Mindful in 5 Podcast

SMART Plus for Passionate Professionals

• Spiwe Jefferson • Season 5 • Episode 155

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Tame Stress with the Mindful in 5 Stress to Success Blueprint

What if your professional goals could align seamlessly with your deeper purpose, bringing joy and clarity to your career? Elevate your career planning with the SMART plus goal-setting framework. Join the Mindful Ninjas as we explore how a beginner's mind can rejuvenate your approach to setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. By emotionally connecting these goals to your broader career vision, you can foster a work life that feels both motivating and meaningful.

Beyond the basics of SMART goals, discover the "plus" factor that taps into the emotional heart of your aspirations and work's impact. Through insights from the book, Mindful in 5, and practical strategies tailored for busy professionals, we aim to bridge the gap between daily tasks and the bigger picture. Whether you're an established leader or embarking on a new career journey, this episode offers a roadmap to a supported and peaceful professional life. Let's embrace a new year with clarity and enthusiasm, ensuring every milestone counts and resonates with purpose.


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Spiwe Jefferson:

Welcome to Mindful in 5, where busy professionals find your peaceful oasis to thrive in complex work environments. I am Spiw Jefferson attorney, certified mindfulness practitioner and author of the Mindful in 5 book series. Here to guide you to a clearer, softer and more supported life. Join me and your fellow Mindful Ninjas as we explore science-backed mindfulness strategies for successful leaders that you can implement, starting with just five minutes a day. Elevate your work, empower your life, work higher, live stronger. Let's go!

Spiwe Jefferson:

Do you find your professional aspirations clouded by vague intentions, yearning for a clearer path to success? Ineffective goal setting can dim the cheerful light of your career ambitions, leaving you feeling unsupported and disconnected from the joyful journey of professional growth. Today, our topic is strategic goal setting for the new year. We are exploring this topic to bring a clearer, more peaceful approach to your career planning. And if you're wondering about the cute kids in imagery this season, we are embracing the beginner's mind by channeling childlike qualities trust, authenticity, creativity, resilience and optimism to transform our mindfulness practice and daily lives. Let our playful cover art inspire you to approach each day with fresh eyes and an open heart. Now imagine having a joyful roadmap for your professional growth, with achievable milestones that keep you peacefully motivated. By mastering strategic goal setting, you can transform your aspirations into a clear. Transform your aspirations into a clear, supportive reality and count it all joy. Let's explore a calming technique called SMART plus goal setting. Here's how it works.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Number one, the S Specific. Define your specific goal with clarity. M make it measurable. Establish cheerful, concrete criteria for progress that you can actually measure. Can you create a metric for this goal that you are putting together? So, rather than saying year, I want to be a better leader, think about what are the components that make you a better leader. For example, next year, I'm going to consistently hold one-on-ones with each of my team members every week and we are going to meet together for at least 30 minutes or 15 minutes, whatever it is. Make it measurable. The A is for achievable Ensure the goal feels attainable. You want to have a stretch goal, but you also don't want to have one that is so off the rails that it's going to create emotional hardship for you every single day next year because you just can't get there.

Spiwe Jefferson:

The R is relevant. Is it relevant to your not just your day job, but also does it align with your broader career vision? Align with your broader career vision? T is a time bound. Set a clear deadline for your goal. For those of you who have annual goals, that's kind of an easy deadline. By December 31st of next year I will have achieved X.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Now the plus, because most of you, I'm sure, especially if you work in big companies, you have heard of setting SMART goals and that is all that. This is. The plus is plus emotional. Connect the goal with a deeper, peaceful purpose that you have. Many of us go to work I would say too many of us go to work and feel like we are just punching widgets I'm moving this thing from here to here and we don't necessarily feel a deep connection to the work that we're doing. We don't necessarily feel like, or at least understand, how our work and what we're doing aligns with the broader organizational strategy or the mission or the vision, and we may not necessarily feel like the work that we do matters. And don't you want your work to?

James@DiscovertheVoice:

matter.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Don't you want to feel like it's important? Presumably your employer did not create a goal, that didn't matter. And to that end, I'm going to read for you a chapter from the first Mindful in 5 book. Hang on, let me get it. Okay. I literally had to pause and pick up a copy of Mindful in 5, meditations for People with no Time. You can pick one of these copies up at Amazon or you can pick up a signed copy from spewyjeffersoncom, but this is day chapter 15. So, for those of you who don't know, the Mindful and Five Books are organized into four distinct sections. There's a practice section that will help you troubleshoot your practice if you're trying to learn how to center yourself or to meditate, and then there is a dark and dawn and day section, and they kind of reflect what they sound like. These are seasons in the lives of four characters that you journey through the book with and you watch them use mindfulness and you see how they use mindfulness in their daily lives and how they apply them directly to the challenges of work and life, so that you too can see how you can do the same. So in this instance, this is chapter 15 in the day season. We are toward the end of the book and it's titled Celebrate Milestones Part 3. Cassie is the leader of the Mindful in Five support group, and in the Mindful in Five support group are certain characters that you're going to hear about and you'll probably pretty quickly pick up the challenge that they're trying to solve. So here we go.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Cassie listened carefully to Barry's comments to Jean and then chimed in. Being mindful about the expectations you have for your work helps to identify areas of dissonance between what you expect from the job compared to what the job really is. Jean nodded deep in thought. Cassie continued Mindfulness is about observing what's within and around you without judgment. Any divergence between your expectations and the reality of your job is not a point of disappointment or angst. Just see it for what it is, then pivot.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Brianna said Once you see the job for what it is, waste no time on negative emotion. Look for ways to find meaning in the work that you do. Gene squinted at her. What do you mean? Brianna thought a moment and then said start by finding the why of the job. Why does your job exist? Gene laughed and flapped his hands in surrender. I'm a janitor at a hospital. Where's the meaning in that? Brianna didn't miss a beat the schoolteacher in her flared. She looked at him squarely in the eye and declared, in an authoritative tone that made everyone sit up straight authoritative tone that made everyone sit up straight. It is your responsibility to ensure the highest levels of cleanliness and sanitation in that hospital, which contributes to positive health outcomes for patients and ensures the safety of their loved ones who walk the halls every day.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Next to Jean, his wife, jillian, mouthed a silent thank you to Brianna, and the takeaway here is every job exists for a reason. No employer pays good money for no reason. You might be looking for a new job, but while you have this one, find the why. Then lean into that reason and execute with mindful excellence. Easier said than done. Yes, worth trying, absolutely. And so that is the best example I can give you for this. Plus in your SMART goal, the emotional connection that gives you a deeper meaning and the purpose that gets you up every morning and excited to go into work to do this job.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Research shows that goals set using this framework are significantly more likely to be achieved, fostering a more joyful and clear professional journey. And here's my hopefully thought-provoking perspective for today your goals are not just endpoints. They are peaceful compasses guiding your daily decisions with joyful intention. And here is your challenge for the week Set one professional, smart plus goal for the upcoming year. You don't have to wait until the 1st of January to decide.

Spiwe Jefferson:

Start thinking about your goals now. Start reflecting on your year now. Start thinking about what you really want for success in 2025 right now. Break it down into quarterly milestones, approaching each with clear anticipation and focused execution. If you are ready to make this your most peaceful and successful year yet, or at least if you want to set yourself up for next year to be that yourself. Up for next year to be that, I invite you to visit the downloadable section of spheroideffersoncom, where you can find a growing set of downloadables to help you in all facets of your work life and that you can also apply to your daily life in order to elevate your work and empower your life. Remember, effective goal setting is a skill that improves with peaceful practice. Regularly review and adjust your goals as you grow, maintaining a cheerful and supportive approach to your professional development. May your year ahead be filled with clear purpose and joyful achievement. Until next week, this is Spiwe saying be mindful and be well.

James@DiscovertheVoice:

Thank you for listening to Mindful in 5. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend, follow and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. Pick up your signed copy of the book and journal from spiwejefferson. com, or unsigned copies from Amazon, barnes, noble or wherever you get your books. Visit to download sample chapters of the book, watch videos and become a mindful ninja. Join us on the LinkedIn Mindful in 5 group and share your thoughts. Until next time, be mindful and be well.