Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlyn Childress.

I'm a life and parenting coach. And this is part three of

a goal setting, goal achieving series.

Part one was all about defining your goal. Part two

was defining the obstacles. And now part three is

defining the plan. Because when you go to create

something in your life, something new, you want to achieve a goal and it can

be very overwhelming. So I wanted to offer

a step by step way to achieve your goals.

In this series, I've shared with you my big goal of

publishing a parenting book in 2026. And I've used

that as an example of how I have walked myself through

all of these different steps of defining the goal,

making sure I really understand what I'm doing, being committed to it.

And then step two was defining the obstacles for

me. I had a lot of negative mindset that I needed to work through.

I had time issues that I needed to work through. And

I've had a lot of life events that have come in between

me and my goal over the years. And how do I overcome

those life events? How do I stay committed to this goal even when

these obstacles come up? So on episode one, part one,

I helped you define your goal and maybe you weren't even sure if

you had a goal. So we did a dream download and learned about

what it is that you want to do. In this episode I'm going to use

the example of making weeknight dinners

and also self care to help you get an action plan. So I

wanted to give you the idea that you can have a big goal like

start a business or get healthy

or remodel a house or something like that,

or manage your money, like take control of your budget,

any of those kind of bigger goals. Or it can be small like I want

to organize my kids toys or I want to make healthy

dinners, I want to make time for self care. Whatever

goals you have in your life, you can

use this three step process to achieve those

goals. If you want a little guidebook to help

you in this process of achieving goals,

you are welcome to go to my website,

calmammamacoaching.com and download the

workbook that I created to go alongside this

goal setting series. It is called prioritize

and achieve your goals in four steps. And in it I

have all the steps and then a book, bunch of questions and prompts

that you can read and respond to so that you have

your own little accountability and guidebook

and you have a place to keep track of what you're working on in

terms of your goals? I actually do use this

guidebook for myself. So these are the steps that I take

whenever I'm setting a goal. So I think you'll find it really helpful. Again, you

can get that on my website, calmmamacoaching.com under the Resources

tab. It's free. Just download it and you can have it for

yourself. Okay, so let's get into today. Today's about the action plan.

Now, if you haven't listened to the other episodes, go back and

listen to the one about defining your goal or

overcoming the obstacles. Now, if you want to just listen to this one episode, that's

fine. Think about your goal right now. What is it?

And we're going to make an action plan for for that

goal. Now, if you have this goal in mind and you

come up with some obstacles in your head where you're like, okay, I can't achieve

it because I don't believe I have the skills or I don't know if I

have what it takes or I don't have any time, then go back and listen

to part two, because it'll give you some tools to overcome

those obstacles so that you can be really ready to take the action

steps that are necessary. Okay, so the first part

of defining your plan is to

rewrite your goal and then start with a brain dump. So

what does that mean? It means just write down

anything that you think will help you

achieve this goal. Move towards the goal. So what

are the things that you have to do in order to make it happen?

So let's talk about weeknight dinners, making them less stressful. So your

goal is, I want weeknight dinners to feel calm and,

and less chaotic. If that's your goal that you know, that's

wonderful. So you would then brainstorm or brain dump a bunch

of ideas. So you would write like, okay, what steps might help me

move toward this goal? Find five easy dinners that everyone will

eat. Stop deciding. Dinner at 4:30pm Grocery. Shop

with a plan. Prep food earlier in the day. Use the slow

cooker, the instant pot, or the air fryer more often.

Order takeout less. Clean up my freezer. Get help from my kids. Like, really

just dump a bunch of ideas of things that you need to

do in order to make this plan happen. With my

book, I have a few different obstacles, but one is I

have to sit down and write it, right? That's like the most pivotal thing.

And that means I needed to make time to write it. So I

had to clear out a lot of my schedule. I Used a time audit that

I talked about last week, week and realized, when am I going to

need to write this book? And I solved for that obstacle by creating

time in my schedule each week so that I know when I'm supposed to

write. The other things I needed to do was figure out who was going to

help me edit the book. I needed to gather all of my information

that I have, all the different places that I've written the book, because I have

written this content many, many times through different

coaching programs and handbooks and the podcast. And so. So I need

to gather everything in one place and then just write it

out. Right? That's kind of what I needed to do. So looking at your

own brain dump, now imagine if you had the goal that you

wanted to make more time for self care, so you might

brain dump. What is self care? How much time do I need? So

you might write down like, I want to take walks, I want to take baths,

I want to do yoga, I want to do quiet time, I want to do

reading. So what is your brain dump? Right?

I need to figure out when I'm gonna do it. I need to talk to

my friends. Like, whatever steps that you think might

help you achieve your goal, you write those down.

Okay, so that's the brain dump. Then you figure out, this is

the really fun part. You figure out the next

small step. The first small step.

Imagine in your brain dump, you wrote, I need to find five easy dinners

that everyone will eat. Okay, so the first very

small next step, I don't want you to think like, okay, I need a

meal plan for a whole month because then that

becomes really overwhelming. So I need to break it down into a

really small first step. Honestly, I had.

My first small step was open the

document. So I have written this book, like I said a

few times, and I needed to go back and open it. And honestly, I had

not opened that document in, I think, three years or two and a half years

or something like that. It was like challenging for me. Now, the

first time I wrote it was in 2016, and

that meant opening up a file, naming it,

creating an outline, filling in the skeleton, gaps of the

outline, then going in and writing it. So when I, when

I wrote it originally, I had to do that. You don't just say like, I

want to make healthy dinners. And then your first step is make, make healthy dinners,

right? Make daily dinners or whatever. I want you to think about it in a

small step. One small step would be to choose three dinners

and write them on a sticky note that's it.

It's not about cooking them, shopping, just choosing

three things that I can. That I know how to make, three

things that I think my family likes to eat. Now, if you think

about organizing the toys, maybe it's

going through and picking 10 stuffed animals that you think

you can put away, you know, like get rid of or something like

that. Or going to the store and buying one

new bin, or tidying up, putting

stuff in bags for today. I don't know. You know, just kind of starting with

one small step and looking. Maybe you like

categorizing. So you're like, I'm gonna go in that room or that where the toys

are, and I'm gonna make a list of the toys and the

categories. So it's like dolls, blocks, electronic

stuff, Legos, building materials, whatever it is. And

you start to write a list, thinking about something that feels

easy and doable. So that's your first small step. That'll give you

some momentum to keep going. Honestly, my first small

step was open the document. And I was like, so

funny about it. Honestly, I opened it up and then I, like, texted

my best friend, like, I'm doing it. I opened it. She's like, good

for you. So don't forget that you get to celebrate these

obstacles that are actually really big for you but

might seem trivial to someone else. Don't be embarrassed to

celebrate and include everyone else into your plan.

That's one of my action items in my brain dump

was to share my goal with others,

including this podcast, and really

putting myself out there for the accountability because I didn't want this to

be secret anymore. When it was secret, I could just pretend I

didn't need to get it done right. I had no accountability. Nobody really

cared. Not that you're gonna care or be mad at me. I

don't believe that. But I wanted to say to the world, hey, I'm doing this

so that I have some level of accountability. So somebody will be

like, how's it going? And then I can answer, right, Whether it is

going well or not going well. And then get encouragement from others.

So don't be afraid to share your goal with other people. Okay, so we have

our first small step. Then the next thing is to

chunk your goal into phases.

Okay, so if we think about doing the dinner

plan, so the first stage is getting started.

In any action plan, it's getting started.

The first part would be pick a few repeat dinners and

then notice what's already working. So you probably have. If

you're doing the dinner thing, you probably have some things that are working right

or some achievement. Like, for me, with my big goal,

I already have written a ton of content. I have

already produced a lot of content. It's already out in the world.

So my getting started phase was really about gathering

all of the content together into one place.

Getting started was also creating time so that I can

achieve this goal. And a big part of my action step

was to create 10 weeks where I don't

create any new content so that I can work on

developing the content that I've already created and honing that

in and. And editing it together and putting it together in the book.

Which means I needed to clear my schedule so that I did not

have to make any new podcast episodes. I love creating

podcast episodes. I love creating content. I love doing

this conversation with you. And each week

I'm thinking about new topics and new things I wanna talk about, and

that is all new content. So I needed to have a big chunk of

time where I wasn't creating anything new that I was going back and

doing the foundational work within the book. So that means

that the next 10 weeks, starting next week, you're going to

have a best of series on the podcast. We're doing

a Stop yelling series. It's 10 episodes

from the archives, but curated in a way that

you can walk yourself through those 10 weeks and stop

yelling. All of the different tools you need to stop yelling and

make repair with your kids. If your goal is to stop yelling

at your kids, you can walk yourself through the series over

10 weeks and achieve your own goal. While I'm working

on my goal, which is writing the book, which is really fun. Okay, so

the first phase is getting started. Another thing that is part of

getting started for me is to actually sit down on

January 5th and write. So my

plan in my time audit is, is to write on Mondays.

That means that I can't have any new clients on Mondays. I can't talk

to clients on Mondays. I can't have meetings on Mondays. I can't have lunches on

Mondays. Like, this is my writing day. So Mondays and Fridays are my writing

day because I see clients Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And so I'm gonna

commit to writing on Mondays and then on

Fridays. And then maybe if I get some momentum, I'll be excited and

I'll maybe dip in on the weekend too. I don't know. Building

momentum is really starting to take that action.

It's really kind of getting into it. So for the

weeknight dinner one, you're grocery shopping with intention.

You're prepping ahead of time. You're really starting to get the

habit of planning your weeknight dinners in a

mode. It's still challenging. It's not second nature yet,

but it's something that's starting to feel a little bit more normal.

And that's how any of these things work. In the beginning. You're not sure

how to do it. You don't know what to do. Like, when I started the

podcast, I had to get started. I had to get a microphone, I had to

get a service to host the podcast. I had to figure out how to

edit it, I had to get artwork and music. I mean, there

were so many different steps. So I chunked it out

into getting started. And then building momentum was like, okay.

Each week I would sit down and I would write the content and plan

it out and edit it. And it all took a lot of time. And

then phase three is sustaining when you're thinking about

meals, you know, rotating the same meals, you're adjusting,

you're. You're dropping perfectionism. With my meal

plan, when I decided I wanted to do a weekly meal plan,

I did a theme each day and then I

worked on a bunch of meals within that theme theme. So it was

like sandwich and salads or pasta night, or beans or

rice night. So I had like kind of a base idea. Monday was

chicken night, so I had a base idea of what I was gonna

cook each day. And then I would kind of have like main

recipes that I used all the time, like tacos all the time. And then

I also added in, if I wanted to try a new recipe, I could, but

that was in the sustaining phase. So you build your base,

you build your pattern, your rhythm, you build momentum,

you get into it and then you have that sustaining

phase where it becomes a little bit easier. So I

obviously am not there with the book. I'm not in the building

momentum stage because I'm not writing it. I'm not in the sustaining stage where I

keep consistent. But I can see that that's what I need to do.

I need to start every Monday, getting to it every

Monday, every Friday, clearing out my calendar, prioritizing that.

If you want to think about making time for self care, it's kind of the

same idea in the beginning. The first step

is maybe just walking for 10 minutes after school drop off

or during lunch break or something like that. When I was a stay at home

mom, I needed to like eat lunch and sit down at

the table and like prioritize eating and relax at the same

time. And like, that was like kind of my little lunch break. I did that

as much as I could. So that's part of what it is. You start, you

make it a routine, and then you adjust that routine as

needed. And then you kind of figure out, okay, this is

my momentum, this is how it works for me to achieve this goal. I

have the same thing with exercise. At one point I

made a decision to move my body every day. Most days I

do. And if I get five days, four days, I'm like, okay,

great, I move my body today. Sometimes that's a walk, sometimes that's going to the

gym, you know, working out with weights, sometimes that's taking a class, sometimes

it's a hike. It doesn't really matter to me what

I do. It's as long as I move my body every day. So

that was kind of my goal, was move my body every day. So then I

kind of had to figure out how to get that done. And sometimes it was

like only moving a little bit. And it's not always every day, and

that's okay. Having it be every day gets me in the habit of it.

So say I didn't have to work with clients,

then maybe I would say I'm going to write every day for 10 minutes or

I'm going to write every day from 11 to 12. You know your

time, you know your availability, you know your schedule, so you get

to decide when it would work for you. So that's actually another part

of the action plan is that figuring out when,

where and how are you going to do this plan,

really being specific about when you will work on your goal.

It is important for your brain to have a

time where you do the thing you say you're going to do.

That means every morning or at lunchtime or right

after the kids go to bed, or whatever your

kind of lifestyle looks like. Do a time audit, find the

gaps, find the periods of time where you can chunk stuff in

and then commit to observing that time and

making sure nobody gets in way. Now obviously kids

get sick, the dog barfs, right? You

get sick, whatever life comes up. But then when you get

back to your schedule, your regular life schedule, it's like, okay,

where was I? What was I doing? Oh yeah, I was writing on Mondays. Oh

yeah, I was walking every day after drop off. Oh yeah, I was

planning to go to the gym and use the treadmill and watch my favorite

show. That's one of my hacks, is like I watch TV while I'm

exercising because it makes it more fun. You Want to figure out when are

you going to work on your goal? And it is. I think

one of the most important things is to put it on your calendar and

really tell yourself, like, make a commitment. I don't know about you, but if I

have an appointment, if I have something on my calendar, I. I don't miss it.

I am committed. Once I've said yes, I'll be there, or

this is. I've signed up for a class or I've made a lunch date

or whatever, unless something comes up, I do the thing I say I'm

gonna do. I'm sure you're the same if you commit to yourself, the

same way you commit to volunteering at the school

or your job or your appointments with your friends

or something like that, or you're taking care of your family member. If you commit

to. To the same degree that you do to others, to yourself, you will achieve

your goal. Now also think about not just when you'll do it, but where

are you gonna work on your goal. If you want to work organizing your

toys, obviously you're gonna do that. But I want you to think about, where am

I gonna stage all this stuff? Where am I gonna store stuff while I'm organizing

it? Am I gonna take over the dining room? Am I gonna be using

the garage? Am I gonna be using my bed? So

be thinking about that and then planning through it. So

where will I work on my goal? At my desk with my stuff.

But then I also kind of need to gather all those workbooks and notebooks and

things like that. So that's part of my prep stage.

Right. My phase one is getting started. I'm gathering everything I

need. I have always had so many different goals that I want to

do. Like, I was really doing art last year, and it was

really fun. And so I created a space in, like,

a little table in our bedroom that I had my art stuff, paints

and things like that. And I needed a lamp, so I got a lamp. And

then I knew, like, this is where I do my art. I'm not good at

art, by the way, at all. But if you notice that

the space that you created isn't working, that's one of your obstacles. No

problem. Just pivot and figure out a new solution. As

you get into the work of it, you're going to notice you have to adjust.

Like, I'm committed to Mondays, but what happens if I. Like, I'm really tired on

Mondays? I don't think so, because I know I've already, you know, kind of committed

to this. But if I did notice that, or I was like, I'm gonna work

every day on this goal, organizing my family or whatever it

is you decide you're gonna do it at 9:00pm, well, maybe you're too

tired at 9:00pm okay, that's an obstacle that you can't

quite overcome, so. Or unless you drink coffee or something. But if

you can't overcome it, then you need to pivot and make a new plan. Now

the other questions you can do is how much time are you going to spend

on it? So really thinking about how much capacity do you have

looking back at those obstacles? I am going to write

for five hours on Mondays. I think that's about all my brain

can handle. We'll see. But I'm going to do like

a good 9 to 12 and then again like 1 to

3. Most likely I won't be able to stay

in it unless I get into some sort of flow state. Now I don't

have kids at home, so I can work my schedule how I

want. When I had kids at home, because I did write this book originally

when I had kids at home, I would work

9 to 12 and then that was all I could do. But I added more

days in and I just committed. And so if you think about, well, when am

I going to exercise, when am I going to meal plan, when am I going

to meet up with my friends, like really do the planning and

thinking and then making that commitment to yourself, how much time

will you spend? Or how much time do you have Right, based on your time

audit and then what will help remind or support you?

Again, accountability is helpful. I told all my friends when I saw them

all in November, I was like, hey, I'm gonna do my book next year.

Like you guys all need to know this and help me. And so

she's like, right, reached out, how's it going? How's the writing going? What have you

been doing? And I was joking with her because I'm like, it's going so great.

I decided to make a three part series on the podcast about goals,

which it could be a little bit of a distraction, but I enjoy doing

this series. But I said to her, I'm like, thank you for

asking me how it's going. I really need that. I need people

who say, hey, are you committed? What's happening? That's

one of the things that I have done to support me.

Accountability. But also the calendaring, blocking, the time,

habit stacking, that's like a phrase that people use in

goal setting is like, what are the habits that help you achieve

the thing you want. If it's meal planning, you're like, every Sunday I

spend 20 minutes and I just figure out what meals we're eating for that week.

If you do that a bunch of times in a row, it will become normal.

And if you decide you're gonna do it Sundays at 2, and then you realize

that you're never home Sundays at 2 or the kids are always really

bothersome. Okay, you need to pick a new time. So as you

find a time that works, you habit stack that maybe you need

a visual cue you, maybe you need a big poster that you put somewhere

or you put a reminder on your phone, type out the goal in

your notes app screenshot that, then make that your wallpaper of

your phone. That can be really helpful. It can also be

terrorizing. So be gentle with yourself. Be kind. If you

get stuck in this phase, choose what feels

most likely to happen and not what sounds ideal. Just be like, you

know what, the odds of me exercising every day are low. I'm going to just

say I'm going to do it every Monday. You just get in that habit of

doing it every Monday and then that's normal. And then, you know,

you then, okay, okay, look, I'm going to do it on Thursdays and then you

do that or like the toy thing, right? So you're like, I'm going to organize

on Saturdays for, for the next few weeks. Once the toys are

organized, then I'm gonna maintain that by doing a

tidy up every night. Okay? Those are all lofty goals. Let's

see how you do. Let's just get the thing organized first.

Start with less time than you think you need, because if you

put in too much time, maybe you'll feel very overwhelmed and

you won't stick to it. You're like, ugh, I don't wanna do this for three

hours. If that feels dread in your stomach when you think about doing your

goal. And then maybe make it more fun, you can better

it by like, I'm turn on music. Or you can do it only for a

short amount of time. You know what? I'm going to do one small thing. I'm

going to take all of these toys off the floor. I'm going to put them

in this bin. Or you know what? I'm going to make dinner tonight.

Try to make it as manageable as possible. All right? So that's how

it goes to make an action plan. Honestly, it's complicated, but

not complicated, right? You do that brain dump. You figure out Everything

that's going to be needed. And it can be like whatever comes to your

head, and then you figure out the next small step,

and then you do the next small step after that. So you break it down

into little steps, and then you can chunk it up. Like, what are

the things I need to do to get started? Then what am I going to

do in the middle? And then how am I going to maintain this kind of

chunking it into phases? I think for me, I just

needed to get started. That's my goal. I needed to clear

my calendar and get started. Whatever goal you

have, think about that first step and then make

a plan for it. When, where, and how are you going to get this

done? What time of day or what time of week? Where are you going

to sit and do it? I read one time, Madeline

Albright, who was Secretary of state, she wanted to go back

to college, and she had three small children, and she

did all of her schoolwork while in the car waiting for them

at pickup. Women are incredible. We can achieve so much when

we get committed to it. So that's what I want to leave you with, is

that if you get stuck, just remind yourself that

you are capable, that you have already overcome so

many other things. You've achieved so much.

Go ahead and take a minute to remind yourself of the things that you

have achieved in the past, and that will help you feel more committed

and more inspired to achieve new things. The other thing that

I want to remind you is, like, if you get stuck, just think. Think about

what is the smallest amount of thing that I could do, the

smallest step I could take to get back into the

goal. If your big goal is like exercise or get fit

or something like that, what is the smallest step you could take? Like,

you could do 10 jumping jacks. Just the tiniest thing.

If I get stuck in my book writing, the

best thing I could do is sit at my desk and open the document. That

would be the smallest thing. Or I could call a friend and say, I'm really

struggling. Help me out and see if I can get some pep talks. The

teeniest, tiniest thing. Another thing you can do is go back to

remember why. Why do you want this goal?

Why did you say that this was important to you? What were you hoping

to have from achieving this? If it's a health

goal, you're like, I wanted to be able to have more energy with my

children. If it's a family management goal, like

dinners better or toys or clothes or whatever it is in your

organizing, in your time and your space, it's because you wanted to have less

chaos. If it's self care, it's because you wanted to be calm. If

it's money stuff like budgeting, it's because you wanted to have more

discretionary income so that you could take a vacation.

Remembering your why will help you get back into why

you wanted to do the thing in the first place and get you organized and

back into it. If you get stuck, remember there's always

one small thing you can do to get unstuck. I

am wishing you the best 2026.

I am happy that you're listening and

that we're in this new year and a lot can be achieved

in your life. Even if your achievement is small, like you want to

read five books this year or you want to watch more

reality tv. Your goal does not need to be lofty,

it just needs to be meaningful for you. And I am

wishing you the best New year, the best

2026. And I will not have any

new episodes until March, so I

will miss you all while I am working on my book. I

can't wait for you to listen to the Stop Yelling series and to really

get all those tools to become a calm mama, which is the

purpose of this podcast. And I'm really looking forward to having you

receive all of those tools and that teaching

and all of that over the next 10 weeks and then I will see you

again in March. All right mamas,

happy 2026. I hope you had a really nice winter break and

I will talk to you soon.