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Welcome to the Road of Life podcast, the show for married entrepreneurs who want to build a thriving marriage and a thriving business. We're your hosts, Meredith and Craig, relationship experts and entrepreneurs ourselves. We know firsthand that your business will only grow as strong as your marriage does.

On this podcast, we share real stories, practical tools, and honest conversations to help you strengthen your relationship, fuel your business, and build a life you love together. Let's dive in.

Meredith & Craig (00:33)

Welcome back to another episode of the Road to Life podcast with Meredith and Craig. What do got this week? Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It's 2026. It's amazing. I can't believe it's here already. Right? It's wild. I don't know where 2025 went. just blinked, gone. I mean, I think that's why it's so important to do what we did last week, which is actually go back through it, like go back through your calendar, back through your photos and figure out what you accomplished in 2025. Yeah, it was a fun exercise.

going back through your photo album in your phone is interesting. And you're like, oh crap, that was this year. Yeah, right. Wow. Yeah. A lot happens in a year and you don't realize it. You take, kind of take it for granted. And you're like, huh, wow. That feels like so long ago, but at the same time, sometimes it feels like yesterday. I don't know. It's weird. Time's weird. It somehow feels like a long time ago and yet we're already in 2026 and I don't even know where 2025 went. I know. Yeah. It's so bizarre. So this week we're going to talk about 2026

Well, like last week was step one of the process, right? Like at the end of the year, it's kind of like the natural reflection. And what did we want the next year to look like? last year was the last week was sort of the what did last year look like? What did twenty twenty five look like? What were the wins? What were the lessons? What are we taking with us from twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six so that we can achieve the twenty twenty six goals? Yeah. And so the next logical step in that process is what's the twenty twenty six goals? Yeah. So I.

First thing I like to do is look back on what's outstanding for 2025 because well, we got a lot done. We didn't get it all done. It's so hard. You never get it all done. And it's funny because you look back and you're like, it doesn't seem like that long ago. I sat down and did my goals for 2025. I know. Yeah. When I look at the 2025 goals as we progress through 2025, you realize, huh,

We our life changed so much that was no longer something that we cared about. Yeah, it came off the list. Yeah, it was like we grew in a wide. Why did we even want that? Or why was that even a goal? And it's it's just funny how time back to time being just a weird thing. It doesn't feel like that long ago we did that exercise. But then you're looking at the goal and you're like, wow, that feels like a long time ago that I wanted that. Yeah, I don't want that anymore. It's funny. I was reading emails that we send to our list. Yeah.

I just finished the one that we sent this week. And then for whatever reason I was in the system there and I could see some of the ones that we had sent earlier in the year. So I just went back and read one of the ones from very early in the year from like end of January. And very different, very different format,

The voice is there, but the format and some of it was just a lot different than I expected it to be. You've evolved over the year. We've definitely evolved over the year. And that was just a small example of kind of what I'm talking about with the goals. We set them out in January. And then by December, you're looking back and you're like, huh, I can't believe I don't even remember why we wanted to do that. Yeah. And I know not everyone likes setting goals. I know in my corporate job, I hated goal setting time of year. Like it felt so irrelevant to me.

And it's a very different vibe when you set goals that are literally important for you. And your mission. Yeah. Because, and we learned this the hard way several years ago, if you want to get somewhere, you have to know where that place is. For sure. We talk to our clients about it all the time. Yeah. And so that's the whole point of goal. I just want to kind of destigmatize goal setting a little bit because in corporate I hated it. And now I love it because it's where do I want to go so that I can actually get there.

And there's a difference between goals and New Year's resolutions. You can have a goal anytime. just seems like the end of the year just is a natural kind of break that you can kind of use to review and feature cast. But let's not mistake these for resolutions that most people will have dropped about by January 7th or whatever date that date is. Yeah, totally. And so think the first step on the goal process, obviously we did the first step last week, but it is now to your point.

the goals that we haven't hit yet, do we still even want those? Are those coming forward with us into 2026 or are we leaving some of those in 2025? So that's sort of step one of like what are the 2026 goals? And then like the next step is okay well now what do we want to achieve in 2026? And one thing we've learned over the last couple of years and it's been reinforced with research we read just lately is that performance-based goals versus outcome-based goals, performance-based goals are way more effective.

Yeah, so it's like building the habit. It's basically I'm going to go to the gym every day versus I want to lose 40 pounds. Correct. 40 pounds being the outcome. Yeah. But going to the gym every day, building that habit, you're going to actually as a byproduct of doing that every day, lose the 40 pounds. You're going to achieve that outcome based goal or whatever. Based on the process. But if you just focus on the habit. Right. So like I want to win the championship is the outcome.

cool, but the performance-based goal is, know, I'm going to practice the fundamentals every day. Yeah, exactly. And so trying to ensure that the 2026 goals are more performance. There's going to be an outcome-based goal here in America because there are big things you want to achieve, but primarily having the bulk of your goals be performance-based goals. Yeah. And research backs that those are the ones that people will achieve more often. For good reason, because one...

It's things within your control. You can't fully control everything that goes into winning a championship. You do not know anything about the other team. You don't know the weather. There's a lot of things you can not There's some luck involved, for sure. So it's fully within your control, your performance-based goals. It also bypasses the fear of failure. And I think the fear of failure is something that holds a lot of people back. It's actually, I think, the primary reason for procrastination. We're afraid we're going to fail, so I'm to keep putting it off and keep putting it off and keep putting it off so that I don't know for sure if I'm going to fail or not. So it bypasses that part.

completely.

Plus it's sustainable. It builds sustainable improvements that you can continue to build on and build momentum and continue forward. So for those three main reasons, it's way more effective than outcome-based goals. And the other thing I think that we kind of just naturally do that we should call out is we look at goals in different areas of our life. Like it's not just all professional-based goals. Like we look at goals in the professional realm for sure. We've got a lot of professional goals.

But we've also got goals for our personal lives, personally, for our relationship, for just us individually, have personal goals. Health. Health and vitality goals and community-based goals. looking at the different areas of your life and trying to set goals in every area to keep yourself balanced. For sure. And it's important, like on the financial side, you want to have financial goals, you want to have relationship goals, you want to have health and vitality goals. we're doing this to have

massive life, a big life, a full life. And so you don't want to focus on one area and get so narrowly focused that you're only focusing on that one area to the detriment of all the other areas of your life. You will become unhappy very quickly. Yeah, for sure. And so that's sort of the process that we would do to finalize sort of our 2026 goals. Yeah. And then once we've got the 2026 goals finalized, it gets a little more fun, I think, this part of the process. Yeah.

I mean that part of process is fun too. Well we come up with a word. Yeah. song. What's the vibe you want to take into 2026 based on your goals? And a song. And then what's the word in song? So what's your word in song? My word. See I had a hard time narrowing it down to one word. So I'm going to start with a song. The song that I chose this year and I think this might be the third year in a row I've chosen from this same artist. Grammer, Love is the New Money. Yeah. It's a great song.

great song. Andy Grammer's got some great stuff. It's uplifting. It's upbeat. And so it's got a great message. It's got a great beat. So I dig his stuff. So love is the new money. know, just obviously, money is a resource, but love is what makes this world go around. And so focusing on making sure that the focus is on love over money. And love is the new Anyway.

And then the word is, I wanted to go with love, just it being very, a very solid fit for the song. But I think I'm going with intention. And intention, think is where I can move that into love. Obviously we're going to be intentional with who I spend my time with, how I show love to people, who gets my energy, where I'm spending my time, who I'm spending my time with, what I'm spending it on.

What am I doing with my time? We only have a finite amount of time, unfortunately, on this planet. Unfortunately or unfortunately, guess it depends how you look at it. if you're having a great time, you want to stick around for as long as you can. And so we only have a certain amount of that available to And we don't know how much it We don't. Yeah. Like our friend Kip says all the time. hides the game clock. They hide the game clock. Life hides the game clock.

So intention is my word. Nice. Yeah. So my song for 2026 is Jason Mraz, who I also find to be more upbeat. Yeah. It's got good message in his songs and his, song is I feel like dancing because I feel like dancing through 2026. Like I want to bring that energy into 2026. I love it. And my word for 2026 is open. I want to be open to whatever is coming at us. I want to be open to all the opportunities. I want to be open to all the lessons.

first time. don't want to have to relearn. don't want to learn it multiple times. I want to be open and get them the first time. the feather, not the hammer. Exactly. I want to be open to all the wins. I want to be open to all of it. So my word, my vibe for 2026 is open and dancing. I feel like dancing Jason Mraz. Yeah, love it. So then what's the next? And I love that we get to do this together and that you have a song and a word.

And I have a song and a word and it's almost as though we each have two songs and two words as we go through this journey together, we adopt each other's kind of vibe and energy and like, we're doing this together. So I'm also cool with having the energy of dancing through life in 2026 and open to all the possibilities. I love being intentional. Yeah. So it's almost like when you do it with your teammate.

You get the benefit of having two songs and two words because you kind of adopt the other. For sure. It's part of being an unstoppable team. Then the next step is, I don't know how many times a day most people pick up their phone, but it's a lot. I pick up my phone a lot in the run of a day. So I like to be reminded of my big goals. Some of them are beyond 2026, but most of them are 2026 goals. And so we create a

lock screen for our phone, like a vision board lock screen. I like to do it, play in my song for 2026 while I'm cringing around creating it. So you get the vibe going. You find all the images on your phone, you screenshot them all, and then you create in wherever you create them. We create them in Instagram or Canva, but you create them and then you just save it as the lock screen on your phone so that literally every time you pick up your phone to do anything, you get a subconscious little

jolt of, oh my goals, I'm reminded of my goals again. Yeah, I definitely have to update it because I was looking at the other day and there's stuff on there, like I was saying earlier, early 2025 and you're like, huh, interesting that that's the thing that I cared about and I really don't know. And so yeah, definitely have to change that. And then the last step, also really, we haven't done that step yet, even though technically this episode drops on New Year's Day. Today is not New Year's Day yet, so we haven't done the last step, which is read last year's letter.

every year on New Year's Eve, we write ourselves a letter for next New Year's Eve on how cool, so for this year, how cool 2026 was, how much we've achieved, what we've accomplished, know, bringing that 2026 vibe into that letter to your future self. It'll be interesting because I remember where we were last year when we wrote that letter. We were in Halifax and I remember writing it on the bed. I was laying down and I was writing it.

And I have no recollection of what's in it though. Like I know I remember where we were and what I was doing in that moment. I do not remember what I wrote in that letter. So that will be an interesting exercise. It's fascinating to do this every year because you're, I'll go back to it. It's like how much can change in a year. But also how interesting the things that really mattered and how you...

honed in on those and got those finished or at least got them part. Moved. Yeah, partly done. And the other things just kind of fell by the wayside. by the time I get to read that letter in a couple of days, I will have forgotten that I even wrote that stuff because they became unimportant. You know what's interesting? And I don't remember what we wrote, but I'll be surprised at the book. We wrote a book this year. Yeah.

But we didn't actually start that, start really thinking about it until halfway through the year. Correct. And then wrote it in a few weeks. And then the second half of the year has been really getting that finished and over the finish line. Yeah. I don't think it was on the radar in January. I don't think it was. I don't think that we wrote like, so one of the biggest things we accomplished in 2025 was, I think, the book. Yeah. And I don't think that it was actually captured in the letter or in It'll be interesting to see if it was. We'll follow up.

We'll let people know if it was. But yeah, so I find the letter to be really fun. I think it's fun to write to future me, you know, in day in 2026. And I think it's fun to see what past me wrote to today me in this day in 2024. So I'm looking really forward to reading the letters. So that's our process. Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy it. It keeps you kind of intentional about what you're working on and what you've done in the past and moving forward just

It also gives you a record of if you ever want to go back and really kind of review the journey. It's interesting to see the changes. agree. Anyway, that's it. That's it. That's all. So hopefully someone enjoyed that conversation and you get something and you take action on some things. And on that, Happy New Year. Love you.

Meredith & Craig (14:15)

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Road of Life podcast. Remember, your business will only grow as strong as your marriage does.

So it's one action you're gonna take this week to put something you learned in this episode into practice. Because we love a good chit chat as much as the next person does. But without action, stay where you are.

If you want to turn your marriage into the engine that drives your business forward instead of the brakes keeping it stuck, book a free marriage and business strategy session with us at 200percentmarriage.com/strategycall. We'll see you next week.