014 Mandy Johnson, a physical therapist and wellness coach, discusses her use of goal-planning systems to enhance both her personal and professional life.
Mandy shares insights into how a structured goal-planning approach aids in achieving wellness-based goals, enabling lifestyle changes, and facilitating both personal and shared visions with her husband. She emphasizes the importance of vision, long-term planning, and the use of specific tools like the Michael Hyatt Focus Planner and Donald Miller’s Hero on a Mission to create and refine life goals.
Mandy explains how these systems help manage her personal wellness, family time, and business development and facilitate community events. She advocates for the significant impact goal planning has on improving one’s passion for life, making meaningful choices, and effectively using one’s energy toward achieving a desired future.
Mandy, a Physical Therapist and Functional Wellness Coach obsessed with using research and snark to help people be phenomenally well by empowering them to embrace self-care.
Join the conversation on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chrisnixon/
Detailed Show Notes With Transcript: https://chrisnixon.com/episode-14
GUEST LINKS For: Mandy Johnson
Website: https://renegadewellness.co/
Website 2: https://renegadewellness.substack.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-johnson-90097a1b/
Tools and Books mentioned in this episode:
- Michael Hyatt: Full Focus Planner
- Donald Miller: Hero On a Mission
- Gretchen Rubin: The Four Tendencies
- Stephen Covey
- Google Calendar: calendar.google.com/
LINKS
Website: https://chrisnixon.com
Blog: https://chrisnixon.com/blog
Podcast: https://chrisnixon.com/podcast
SOCIAL
LinkedIn: https://chrisnixon.com/linkedin
Facebook: https://chrisnixon.com/facebook
All socials: https://linktr.ee/chrisnixon
**This episode Copyright © 2023 Chris Nixon***
Music: spacedust by airtone (c) copyright 2022 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/64741
Transcript
[00:00:19] Chris: So to start, I’d like to invite you to share your name and the field of work that you do.
[00:00:25] Mandy: Sure. My name is Mandy Johnson. I am a physical therapist and wellness coach. And so I, the goal of what I do with clients is to use productivity and goal setting techniques to help them establish wellness based goals so that they can create achievable and maintainable lifestyle change.
[00:00:49] Chris: Okay. So, uh, goal planning system is a set of tools to take you from vision to achievement. And during this podcast series, we’d like to talk about goal planning systems and the journey, uh, to refining the one that works best for you. So how does your goal planning system play a part in your life and the work that you’ve described?
[00:01:08] Mandy: Without a goal planning system, I feel that it would be very difficult to, um, actually understand what journey you’re on. And by that, I really mean what do you want to achieve this year, five years from now, ten years from now, without that you don’t really have a vision of where you’re going without a vision. Life just kind of happens and you take opportunities as they come. And maybe those opportunities are the right ones, but maybe, you know, next year you realize, Oh, man, that opportunity blocked me from this other thing that would have been way better. And if you had that vision of where you were going, um, you know what to say no to. And you know, conversely, what hard work and challenges to say yes to.
[00:01:53] Chris: So you’ve, uh, you’re talking a lot about the vision and having that vision to work towards. What other components of the goal planning system or refining are important to you?
[00:02:03] Mandy: So I tend to go with the more of a long term approach. So instead of just always coming at everything as an annual, uh high goal setting, I and my husband, we work together and we do a lot of this stuff together. Not that our goals are the same, but if we both understand each other’s vision and goals and what we’re driving towards, then we’re better able to facilitate each other and allow for both of us to succeed. So in that we both have a shared long term goal like 10 year five year goal that we’re working towards more of a picture of where we want to be a scene of success, as I’ve learned from Blake Stratton, and that has really facilitated, you know, creating. shorter term goals that drive me towards that longer vision of where I want to be.
[00:03:04] Chris: So you and your husband share some vision and some goals, do you work on them actively together?
[00:03:09] Mandy: Yeah, we do. Yeah, we, uh, try to do our quarterly, so like a three month quarter . We try to do those together. Um, that way we know what each other are working on for this quarter. And then, like I said earlier, like we can facilitate helping each other and making sure that we’re setting aside appropriate time or, you know, and this is not always applicable to anyone that’s married, but in marriage, it’s a lot more of a balance where. It really is never a balance. It’s one person picks up more slack while the other person is able to take some time. And so I know when to pick up slack and he also knows when to pick up slack because of where we are in the quarter.
[00:03:49] Chris: Yeah, that’s how you form the ultimate team, isn’t it? It’s not about equal, but it’s about supporting each other when you need to be supported and being able to step in to do that, isn’t it?
[00:03:57] Mandy: Yeah. Agreed.
[00:03:59] Chris: So if we go back a little bit, uh, in time, how did you realize that you really needed some system to use for this, or have you just naturally been doing this all your life?
[00:04:07] Mandy: No, I haven’t been doing it to this level. I believe that I’ve always, my personality type is to strive toward being better. Um, now that didn’t ever take into account what to be better at or how to get better at it. Um, so I’ve always been driven to work on things, but it wasn’t until I would say, uh, somewhere like seven years ago that I went through and started using a formal system, which was the Michael Hyatt. Uh, Michael Hyatt was the first one I’d ever really been introduced to. I’d roughly heard of the Covey and read several of the Stephen Covey books, but I hadn’t ever utilized their materials, but Michael Hyatt and his Folk Book of Spiner was the first one that I really utilized it to go through and set some stuff down in writing.
[00:04:57] Chris: So you found one and you stuck to it.
[00:05:00] Mandy: Yeah, I mean, I have dabbled a little bit. I also appreciate, um, Donald Miller’s Hero on a Mission, I really like how he gets you to paint more of a visual picture. So his is all based on you are the hero of your own story. So creating that movie ending for the end of five years from now and the end of 10 years from now and wants you to picture what the movie scene like, you know, the last five minutes of your movie, 10 years from now, what of your life, what is that closing scene? What do you feel? What do you see? What’s the visuals? Because when you create that really vivid picture for yourself, um, I think it’s so much, it amplifies. what you’ve already written down because it’s a story then. And we work and love stories. We love to play into and be a part of stories. So I think that’s really helpful. Um, I haven’t used it nearly as much as Michael Hyatt’s focus planner, but I have used it, um, on and off when I’m feeling like I need a little bit, something extra to Kind of push through and see like where do I actually want to go with this? I have an idea, but what’s the full encompassing picture?
[00:06:16] Chris: So you’re incorporating them together of sorts then.
[00:06:20] Mandy: Yeah, I would say it’s probably more like every couple of weeks that I delve into the hero on the mission, but it’s more of a daily and weekly, um, planning within the written down full focus planner.
[00:06:34] Chris: So how has it been adopting the full focus planner? Has it been smooth sailing?
[00:06:39] Mandy: No, oh, I mean, I don’t have it with me right now, because it’s in my car, but I could show you, like, there’s days where I don’t write in it at all, so it’s never fully utilized to the maximum capabilities, but I write in it every week, and the majority of the week, so I have more of what I like to think of, and I feel comfortable with that 80 20 rule, right, which a lot of people talk about. And it’s just that you make 80 percent of the time you make good choices. And the other 20 percent of the time you allow yourself to have some slack. And so on the weekends, I don’t write in the planner. Um, and then towards the end of the week, I know how the end of the week is going to go. And it’s kind of like a little bit of a slide into, uh, I’m so glad that this week is done . So Friday tends not to be a big day for writing in there either. And there’s been entire quarters, like when we move, uh, cause my husband’s military will move, it’ll take me a full month to get back into regular planner work, um, because you’re on your packing boxes, you’re unpacking boxes and it’s just, you know, life happens and you shouldn’t ever judge yourself harshly for it.
[00:07:53] Chris: So do you use a different system of planning then for when you’re doing something like a big move, or how does that happen,
[00:08:02] Mandy: Yeah. It’s a, like a checklist per se that occurs and what day certain things have to occur on, and I don’t put those on in my planner actually put them on my Google calendar instead.
[00:08:15] Chris: So you kind of shift into more of a project management mode when it’s a big project like that’s all encompassing.
[00:08:21] Mandy: yeah. And then that way too it’s a shared Google calendar my husband can see it. So we’re on the same page with where we’re both at and what we’re both working on in order to make the move actually happen.
[00:08:31] Chris: Mm hmm. And yeah the full focus planner is just that it’s a planner for planning your life and planning, uh, to do things daily, weekly, quarterly in order to meet those visions and goals, but it isn’t really a project management system, is it?
[00:08:46] Mandy: It is not. And I mean, there are project management systems, never tried to utilize those from a perspective of moving, but, uh, I don’t want to mess with my husband too much, teaching him one of those things. So, um, that’d be an interesting possibility for others, but probably for me, I’ll stick with Google calendar for addressing project management for moves for other things, yeah, for sure. You know, one of the project management softwares, I think are really valuable for others, um, and for myself, not for moves.
[00:09:19] Chris: But it sounds like you’ve got your own system, and I’m not talking software system, but the actual system of processes that you follow, and it’s somewhat repeatable from one move to the next.
[00:09:30] Mandy: Yeah. And you always try to improve. If you’re not changing, then you’re somewhat stagnant. I mean, you always want each move to be better. Each time you move things, uh, always seem a little bit like a hot mess, uh, to at some point. So it’s about adapting and making things better for next time, hopefully.
[00:09:50] Chris: So you mentioned a few years ago that you came across the Michael Hyatt system and the full focus planner and adopted it right away. What is it that stood out to you about the planner that made you think that, hey, this is for me?
[00:10:02] Mandy: Uh, it was more that it had a good system, uh, that I could see where, what it was trying to help me do and what was trying to help me get where it was trying to help me get to, uh, others that I had used in the past. It was more just a daily, like checkbox to do list and that’s fine for a while, but the full focus planner has no different. It wants you to not just write goals and addressing specific aspects of your life, so they have that the 10 different aspects. I’m not gonna be able to remember them all right now but it. I know a few of them are avocational, vocational, spiritual family, something to that effect, and several others. And so I really appreciated that it addressed all aspects of my life and then gave me a target tone and onto where, you know, I’m only addressing a few goals each quarter because you can’t, you just can’t get better at everything at the same time, all the time, or it’s just not humanly possible that we don’t have enough willpower for that. Nobody does. And then you just feel like a failure.
[00:11:10] Chris: Yeah. Willpower and focus. If you try and spread your focus across all of them, you’re really focusing on none of them, right. And those are just labels for areas of our lives. And that’s, I think that’s the principle that it’s meeting is, you know, you need to look at your whole life, all the different parts of it individually and take some time to focus on what you think is the most important at the time.
[00:11:31] Mandy: Exactly. So that’s what I really appreciated about it. I had never seen. I’m sure there are other systems out there that do help you with navigating multiple different aspects of life and presenting it to you like that. But that was the first one that I had seen. And so I really appreciated it. And I got my husband using it. Um, and really huge for our relationship just in communication and how we were able to communicate, uh, not just on a week by week basis but more of a long term because he always had his long term thoughts, and I had my long term thoughts but I didn’t always share them with him. He was much better at sharing them, but I more often kept mine internal. Not on purpose. It just I had my pictures and my visions and didn’t ever contemplate showing them until the system.
[00:12:21] Chris: How long ago was it that you agreed to get him on board?
[00:12:24] Mandy: Oh he was a pretty fast adopter after I got it. He was, you know, the very next quarter, if not used, I think he might’ve even used a planner for half of that same quarter that I signed up for. And then we both went to, uh, one of Michael Hyatt’s books is full focus. Uh, it was actually during this timeframe. Uh, we went to it five years ago, actually. And so we were actually there at your best year ever in Nashville about five years ago in this timeframe. And um, that’s when we really started working through it together. We had both had a planner and we’re using it to a degree, but we really got on board. It was just a one day thing and it was really beneficial for the two of us.
[00:13:10] Chris: so would you say that having a good planning system in your corner and utilizing it has affected your passion for life or, you know, passion for what you do in life?
[00:13:19] Mandy: Um, it focuses my passion. I’ve always had passion, but it allows me to, my husband has a, it’s a very engineering term to me, but they all trust in a vector. So you can be, you’ve been going somewhere really fast, but where are you going? So the vector is your destination, right? And so it assists me with consistently re honing in on my vector because otherwise you’re just wasting energy and energy is finite. So you should try not to waste it.
[00:13:51] Chris: Are you open to sharing uh a vector that you’ve got in mind in the next couple of years?
[00:13:56] Mandy: Sure. Yeah. So in the next two years, the vector is more obtaining clients, uh, based for my business, but then the shared vector https: otter. ai My husband and I are working towards, which is more of like a three, four year, because he’ll be retired from the military, is that we’ll buy property and start working on developing a retreat center together. So, I mean, that’s a really long term goal that, you know, it will take multiple years but just that vision of, you know, retired from the military. This is the space we want to be in. This is how we picture it to be sound.
[00:14:39] Chris: Would you say having this system in your pocket has changed how you interact with other people?
[00:14:44] Mandy: Yes. Um, I have to be careful with being quiet and listening because sometimes people don’t actually want information. So, but often when people are asking questions about, you know, well I just don’t know what I should work on or I don’t know how I should get, you know, to this point. I’ll often say, well, there’s a couple of different ways you can go about it, writing a eulogy is one of the ways that in living forward, Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harvey, I believe, have you start with addressing uh where you see what you want people to know about you and that is a way to hone in on how to get where you want to go. Eventually, I same with hero on a mission. He asked Donald Miller also stresses writing a eulogy. I think that if that’s a little bit too morbid for you, just creating the ending moving credits for your, you know, five years from now, you do you want to start with creating a vision of what you want because without that understanding. I can’t tell you if going after this or that is going to be worthwhile. It’s only when I understand what your vector is that I can better give you advice if you’re looking for it at all.
[00:16:03] Chris: So what happens when gives someone advice when they’re not asking for
[00:16:06] Mandy: Uh, generally those get quiet if they weren’t looking for it. You have to read your audience a little bit. So sometimes I take a little bit of a risk because I think it’s possible. Um, other times you can just tell they’re just looking to have a moment where someone listens to them. And that’s fine. Like everybody’s allowed to have moments. But they can just say things how they wanted.
[00:16:26] Chris: So what’s a major success, Mandy, that you’ve accomplished that you could credit to your goal planning system, or partially to that anyways?
[00:16:33] Mandy: Yeah, I would say definitely more personal aspects. So, um, being a Christian is really important. I am and being in a regular relationship with others who go to church and also reading the Bible is important, but it wasn’t something I had done until I had started this system. And so I mean that was a big one for me. And then also physical fitness, um, I’ve always been somewhat physically fit, but it was when I found this system that I decided, okay, what are the specific goals that I want to work towards so that I can feel the way I want to feel? It’s not about a look. It’s not about, you know, having a six pack. It is how my body feels. And what I can go and run around and do with my kids, that’s what’s important to me. So that has been a huge thing that, you know and it has steadily progressed. So, you know, at first it was just very basic. The amount of moving my body, same thing with nutrition. Um, my nutrition has changed, um, steadily over the past five years to now I try to eat as much plant based as possible. And that was not something that I did per se, unless you consider cereal plant based.
[00:17:55] Chris: I guess technically it is until you add milk.
[00:17:57] Mandy: Yeah. So, um, it’s really about getting whole grains and, um, that kind of, making vegetables taste good, and that’s what’s changed steadily over the past five years with me and, um, cooking and the recipes that I now try and that kind of stuff. But it’s all been because of goals that I set with the system.
[00:18:20] Chris: Wanna just talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of how the system works? How does using the system equate to, to accomplishing a goal? What are some of the steps or components?
[00:18:29] Mandy: Yeah, so I think it’s nice when we have an actual example versus just like, well, for instance, so an actual example in my life is that, I do much better if I have my meals planned out. And so I actually on Thursdays typically, which is today, but I am at a conference today. So I’m not doing my meal planning today. So on Thursdays, uh, I set aside specific time to go through and find recipes that I want to make for next week. And then put anything that needs to go on the shopping list. And this is all I write it in the full focus planner. So there’s this section where it has Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I’ll write down thoughts on meals for each day, given that, you know, different activities that are occurring. So, our kids are not highly involved in different things, but you have to like one day a week, we have to have dinner ready, basically at five so we can make it to other things and not be feeling brushed and late. So I’ll do that. I’ll go shopping, I create the grocery list from that meal plan that I did. Um, and I always have, you know, other things do change by just having that clear plan from the outset. is huge for me mentally going into the week because I know and I do specific meal prep days, um which I also put in my planner. So that’s written down like how many hours I’m just doing a couple hours of like protein preps. I’m cutting up all the chicken and putting in the marinade or I’m dicing up all the vegetables and putting it in this container because if you don’t plan it, it doesn’t happen. So. You always want to eat healthy. Everybody wants to eat healthy. But if you don’t make the time for it, it’s just not going to happen. And it’s not because you’re a bad person. But if you don’t make the time, it doesn’t work out. And no, you’re never going to magically arrive home from work at five o’clock and be like, you know what? I think I’m going to do some quinoa salad with, you know, maybe a little kale, but I’m going to grill the kale. You know, it doesn’t happen because you don’t probably have all the ingredients in the first place.
[00:20:38] Chris: That. And you’re tired from all the thinking you did all day
[00:20:40] Mandy: yeah. So instead, there’s actually research. It’s just it’s like the you live to fast food. Um, the more you tend to weigh and the more weight you tend to gain each year, because you just hit the easy button. So if you don’t, if you don’t plan, you won’t have the mental energy to make choices that you want to make for yourself. So it just allows me to not waste mental energy and make the choices that I want to make.
[00:21:08] Chris: Mandy, I know that you’ve been a prolific blogger for a while. How has the full focus planner system contributed to that?
[00:21:15] Mandy: All right. Well, it’s definitely helpful because I write down the days that I’m going to do the research. Um, I tentatively try to put down the day that I’m going to publish it. It’s a little bit hard as a working mom occasionally, because sometimes things don’t go exactly as I wanted to for the week. But still, if you don’t have a plan, you can’t. it’s just going to be a mad scramble and you’ll just try, you don’t know when to block time for specific activities. And it’s not that you succeed every time you block time out for that, but if you never try, then you will typically fail most of the time. So it’s been really helpful in just coming up with setting aside specific blocks during the week. So it tends to be Monday I go to a coffee shop because I feel happy when I smell coffee on Mondays, and I can get a little coffee. Uh, and I don’t normally allow myself to do that only because like coffee just, you know, it adds up financially, if you just get it all the time every day. So Mondays I get a little coffee, I sit, I do some research, and that whole morning into the afternoon is set aside specifically for research and writing. So
[00:22:29] Chris: So let’s talk about accountability for a minute. How have you incorporated accountability into your system?
[00:22:35] Mandy: well, You and I have weekly calls on Tuesdays, typically, unless I’m traveling. But I think that accountability is, for me, it’s really important. So there’s a book called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, and she discusses, um, you know, four different ways that are four different types of people and how they’re able to really push forward into their own personal goals. And so my husband is the type that once he decides that’s what he’s going to do, he just does it. And I am not that type. I 100 percent will meet everybody else’s goal and do everybody else’s things that they need to get done and not do the things that are important for me, unless I have that accountability aspect. So that’s where it’s been really helpful. And it’s something that was suggested, um, in multiple sessions. Uh, I believe in the book also for, uh, with Michael Hyatt. So, and on the focus on this, um, podcast too, like having that accountability, someone.
[00:23:41] Chris: So you mentioned, um, Gretchen Rubin. So your husband must be an upholder and you would be a obliger
[00:23:48] Mandy: Yes. Yes, sir.
[00:23:51] Chris: Yes.
[00:23:51] Mandy: So it is difficult for obligers. They’re very externally motivated. So we’re very motivated to help others and do our job and do our job well. Um, but when it comes to ourselves and meeting our own goals, it’s hard to, like, we’ll just constantly put ourself on the back burner. That is what I did.
So
[00:24:09] Chris: you mentioned, uh, about being mom and, you know, being part of a family that just sometimes things don’t quite go as planned.
[00:24:18] Mandy: Yes.
[00:24:19] Chris: Is that real? I mean, it’s just sometimes.
[00:24:22] Mandy: No, I mean, it’s every week, um, every day, something doesn’t go exactly how I’d want. I mean, generally. Um, getting dinner on the table. So, you know, I already have a plan. I probably already have most of it prep and I only have to put a, you know, 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes into the actual cook part
[00:24:39] Chris: So would you say that pre planning then helps make it easier when the unexpected happens?
[00:24:44] Mandy: Yeah. Like just the kids are being very needy that day and they just need lots of stuff. I still have all that prepped and it doesn’t take me an hour and a half to get dinner on the table. Like it would have if I hadn’t have done any of the prep work. I still think those estimations on how long a recipe is going to take are just lies. They’re lies.
[00:25:03] Chris: Just to trick you into trying them, right?
[00:25:05] Mandy: Well, yeah, I mean, I’ll try them because I think they sound like they would taste good, but yeah, they’re just lies. If someone was pre measuring out all those ingredients, maybe I could do it that fast, but no.
[00:25:16] Chris: So another thing that I think you’ve told me you do is you are a planner of community events, right?
[00:25:24] Mandy: I am, yeah, I do plan a lot of community events, um, before we, like, around American Labor Day, and we actually planned two separate barbecues, so we planned a barbecue for some of our military friends, um, that my husband works with. And then also one that was more for our church friends, uh, the following day. And it’s because community is really important. Um, just having that interaction with others and creating that sense of There’s other people that care about me and care about what’s going on and want to spend time with me. Um, I feel very passionate that’s something that I am called to do. So it’s a part of, um, giving back and making a difference in others lives. So it’s important and it does require a lot of planning and it does require me to put different things down, but we typically host, uh, at least every other month and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 people over every other month, I would say.
[00:26:30] Chris: Wow. And, uh, I would imagine that’s a big component of your planning as well, huh?
[00:26:35] Mandy: oh yeah. But honestly, now that we’ve been doing it for few years now. It’s, it doesn’t even really feel as stressful because I have the planning system down for when I’m hosting multiple people and I actually will cook things. I’ll write down what days I’m going to cook different things so that stuff is just ready and so the day of it’s not this mad scramble or I’m not getting up at 4 a. m. to uh, you know, ensure that the things are cooked so people have stuff to eat. And I also have allowed, um, more slacking on my house, not looking perfect when people come over, because I don’t, it’s not a mess and you would feel totally sanitary using the bathroom, but I’m not going to make sure the kids have absolutely every little thing in order before someone comes over because it’s just not real life. And I want people to somewhat see that, no, we can function with, you know, clean dishes that are drip drying in the sink versus having nothing on the counters and nothing anywhere that anyone can see. And just some random room that stuff chock full of, you know, the stuff that we last minute we’re like, we can’t put this away let’s put this somewhere someone can’t see.
So,
[00:27:47] Chris: Real life.
[00:27:48] Mandy: Real life yeah so they see the house and the real life version where you know things are generally somewhat picked up. I really like this term that, um, the pastor used, uh, at the church we attend right now in Louisiana. She talked about, uh, cleaning, which implies a perfection, uh, and that, you know, to make it clean, everything has to look perfect versus resetting. So we reset the house to where we can use it again. So everything is reset for reuse, and there’s not that idea that everything has to be perfect. Just as long as it’s usable, so the counters are generally clean because we need to use those to put the food on and the table is clean because we need to use it for people to sit at and eat. So it’s that idea of what you need to reset for regular use versus that idea of cleaning for perfection, because that’s just not, it’s not real life.
[00:28:48] Chris: I love that. So it’s like, so resetting essentially about getting it ready for the next time. So that you don’t have to trip over things or do a bunch of things before you can do what you wanted to do in the first place, you’re resetting it to get it ready.
[00:29:01] Mandy: Yeah. So, you know, telling the kids to go do a reset of their bedroom, that means that they need to make their bed or put the clothes away or at least just have them in a laundry basket where we’re not going to walk on it, walk on their clean clothes. So, things like that. So that way kids can go up and they can play in the room because we’re setting it up for play. Not that we’re having that sense of pottery barn, although we’d all love that.
[00:29:26] Chris: So considering that you know, you’re able to plan these events for the community and you are planning them and people are attending them, how do you suppose that, uh, has affected how people see you?
[00:29:37] Mandy: Uh, they, yeah they see me as someone that has more resources to draw upon and it’s not necessarily that I do have more resources. I am an extrovert so I have more to give in a certain sense than a true introvert would, right. It’s because of planning that I had that bandwidth and that mental energy to have people over on a more regular basis versus if it, you know, it was taking all of this emotional and mental energy to have my house look a certain way and have the food exactly this way and have everything like fake rolls from scratch. Um, that it just wouldn’t be able to happen, so you need to know what in the planning world and your daily normal life you can devote to a task.
[00:30:30] Chris: So let’s play make believe for a minute and pretend that yesterday, uh, all the planning systems that you use disappear. So today you’re starting from scratch. You don’t get to use the systems you had. You’re just operating off the cuff of your, or off the seat of your pants. What does that look like?
[00:30:44] Mandy: Oh, that sounds horrible. Um, it would be emotionally draining. It would be mentally draining all the time because you’re having to go through every day and think about absolutely everything you’re doing. That’s the whole point of a system is that you’re not having to do that. Like you’re taking out a lot of that day to day in the moment planning and making it to where it’s just going to like life can, instead of feeling like that melt into the home plate of the end of the day that you can kind of have some semblance of like, Oh, okay. Like there was things that could have gone better, but it got way worse.
[00:31:20] Chris: So what advice would you give to someone who’s looking for a system?
[00:31:23] Mandy: Well, I would ask your friends what they use. Um, often that’s where we get a lot of advice from is the people that we trust. And so I’m some random, you’ve never met me. So I don’t know that you have the thought that I am super trustworthy with suggesting these things. I know that a hero on a mission has some free downloadable, uh, and I get nothing for that. Like there’s no affiliation whatsoever. I actually pay for an annual membership to that, but there’s free downloadables off of that help you to put together. And you can just keep printing them out if you want to, so that you can have basically the hero on the mission journal or like a daily guide and strategy for that goal, missions, vision, all of that. And as long as you don’t mind, you know, printing out seven of them once a week, then you could just use it for free. I tend to want the paid version because it just it’s more seamless, and it fits into my world a little bit better. I really like the full focus because it does have a component of taking a mental break back for the week that’s coming. So there’s a weekly preview and I really love that. That’s the thing that I always use without a doubt. Even I’m on vacation this week and I use my weekly preview this week, a hundred percent, because it just helps me mentally decompress.
[00:32:52] Chris: So my friend says, goal planning is a waste of time. What would you tell them?
[00:32:57] Mandy: . Like if you think a goal planning system was a waste of time, like, ooh, rough. So no you know, the truth is that it obviously is not, but it depends on if you’re ready to hear how it could make a difference. If you think it’s not gonna make a difference in your life, then I’m not gonna sit there and berate you for your thought process and your choice. I would also ask you you know, what have you done in the last year and how do you know it was meaningful for where you wanna be?
[00:33:22] Chris: That’s a deep question and a very important one.
So Mandy, tell us about your business and the services you offer and how would you like people to contact you to find out more?
[00:33:30] Mandy: So, I am a wellness coach and physical therapist. Like I said earlier, I primarily focus on helping people to set realistic self-care goals. And self-care is that term that people love to overuse and don’t understand, but it’s really about protecting your wellbeing and also your happiness. So it’s about taking that time not to do things where you are distracted from what needs to happen, but that you’re actively engaged in life and you’re taking that restful break that your mind and your body needs. And that’s. Also, you know, it, it really encompasses the full spectrum. So your sleep, your exercise, what you’re putting in your body for fuel all those different aspects. So that is primarily where I assist people in setting good, solid boundaries on where we need to focus. And so you can find me at my website, which is renegadewellness.co. And then you can also read my substack. So it’s the same Renegade Wellness and Mandy Johnson. And you can see some of the information that I put there out there. I really try to just give you all the information that I wish I knew five years ago. And so it’s really more mesearch, but I believe that it is also applicable for everyone out there, and it’s a lot of stuff on goal setting and changing how you mentally see yourself in past failures and how to overcome that with different science-based techniques, self-talk a lot of different things. So I hope you’ll find value in some of the information that’s out there.
[00:35:07] Chris: So who should contact you? How would they know that? Hey, I’m somebody that should contact Mandy?
[00:35:12] Mandy: Well it’s really gonna be, if you’ve been trying to achieve some sort of wellness goal you know, lose five pounds feel less stress you know, feel like you have that time to connect with other humans, your spouse, your significant other, your kids, you know, making that time and that space for all those things that should occur outside of work so that you can be better at your regular work or just better with what you do at home. So pretty much everyone, Chris?
[00:35:46] Chris: And who would be somebody that would appreciate your blog?
[00:35:50] Mandy: I really think working parents will probably gonna be the main targets for my blog. Just, it gives you a lot of helpful techniques for, you know, getting good sleep for do, including meditation in your day so that you’re just calmer with your kids , helping your kids with something like self-talk. So that they can get through moments where anxiety can be the thing that’s holding them back or yourself. So I think that it’s primarily gonna be those working parents. And a stay-at-home mom because, you know, honestly, stay-at-home moms work real hard. I am not a stay-at-home mom ’cause I could not do it. I’m very passionate about what I do and I want to help stay at home Moms feel like they are not just this person that’s in charge of a household ’cause they contribute to society in a huge way. And so I want them to, you know, feel purposeful, and valued. And like they can take that time for themselves.
[00:36:52] Chris: So families with children, it sounds like you incorporate the family unit and interactions with your children, helping your children out as well in your blogs.
[00:37:03] Mandy: Yeah, that’s, I mean, it’s a space I’m in right now, so I feel like that’s why I tend to, you know, write more about that.
[00:37:10] Chris: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much Mandy, for sharing your experience with your planner, your systems, and your substack and your business.
[00:37:19] Mandy: Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Chris, for having me on.