96: Three Strategies to Exceed, Not Just Meet Your Goals

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Hello, hello, everyone. I have another episode for you - one of my bread and butter type episodes. It's all about strategies to help you exceed, not just meet your goals. I'm going to talk about three specific strategies. I'll just start by saying- I absolutely love sharing productivity and organizational tools, tips, strategies. I get kind of excited, which is funny because I used to be a workaholic and I'd constantly be working 24/7 until I got really sick and learned my lesson. Now, I'm less of a workaholic.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But one thing that happened when I had a baby was I realized, oh my goodness. I have a lot less time than I used to before. And the same is true now. I feel like I have a very limited amount of time. I have to be very intentional with how I use my time. So maybe it's an obsession, I don't know. But I'm a big fan of finding tools, tips, strategies to help you be more productive and efficient with your time, so that you can make sure you get things done and waste less time. I don't know if anytime is truly a waste, especially if you're resting. That's not a waste of time. But I am a big fan of sharing strategies that have helped me with getting things done, with meeting my goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So today I'm going to be talking about goals and about how you can exceed your goals consistently. Again, without overworking yourself, burning yourself out- just by trying out some of these strategies. They might not all work for you. But if one of the three works for you, I would be more than thrilled to hear about that. Let's talk a little bit more about the three strategies. Then at the end, I am going to share a little bit more about my own updates with Grad School Femtoring- things that are coming up, things to look forward to, things that I'm going to be offering to continue to help you all out in your journey with applying and navigating, managing, getting through finishing your graduate programs.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

First strategy is something that I call minimum and maximum goals. I actually - over time, I've looked up and read several books about how to write your dissertation, writing your dissertation in 15 minutes a day, how to be more productive, how to be more efficient. Whether it's reading articles or reading books, I've encountered several resources. And sometimes I pick up on little tips and I'm not 100% sure why I got it. This is one of them. I know I've been doing this for a long time- setting minimum and maximum goals. I'm not 100% sure where I got it from. But this is how it works for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

When I implement minimum and maximum goals, what does that mean? I'm thinking about when you're setting weekly goals- what you want to account accomplish this week. So it's the beginning of the week, you're going over your calendar, you're going over your to do list. You're going over what you want or need to accomplish that week. And in grad school, I struggled a lot with my mental health. There were weeks that I could get a lot done. I was having a good mental health week. And there were other weeks that I was lucky if I hardly got anything done, like just five minutes of something, ten minutes of something, getting up and brushing my teeth. Those things- I was just grateful to even get up.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Having said that, and having struggled with depression and anxiety throughout grad school- and even now, I constantly have to manage my mental health. I started developing minimum goals for- what is the bare minimum that I can get done this week if I'm having a not so great week? If it's a not so great mental health week, if life happens, if there was an emergency, if several unfortunate circumstances popped up, what's the minimum that I can get done? Sometimes the minimum is nothing. You just can't, and the minimum that you need to do is communicate about what happened with the parties involved that are expecting you to do something. That's your minimum, just sending a few emails- communicate to say, this happened. I'm going to need an extension, or I hope you can understand etc.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then maximum goals refer to- what's the absolute most I can get done in an ideal world? If everything- perfect setting, time, energy levels, no distractions, no unfortunate life circumstances coming up - what's the most that you could get them without necessarily burning yourself out, overworking yourself, without running out of steam? So minimum and maximum goals. And then when I set minimum and maximum goals, the other differentiation in terms of how I set them is that I make sure I set personal and academic goals. You can say personal and professional. I know some folks don't like the word professional. It can seem very- it just has a negative association with it. So personal and academic goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Why? Because I think it's important that you prioritize taking care of yourself, and that is also part of your goals. So your minimum personal goal might be, I want to make sure that I take myself on a walk or a hike at least once this week. I want to make sure I get out of the house or do something at least once this week. That's your minimum. Your maximum personal goal could be, I want to make sure I go out and take a walk three to four times this week. If you feel like- if I'm doing good every other day, I could go out and take a walk. And that's good. That's something you look forward to doing. It's taking care of yourself. It's a goal. That will hopefully help you get to a bigger goal, which might be fitness or athletic or some sort of health based goal for yourself. N

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

ow, when it comes to the academic goals, that could be your minimum goal is - make sure that I get through my classes and homework for this week. That's your minimum goal. Your maximum goal is get through the homework and also dedicate two to three hours towards my grad school apps. Because with your classes plus to grad school apps, that's as much as you can kind of take on in terms of your capacity. It could be anything. I mean, you could be a grad student and writing your dissertation and your minimum goal for the week- or you could also set minimum and maximum goals. I know I'm going off track a little bit.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

You can do the minimum maximum goals per day too. Going back to the example of a grad student writing their dissertation, that's one thing that I would do. I would set minimum and maximum goals per working session. So my minimum goal for a day - let's say I was struggling that day. I'd say okay, opening up my Word doc and free writing for five to ten minutes straight. If I can just do that, if I can just confront my fear of writing, open up the computer and start just typing up my thoughts related to the topic, or start note taking related to the reading- that is the bare minimum. Five to ten minutes is doable per day.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now, the more lofty goal is- let's say I had a three to four hour chunk of time that week. It's writing for those three to four hours. So the more lofty goal would be okay- how long does it take me to write? If I already have all my notes ready, if I have an idea of an outline of what I need to write this week, maybe I can write a page an hour. And I have four hours. So my maximum goal for that day would be write four pages. You see what I mean? You can have the daily minimum maximum loss. You can have the weekly goal. So for that week, maybe my minimum goal was to write two pages that week, and my maximum goal was to write eight pages that week. It really depends.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Initially, it can be hard because you might not know your pacing. You might not know how quickly you can get things done, and some things are out of your control. Some deadlines are out of your control because you're taking classes. But over time, if you start to implement the minimum and maximum goals- especially if you're working on projects that are your own, where you're setting your own deadlines or when it's a long term project, or long term goal -that will help you. Setting minimum and maximum goals so that you can continue to sustain momentum and not give up.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The other thing I wanted to to mention about minimum and maximum goals is that for them to be effective, you want to make sure that you're setting SMART goals. I'm not sure if I've talked about SMART goals on this podcast in the past. To me, it seems so apparent- because I've known about SMART goals for such a long time, since- I don't know, maybe 15 years now. I'm like, of course you're gonna make specific, measurable, attainable, time driven goals. So what idoes SMART refer to? SMART is not just - set something that's smart. It's an acronym that refers to setting goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

You don't want to just make this lofty goal that's unrealistic. You also don't want to make a goal that's just far too easy for you. So for me, when I was struggling with my mental health, five to ten minutes a day was huge. But maybe for you, you're like- oh, no brainer. You could do that any day without even thinking about it. You want to think about yourself. You want to think about your capacity. You want to think about your circumstances. Then set goals that are specific, measurable, relevant to you. So just make sure- set SMART goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

If you Google SMART goals, there are a ton of free worksheets that will help you with setting SMART goals. For the folks who are joining my Grad School Femtoring support group, I am going to provide them with a little kind of PDF that includes a goal setting sheet that ncorporates a little bit of the SMART goals, incorporates the minimum and the maximum goal setting exercise, and a little bit of reflection too. That's something that I created that helps me that I'm sharing with them. But again, you can find free goal settings, specifically SMART goals, worksheets online with a simple click of a button by googling it. So minimum and maximum goals is strategy number one.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The second strategy to help you not just meet but exceed - I'm saying exceed, because have you set minimum goals every week and maximum goals every week, the goal is not to reach the maximum every week. The goal isn't to reach the minimum every week. Ideally, you want to be in a happy medium. So if you're in between the minimum and maximum goal, you're consistently meeting above the minimum- maybe not completely at the maximum, but a little bit over the minimum every week- you are exceeding your goals, because your minimum is meeting it. Then anything over the minimum is exceeding it. So that's what I'm referring to when I say I want to help you develop strategies to exceed your goals consistently.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm not trying to get you to meet the maximum every week because perhaps a maximum would be too much, and then you'd burn yourself out. That we're trying to prevent, okay? We want this to be sustainable, so consistently over time for the rest of your life, for you to be able to set in your own personal, professional, academic life goals, and then consistently be able to meet them while still enjoying your life. Strategy number two is creating a reward system and celebrating victories. Not just any victories- celebrating small victories. Let me tell you a little bit more about what I mean by that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Have you ever been around a little kid in elementary school and seen the sticker reward charts? Or do you recall yourself being in elementary- possibly even middle school, but most likely elementary school - and having reward charts with stickers. Oh you did well, here you get a sticker. Or you got an A, here you got a sticker on your homework. That is a reward system. That's something to help you to stay motivated and to keep doing well- whatever it is that your goal is, to keep consistently doing that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

When I was a grad student, I actually implemented a sticker reward system for myself. At that time, I was really into planners. I had a passion planner. I was a fan of making it pretty and having stickers. So every time that I would meet my minimum writing goal for the day, or if I'd have a to do list, and since I'd handwrite my To Do lists. I no longer handwrite to do lists. I no longer use written planners. Everything is digital for me now. But back then, I very much enjoyed pen and paper. So I would write out all my todos, and every time, instead of just crossing out my to do that I finished, I would give myself a sticker. I would write down my to dos on my planners, and then I'd add more stickers, decorate it more. It just gave me so much satisfaction to make my planner look pretty. That was one example of a reward system that I implemented to keep me motivated in my dissertation writing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now I know of other people whose reward is to go to a local coffee shop and get themselves a tea or a coffee that week. So at the end of the week, if they consistently met their goals, then they treat themselves to a beverage of their choice. Whatever it is that works for you- it could mean going somewhere, spending time with someone. What is a reward system for you that will keep you motivated? And it doesn't necessarily have to involve spending money. I know that if you're a graduate student, you're likely not making a lot of money. If you're an undergrad- a lot of the undergrads that I know, that I've worked with, have been working class. So you don't have a lot of money to spend on things. But you do spend on things that you find valuable and useful. If once a week or once a month, you want to treat yourself to something, there's no shame in that either.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So just to figure out- what is a reward system that works for you? Is it something where it's an experience that's free or low cost? Is it an actual kind of tangible thing that you get, like a sticker, or a beverage, or a supply, or something that you're getting? Is it time with family, with a friend, time to watch a show? Whatever it is that you think that you can allow yourself to kind of earn every week- and it shouldn't be something that even if you don't meet your goals, you're still going to do. It needs to be something that - like I said- that you will earn, that you feel like you worked for it. So developing a reward system.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then I said celebrate small victories. I think that there's a lot of emphasis in us celebrating big milestones. Like oh my goodness, high school graduation, college graduation. Yay, the family comes, you- I don't know. I'm like, what do people do in graduation? You get your lei, and your flowers. You have a nice dinner- whatever it is that you do to celebrate, But not enough emphasis is spent on actually celebrating your small victories. So for me, my small victory this week is I'm getting a new website. Every person I talked to - they could care less. I'm assuming they couldn't care less.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I'm so excited. I am so excited. It's gonna be up and running next week, and I put a lot of time and effort into it. I invested into it. I hired a Black woman who's a professional web designer to help me with that. I love that she's a mom of two. I'm like, yes. Let's just support all the good people doing good work. It was a really amazing collaboration of being able to be intentional with what I want on my site- from the colors, to the style, to the feeling I want others to have too. What are my offerings? And to me, that's a celebration. I think that's a small victory. Have I reached this huge milestone? Not necessarily. But it's still worth celebrating, because I'm proud of it, because I've put time and energy into it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So maybe you having a really good week and meeting your goals this week is worth celebrating. So don't forget to consistently celebrate yourself, because if you don't do it, no one else will. Small victories, small celebrations are really good. You know, I don't think I did that enough in grad school. And by the time that I graduated, it just felt so anticlimactic. Like this was it? I click the button, and then to top things off, when I filed my dissertation, I clicked the button then they dared to charge me? I was like really? I just met this milestone and you're still charging your money? It just felt really womp womp, really anti climatic. It made me really not even want to celebrate.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I missed my graduation ceremony because I got sick. That was sad. Then a few months later, I think I realized - actually, I should be celebrating. It's kind of a big deal to get a PhD. And I went ahead and threw a big party with family. It was like the quincenera I never had. I never had a quincenera. I never had a wedding ceremony. I eloped. I can talk about that another time. I never had anything big event to celebrate myself. So doing that a couple months after I filed and finished, completed my PhD, doing it with my family and my loved ones, my friends, that was really meaningful to me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

You don't have to go all out. But what I want to stress is that it is important to celebrate yourself, to celebrate your victories, and to bring people along who are cheering you on. The people that you surround yourself with are also very important in terms of celebrating. For instance, I have a small, tight knit circle of women of color friends who I go to, who I share my victories with. They share their mini victories with me We may do that on group meet, on whatsapp, on Facebook, on Instagram, on text message. Just ending a quick message like- hey, today I did this one thing. I unsubscribe to x, and it's a big deal for me. I'm like, yes. That's awesome. That's great. Now I'm gonna do that, too. So do that. Just make it a consistent kind of habit to celebrate yourself and celebrate those around you to keep you motivated and keep you going.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Third strategy for exceeding not just meeting your goals has to do with external forces and other people. It's developing systems of accountability. So what are you going to do to hold yourself accountable? Because sometimes holding yourself accountable just to yourself is not enough. That has been very true for me. I used to feel a little bit embarrassed that it was hard for me to get things done if I wasn't doing it with someone else. What do I mean by that? It was hard for me to get my dissertation writing done if I wasn't meeting in writing groups, or if I wasn't working with an accountability buddy. Or if I hadn't booked a hotel room, and knew I spent money on this hotel room, so now I really have to finish my chapter this weekend. I always needed something- whether it was someone else or putting money on it, like something where I'm like, oof. It'll hurt if I don't get it done, because that person is there. I don't want to waste their time, or because I put money on the line. I don't want to waste that money.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Let me give you another example of of accountability and ways to hold yourself accountable. For me, exercise - consistently exercising- has always been a struggle. I don't have as much of a struggle with in terms of my nutrition- making sure that I have salads, smoothies regularly. That's not a problem for me. And it's not a problem for me, because a fuerzas. I just have to because that's how I maintain my my chronic illness, and I sustain myself and keep myself functional - based on the food that nourishes my body. But when it comes to exercise, it's a little harder. Sometimes if I exercise too much, I will get flare ups and not feel great. It's hard to maintain motivation to consistently exercise. w

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So what have I done in the past that has worked? That I could probably do again now and it would work. It's taking classes- exercise classes. Paying for a class would always force me to exercise, because I'm like- well, I put money into it. I paid for this class. I might as well show up and get my money's worth. That was one form of accountability- paying for something and then showing up to the class. And then knowing that the people there are expecting to see me every week. I don't want to let them down. That helped me with accountability.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now, the other thing in terms of accountability is - that's one of the reasons I created the Grad School Femtoring Support Group. The folks that are going to be joining me for the next eight weeks, they're paying a donation to be there every week. Then on top of that, they're making a commitment to me and to one another to show up consistently every week to help each other out. Now they've got that that double kind of form of accountability, where they've put money on the line and they've also made a commitment to a group of people to show up and to get work done. That's another example of a system of accountability to help you get work done.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I actually want to bring up another little bit of an anecdote. I remember hearing about one of my friends- I think it was her advisor or a friend of a friend's advisor. I don't know who it was. But what this advisor would do to make sure that her grad students would actually write their chapters and get it done on time was she would have them make a commitment of putting money on the line- and a large enough amount that it would make them think twice. Let's say, maybe it was like $200 or $250. I'm just making it up. I don't know what the actual number was. And she would say, if you don't turn in your chapter by x deadline, I'm going to make sure that you put $250 and donate it to your favorite charity. So what's your favorite charity? Then the day of, they'd have a meeting, meet up in person, and she'd be like,you didn't finish it now. Okay, let's go. Then she would watch them as they made that donation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now, I don't do that with the people that I work with. But the point is, what form of accountability is going to work for you? What's going to make you take it seriously? What's gonna make it so that you consistently hold yourself accountable to meeting your goals? And make sure that whatever goals they are, they are SMART goals. They're not too lofty. They're not too bare bones. They're achievable and realistic for you. So systems of accountability, having those implemented as part of your goal setting - whatever goal you're trying to achieve. It can be personal. It can be professional. Ideally, it's both- it's a combination of both. That should be able to help you to consistently exceed your goals, meet and exceed your goals, without burning yourself out, without losing motivation or momentum.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I hope you found at least one of those three tips helpful. I want to share a little bit more- just brief updates on what's going on with myself and Grad School Femtoring. I mentioned one of them earlier - that I am getting a new website. I hope that those of you that have been consistently listening to the podcast will also check out the site. The site is GradSchoolFemtoring.com. If you go now, it's probably not ready. I would recommend you wait until early next week to check it out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm really excited about it, because it's where I'm listing all of my offerings for now. Some of the offerings might change later. But what I'm kind of doing in terms of my solopreneur, business offerings- both freebies, free offerings, and also paid offerings. I want it to be a combination, because I want to make sure that I can consistently offer free useful content so that if you don't have any money to put towards supporting my business, that's okay too. You simply going in, joining my mailing list, and following me on social media, that's support enough for me. So check out the website next week, GradSchoolFemtoring.com.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The other thing that goes with that is getting a new logo. I'm going to be working on incorporating this new logo and rolling it out slowly across my different platforms. So don't be surprised and don't be startled if you see a new image for the podcast or a new logo on the different platforms that I use. It's still me. It's still the same content. It's still about grad school. it's just kind of an updated logo.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then the other thing I wanted to mention is if you are on Instagram, following me on Instagram, you'll notice that I have my link tree with all my different links to support the podcast and to support me. And one of the things that I've added is a freebie- my first, hopefully, of many. My first freebie is the Grad School Femtoring resource kit. It's ten pages of exactly what I said - resources. It has productivity tools, tips, handouts, worksheets. Everything-well, not everything- but several things to help you in your grad school preparation journey. So if you're interested in applying to grad school, or if you're currently navigating, in the middle of grad school, definitely check it out. I think there's gonna be at least one thing or a couple things on there that you'll find helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then last, but not least, I am starting an email list. Why am I starting an email list? Because for some of y'all, you only really hear from me by listening to my podcast every week or by following me on social media. But one thing that I'm realizing is that some social media accounts - sometimes they go down. They're inconsistent. Sometimes the way that the algorithm works makes it so that you don't see my posts. You don't see my information. So I want to be able to have an opportunity to consistently be in communication with my followers and listeners about new things. New things can be a new podcast episode. It could be a new freebie. It could be a new webinar. It could be a new blog post, because I am going to start to write blogs to to help you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

In terms of kind of giving you a reason to even sign up for the the newsletter or the email that I'm going to be sending regularly- I want it to be useful for you. So first thing you're going to do is as soon as you sign up for my email list or my newsletter, you're going to get that freebie. You're gonna get that resource kit- Grad School Femtoring resource kit. And then after that, beginning- probably two weeks from now- I'm going to start to every week, send an email with a tip, with a resource, with a strategy. Most of them are related to productivity tools and productivity, anything related to organizational skills, just to help you kind of get your work done. So a little bit more of what you heard today. It's going to be that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I mean, I have a lot of fun, personally, researching this kind of stuff and looking up different platforms, different strategies, trying them out on myself, seeing what works. Asking other people what works for them, because I know not everybody works in the same way that I do. Every week, there will be a new kind of tool, strategy, tip that will help hopefully help you, again, navigate your grad school journey. Hopefully, that's reason enough for you to join my email list. You'll be able to join the email list by either going to my link tree link on Instagram or by checking out my new website GradSchoolFemtoring.com next week. Again, I repeat, if you got to it now, it's probably going to look old and clunky. But by Monday of next week, I should have a fully decked out new website for you to check out and sign up for my email list.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Those are all my updates. Happy to hear your feedback. I love hearing from my listeners. And I will talk to you all next week.