The Monthly Goals Method (Steal This)

Sam Vander Wielen: So it’s mid-February and you already feel like your New Year’s resolutions are drifting away faster than a sailboat in a windstorm, but you’re not quite ready to give up on your goals yet. You still wanna grow your business this year, feel more grounded and connected with your community. Smash that half marathon that you’re signing up for and eat more plants.

But by treating January 1st, like it’s the only, or even the best time to set goals for yourself, it’s actually keeping you from achieving them. In this episode, we’re going to check in on our New Year’s intentions and resolutions if we even had them, that is. And talk about why January 1st doesn’t even make sense as a fresh start time period and little ways we can bring that new year, new you energy throughout our days, weeks, and months of 2026.

Welcome back to On Your Terms®. This is a podcast for online business owners who wanna feel as present in their lives as profitable in their businesses. One of the ways we feel really present in our lives is by being clear about what we’re working on or towards at the moment. So we’re not just wandering around aimlessly being like, why isn’t this thing growing when we don’t even have any specific measurable goals or action items that we’re working on at the moment.

Now, before we get into today’s episode, we’ve gotta do our little segment where we pull one of our tell me cards. So the tell me more cards. Um, a game of questions to deepen connection. This is where I pull a random card and answer it on the spot. I’ve never seen this card before. All right, let’s pull.

All right. Today’s card, if money were no concern, what would you want to do with your life? Wow. Okay. I feel like if money were no concern, I think that my life wouldn’t look that different ’cause I think if money were no concern, I’m not somebody who, like, I feel like I’m somebody who, if I retired, I would work, quote unquote work, or be as busy as I would be if I had a job because I just have a lot of different interests and I would have a lot of people I would wanna go see.

I just think like the nice part about not having pressure about needing to make money would just be like, I don’t know, i’d run down to Philly a lot and see my nephews and I would travel to see friends and I would just. Travel. Travel. I like to travel a lot and so I’d probably do a lot of that. I’m guessing if money were no concern, that means I have a lot of money and so then I would hope to give back a lot and volunteer a lot and like it’d be really cool to consult like newer business owners or you know, one of my big main goals to like start like a scholarship fund for where I went to undergrad at Temple University.

So just doing things like that would be really cool. But I honestly don’t think my life would change very much. I. I think one of the reasons why I feel like a lot more centered in my life these days is I’m, I’ve had the realization that I’m like, oh, I wouldn’t move. I would have the same house. I don’t need any different of a car. Like nothing like that would need to be, I don’t need anything else fancy, like I think this is good. I think just having like not the stress or the pressure of it maybe would be nice, and being able to just travel and kind of be free in that way and give back, that would be a very cool side effect of not ever having to worry about money.

So that’s my answer. I would be very curious to hear what your answer is. You have to DM me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and let me know.

I feel like this year more than any other year I can remember. I’m just seeing a lot of people who I both know personally and who I see online who are sharing that they just did not feel ready for 2026. Like they didn’t feel ready. They kind of didn’t want it. Like some people were feeling like a little resistant for many different reasons.

I know that when I lost my parents, this is a very real grief thing, which is so strange, and I’ve heard other people say this. When I lost my parents each time, I was like, I didn’t wanna go into the next year because I didn’t wanna leave the year they just came from. And I was like, no, no, no. It just has to stay 2022 and 2023 forever, because that’s the only year.

Like now, if I go into a new year, that’s a whole year that my parents weren’t in existence, at least on this planet. So I didn’t wanna do that. Like I was very resistant both of those years. And I’m sharing that both because if you’re going through a grief situation, like I think that’s very real. But also because that’s how my like relationship with New Years has been for the last several years.

And then the year after I lost my parents, it was just kind of like, now this is the first year without both of my parents. Like there’s just so many of these like weird firsts, you know, to go through.

So the new year can just like, bring up a lot of weird stuff. Like I, I mean, I know I have a lot of grief people in my life.

I think it’s kind of like a funny side effect of, of being someone who, who loses a parent as in particular is like you then end up like surrounding yourself with a lot of other people who have, you know, um, or at least being really close, uh, with those in your life who have, because they get it. And when a lot of other people don’t.

And I know I can speak on behalf of a lot of us that. The holidays are really tough, which then like makes the new year kind of tough. And then not to mention that there’s all this pressure and like lore about the like new year fresh start. Like you have to hit the ground running on January 1st and all this stuff, and it’s just a lot. I don’t know. It’s a lot. Maybe, maybe it’s just me. You’ll have to let me know.

I feel like also people are saying that this year they’re feeling like a little more unclear, maybe a bit more uncertain. So today I really want this episode to speak to kind of two camps of people. The first is the person listening who has set goals, was like super type A and probably had all their goals ready and their brand new planner, but maybe have like fallen off a little bit or you even just kind of forgot like what it was exactly that you set out to do.

I think that can be really easy when you’re, you’re somebody who can capitalize on that new Year energy, but then life just starts happening and you’re like, wait, what was it exactly that I’m working towards? I also wanna speak today to the person who didn’t feel ready or rejuvenated come January 1st.

Like the person who didn’t set those this year maybe doesn’t ever do that, right? But is still a very goal oriented person and has big goals that you wanna achieve this year. Things that you wanna move forward this year and you could just kind of use a check-in.

I think 2025 was just a heavy year, but I feel honestly, like I’ve been saying that every single year since 2017, where I’m like, I’m ready for the next year ’cause last year was so heavy and it just keeps happening over and over again. So I’m not sure if at any point this thing gets better. I, I can’t predict, but I can tell you that it was heavy and I think that that is a lot of what has contributed to people feeling that way. I think especially in our line of work with being like online, so plugged in on social media and like all of these things that if you sat down and looked at the events that have happened every single year since, I don’t know, let’s say 2016,2017,, whew. It’s overwhelming. And then because you’re in the social media online space, you’re getting inundated with a lot of information and a lot of the emotions and everyone’s opinion. And there now have been there, there have been a lot of experts that have spoken on this topic about how unnatural it is for us all to kind of know like what Susie Q from Oklahoma City thinks about, you know, this or that news thing that’s happening. And it’s just a lot. It’s a lot to take in.

And so I think that this is all led, like I feel like it’s kind of like a very slow train crash that has happened over the last several years that has led to a lot of us feeling like, woo, like this is just heavy. This is a lot. I don’t wanna be here anymore, or I don’t wanna be here in this way. Right? There are so many people are talking about getting off social media, not being on social media so much, not being on their phone so much, and this is all culminated maybe in leading to this year being like. Wait, what are, what are my goals for 2026? Right? Maybe that has led people to not feeling that.

I think for me this year, 2026 is the year that I feel the most unclear on exactly what I’m trying to do or what I’m trying to achieve or what my goals are. Or how I wanna shift or like whatever. Like when people keep asking me my goals, I’m like, I don’t, I honestly don’t know. And when I was prepping for this episode, I was kind of laughing at myself because I was thinking like, I would say that to you. Like this year I feel so much more uncertain. As if in prior years I felt super certain and I was just thinking how funny it is that like I thought I felt certain in, in previous years, that doesn’t mean that I actually was, and then, and then like that certainty came to fruition.

And so it’s just kind of funny like not to kid ourselves that just ’cause we plan goals, like doesn’t mean that that’s actually how things turned out. Or even like last year, it’s like I knew my book was coming on April 15th. I had never released a book before. So like I had goals related to my book. I had a super big marketing plan, you better believe.

But I was like, I don’t know how to make this happen. Right? So I was like, even that, I like kind of, I think I’m kind of kidding myself, that I was like, so quote unquote certain last year. It’s just that I had more things on the calendar last year that were maybe more like placeholders, that I kind of understood how the year was essentially going to play out. Whereas this year I’m a little more like, how is this year gonna plan out? I don’t know.

So here’s essentially how I do my, like, quote unquote resolutions. I don’t really do resolutions. I do, I would say, uh, intentions and like vibes essentially. This is, so this started for me back in 2024. I started this little habit that I didn’t know was gonna become a habit.

I was in California and for for New Year’s Eve, which by the way. This is an incredible, I I wanna do this for the rest of my life. If you are an old lady, grandma like me and you live on the east coast, go to California for New Year’s Eve because at 9:00 PM it’s midnight in New York. It was the best thing I ever did in my life.

I literally watched Andy and Anderson drop the ball and was like, I was out by 9:05. I said to Ryan. We are coming here every single year. This is incredible. They’ve really got something going here. I I, so side note, go to California for New Year’s Eve.

So this started because I was in Santa Barbara for New Year’s Eve that year, and I woke up on New Year’s Day and, you know, had this gorgeous view out to the ocean. And I went to the water because my mom was like such a big fan of, uh of polar plunging. And so in her honor, I like half-assed my way in it was like, kind of like quarter ass, but I, I went in a little bit and then I sat down.

You know how on the bedside in a hotel, they’ll always have that little pad of paper, and so there was that little pad of paper and I ripped off a sheet and I wrote down 2024 intentions, and I just wrote like words and phrases like, these are not full senses. It’s like more jumps in the ocean and like more hoagies like, I wanted to eat sandwiches and just like really random, random things. Like, uh, weekend trips for example, was one of the things that were on there.

And so just like, it’s more of like what I want this year to kind of look and feel like on the backend, not like I want to do 12 pushups by July. Like I never do those kinds of intentions. And so many of the things that I wrote down in 2024 actually ended up being, when I would reflect back on my year, I was like, oh, that’s actually kind of how this year played out.

And then there were some things on the list where I was like, oh yeah, I forgot that I said that I wanted to do that. And I didn’t end up doing it. And I thought a lot about why, like, for example. I wrote beach days because I wanted to do more just whole days at the beach. That’s how I grew up, was going to the beach and baking in the sun for like 12 hours.

And so I wrote that on my list for 2024, didn’t do it, and at the end reflected on like what ended up happening, right? So then 2025 comes, I do it again, but this time I learn that the key here is to have this little list in a place where I see it more often, so that throughout the year I check in with myself a little more and I’m like, yeah, how is that going?

Remember how you said you wanted weekend trips? You don’t have anything planned. Why don’t we talk to Ryan tonight? Book a weekend trip? You know? And so that’s, that’s how it wasn’t magic. It’s like at the end of the year, that’s how when I looked back and I reflected, I was like, that is how my year like panned out because I was consistently looking at that list.

I think because they’re not like specific goals where it’s like do 25 pushups in four seconds or something like that. I think it’s just, it’s good to like, it’s super flexible and it’s just like the vibes and kinda the little things that I want to do throughout my year.

So I keep doing that. I did it again on January 1st this year, and I’m keeping it next to my bed so that when I do, I write in this little gratitude journal every night where you answer the question, um, what’s the greatest thing that happened today?

And you just write out like one sentence or something. But my little list is tucked in to the page that I’m on so that I literally every night have to see the little list and I’m like, oh yeah, I wanna jump in the ocean more. I better start doing that.

So that’s sort of my relationship with how the, you know, first of the year feels to me. I don’t, I don’t put a whole lot of pressure on myself, but I do feel like this year I’ve just been hearing a lot of people talking about how weird it felt. And then the other day. Leslie Stephens, who I love and follow on Substack. She’s the author of the Substack called Morning Person. She shared a note that someone had written to her, so I don’t know the the, the name of the person who’s written this thing, but somebody had written her because Leslie had written a post talking about how this year, 2026 felt like the most like kind of disorganized disassembled year that she’s ever had. She’s so used to going into the year feeling super sure about what she wants, and this year she doesn’t, and she was feeling down about the holidays and so she shared that somebody wrote this to her.

They wrote, here’s your annual reminder that the Gregorian calendar was invented by a man, and life doesn’t rebirth with January. January is not a beginning. It’s a winter’s menstrual phase, dark, quiet, and still. Nature is regenerating. The north is sleeping. Seeds are underground. SAP is low. Animals rest or gestate. Nothing is new yet. The Earth’s real New year has always been spring. When light returns, soil warms, and life actually emerges, it was once common to celebrate renewal at the Equinox. When balance is restored, fertility awakens and creation begins. Winter is for reflection, restoration, composting old stories. Tending the inner fire dreaming what will grow and feeding our roots. If January feels heavy, slow, or resistant, nothing is wrong with you. You’re listening to the earth. Honor winter rest without guilt. Whew. I loved this passage. This is like totally summarized everything that I felt like that I feel kind of naturally, and that also I feel like surrounded all of my conversations with friends.

I’ve talked about this quite a bit, but I think moving to Long Island and living somewhere that’s so, uh, beautiful in terms of the nature that we’re surrounded by. I’ve really gotten in touch with this like seasonal rhythm. Like actually even as I’m sitting here now in the middle of winter, staring at my window, it’s gigantic. Hundreds, hundreds of year old tree. I can see that the buds are bigger this week than they were like a month ago, right? So the leaves dropped, the buds looked like nothing, and now they’re, the buds are actually getting pronounced and fat.

There is so much magic happening while we are sitting here that you cannot see. There’s no payoff yet, right? Like come spring there’s gonna be this huge payoff, these gorgeous, big green leaves, right? And my whole neighborhood, which is normally so green, will go from stick season to turning bright green again.

And it’s like this incredible like symphony orchestra coming together, right? But there’s so much happening right now and without what’s happening right now, we don’t get the big payoff in the spring. We don’t get the beautiful summer. We don’t get the gorgeous leaves turning yellow in the fall.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about wintering and hibernation and what I’m calling like my rewilding season. Like I feel like this will kind of, uh, I don’t know, like encapsulate my entire year. But even if we were just focused on winter, for example, I think it’s really important to think about rewilding yourself, right? Rewilding is restoring natural processes. It’s bringing back the natural processes to an environment to bring it back to its natural habitat, like it’s homeostasis. And we as people need to be restored into our natural processes. What we do, a lot of what we do. In our businesses brings us out of that. Being on social media, for example, is not natural. It’s not normal. It’s not normal to know what everybody else is doing and thinking it’s not normal or natural to your brain to be so overstimulated, to have all that light and, and noise and literal and figurative noise right in your life.

It’s not normal. It’s not normal to have to walk around taking pictures of ourself and doing videos of ourself. And you know, if you’re anything like me, I think of everything in terms of content. It’s not my natural state, it’s not my homeostasis, not even what’s healthiest for me.

I think there’s actually a lot that I do every single week now that I didn’t do before to kind of naturally rewild myself, right, of like getting off of social media, doing things that are intentionally slow and analog to kept my brain to actually like recalibrate.

What level of overstimulation is normal? ’cause I’m very, very easily. Overstimulated and something like social media just like pushes me off the cliff. And so yeah, having to consistently rewild myself and come back to center. I also just think when we think about like having to set goals or in this time of year and like be at our most productive coming January 1st or something like this, we’re not letting ourself rest from the seasons of busy.

And I’ve talked about this before, but like. Where I live literally is very busy in the summer. Right. Because we live in, in such a community that’s all surrounded by water and so it’s like, everything’s like boating and beach and everything to, you know, everybody just has like so much more energy and spirit here on Long Island in the summer. Right? It’s a very summery place. I realized pretty quickly after living here that I was not gonna make it through the summer if I didn’t take the winters to chill.

So by the end of the summer, I am like. Whew. I am good. ’cause I’ve been out to eat like way more times than I probably want or can tolerate. I’ve been like socializing a ton and like my whole routine’s thrown off and it’s so good. That’s so amazing and I feel so connected to my community and that’s such a positive thing. And I wouldn’t be able to navigate all that if I didn’t take the winter to hibernate more, to turn inwards to enjoy the fruits of this season, to literally let myself do what I’m looking out at the buds on the tree do right now, which is like this incredible restorative full of energy process that’s deep and quiet and underground. It’s like not the quiet, it’s not the type that you’re shouting from the rooftops about on Instagram. It’s the kind of stuff you’re doing inwards. Right?

So business building a business is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And so if you do not take these seasons of rest, you will not have the ability to do the season of play, right? You will not have all the outward season. Even within your season of play. If you’re in a season of immense growth right now in your business or somewhere else in your life, you need those seasons of rest, even within the very season of play.

For me this season and this year probably is about more deep, quiet, inner work and being more creative, getting back in touch with this part of me that isn’t so, I don’t know, doesn’t overthink creativity, doesn’t overthink the content that I create so much, is creating more from a place of like, Hey, this is something I really wanna say, or this is something I wanna share.

I think this is really cool and unique, not like, how’s this gonna be perceived? Is this helpful to them? All of that kinda stuff that I’ve, I’ve overthought in the past. And so for me, day-to-day, that looks more like writing my weekly newsletter, Sam’s sidebar. Uh, which by the way, if you don’t get that, I’ll drop a link down in the show notes below for you to sign up to get my weekly newsletter.

I also am spending a lot of time writing, my weekly substack called Beyond Business. It’s more personal essays, behind the scenes grief stuff. , I’ll leave a link below for the Substack and then producing this podcast, right? Coming up with the ideas, outlining these podcast episodes, recording them.

This is the kind of deep creative work that I am focused on right now. I’m not focused on like some big goal for any of those specific things. It’s more of the process of kind of like hibernating, being creative and putting it out.

If I could give this year an overall theme that I’m seeing for like everybody around me, at least in in like online business, my friends, it feels like this is a year of integration and self-trust.

That’s all I keep coming back to is like, I think it’s due to a lot of things. I think it’s due to people having reached that peak overstimulation point, right? That’s why we’re seeing people be so fed up with social media and looking for ways to get off of social media. I thought it was so funny that one of my most popular episodes last year was uh, how to grow an online business without social media. I think people are very curious about that. Rightfully so.

But I think what’s pushing them into that is feeling so overstimulated. I think a lot of that we have to thank AI for, because I feel like, I feel like AI is like. Have you ever tried to boil a pot of water and then you drop some salt in it and it like, like kind of like it bubbles up even more. That’s how it feels. Like, we were already headed in this direction and people were already feeling like, Hey, this thing called social media’s not feeling very social and it doesn’t leave me feeling very good about myself or good about my business or whatever. I don’t like the effects it has on me. And then AI comes in and it’s like now there’s way more noise and the noise kinda sucks, that it doesn’t look good and sound good, and we’re all supposed to be like competing in this world that’s like, it’s not even real. We don’t even know what we’re looking at anymore. So I do feel like it turned up the temperature on that as well as just like the fact that all of those things have also led to us having too much information.

Pat Flynn talks about this in his book, , Lean Learning, where we’re just in an era of having way too much information. We have too much access to too much information. And that leads to a lot of inaction, which is what I think then makes people have funny feelings about like, you know, like when you’re on social media, for example, and you’re, you’re doom scrolling, you’re then not getting anything done.

So it’s, it’s like, it’s simultaneously making you feel bad because of what you’re actually seeing on social media. But then it’s also making you feel bad ’cause you’re like, wait, I just did that for an hour and like, now I didn’t get that thing done. Or like, I keep saying I wanna train for a half marathon, but I didn’t get my run in today ’cause I was like so pissed off at the thing I saw on social media. The arrow is kind of pointing in both directions of why this is happening.

I also think people are just like kind of done in our industry with like the guru, like, um, I don’t know, like big guru noise. And they’re a little bit burnt out on like thinking that these, like people at the top of the online business industry hold the key somehow. And so this is just like, I just am hearing people left and right. One of my friends who’s a coach was saying how this year she’s just like, I’m done with the coaches, I’m done with like buying the courses. I’m done with all the things. I am just integrating and applying everything that not only I already know, but that I’ve already learned.

So all of this talk about like, okay, it’s okay to take this season as a wintering like hibernation season and we can integrate and maybe trust ourselves some more. I think it leaves us feeling still, so like, I like the feeling of the new year, right? I like the feeling or, or even like in September, I feel this sometimes, like of kind of back to school season.

How can we integrate that feeling throughout our entire year? January 1st didn’t work for you. Or you, it doesn’t ever work for you. You didn’t like it, you don’t, you didn’t do it this year. How else can we look for that renewal and fresh start?

I think we can look for opportunities to tap into that, like new year, new you energy year round, like every single month, every single week, every like time you open a new journal, for example, is really an opportunity to start fresh. And I think when you have a goal that you want to achieve, it’s not that helpful to just start out on January 1st and be like, this is my goal, and just kind of leave it open-ended. I actually think it’s more productive to say, what is my goal? Like we’re sitting here in the middle of February, what is my goal for March?

Like in March, I am just thinking about this specific goal, and we make it a smart goal. We make it actionable and measurable and all of these things, right? And we sit and we look at March, and then every week in March we check in on how are we approaching that goal? Like taking a more specific, I dunno, bite-sized goal, for example, looking at it in a month and then breaking it down week by week and checking in with yourself consistently on it, I think is a much better way, in my opinion, than just like slapping on a random goal come January 1st and then forgetting about it by February 19th.

I’m also a big fan of the idea that like, our goals change, right? And so maybe something that you started out in January. I mean, if I, if I could go back to my 2022 goals, and I’m sure I sat down in January and like naively plotted out some, you know, big goal for myself.

I had no idea that my dad was gonna die, right? And so halfway through the year. Boom, my dad dies. It throws my whole life into a tailspin. I did not see that coming, and then basically as soon as I thought I could get back up again, my mom died. And so I just think like it’s it this is also why, I mean, hopefully nothing like that is happening to you, but even little things in life can come. Or God forbid, you change your mind, you have a new interest, you decide to change directions, or you have an intuitive feeling about something that’s coming in business, like you wanna keep your goals flexible. And so that’s what I like about the idea of checking in in smaller doses, you can check in month to month of like, you know, I’m seeing that this thing is changing or this thing that I thought I really wanted. I don’t want it so much anymore. So this month my focus is going to be x. Or maybe in any given month this year, you choose to focus on your health or your family or your relationships or some other hobby, right? Then maybe that goal that month is not business, and that’s fine too.

The other day I was talking to Erin, the RD that I’ve been working with since the summer of my health, and we were talking about, she started, it was my first call with her for 2026 and she’s like, what are your goals for this year?

And typical me, I started out by saying I don’t really have that many. And then I went on to list like 37 different things that I wanted to work on and, and just as I would end with one more like my 36th, I’d be like, but also one more thing. And oh wait, I forgot about this. Right? And I could tell just by the tone of Erin’s voice, ’cause I know her well enough, she was just like, okay, this is like a lot of things, right?

So I can also be somebody who innocently enough as well, as well intentioned as I am, I add a lot of things onto my plate and I just keep making my plate bigger instead of realizing that my plate is super heavy and I can’t hold it anymore, and I’ll just be like, no, just keep, keep adding. Right? And I am used to operating in a state like chaos of the, in that sense, or like a state of stress. Right? A lot of stress. I’m also very comfortable keeping myself, and I think this is like all subconscious, but I keep myself in a position where I am running, running, running from something, probably from my, from my childhood that’s like kind of built in to me so that I don’t ever have to sit. So that I don’t ever have to sit with how I’m feeling, which means I don’t ever have to deal with it.

So I just keep going and that’s one of the things that I’m amongst many that I’m working to be better at, right, is just being more aware of like, okay, I tend to do that. Realizing too, and I’ve talked about this a lot here on the podcast, but since losing both of my parents. I feel like it’s kind of readjusted my tolerance, for lack of a better term, of like how much I can handle at any given point. So it’s, it’s, it’s kind of like having to get to know a new version of me that’s like, yeah, old version of me is to be able to record like. 37 podcast episodes in a day. Can’t do that anymore. Don’t wanna do that anymore. It doesn’t feel good to me. And yeah, just like, that’s not me anymore. And so having to consistently adjust like my expectations all the time. And so I caught myself when I was talking to Erin. I realized the tone of her voice was going up as she was replying to all my goals.

And I said to her probably magical words that she loved hearing. How about I just pick two simple goals just for January and she was like, I love that idea. And so, because we were talking in January, I was like, okay, my goals in January are I am, I’m looking for a new integrative doctor. One of the very weird side effects of having lost my mom is that my mom was my integrative doctor and I’ve been very resistant to finding somebody new.

‘Cause I’m like, I just want my mom, like she was, my mom was like. The best. She was so good at this. And so, uh, yeah, I just don’t think like many doctors are as good as my mom with this. There was a reason people flew all over the world to come see my mom, and I just wanna go to her. Well, unfortunately she’s not available, so I have to look for a new doctor. So that is goal number one.

Goal number two was just to do this daily movement thing. I’ve been doing this Peloton 100 day challenge. That’s just a simple daily movement. It can be a walk, it can be yoga, meditation. It can be very gentle. So don’t freak out that I’m doing some intense exercise every day. I’m very good with balancing my exercise. But yeah, that was it. And, and I could, Erin was just like, perfect. I love that. Like that’s much more doable than like the 3000 things that I just listed, and so this is a process that I will repeat, you know, every month. This is a process I do as it is.

I personally like to keep a note on my phone. In iPhone notes. That I change every month and I pin to the top. So when I open my notes app, actually see it. You can also create a widget on your iPhone so that this widget from the note is on your main screen or like somewhere where you’ll see it. And you can do the same, by the way, with your desktop.

You can, if you have an Apple computer, you can pin the widget of your note to your desktop. And I have this for every single month and I just changed the day, uh, or the, the name of the month to like February, 2026. Intentions and Vibes, right? So this is very similar to the kind of the yearly thing that I do where I’m like, these are the vibes, weekend trips, jumps in the ocean, that kind of stuff. I then break that down for the month and I keep that note there and I see that note consistently. So, if I just know like this month my two things is that I’m just doing this daily movement and I’ve gotta get this doctor thing, I gotta find somebody that’s it. Just taking something that’s so much more like bite-sized and doable.

The thing I like about that too is that it fits in with a lot of what we were talking about earlier, that this can become very seasonal. Like maybe my goals in the winter months, especially living somewhere as fricking freezing as it is here on Long Island is that my goals in in January can be more of those inwards, hibernation, rest, restoring my natural processes, right? The the rewilding goals. And then as spring comes, like, I bet if I were to look at the whole of my year, you would kind of, over time you would see that those goals maybe become a little more outward before they turn inward again, to have to kind of like go back in and hibernate again. Getting ready for what is inevitable and what is to come.

So all is to say that I think you can capitalize on this feeling, this energy, this newness at any time. It’s really all about how you think about it, right? And that every new month, frankly, every day is, is an opportunity. We, we are not guaranteed tomorrow, right? And so every opportunity, every time you wake up tomorrow was like a new gift, a new opportunity for you to tackle something that’s, that’s the truth of life.

For a while after my parents died, I lost my, really lost my marbles, and I, um, was going around telling everyone I was gonna become a Buddhist. And I, and my, that was my big plan because I was so angry about, still so angry about uh, really angry at the person who killed my mom. And I was just going around telling everyone I was gonna have to become a Buddhist. ‘Cause that was really the only way I was gonna be able to deal with the consequences of what happened and, and like all the anger that I was feeling and still do. And one of the things I learned in my brief stint as a, um, potential Buddhist was that they really do believe in like this idea that one of our, one of the reasons and one of the things that leads to so much unhappiness and discontent in life.

Is that we forget our own mortality. So we act as if and in accordance with this idea that we are immortal and that we have all the time in the world. We have this kind of open plan, right? We can make year long plans. We have no idea if we’re gonna be here in a year. We also don’t know what our life is going to look like in a year.

There was something about my brief stint in Buddhism that showed me that I. I definitely operate that way, right? In terms of thinking about it in that, in that regard, and when you set out, or if you feel all these pressure to be like, oh, I had to have gotten my resolutions it’s like, it is kind of funny when you think about it.

It’s like we, we don’t really know. And so I think giving yourself this opportunity to be like. I’m just lucky to be here. This today, right here, right now, that’s, I’m only guaranteed in this moment. So what do I wanna do right now? What am I focused on right now? What am I focused on this week? Hopefully we make it this week.

Hopefully we make it this month, right? But yeah, it is kind of funny that it takes some of the pressure off of having to think so far into the future. And so if you’re someone who’s sitting here stressing so much about ten years down the line, five years down the line. Don’t kid yourself, we’re not guaranteed this time. So this is why we have to focus on now and be really intent and, and happy with what we have going on now. Hopefully that makes sense.

Alright, so I’m curious, after you listened to this episode, how, how did you feel, like, how is this readjusting your relationship with goals. Are you thinking about this in a different way?

Are you going to make a plan that on, you know, February 28th you sit down and you make a plan for March, right? You just think more about what you want March to feel like, are you gonna adopt my iPhone note strategy? I’m just curious what’s coming up for you, after this episode. So my dms are always open.

I’m at samvanderwielen on Instagram, or you can reply to any of my emails that you get from me. Speaking of, you should definitely sign up for my free weekly newsletter called Sam’s Sidebar, it’s where you’ll get my best marketing tips and legal tips to grow your online business every single week, over 55,000 of your online business peers get it already.

So I’ll leave that link down in the show notes below. Thank you so much for listening, and as I always remind you, this is a two-way street, although I’m the one that gets to talk into this. Very fun, mic. Uh, you are the one that has to write back to me and let me know how you’re liking the show, what you want me to talk about, what you’re hoping to hear here, what you wanna hear more about. So please reach out. I love it whenever I say this. People always flood in and say stuff, so I want, I want you to do that. I say the same from my email newsletter people is a two-way street and you gotta reply. So this is your invite. With that, I’ll talk to you soon.

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