your process because those are the things that you have some control over.
So how do you do that? How do you change your beliefs? How do you change your self-talk? How do you create new systems? Well, that's exactly what I love talking to people about. That's what I support people with on one-on-one coaching and in the Stuck to Start It membership. So let me tell you a couple of things that James Clear shares, and then I'll talk to you a little bit about how I work with people on this too. So first,
you need to decide the type of person that you want to be. So in my example, I wanted to be a reader, which I now fully identify with. But when I've run this workshop in my membership, which I'll be running again in January, I have a full list of all of these different descriptors, and people choose ones that connect with them. So a couple of examples.Do you want to be brave? Do you want to be mindful? Do you want to be someone who follows through? Do you want to be someone who prioritizes self-care? Do you want to be someone who sets boundaries? So once you decide the type of person that you want to become, then you determine what behaviors or actions align with those values and beliefs. And you want to make sure that they're super specific. So in my example of my reading goal,
It wasn't just sitting down to read, right? It was getting a library card. It was creating a Goodreads account. It was talking with people. Those are super specific. And then you want to prove your identity to yourself with small wins. And you're going to give yourself credit and look for evidence. And this is a daily practice.
It is so important to give yourself credit the whole journey, not just when you get to the finish line on a goal. So if I waited to give myself credit for reading until I had set the metric of I'm gonna read 52 books in a year, if I waited until the last week of the year to be like, good job me, pat on the back, I did it, that's too late.
You need to give yourself credit the whole, the whole process.
especially when it's getting hard. It's more important to give yourself credit when it's hard because that's when our goals typically drop off, right? You have other priorities popping up. Your energy, mood, time is shifting, right? So the goal can look different. The process can look different and your identity can still be the same. There were weeks where
I didn't read. I was in a book rut. I basically just was stuck in... I had read such a good book and was feeling so good about the book I just read that it then became hard to pick another book. I'm like, nothing is going to be as good as that book I just read. So some self-talk stuff in there for sure. But on those weeks where I was like, I really just don't feel like reading, that was okay. I gave myself permission to shift what...
being a reader looked like that week. So my CSA friends got extra chatty Sarah that week because I just was like, I'm so stuck with reading. Like, let me talk about why I'm feeling stuck and let me talk about what I might read next or like even getting that validation from fellow readers of like, yeah, I've been there too. It's really hard when you finish a good book and you don't have another one lined up or.
What if you just picked up something super light that you really didn't care about just to get back into it again, like taking some of that pressure off, right? so having support is also huge, right? And during those reading weeks, I had to be extra patient and kind and give myself even more credit so that I could get back into actually reading again.
So identity-based goals are so powerful because it isn't about the specific outcome. It's about the journey. And it's about making sustainable and realistic changes in your life. And that is wholeheartedly my coaching philosophy. So if you're someone who wants to set this type of goal and wants to shift
how you think, how you talk to yourself and create new systems that support that, I want to work with you. I want you in my community. I am so happy to have you here in my podcast world. so first and foremost, thank you so much for being here, listening to me chat about this.
If you are looking for the next level of support, I want to offer you a full year of coaching inside my membership, stuck to started. And if you're wondering why a full year? Well, because change takes time and it's not a quick fix. If you have goals that you've been thinking about or dreaming about or wanting to take action on,
or you've started taking action and had that fall off happen, you know that it takes time to make changes. And when you have a full year of support, you have support when those challenges pop up in life. And you'll have a plan for when life throws you wrenches because it always does, right? You get into a good flow and then something derails you.
And so having support, having a safety net is so important. It also takes a lot of time to learn about yourself, try new systems, tweak them along the way so that they actually fit into your life. And that's exactly what we do inside the membership.
It's more than just setting a goal, adjusting yourself, talking, creating systems. It's about having support and community too.
Stuck to start it is for you if you feel like you've tried every trick in the book and day to day life is still feeling like a daily struggle.
It's also for perfectionists who are paralyzed by indecision and you end up spending way too much time over analyzing every single option because you're afraid of making a wrong choice. And so you feel stuck.
It's also for you if you have a four mile long to-do list and you feel awful when everything doesn't get done at the end of the day. But it's also because that isn't a realistic to-do list and I help you navigate that.
Stuck to Start It is also for over-thinkers. If you stress yourself out, spending way too much time drafting emails, rereading, editing, stressing out over the wording, and then still forgetting to hit send,
You're not alone.
So if you're feeling energized about setting some new goals and working on them in a different way, or if you're feeling stressed about that, I want you to know that Stuck2Started is for you.
The membership has monthly workshops, hot seat coaching.
reflection calls, and weekly co-working sessions where you get live support from me. And if you can't come live, there is a resource library where everything gets put and I offer support on how to navigate that.
In addition, each week I post checking questions and share resources and ideas in our community chat. So there are lots of different ways to get support on live calls in the resource library and in our community chat. So if you're wondering if Stuck to Start It is the right fit for you, send me an email and we can chat about it.
Thank you so much for being part of my community here. Take extra good care as you think about your identity-based goals this week and heading into the next year.
