Real Happy Mom

Practical tips and encouragement for moms

How to Overcome the BIG Obstacles and Achieve Your Big Dreams By December 31st

Every new year, we start with a fresh slate. And many people are brimming with enthusiasm with a list of resolutions and goals for the new year.

But for moms, the challenge of balancing work, family, and personal aspirations can sometimes make big goals seem like distant stars in the night sky.

There’s the incredible power of determination, resilience, and a clear vision that can turn even the biggest dreams into reality.

And that’s what I want to help you with today. As we approach the end of the year, I’ve got someone who will help you get back on track to accomplishing your big goals.

So, if you’re a mom with big dreams and aspirations, this one is for you.

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About Gabe

Gabe Cox is a faith-based author, podcaster, coach, and the founder of Red Hot Mindset. She helps women turn their passion and purpose into impact and income, all for the glory of God. As an avid runner, she uses that interest to explore ideas around clarity, goal setting, strategic planning, simplicity, and faith. Her mission is to encourage women to step into the fire of refinement so God can mold and strengthen them to pursue His unique calling for their life, whether that be an online business, ministry, or right where they are.

Connect with Gabe

Links Mentioned in This Episode

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Transcript of this Episode

Toni-Ann Mayembe
Every year we start with a fresh slate. And we are brimming with enthusiasm with a list of resolutions and goals for the new year. But for moms, the challenge of balancing work, family and personal aspirations can sometimes make these goals seem like distant stars in the night sky. Now, there is the incredible power of determination, resilience, and a clear vision that can turn even the biggest dreams into reality. And that’s what I want to help you with today. Now, as we approach the end of the year, I’ve got someone who’s going to help you get back on track to accomplishing your big goals. So if you’re a mom with big dreams and aspirations, this one is for you. Hey there, my name is Toni Ann, and I am the host of the real happy mom Podcast, the podcast for busy working moms who need help with time management and achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And fun fact about me, I’ve traveled to Spain twice, and I don’t know Spanish very well. In this episode, you’re going to learn how to tackle your goals, our guests red hot formula for crushing your big goals, how to better prioritize your responsibilities, so that you don’t take a long time reaching your goals, and also how to overcome the obstacles so that you aren’t derailed from your big goals and dreams. Now, if you’re ready to hear all of this, let’s go ahead and jump on in. Before we jump into our conversation, because I know it’s gonna be a good one, I just wanted you to share a little bit about you what you do, who you work with and who you serve.

Gabe Cox
I help women turn their passions and purpose into impact and income all for the glory of God. So I serve mostly women who have elementary plus kids. So they’re looking to do something for themselves, but also be an example for their kids. But in my other everyday life, I am a boy mom just like you I have three boys and they are in all different ages. So I have an elementary and middle school and a high schooler we’re looking at and my high schoolers, an elite gymnast. So we’re on a path to look at NCAA and get him prepped for college. So it’s been a it’s a little bit of a new season. For me, we homeschool the older two and we are a outdoorsy family. But we also love playing board games. And I’m an avid runner,

Toni-Ann Mayembe
I wanted to talk to you about goals in helping us with setting goals. Because we’re in the homestretch of the year, we’re kind of closing getting ready to get in that part where we’re starting to close things out for 2023. And some people may be feeling like, you know, I had all these big dreams, these big goals, but I’m nowhere near reaching them. And like, I’m not even close, or I have these big dreams and goals. I don’t know where to start. So what would you say would be a simple way to get started, especially with this current season, like I said, with us going into the latter part of the year.

Gabe Cox
I think sometimes we have these big burly goals and dreams and these big visions for ourselves. But then we forget to break them down. And I like to call it like breaking it down into stepping stone goals. So because you know the analogy, how do you eat an elephant? It’s one bite at a time. So if you think about eating the elephant, and this is such a weird analogy, who eats elephants but but like, if you think about that, it’s it’s almost near impossible. But if you break it down, it’s not so bad. And that’s how I see goals, especially as moms in different seasons. So you may have some moms who are in that diapering stage where it’s feeling busy, because you’re hands on all the time. But then it’s like in my season, my kids are a field, they are a little bit more independent. So I have that freedom. But they are here and there and everywhere. Because one, each of them is in their own sport. And they’re all different times in different places. And then you have your school and all the things that come with it. So your seasons may look different based on where you are. But in every season, you are living a full life, you’re busy. And so creating simple goals is really important. So having that huge dream is great. But then how do you break that down into something a little bit more manageable? Knowing kind of your expectations like this is the amount of time this is the capacity I have, right? I have this amount of time to be able to work on my goal. Maybe it’s only 15 minutes a day. Maybe it’s a chunk of a few hours, and then thinking about what can I do in that time. So like some simple ideas of some simple goals. If you’re working on some personal growth, maybe maybe it’s just my goal is to read 15 minutes a day in a personal development book, or if it’s a spiritual growth in my in the word right, or just spiritual growth book. Or maybe it’s we’re so busy, the noise is all over you know, you’re scrolling social media, you’re here and there and everywhere. You’re watching movies, maybe the goal is to have like 10 minutes of whitespace a day just so that you can sit there and think or journal or take a walk or just be right, or maybe even like you and I have talked about, we talked about it on my podcast was creating routines, but maybe it’s creating a weekly system of some sort, because that’s going to actually save you time to be able to go after the goal that you have. So it’s kind of thinking about, what, what is my big goal? And how can I break it down, maybe your big goal is to learn something new. But if you break it down to 10, or 15 minutes a day, then it makes it a little bit more doable.

Toni-Ann Mayembe
One thing that I know that you’re really good at is like really helping, like break some things down. Now, when it comes to goals, I know you’ve probably had several big goals, but I’m just wondering, if there’s a big goal that comes to mind for you that you’re thinking about, like, how in the world? Am I ever gonna accomplish this? And how you’re able to break it down so that you’re able to reach that goal?

Gabe Cox
Mm hmm. Yeah, so I call it the red hot formula. And really, it’s breaking down this large burly goal into smaller stepping stone girls, but there’s three pillars to it. The first one is seeing it. And seeing it really means like actually, knowing what vision you have, like, what what is it that I want to accomplish, because we really need to be clear about what we want to do. And part of that comes with developing a why. Right, and so like really knowing what what will change in my life, if it actually happens, right? It, we’re never going to take ourselves out of our comfort zone, we’re never going to go do anything big unless there’s a purpose behind it unless it’s really going to actually benefit. So in some way, right? Because we have a lot going on in our life already. We don’t need to add something just to add it. And so it’s really taking that down and seeing it. And then when I say seeing it, I like to say just post a picture of it or post like the actual goal. And it’s not to manifest it, because I don’t really think you can look at it and then have your goal come. But when you look at it, the more you see it, the more you think about it, and the more you’re going to be apt to take action on it. And that’s the whole point of seeing it. But then along with that, after you see it, then you need to plan it. And that is where you take that big burly goal, like we talked about, and really break it down into smaller stepping stones. And it’s almost like smaller tasks or smaller projects. So it’s almost like working backwards. So here’s that big goal. What’s what’s the next look at what’s the next step to getting that goal? And then what’s that next step? And what’s that next step, and actually creating goals along the way. And I would call those like small wins to your dream. And the reason for those is because each of those goals once you hit it, so let’s say I want to run a marathon, I’m a runner, so we’ll take their marathon analogy, right? So I’ve never run before. I’m a walker, I’ve never run, I’m gonna run a marathon, okay, that’s pretty daunting to run 26.2 miles if you’ve never run a mile before. But if you break it up, and you go, Okay, I know, I’m going to have to end up running a half marathon. And with that, I have to run a 6k. And then I’d have to run a 5k. And I have to run a mile, okay, well, I can break that up. And I could probably run for a minute walk, 30 seconds run for a minute walk, and then kind of build off of that, right. And so once I hit that mile, that’s a win. That’s a goal that I just hit. And then when I hit the 5k, that’s a goal I just hit and having some type of reward along the way, like each time you hit it, because that’s progress, we don’t see our progress, we have a hard time seeing it like it’s almost like we have blinders to actually see what’s going on. But once you hit the summit, and you look back, you go wow, I came a long way, right. So once I hit that finish line of the marathon, oh, wow, I ran a marathon. But it only came from those stepping stone goals. And those stepping stone goals will keep you going, it’ll keep you from quitting. Because once you hit one, it’s more motivating to hit the next one, and then hit the next one. Whereas if you’re only looking at the larger vision, and you’re looking at that large goal, then it’s a lot easier to quit on ourselves, because we’re not going to feel like we’re anywhere near it. So that’s that’s kind of the planning it and then there’s the doing it. And that’s actually taking what you plan and putting it into action. And I like to call it action with flexibility. Because our plan may not always happen the way we we have it and that’s why we do the reflection time. That’s why we kind of look at it and maybe pivot something if we need to. But we plan it out. We do it and we do it with flexibility. And we do it until either God says to stop and pivot or until we hit the goal. Right. And so I and that means we’ll have those challenges like we talked about before and what do you do with the challenges that’s why we have community and all the things but that’s kind of the the red hot formula, I would say it is that seeing it and then the planning it and then the actual doing of it. And it’s actually the whole goal is to have fun. And so and it is fun when you learn and grow. It’s fun when you hit a milestone. It’s fun when you overcome a challenge because you can look back and go, okay, I can help someone else overcome that challenge now. And that was it wasn’t as bad as I thought, right. And so and then you just know for next time, okay, now I know what to do. We just keep learning and growing.

Toni-Ann Mayembe
I think it is easy for us as moms to add on more responsibilities for ourselves. But I know there are some I’m gonna call them responsibilities. But there’s some responsibilities that I know we can either delegate or totally eliminate. But there’s some that we cannot. So I’m just wondering to how we can prioritize things and know, okay, I really do have to take care of this. But this can wait. and things of that sort. Because I everything seems important. I know I’m not the only one. But everything seems like it has to be done right right now, but you can’t get everything done. So like what would you say to Mom is having a hard time with prioritizing and trying to figure out what’s most important right now,

Gabe Cox
I’ll tell you a little story, I used to add everything onto my plate, like you talk to my husband, I was just a chicken with my head cut off for a long time. Now, I still feel like I have a lot on my plate. But it’s only a few things. It’s just that they each take a lot of time. But I was for a time there. I was working like three different jobs. And I was the director of our homeschool community. And I was the leader of our mops, if you know, mothers of preschoolers, that group I coordinated that I just a lot of things. I was the president of the booster club for gymnastics, and just took on way too much. So first, I would say look at the things that you took on and what is it? Is there anything that you can stop doing? Because you can do a lot of things, but you can’t do everything all at once. And so it’s what things can I do? Because for me, some of it was fun. But some of it I just felt like, Oh, I’m good at that I should do it. Well, sometimes us taking on a responsibility keeps somebody else from being able to step up and take that responsibility. So I thought of it that way. When kinda God stopped me, I broke my ankle. Well, now it’s been a while ago, okay, for quite a few years ago. But it was literally I feel like God said, Stop, I need you to stop. Right? And it helped me reevaluate. But so there’s that. So first thinking about what can you stop? Now? There’s a lot of things you can’t so what do you do when you can’t stop certain things like you can’t not go to work, you can’t not, you know, take care of your kids who cannot can’t not have dinner on the table, you know, that kind of thing. But then it’s prioritizing. So when I say prioritizing, it’s thinking about what do I absolutely need to do? What are the priorities? If I didn’t do it? What wouldn’t get done? Right? And so, and then also, what can I delegate? So if you have kids that are old enough to do something, think about what can I delegate to my kids, because I want to teach them responsibility. So say, for example, my boys are old enough to do some cleaning, and I had to be okay with them cleaning, not the way I want them to, like, you know, I had to be OK with dropping perfection and saying it’s, it’s good enough. But they clean their own bathroom, they clean the whole downstairs is their responsibility. They clean the downstairs, they clean the bathroom, they do their own laundry, they’ve done their own laundry, since they were like nine. And part of that actually happened when I broke my ankle because I couldn’t walk up and down the stairs. And so my oldest started doing laundry and I was like, they can do their own laundry, this is great. And then I don’t have them fighting over who’s shorts or who’s because I get it wrong, because I hope they all look the same to me, you know? So part of it is going What can I delegate, you know, or so maybe you are working mom, and you really want to you have a goal for yourself too, and you want to add it in. But you know, house management takes up a lot of work, well delegate to the kids, or maybe have somebody come in and clean up every month or every other month, just do the deep cleaning, that saves you a little time you don’t realize in the long run, how much time it actually does save you to have some of these things. So that and then also just knowing Okay, in that list of what I need to get done, if I didn’t do something, what would it be okay to be pushed to next week or pushed back? It went, you know, light a fire on anything, and it would be fine. You know, so looking at it in those different ways, kind of like what do I need to do? What can I stop doing? And then what can I delegate or push off?

Toni-Ann Mayembe
I know there are moms who have a plan, and they’ve been working on it in life has just happened. And there is some huge obstacle or some setback that has caused us not to be able to reach the goal, at least not within the timeframe that we had or we just can’t reach it right now. So what would you say are some strategies for overcoming some of those obstacles so that we don’t let those obstacles or setbacks really do realize from our goal but help us to get back on track.

Gabe Cox
I like to ask some questions, too. So it’s almost the reflection side of things is one? What is What do I think is keeping me from moving forward in my goal? And does this goal serve a purpose still? Because I think sometimes we will keep going after it just because we have, okay. So for example, my husband and I, we were in an MLM a long time ago. And we loved it. At first, it was great. We made some great connections, all the things, and we were in business for about 15 years, a long time. But we were probably in business about 10 years too long. And so, but we kept doing it because we didn’t want to quit, because we didn’t want people to think we were quitters. Right? But once we did, our season changed, we moved to Colorado, and our season changed. And so we did step back from there. But what we realized is we we overstayed our welcome. Not really a welcome, but we overstate it because we were that season was gone. And that wasn’t where God wanted us. But we kept forcing it. So sometimes asking the question is, am I forcing this? Or is this really where I’m being led, right? And that’s something that you might have some reflection, because that might be if it is being forced to maybe it is time to pivot, and that’s okay. It’s okay to pivot. But sometimes, I feel like pride got in the way of me being willing to do that for a long time. But I found a lot of blessing. When we, when we moved in the direction we felt like we were supposed to do too. So there’s that. So asking that question first. So is this where I’m supposed to be? If that’s Yes? Then it’s also like, okay, so I want you to go back to that. Why is the why the same, or has it changed, because our Y can develop too. And, again, we won’t work towards something that we don’t really feel passion, passionate about, or that is not going to change our life in some way. And also in that look at, like, for example, in online business, online business can feel lonely, and it can feel like am I making a difference? So a lot of times, I’ll tell my coaching clients, like anytime you get positive feedback, print it out and post it on your wall, or have a document, save. So you can go back and go, Wow, I’m making a difference. So do the same with your goals, like anytime you have a win, write it down, so that you can go back and look at it right and go. Okay, I know this is hard right now. But I know that I’m supposed to be where I am. So I’m going to keep pushing forward. Also expectation. So in that we talked about capacity. And maybe it’s I just didn’t have capacity for my goal to happen in three months. So let me look at my expectation and go, would it be okay, if my goal happened in six months? You know, or how, or maybe, maybe my goal was to earn an extra $1,000 a month, and I’m only at 300. And I don’t see it happening? Okay, well, maybe I just make it, I want to see 500 In the next few months, and then we’ll add to it from there, right. So sometimes we just have to change our expectation a little bit. And then also sometimes seeking help. So if it’s too big, maybe there’s someone who can help you get that breakthrough, whether it’s a coach or an accountability partner, or mentor or something that might be able to see things through a different lens than you can see, and help you kind of strategize and really get back on track.

Toni-Ann Mayembe
I really think that it’s easy to get caught up in what we’re supposed to do. And I’m doing air quotes here. We’re supposed to do this. And this is what’s expected of you. And you know, that’s probably the next thing in your career pathway, or this is what your family thinks that you should be doing. But it’s not in alignment with what you are wanting to do. So I want to do to talk to us as especially the moms that are not in alignment with their goals. One, how can we identify that? And two, how can we get back on track?

Gabe Cox
Yes, so important, because sometimes, we need to make sure the goal is for us to the goal serves that purpose, and that we’re not just doing something because everyone expects us to, right. And so one of the most important things is to make sure our goals align with our values and our priorities. And so here’s one thing that you can do, I want you to write down your values, and your priorities in the season you’re in. So if you’re in the diapering or toddler stages, your stage looks a lot different than mine, where I have a teenager, you know, I like I said, I’m running around with my head cut off, but in a month, that’s going to change and I’m going to have a different capacity. So when those different seasons come and the different capacities come you want to kind of realign those goals with your values and priorities each time. So once you have those values or priorities written down, then I want you to think about it as a Venn diagram. You know what a Venn diagram is with the circles, and there’s different circles and some of them kind of mesh together, but Putting in different like having a values, having a priorities and having a goals and seeing what intersects. So making sure that they all do line up, I want to give an example. So one of my goals right now is to develop deeper connections with my boys, because my oldest is leaving the coop in two years, less than two years, like I don’t have much time left with him. And I know I’m a workaholic, I will work all day long if I can, because I like to I like my business. I like what I do. I like helping people. But I need to make sure that the goal of the connection with my boys aligns with my values and priorities. Because my family is number one right now after my relationship with God. And so I have a goal of really creating balance in that I don’t prioritize work over my kids right now. Now, I’m not great at it. But that’s my goal, right. And so though I know I need to work a certain number of hours to pay the bills, I still am intentional to stop what I’m doing when they need me or to stop what I’m doing after my work block is done. So that’s kind of an example of how that Venn diagram could look. So if my goal sits outside of you know, so that’s my goal, is that bigger, that connection with the boys. So if what I’m doing like some different things I’m doing do not align with that, then I have to look at that and go, should I be doing those things right now?

Toni-Ann Mayembe
Okay, you have given us a lot of really great things to get, let’s go on with our goals so that we can get to December 31. And be celebrating and cheering ourselves, even if no one else is cheering for us. And like you said, given us a standing ovation weekend to for ourselves, give ourselves a high five and say, we have made it and we have accomplished our goals. So thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. But I know that there are some other resources that you’ve had that are going to be helpful for moms who are listening who want to either connect with you or to even get better with achieving their goals. So the

Gabe Cox
best place to find me is Red Hat mindset.com, which is my website and pursuing goals. God’s way is the podcast. And it’s what I do. I love sharing about it. But I do have a free resource that might be helpful for the conversation we just had. It’s called Mike Lake gameplan workbook. And this workbook will walk you through creating that deep rooted why that will make you take action on your goals, drafting a roadmap for those stepping stone goals and habits to bring that goal from start to finish in a stress free, no hustle way. And then also reflecting on your progress to reset each week so that you’re not just working hard and going around in circles. So you can find that my game plan workbook at Red Hot mindset.com forward slash game dash plan. And so I hope that will help kind of get things going if you’re feeling like you’re in mid year and you just need to recheck you need to you know kind of set reset those expectations reset the goal. It’s a great time to do it.

Toni-Ann Mayembe
Awesome. And I’ll make sure to have those links in the show notes. So if you’re driving doing laundry, I got you check the show notes. They’ll all be in there. Now that’s it for this episode. To find the links in Show Notes head over to Real happy mom.com/ 213 That’s real happy mom.com/ 213. There you’ll find everything that was mentioned in this episode. And make sure to stay tuned for next week for another full episode. Take care and with lots of love

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