Episode 151 - Vision For 2024: Setting Intentions for the Year Ahead
Join me for a deeply personal episode where I share my journey of setting intentions rather than goals for the upcoming year. Explore my areas of growth and reflection, inviting you to join in contemplation about what you wish to focus on and cultivate in the coming year. Tune in now to initiate a reflective journey and align your intentions for meaningful growth in the year ahead.
Topics
Moving away from setting ambitious goals and focusing on themes instead.
Themes of "groundedness" and methods like Vipassana retreat and somatic practitioners.
Theme of "discipline" and practice of a loving kind of discipline.
Making decisions based on data and math rather than feelings.
Balancing overachieving and underachieving with compassion and radical self-love.
Links
👉 Ready to start 2024 boldly? Book a Discovery Call!👈
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
arie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the Self Growth Nerds podcast. I'm your host, Marie, a courage coach, creative soul, and adventure seeker. Since thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019. I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions, and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life. Hello, nerds. Happy New Year. Congratulations.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:43]:
You survived the holidays. How are you? How are you feeling? Today, I wanna talk about my vision for 2024. Now this, is being recorded Well, I'm still in 2023 because I wanna take time off until the 3rd January, and this came out on the first. So I I'm pre social media break. I might wanna change everything. Who knows? I might have epiphanies. I might have little breakthroughs in the the the the week between Christmas and New Year in that strange liminal space. So we'll see.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:26]:
We'll see what happens. I'll just share my thoughts as they are right now. So I'm approaching 2024 very differently. I looked at the podcast episodes I recorded at the start of 2023, and it was called something like big goals, big numbers big number goal. Yeah. That's that's right. I usually, had Very ambitious goals at the start of every year, but what's been happening in the last year is I think I have fuel in the tank to go a 100 miles far, and then I start driving. And after 20 miles, the the tank is empty.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:10]:
So I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I have a a smaller tank in this season of my life, or maybe there's a hole in the tank somehow, or maybe I need to use a different kind of fuel. I'm in the process of figuring that out, but that means I decided not to set goals per se, but to choose themes. So I came up with 5 themes, 5 words that I want to focus on in 2024. And I wanna encourage you to try the same exercise. So here they are. The first word is groundedness. So one thing my therapist told me this year is that I intellectualize my feelings.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:01]:
I thought I was a very sensitive person who had a lot of feelings, and, yes, I do, but I don't really experience them in my body. They happen in my mind, and that's something I wanna work on this year. I wanna be less in my head and practice feeling safe in my body and moving through the feelings, moving through the physical sensations so that I get a real release. I get a real physical release instead of turning in circles up there in my mind. Why? Because that shows up in all kinds of different ways. 1 one of them is in intimate relationships. Sometimes instead of being rooted in the present with the person or with the people. I'm going to be in my head analyzing the moment, analyzing the person or even analyzing how I feel about the person.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:09]:
Looking at the situation from the outside as if I was watching a movie instead of being in the movie. In order to do that, I might try different things. A friend of mine suggested I try a Vipassana retreat. So, these are 10 days of silent meditation. You go there and you cannot have your phone. You cannot have books. You cannot how anything you wake up really early in the morning, and then you just meditate all day. You can go for a walk outside, but that's pretty much it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:46]:
There's No entertainment. There's no conversation with the other people. You can't even look each other in the eyes until I think on the last day, you can talk, but that's it. This sounds awful. It sounds awful, but I know it would Be good for me. The other thing I might try, I've, been looking into somatic practitioners, so either Coaches or therapists that focus on methods centered on the body instead of mindset. I've been on 4 different consult calls with 4 different ones. And with 2 of them specifically, I just bawled my eyes out so Much needed to come out, and I feel like it's a a dam that's that's that needs to be opened with the right person.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:42]:
I I'm not gonna lie. I'm scared. It's a scary process, but I'm gonna Find the courage in me to overcome that fear and and move forward because I know it's going to increase my well-being in the long run, and it's gonna make me a much better coach. If I can be at ease with The wide breadth of human emotions within me, it's going to be easier to hold space for my clients when they're walking down challenging in their paths for themselves. So that's the first word for 2024, Groundedness. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a a little fairy, a little soul flying around, and I find it more challenging to put both of my feet on the ground. So that's one of the things I wanna work towards this year. The second word for 2024 is discipline.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:06:50]:
Now you'll see how owl that is very similar to the first one, but I'm bringing in nuance. I'm not talking about the oppressive kind of discipline. No. It's a very loving kind of discipline that I want to practice. In my business specifically, sometimes I'm going to think with my emotional brain instead of my business brain. If it's not going exactly how I want, I will be more likely to take things personally because I have a tendency to attach my worth to my work, like many of us. Growing up, I saw my parents place a lot of value on success, professional success, not just my parents, but society at large as well. So now I have a tendency when I'm not successful the way I want to be to experience shame and to make it mean that something is wrong with me as a person.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:58]:
Instead of looking at it like a more of a neutral business problem to solve. And what happens when we tend to quickly fall into, It's me. I'm the problem. It's me. To quote, is it Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift? I'm not sure. Is that we want to hide. Actually, for me, it shows up in, a dance between overachieving and underachieving. What I mean by that is, let's say, I need to prove my worth by being successful, then I'm gonna overachieve to do so.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:37]:
And if it if I don't get if I get the result that I want, then Growth, because I I'm worthy. I feel I feel great. But then if I don't hit the mark, which happens to everyone in business, I'm going to want to move in the opposite direction and start underachieving as a way to avoid how it that makes me feel as a way to avoid the voice that says you're a failure or you're a loser when I haven't hit my goal. It becomes safer to just not do anything than to to try something and have it, quote, unquote, fail. And my ego can be really smart sometimes and tell me that I'm resting, that I'm prioritizing self care when actually I'm just hiding because I'm scared. I'm scared that if I go out and I try something new, something risky, and it doesn't go as planned, then I'm going to be mean to myself. Our ego is so smart. It has developed tricks to keep us from stepping outside the cave.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:09:49]:
But what I wanna work on this year is finding the balance between overachieving and underachieving, allowing myself to step outside the cave and whatever happens out there to not make it mean something about my worth as a human being. It's much easier said than done. It's a practice. It's not something that's going to shift overnight, but it's something that I want to pay more attention to. So the the I I'm talking here and the initial word was discipline, but I'm thinking maybe the word should be Something like compassion or radical self love or a mix of both, like compassionate discipline. Because, ultimately, what I want to do is make decisions based on data, based on math, more than I make decisions on feelings. Let me give you an example. If I make a a video online And very few people watch it instead of thinking, oh, people don't like me, and so I'm gonna stop making videos, which is a decision made from feelings.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:04]:
I'm I might instead think, Okay. Let's look at the videos that people did watch and did enjoy. What were the topics? Are there any themes that come back? Is it the the time of day that they were posted? Is it the length of the video? Let's, look at this as if we were in a science lab and there was no emotions involved. And let's see the conclusions that we can we can come up with based on the data instead of just reacting from a wounded place, reacting from a place of I want to be loved. Like, I'm a child, and I just want to be loved. That That there's no space for that if you're going to run a business without going mad or just live life without going mad because It's the same for you in every aspect of your life. If you take everything personally and you react from a place from a wounded place, It makes every day so much more challenging. Another way that that shows up for me is, with money.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:16]:
So in terms of money, I have a a really good mindset where I believe I'm good at making money. I can I can make money easily? However, what I need to strengthen the skills I need to strengthen is how to manage that money afterwards. I have not learned a lot about that, because that's an area that just doesn't seem as fun to me. It seems boring, to be honest with you. However, it's important for me to be intentional about this because it's going to help me achieve some of the goals that I wanna achieve, like being able to own a home. So that is something I'll need to be disciplined about because at the end of the day, it's just about sitting down with the discomfort and doing the damn thing. There will always be a part of me that's like, I don't feel like it. That's the the emotional brain.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:22]:
And that's when I wanna practice being like, I know. I know you don't, and Let's spend 30 minutes on it. What was super helpful for me is reading the book Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. He's the same guy who wrote The War of Art that I read a few years ago about resistance. So if you have a lot of resistance when it comes to starting something new, read The War of Art. And then Turning Pro is, I read it in a few hours. It's in 1 evening. You you can read it again and again and again.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:57]:
It's about the difference between being an amateur and being a professional. And being An amateur is what I just described. You just do it when you feel like it. And if you don't feel like it, that's okay. Just do something else, and and that's fine when when it's a hobby. But when it's something that you want to take seriously, it's not going to lead to serious results if you don't take the the journey seriously. There are so many quotes from that book that I highlighted that I could read to you, but that would be a whole podcast in itself. Actually, I could do a podcast about that book.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:14:39]:
But let's let's say this one. Quote, when we turn pro, we stop running from our fears, we turn around and face them, end quote. Turning pro is about maturity. You stop acting like a child, and you start being honest with yourself. Let's say you wanna write a book. You actually sit down and write it instead of being emotionally immature and saying, well, I'm I'm not good enough. It's never going to work. It's it's, there's Too many books out there already anyway.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:15:18]:
We think that's mature, but it's not. It's fear talking. Don't you think? What Steven Pressfield would probably advise in turning pro is overcome your demons by writing the book, sitting down every day or or, like, every other day to write and then put it out into the world. And if it doesn't become the massive success that you wanted it to become, learn from this, and write another book. He's talks about how He had to write so many books before one of them got traction, but he said don't you you just don't get to be a baby about it. After 1 book written to to be so entitled that you think it should have worked, I guess I guess People don't get it or I'm not good enough. I'm just gonna go back to my job and and and to Netflix, and I'm gonna stop writing. That that's emotional childhood, and I have massive empathy for that.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:30]:
I do that too. I have pity parties all the time, but it's about whether or not you're gonna bring yourself back on track and keep being a pro. And that doesn't mean never resting. Pros rest massively. They rest, and then they go back to work. But that like I was saying, the goal here for me this year is finding the balance between overachieving and underachieving. What does it look like to be disciplined, and loving towards myself? That's going to be the the exploration in 2024. Okay.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:12]:
Let's move on to the next word. I feel like they all merge into each other, and this word is the result of discipline. So it's stability. I never thought, that would be one of my words of the year, but I guess I'm turn turning 35 this year, so maybe longing for more stability. By, by that, I mean, I would like to get clients coming in with a a more consistent flow. Just like when I was a graphic designer, I was a freelance graphic designer for 6 years, I think. And there came a point where whenever a contract was coming to an end, I I never had to worry because I knew something else was always going to come in at the right time, And that's a a great place to be in. It's a great feeling.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:10]:
A big part of that is word-of-mouth. So the more people you work with and help, the more They will talk about your services to their peers, and that will come back to you. So that that's something you cannot force. It just takes time. And then for me, I know it's also about making my audience grow, more specifically the listeners of this podcast because this is where my clients come from, from the self growth nerds. They say, oh, I've been listening to you for sometimes just 2 weeks, sometimes a year, sometimes 2 years, and it's been really helpful. And now I'm ready to work more closely with you. And you know what's Great about that is I feel like, when clients come from the podcast, we're in such alignment.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:58]:
Because if you've been listening to this for a long time, chances are we have very similar values. We laugh at the same kind of things. We are moved by the same kind of things. So we're kind of like soulmate clients already before we start working together, and that makes me feel so good. It makes me feel like, I'm at home in my business. It's like a a way to filter. So with that in mind, one of my goals oh, I said goals this year. One of my intentions is to find ways to make the audience of this podcast grow to eventually lead to, a growth in clients as well.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:40]:
So that will either Require some advertising of the podcast or maybe just collaboration going on other podcasts so that their audience Hear about me, and if they resonate with my, my vibe, come around to the self growth nerds. Or it might also have to do with, more consistent creation of high quality content on Instagram or Other platforms, maybe a diversification of the the platforms I create content on to increase the number of people who might enjoy my short form content and seek out this, this longer form content like like this podcast. Although if I'm completely honest with you, one of my dreams right now is to completely eradicate social media from my life, Instagram, to be more specific. And just focus on what feels wholesome to me, which is recording this podcast and working with my clients. That's pretty much it. These 2 things feel cozy. Like, we're sitting in a cabin around a fire, reading books, listening to piano music. But then If Instagram comes in, it's like this really chatty, obnoxious person disturbing the peace.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:08]:
That that's what it feels like to me these days. So I'll be reflecting on what would it mean for me to leave Instagram, what would that require, because I still need a a place to tell people I exist. Right? To tell people that the podcast exists. So is that going to be a platform like Substack, which is which seems to be more peaceful, or is it Going to be paid advertising. I'm not sure yet. Another, avenue that I'm exploring is Maybe a diversification of my revenue streams, meaning right now, My clients come from this podcast. They're all over the world. Maybe I'm gonna look at what it would look like to work more locally.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:22:01]:
So maybe, working in organizations here that are looking for coaches. Maybe working as a coach for a a company as well as working with my own clients. We'll see. That's a possibility. By the way, I'm thinking, is this really boring for you guys? I bet it is for some of you, and that's okay. I'll be back to the regular programming soon enough. I know the episode about 2023 and this one about 2024 are very personal. If you actually really like these, these personal ramblings, let me know on Instagram, at Self Growth Nerds just so that I, get an idea of whether I continue to do these once in a while or not.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:22:50]:
Okay. I will probably continue to do them because I I love it when my favorite podcasters do these. I don't know why. It's just fun to get a little peek inside their brains. Anyway, back, to the topic of stability. I wanna make it soup stupid simple for people, for you guys, basically, to book a discovery call with me. So I wanna I want to make the the journey really easy. I want more people to find, my podcast and listen to it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:19]:
And then once they feel like they're connected to me, they resonate they resonate with my way of teaching, And they're in a space where they need guidance in a transition in their life or they need someone to, to push them to reach their their potential. Then they go to my website, and it's super simple to book a call and decide if they want to become a client. I wanna look at this journey and make it flowy. Like, remove all the potential obstacles or consider all the potential obstacles and address them, which, by the way, if you've considered working with me, but something is getting on your nerves or something is not clear, it would be super helpful for you to let me know because From the inside, sometimes we don't see these things. And I know, like, I've been looking for coaches recently, And it's more complicated than I thought, like finding the information, booking like a easily booking a call. Sometimes, like, I would go on a coach's website, and there would be, like, a a 1000000 questions to answer before you could book a call. Or, like, the or I couldn't find the relevant information that I was looking for that I needed to to know before decide deciding to book. So if there's anything like that, just come to me like I'm a human who's open to feedback, And sometimes we just don't see these things from the inside.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:49]:
So, basically, I want the whole thing to feel like a river. I want it to be easy for you to float down the river, and I want the, the flow to come in in a stable, consistent way for me. Now how am I gonna do that? Well, there will be upstream optimization work to do. And then afterwards, I think it's going to be about the small daily habits, monitoring what works, what doesn't work, being aware of the numbers, the data, like I was talking earlier so that I can make decisions based on That instead of based on my feelings, based on whether I feel like it's working or not, which, you know, is very subject subjective. I have clients sometimes who will come in and tell me, oh, it's not working. No one wants what I have to offer. And then I ask them, well, How many times did you talk about what you have to offer? And they might say, oh, 2. I I talked about what I have to offer 2 times this month, and no one was interested.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:06]:
And it's like, well, you know, maybe you need to talk about it more before you, come up with those dramatic conclusions. And I laugh. It's funny, but I do that too. You know? We all of us sensitive souls are are likely to to, go down those dramatic stories that are not rooted in real numbers. Even if you don't have a business and you're looking for a job, if you if you're telling me, oh, it's not working. No one wants me. I'm like, okay. How many, jobs have you applied for? How many interviews did you go on? And most of the time, it's not that no one Wants you is that you haven't applied for enough jobs.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:48]:
If you've applied for 3 jobs and you didn't get an interview, it it doesn't mean no one wants you. It means you haven't applied to enough jobs. But sometimes you need someone else to to tell you that, someone else to tell you you're not Not your your feet aren't on the ground. You're just reacting from a place from a wounded place like we were talking about earlier, and you just need to put yourself out there more because because it's nuts. There's been studies when it comes to, like, a a product or a service, people need to hear about it. I don't remember how many times, like, 21 times before they even register that the product or the service actually exists. Anyway, so this was my 3rd word, stability. It goes hand in hand with discipline.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:27:40]:
I want to lean into the the daily habits, the rituals that come back again and again. Just like my morning coffee, I love sitting in the chair by the window, have my morning coffee. Read my book. I love going to spinning. I know I love doing my meal prep on Sundays, and I want to, add habits in my day to day life that are going to, help me stabilize the flow of work coming in. Okay. Next word is excellence. I don't want to focus on broadening my knowledge This year, I want to focus on deepening it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:28:22]:
Meaning, in the last few years, I learned a bunch of stuff about coaching, And now I want to take what I've learned and take what I'm developing, the techniques that are mine that I I am creating as in my work with my clients and put them down on paper. Get really clear on what is my unique approach. I already know, but I want to double down and refine my framework. You know, this makes me think about artists. When you, are starting out as an artist, you might borrow techniques from all kinds of other artists that inspire you. And then eventually, you blend them together. And through practice, you develop your own voice as an artist, and it's the same here as a practitioner. I've learned from all kinds of different coaches, different schools, and now I'm developing my own way of coaching.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:29:28]:
And now it's being able to talk about it like an artist would develop, their capacity to talk about their work. And because when you're creating, when you're developing your voice, you you're in it. You're not outside of it, so you don't necessarily, you see it. You experience it, but I wanna be able to step aside and be like, oh, okay. These, Five different methods are what is unique to Marie. This is super important not just for artists or people who have, businesses, but also for you if you work in a company. The ability to explain the value of your work, to put words on What you do and the unique value that you bring will help people understand why they should pay you, why they should raise Your salary or why they should invest in your services. That's something I've encountered with clients as well who tell me, oh, I'm not.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:39]:
My value at work is not properly recognized by my managers. And I tell them, maybe that's because you Self don't Recognize your value, and so you're unable to express it. Yes. We can hope that people are gonna get it without us having to do anything. But at the end of the day, I'd much prefer to take full responsibility and be like, okay. Let Me find ways to better explain how my work can serve you. But that requires Humility, it requires a dedication to excellence. It requires, an absence of entitlement.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:31:23]:
Not not because because we're not the, I know, many of us had parents who told them that they were special and they could do anything that they wanted. And sometimes I think that can lead us to believing that we shouldn't have to make much effort, that we should be seen as a special one in in a crowd. Like, oh, let me hire this one. Let me publish this person's first book and not not realizing that actually maybe we have to do the hard work, that there's no shortcut. If you're going to through hike the Pacific Crest Trail, you gotta take every step. To me, it's a death of the ego in a way. It's realizing, you know what? There's a lot of talented people out there, and if I'm gonna make a mark, if I'm gonna stand out, I need to be dedicated to excellence and not just sit on my natural talent, but actually hone my skills. Get out there into the arena.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:32:29]:
Get your hands dirty, fail, learn from your mistakes, get stronger, have grit instead of just expecting things to work the 1st time around when you're just not that good yet. Sometimes we get really sad. I'm just not good enough. You're not good enough yet, but that's in your control. You can show up again and again until you are better and better and better. Work towards excellence. Work towards mastery. The the challenge here, for me at least, is not falling into perfectionism, knowing when I'm obsessing over details versus just striving for excellence, finding the balance between these 2 poles.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:33:12]:
So that was my 4th word, excellence. Now the last 1 is collaboration. I don't have a lot to say here, just that I, don't wanna do all of this alone. I want to surround myself with more peers. And not just online because I do a lot of my work online, but I'm craving actual face to face human connection. So I am manifesting a partner in this business journey or partners in this business journey. And I don't know how that is going to show up. Ideas that I have is I could do, I have a a lot of space at my home, so I might do, like, turn my place into a co working space one day per week and invite other coaches, other freelancers, other business owners to, to come in and maybe, like, Form this little chosen work family.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:34:12]:
That sounds really wholesome and good, so that's a possibility. Also, One of my dreams would be to meet someone here in Montreal, someone locally, who has a very similar vision to mine, and we can team up and work together towards the same vision. So I'm just putting it out there into the universe. Universe, I'm open to what you have to offer. I'm I'm gonna try to keep my mind open, my eyes open, and see what you send my way. Okay. So that is it for today. These were my 5 words, the 5 themes of 2024, Not goals, but intentions, groundedness, discipline, stability, excellence, collaboration.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:35:06]:
I think they all fit so well together, and I would love to hear your words, your intentions for 2024. I am on Instagram at self growth nerds. And also a reminder, if you wanna work together, I have some spots left for clients in January. So just go to self growth nerds.com/audacity. You'll be able to book a call with me. We're gonna get to know each other. I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions about where you're at, how you're stuck, what's what you're dissatisfied with right now, and I'll tell you if I think I can help you and how specifically my framework can help you so you can make a decision about whether this is the work for you or not. Okay? So, happy New Year again.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:35:55]:
I'm sending you lots of love, and, I will talk to you next week when we're back to the regular programming. Bye. Hey. If you love what you're hearing on the Self Growth Nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality. You have to check out how we can work together on self growth Nerds or message me on Instagram at self growth nerds. My clients say they would have needed that report years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now, and I cannot wait to meet you.