Values, Validation, and Goal Setting with Tara McMullin

[00:00:00] Emily Thompson: Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host, Emily Thompson, and in this episode I'm joined by Tara McMullin to talk about a better, more holistic way to set goals. You can find all the tools, books, and links we reference on the show notes at www.beingboss.club.

[00:00:22] And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to this show and share us with a.

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[00:01:12] Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and producer for over 13 years. She's studied small business owners, how they live, how they work, what influences them, and what they hope for the future. She's the host of What Works, a podcast about navigating the 21st century economy with your humanity intact, and she's the author of the new book, What Works, A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal Setting.

[00:01:38] The book challenges, the lessons we've learned about goals and productivity through culture and proposes a radical shift, structuring our lives around practice rather than achievement. Tara is also co-founder of YellowHouse.Media, a boutique podcast production company. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, the Startup, the Muse, and the Huffington Post.

[00:01:58] Tara has been a guest of the show many times before. If you'd like to go back and check them out, check out episodes 21, 92, 154, 248, and 263. You'll find links to all of these in our show notes at beingboss.club. Tara, welcome back to Being Boss. It has been far too long.

[00:02:19] Tara McMullin: Far too long. Emily, thank you so much for having me back.

[00:02:22] Emily Thompson: Of course, you always have a seat on the other side of the Zoom call.

[00:02:29] On the other side of my screen, on your microphone as well. Anytime. Um, it has been a hot minute. I always, you know, go back and see when the last time I had someone on, um, you were last on in July 2021, which is a lifetime ago. I don't even remember who I was. All those years ago, what have you been doing? How are you doing?

[00:02:56] Tara McMullin: Oh man. A lot's changed since July, 2021.

[00:03:00] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:03:00] Tara McMullin: I'm basically not doing anything that I was doing then. No, that's not entirely true. The, the things that have been consistent about my work are still consistent. I've still, I just hit my 400th episode on the podcast.

[00:03:14] Emily Thompson: Congratulations.

[00:03:15] Tara McMullin: Thank you. Seven year anniversary, so that's awesome. Uh, still writing my newsletter every week. Um, but since we last talked, I stepped away from basically the entire business that I had been building for 13, 14 years. And right now I'm just focused on writing, podcasting, and producing, uh, for other folks.

[00:03:41] So that's, that's work-wise, that and the book is all I've been up to in the last year.

[00:03:48] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I love it. I mean, I, I remember getting the emails and things whenever you were walking away from, from most of what, What Works is and was

[00:03:59] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:59] Emily Thompson: Um, and was not surprised and, and not, and not because, not for any sort of like bad reasons, but just like I know what goes into doing the kinds of things that we do and sometimes I'd walk away for sure. For sure. And especially what I, what I really love about the transition that you made, where I can like, I have so much respect for it, is that you walked away to dive into a really big immersive, a creative project that is writing a book. And you know, I've been in a couple of of boss conversations, whether they're people that I'm close with or just sort of in like round table things where people just ask me whatever.

[00:04:51] And it oftentimes comes up like, you know, if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing? Um, or if, you know, if you could spend your day doing whatever, like reshape your work. There's many iterations of that question. Um, for me it always comes back to writing. I loved the period when Kathleen and I were writing that Being Boss book.

[00:05:10] Um, and I don't know that it would be another business book or whatever. But anyway, all that to say, you diving into this creative project, um, in the way that you did, is one that I have utmost respect for, and I am so excited that you made space for your creativity in that way.

[00:05:28] Tara McMullin: Well, thank you. And I'm pretty excited about it too.

[00:05:31] I, if I had to do something other than, or if I were to consider what I would do other than what I'm doing now or, or what I would do if I didn't have to do this, I don't know what that thing would be because I,

[00:05:44] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:05:44] Tara McMullin: Today, uh, in this space, at this time, in 2022, I do exactly what I wanna be doing, which is a lot of thinking, a lot of research, a lot of reading, and then a lot of writing and thinking about how to take ideas and communicate them in creative ways.

[00:06:03] And so, even though the book project is now done and filed and out into the world, for me, it's very much, uh, it's a, it's a continual process. Like it's an open project of, you know, putting out creative podcast episodes, putting out creative newsletters. Um, and it's all I've really ever wanted to do, at least for the last 15 to 20 years, possibly before that. Although I didn't really, I wasn't really aware as a teenager that that was a thing, uh, but definitely for the last 15, 20 years.

[00:06:39] Emily Thompson: Love it. Love it. Well, we're here to talk about this book today. Tara has written a new book, just so everyone knows. It's called What Works, A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way we approach Goal Setting.

[00:06:52] And if you've been around here for any amount of time, you know, we love talking about goal setting. Some of our goal setting episodes are actually some of our most popular episodes. I imagine if you were to look at the traffic data for people Googling goal setting related topics, it's like huge.

[00:07:07] Tara McMullin: Yeah, I would imagine.

[00:07:09] Emily Thompson: Like this is something that everyone is super interested in, so I love that this is what you tackled. And before we get into like the, the nuances of it, why this, why goal setting?

[00:07:21] Tara McMullin: So it's so many different reasons, um, but two big ones that are, that are related. So the first one is that I started to recognize that the goals that I set were not helping me become the person that I wanted to become. Um, and that often they were leading me to take on projects, do things in certain ways that I just, in retrospect was not a hundred percent about, right? Like I was a hundred percent about, oh, I'm gonna go and hit this target, uh, because that target looks good. But I wasn't thinking about, okay, what is it gonna take to get to that target and how is that going to shape me and my relationships and the work that I do on a regular basis?

[00:08:10] And that was making me pretty miserable. Um, and sort of alongside that too, I was really coming to terms with my identity as an overachiever. And just thinking about like, all right, what am I doing that's actually driven by my own desire and my own curiosity, and what am I doing just because I want another merit badge?

[00:08:34] Um, and at that time, this was 2016, 2017, I was basically only doing things for the merit badges, just like I had done in high school and college and you know, pre self-employment and all that stuff. Um, and I realized I didn't wanna do, I didn't wanna do that anymore. So I started unpacking that for myself.

[00:08:57] And at first I was sort of, I sort of path pathologized it, right? Like this is something that's wrong with me. Being an overachiever is something that's wrong with me. Being driven by, you know, the goals that I see other people setting, that's something that's wrong with me. And then all of these different personality things that prevent me from hitting those goals, well those are things that are wrong with me too.

[00:09:18] And so I need to fix all that stuff. Um, luckily it didn't take me very long to switch from pathologizing myself over this, um, toxic relationship with goals. And instead, this is the second thing, the second reason for this book, really starting to think about, okay, what are the cultural beliefs? What are the frameworks that I'm working in?

[00:09:43] What are the systems that I'm working in that have, um, that I've learned this behavior of overachievement and I've learned these behaviors of getting going out and getting merit badges. Where do they come from? Why are they so potent? You know, how do they impact my critical thinking on a daily basis?

[00:10:05] And the more I started to unpack that, the more I was like, oh shit, everyone needs to know this. And so I started sharing it with people and the response was just like, oh my word, we've never thought about it this way before. Have you thought about this? Or, you know, what would you say to that? And so as soon as I could see, okay, this isn't just a me thing, this is like an everybody thing in one way or another it became clear that that was the, the book that needed to be written first. Um, it may not be like the book, uh, for, you know, for my career, but it was, it was a really great way to engage with something that, like you said, is something people think about on a regular basis. Something they're always Googling or asking mentors about. And it allowed me to really exercise, um, the approach and the, you know, the kind of the philosophy behind how I do my best work, which is digging in deep, getting context, doing research, sharing my personal experiences and stories.

[00:11:19] And so that's really how the book then, uh, came together is it's a combination of all those things.

[00:11:26] Emily Thompson: It sounds like a calling of some sort.

[00:11:31] Tara McMullin: Yes, my calling is to change the way we set goals.

[00:11:34] Emily Thompson: Well, and maybe not your, like, lifelong calling, but

[00:11:37] Tara McMullin: Yeah.

[00:11:37] Emily Thompson: It sounds like over the course of those years, this is something that was niggling at you in a way it was calling to you that like, this is something you need to explore for yourself.

[00:11:46] I'm sure you were probably also witnessing these things in other people that you were interacting with, um, and gave you a little bee in your bonnet to go figure out what's wrong with it and how to fix it. Um, that's fascinating. I I love that. I love that you followed that line of interest down a path that led to such a deeper understanding of this thing that is goal setting. It also sounds like yourself and then the creation of something that can help other people too.

[00:12:13] Tara McMullin: Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:15] Emily Thompson: Mm-hmm. . Good. Okay. Goal setting, then we're gonna talk about this a bit today, but also if anybody wants to really dive into this Tara's book is out. Ready for you to go consume all the things. Um, but I'd like to sort of give a little snapshot of all of this today.

[00:12:34] I think where I'd like to start, and you touched on this just a little bit, and you know your personal reason, reason

[00:12:39] Tara McMullin: mm-hmm.

[00:12:40] Emily Thompson: for diving into this. Um, you pinpointed several things that you realized were wrong with how you were goal setting, but as you were diving into the research, what did you discover was wrong with how we set goals?

[00:12:54] Tara McMullin: Yeah. So to clarify, uh, when I say I was goal setting wrong or when I wasn't, I wasn't doing it well. The, the issue was I was actually doing it really well. Right? Like I, I'm very proficient at conventional goal setting. I'm very proficient at taking a big goal that's, you know, three months or six months from now, or 12 months from now, breaking it down into steps, working backwards, reverse engineering my process, and then doing what it takes to make that goal happen.

[00:13:28] I'm very good at that. The problem is I'm very good at that, which means that there's not a whole lot of critical thinking for me when it comes to how do I go about achieving X, Y, or Z goal? It's just, okay, this is the goal. These are the things that one must do to hit that goal. And so I am going to go do those things.

[00:13:50] Um, and that's fine to a degree, but it's missing this core piece of analysis, which is like, why do I want this thing? Who, how is this goal helping me become who I wanna become? You know, are the actions that I'm going to take to hit that goal things that actually align with my values, things that I wanna be known for, things that I, that are supportive of my identity and my relationships.

[00:14:19] Um, and those are the kinds of things that most conventional goal setting advice never addresses. And on top of that, um, there's another layer of sort of the problem with goal setting, which is not looking at not just the kind of the personal, uh, analysis that we need to do on goals, but the larger culture analysis.

[00:14:45] Um, and so the way I kind of stumbled on that was over the years I have had just probably thousands of conversations about goals with people. So I've been in this line of work for 14 years now. I've worked with thousands of people. Everybody's got a question about goals, whether it's how to achieve them or what goals should I set, or I set this goal and I didn't hit it, what do I do next?

[00:15:12] And I noticed that, um, the same, the same patterns would play over and over again, is that people would have these sort of strategic realizations about, well, I wanna do business differently. I wanna work differently. I want to, uh, I wanna bring more feminism into my business. I wanna bring more sustainability into my business.

[00:15:35] But those things would be separate from the conversations about actually what was going to be done in the business or in their lives. And so what would happen is that the goal that would be set and the actions one would take to get that goal never went through the filter that was, uh, counter-cultural, right?

[00:15:59] And so they would kind of either go and hit that goal and be like, this is still not what I want, because it wasn't, or they would be continually not hitting the goal and like I was pathologizing themselves and saying, well, there's something wrong with. And so, um, the main thing, the kind of overarching idea of what's wrong with goal setting for me is this lack of integration of kind of the lar the bigger picture stuff, the things that we do, right?

[00:16:36] We, we know we're supposed to ha to, to write up our business vision or our personal vision. We know we're supposed to have that set of personal values, those guiding principles for our businesses, for our lives, but they don't tend to play nice with smart goals. It's like big picture stuff's over here.

[00:16:56] Smart goals are over there, and never the twin shall meet, right? But that doesn't work. It means that either we are, uh, continually taking action that doesn't align with us, that doesn't feel good, that doesn't give us the, the sort of psychological and emotional results that we're looking for, the, even the existential results that we're looking for.

[00:17:21] Um, and it means that we're not actually achieving those, uh, the, the vision and the values, and we get down on ourselves about it. And I just, I don't want anyone to get down on themselves about their goals. Um, I don't think that's, that's productive. And so it's, it, for me, the sort of, the larger problems around goals come from that unnecessary division of big picture and tactical.

[00:17:51] Um, and then underneath of that, it's these cultural frameworks that we've learned that support the unnatural division of those two things. Sorry, that was a lot.

[00:18:03] Emily Thompson: No, I love it. I followed every bit of it, and I think that where you're even leading to it. And you mentioned this, but also the, the psychological nonsense you go through after all of that is done.

[00:18:15] Tara McMullin: Yeah.

[00:18:15] Emily Thompson: Right. Like it, it begins this like a downward spiral and then you stop making goals and stop caring about your values and all of these things, or you just continue pushing forward and you're never bringing the two together. That is fascinating and I've never thought of it quite that way. Um, but as you're saying it, I totally see that in everyone I've ever met.

[00:18:40] Tara McMullin: yeah. I'd like to think about it in terms of like the apps that we use to manage our daily work, right? Like whether it's Asana or it's click up, or it's Notion or Basecamp or whatever you use, um, those tools by default are super task oriented, right? Or project oriented. And you, you can probably put a goal in there somewhere, but it's very much like, okay, today I need to do this, tomorrow I need to do that.

[00:19:11] And it. It doesn't, uh, it doesn't give us a lens through to, through which to look at those tasks in relationship to who we wanna become, how we wanna work, the values that are important to us. And that's fine. But when all we're ever doing is the project management piece, when all we're ever doing is ticking things off of a list, which is how most of us work, we lose sight of the stuff that does actually guide us and makes our work more meaningful and more fulfilling and helps us feel like we're making progress instead of just, oh, ticking things off a list.

[00:19:53] Emily Thompson: I'm gonna have to rethink some things for myself.

[00:19:55] Tara McMullin: Oh, no.

[00:19:56] Emily Thompson: No, no. Like in a really good way because, you know, here at Being Boss, I even think about like our CEO Day Kit. We have the first couple sections, which are, we call, like, I call them jokingly, quote unquote, the soft skills. It is the values, the money stories.

[00:20:12] It's like getting in there with like those sort of behind the scenes things. And then we dive into all of the goal setting and stuff. And even in that framing of soft skills and hard skills, I've differentiated them.

[00:20:22] Tara McMullin: Yeah.

[00:20:22] Emily Thompson: And, and I always try to make sure that I say soft skills are not less important.

[00:20:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:29] But even the nature of them in the way we are conditioned. The soft skills are less important.

[00:20:35] Tara McMullin: Yep.

[00:20:35] Emily Thompson: Than the goal setting and the project management and all of those things. Um, and I love that you, I'm assuming you figured out how to put them together.

[00:20:46] Tara McMullin: Yeah. I mean, for me it's less about. How, how do I wanna put this? So I, I would, I would love to be able to say, yes, I know exactly how to integrate these things perfectly, but I think more what I have tried to put forward is a framework for regularly engaging with those big picture things. So in the book I reframe goals as commitments. So instead of setting smart goals, which are, you know, specific and measurable and actionable, and everybody knows hopefully what a smart goal is, which are useful, right?

[00:21:26] They're useful in their own way. Um, I. Instead offer this idea of a commitment. And a commitment is sort of, it's almost like a little mantra that you can use to make progress on a particular area of life and work. Um, and so it's something that applies very, very broadly. It's something that applies to your vision and your values and who you want to become, and it's something that impacts your day-to-day actions.

[00:21:58] So an example of this is in 2021, one of my commitments was to practice belonging and practice belonging. Well, first of all, where it came from was that my knee jerk reaction in any social situation is to assume that I don't belong there. Right? I know I'm not alone in that, but also I know that a lot of people have the opposite uh uh, sort of way of being in the world.

[00:22:24] So I wanted to kind of see what would it be like to act as if I believed I belonged in any social situation that I was part of. What was interesting is that the places that I first noticed that I could be practicing. Uh, this commitment of practice belonging, were in conflict. So instead of allowing conflict or a misunderstanding or someone, you know, pushing my boundaries past where I wanted them to be pushing, um, I noticed, okay, well if I'm practicing belonging in this moment, if I belong in this relationship with this person, then they're not gonna just abandon me.

[00:23:11] I have abandonment issues when , when I push back on this thing, when I say no, when I am not gonna bend over and be a people pleaser. Right? Um, and so that's where I started to really practice that. And in practicing that, that big picture commitment on a, on a day-to-day basis in, in little email exchanges or, you know, on client calls or whatever it might be, I was able to start retraining that pattern of not just action, but pattern of thinking as well.

[00:23:46] I won't say that it's a hundred percent fixed, that would be ludicrous, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was, uh, at the beginning of 2021. And so in that way, the whole concept of commitments is this, uh, integration of our big picture, juicy stuff with like what is on my to-do list today and looking for ways to practice that big picture, juicy stuff as we're checking items off the list.

[00:24:19] Emily Thompson: Lovely. You call them commitments. We call them intentions.

[00:24:23] Tara McMullin: Excellent.

[00:24:25] Emily Thompson: And an amazing practice for, for bringing some of those quote unquote soft skills, um, to the actions that you're taking. And it's also this really beautiful sort of marriage of masculine and feminine that I'm seeing.

[00:24:36] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:36] Emily Thompson: This like state of being and the state of doing. I think that is all wonderful.

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[00:25:36] Okay. I wanna dive into a couple of key little concepts. Not little big con, but you. Smaller parts of the bigger work. A couple of concepts here. One of the things that you talk about, and I feel like you've sort of alluded to it thus far, is the idea of a validation spiral.

[00:25:54] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:55] Emily Thompson: So what is a validation spiral and can our goals actually lead us to being stuck in one?

[00:26:02] Tara McMullin: Yes. Uh, absolutely. So a validation spiral, uh, is this pattern that I saw in myself and that I have seen in countless other people, which is that, you know, one of our deep desires as a human and as a human, especially in this kind of economic and cultural climate that we exist in is that we want to feel useful, we wanna feel valued, we wanna feel worthy.

[00:26:33] And there are so many messages that we encounter on a day-to-day basis that push against those things that make us feel less than, that make us feel, uh, like we need to prove ourselves, right? So in order to counteract those messages that are pushing on our own sense of worth, uh, many of us will take on projects and responsibilities, will say yes to things in order to be that useful, valuable person in a group or in a relationship, and we take on more and more of those yeses. We become more and more over committed, and as we become overcommitted, our resources get stretched thin. So that's time and money, but it's also emotional bandwidth, mental bandwidth, physical health, physical energy.

[00:27:25] Any of those things that we draw on to do what we need to do on a daily basis, they get stretched thin so that the effect of overcommitting on the whole is under committing to individual responsibilities because we simply do not have the resources required to be able to do those things. Well then when we don't have the resources to be able to do those things well what happens?

[00:27:51] We start to feel down on ourselves. We start to question our value, our usefulness, our worthiness, all of those messages pushing in from the outside just make us feel worse. We're less able to counteract them cuz heck, now there's proof in front of me that I'm not as valuable and useful as I should be.

[00:28:10] Um, and so what do we do? We go and we say yes to more stuff because we think, oh, I can fix this feeling. Or we don't think it, it's, it's more instinctual. But you know, the instinct is, I can fix this feeling by taking on this other project, by saying, sure, I'll do the carpool this whole next week. Right.

[00:28:30] Whatever it might. And in the process of that, then of course we stretch our resources even thinner. Things get bad again. And so either we end up completely compromising our results and compromising our relationships in the process, or we burn out and burning out, you know, is not great. Um, and I'm talking about like.

[00:28:55] Emily Thompson: Not fun.

[00:28:56] Tara McMullin: Not fun. It's not fun. I'm talking about like clinical burnout, not just like I'm feeling a little sluggish or I'm feeling down. I'm talking about the complete feeling of being exhausted of all of your resources because you literally are. So that's the validation spiral. And our goals can fuel the validation spiral by essentially becoming the things that we're saying yes to.

[00:29:22] They become the things that we are trying to counteract those feelings of, of, uh, you know, of, of questioning our worth, questioning our value, questioning our usefulness. Um, and so goals just kind of add fuel to that whole fire, um, and allow burnout to really sneak up on us and, and fast.

[00:29:46] Emily Thompson: As you're saying this, I can imagine probably 80% of the people listening to this, I pulled that number out of thin air. Made it up just now, um, are the majority. How about that? I would imagine that the majority of people listening to this are probably seeing themselves

[00:30:05] Tara McMullin: mm-hmm.

[00:30:05] Emily Thompson: in either a real quick scary spiral or just like a larger sort of revolving spiral over, you know, a whole relationship.

[00:30:16] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:17] Emily Thompson: or the lifespan of their business. Um, if someone is feeling that way, how do they make it out of a validation spiral?

[00:30:26] Tara McMullin: Yeah. So I mean, it involves saying no more often. Um, and not just saying no to, like, when someone asks you for a favor or asks you for a meeting or, you know, whatever that project is, but it's, it means saying no to some of the things you'd like to be doing as well.

[00:30:47] Some of the things that you come up with in your own head, right. And really what saying no is all about is understanding what your capacity is at any given time. Um, and actually I'll go into capacity for just a second, but I also want to to point out that for those non-majority, for the minority of people who don't necessarily see themselves in the validation spiral, aren't constantly looking to prove themselves.

[00:31:15] Um, awesome. And what I find is that sometimes those folks are actually reacting to overachievers in their lives, who, um, they've decided I never want to be like that person. Right? And so they may not be caught up in their own validation spiral, but their actions and goals and, and vision is often tinged with the same energy.

[00:31:45] So, okay. Capacity, and this is for everyone. So capacity is essentially all of the resources that we have access to at any given time. And I define resources super broadly. So I mentioned earlier time, money, those are the easy ones. Uh, emotional bandwidth, physical, uh, energy, physical health, mental bandwidth, skills, support, community.

[00:32:11] Those are all resources that we can use to get things done or to create what we wanna create or to act the way that we wanna act. Right? Um, Different people have access to different resources. I may have lots of resources when it comes to mental bandwidth, but I have a very small well of emotional bandwidth, whereas my husband has a huge well of emotional bandwidth, so much that I'm so jealous of most of the time.

[00:32:45] Um, you know, he's, I hear him, he's just down the hall in his office and he is literally talking to people all day long because that's what he loves to do. And I'm like, okay. I have one call today. I'm going to get through. Like I have one call with a very good friend. I just, I need to steel myself for this call, right?

[00:33:07] Um, so that I have to take that into account whenever I am either coming up with a new project for myself or determining whether or not I can say yes to something that's being asked of me, right? I may have the time, but if I don't have the emotional bandwidth, it's a no. I might have the money, but if I don't have the physical energy for it, it might be a no or it's, it's a no.

[00:33:33] Um, and so that capacity piece and recognizing that, um, it changes and that lots of different things both in work and in life are drawing down on the same resources all the time gives us a much better filter for thinking through. All right, what can I say yes to? The question I like to ask there instead of, can I squeeze this in?

[00:33:59] Is, do I have the resources to do this thing well? Do I have the resources to do this thing in a way that I'd be proud of? Right? And really thinking through all those different dimensions of capacity in order to answer that question, um, to me that's the key to being able to create that filter for yourself where you can say, okay, you know, I might like to do this thing to prove to so-and-so that I'm worthy and useful and valuable, but one, I don't need to do that.

[00:34:30] And two, I can't. Like, I just, I don't have the resources right now, so I can't do it. Um, the other thing that, that sort of, uh, framework provides for then too is recognizing that if I say yes to something that I don't have the resources for, I'm going to do it badly or I'm not gonna do it in a way that I, I'm really proud of.

[00:34:51] And so I think really bolstering our self-efficacy, which is our belief that we can do the things that we want to do. Um, bolstering our self-efficacy through only saying yes to the things that we have the resources to do well, uh, is the re that's the key to getting out of the validation spiral.

[00:35:13] Emily Thompson: Okay. I wanna make this incredibly clear for,

[00:35:17] Tara McMullin: Sorry.

[00:35:18] Emily Thompson: Everyone. No, no, no, no, no, you. That's perfect. But what I often find is those of us who are really good at running things through filters to decide if we wanna do so, we oftentimes take for granted what that process actually looks and feels like.

[00:35:34] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:34] Emily Thompson: So I would love to, like when someone comes to you and says, Hey, can you do something?

[00:35:40] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:41] Emily Thompson: You're literally in your head in that moment, running through those questions. And then saying yes or no, right? Or like, what does that process actually look like for you?

[00:35:51] Tara McMullin: Yeah. So I would say that in the beginning, yes, I was literally running through, you know, all right, do I have the time for this? Do I have the money for this? Do I have the energy for this? Do I have the emotional bandwidth for this? Right? Um, luckily it is a skill that's pretty easily developed so that I don't have to actually run through all of those things now, I know that there's certain, uh, certain kinds of asks or certain flags that if I'm feeling, um, a little lethargic in any area, um, I know right away like, oh, that's a, that's a no or it's a not right now.

[00:36:29] Right? Like, I'd love to help you with this thing. Can you circle back to me in a month? I think I'm gonna be in a better place. Um, so yes. So I literally will cycle through those things. Other things that I've done to make that decision making easier because I agree, like running things through filters, while I'm good at it, it's also like I don't always have the resources to run things through filters well, right.

[00:36:57] So one of the things I've done that's really helped me out with this is experimented with zero-based scheduling. Do you know zero based scheduling?

[00:37:05] Emily Thompson: I feel like yes, but. What is it?

[00:37:08] Tara McMullin: So zero...

[00:37:11] Emily Thompson: probably familiar, but probably not called that.

[00:37:13] Tara McMullin: Okay. So zero based scheduling is when you've got your calendar in front of you and every single minute, hour block on that calendar is full of whatever it is that you're spending that time doing.

[00:37:29] So sleep, breakfast, exercise, reading your book, hanging out and watching Netflix, that stuff all goes on the calendar as well as your meetings, the work that you have to get done on a weekly basis, right? Um, the kind of the extra work maybe that you're doing, the project-based work that you're doing that week, everything gets on the calendar so that it is completely blocked out.

[00:37:55] Just the process of doing that. You know, for the first time can be really eye-opening of like, oh, uh, no wonder I'm having problems getting this particular thing done. I literally don't have the time for it. Like, I literally cannot fit it on this week or the next week or the week after that. This is an issue.

[00:38:15] Um, but then, I, I, what's worked for me and what I generally recommend is just playing with it for four to six weeks and seeing, okay, how, how close am I? Like, am I able to actually stick to this schedule? And in, not necessarily in a, you know, I'm doing this at nine o'clock and I'm doing this other thing at one o'clock, but in terms of am I able to get done what I wanna get done in the blocks of time that I have. And so that can be really eye-opening. You start to really understand what your capacity is from a time perspective. And then another thing that I really like to do is think about the different tasks that I have, um, or the different buckets of tasks that I have and how they impact my resources.

[00:39:10] So for instance, zoom calls, uh, not this one, but most, uh, no, this one too, uh, are very taxing for me, right? Super, super taxing. They're time taxing, they're energy taxing, they're emotionally taxing for me. And so in a day where I have more than one call, I'm probably not really getting anything more done than that.

[00:39:34] I, you know, I can do some sort of admin things or maybe I do like, uh, some client work, but I'm not moving my creative projects forward. You know, but for a lot of people, maybe they love Zoom calls like Sean, he is just buzzing at the end of the day when he's had four meetings with people. I don't know how he does that, but that's what he does, right?

[00:39:59] And so for him, zoom calls would, would be a really low score on, you know, their, the, the factor in which they drain him, whereas they're really high for me. And so I've gone through, you know, what are, okay, what are all the different functions that I have in my business? All these, the buckets of tasks that I do, which are more draining, which are less draining.

[00:40:22] H which of the less draining ones give me the best results? And how can I maximize those so that I'm, I'm draining myself as little as possible while doing the most effective work I can do.

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[00:41:25] What you've described here is some massive practices and self-awareness, right?

[00:41:30] Tara McMullin: Yes.

[00:41:30] Emily Thompson: Getting so aware of how you're feeling when you're doing things, how you're spending your time, all of these things that it becomes, you're sort of rewiring that instinct of saying yes or no to things.

[00:41:42] Tara McMullin: Yes.

[00:41:43] Emily Thompson: Right? Because you are filling your head with so much more information that you need to actually be able to give a good answer of yes and no.

[00:41:50] So that as you do this practice it actually, it like you are getting better at knowing whether or not you can and feeling confident in the yes or no that you give.

[00:42:02] Tara McMullin: Yes, a hundred percent.

[00:42:03] Emily Thompson: I love it. I love it. Um, couple little notes. One this zero based Cal, what did you call it?

[00:42:11] Tara McMullin: Zero based scheduling.

[00:42:12] Emily Thompson: That totally heard of it. Never heard it called that. Love it. Um, I think this is such an important practice. I talk about time blocking all the time.

[00:42:21] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:22] Emily Thompson: Around here and really just like during the day. But I do know that doing your entire calendar for a couple of weeks is such a great practice for gaining that self-awareness and getting that, like, that real understanding of if or if you cannot take on anything else.

[00:42:40] I also wanna make a podcast recommendation for you. So My First Million did an interview several months ago, maybe almost a year ago, because what is time, with Rob Dyrdek. Do you remember Rob from Rob and Big on MTV a couple of years ago. Okay. Did an interview with him of all people where he does zero base scheduling and then tracks it and knows his like optimal level of like these certain buckets of things that he's like personal time, sleep, working out, work, those sorts of things.

[00:43:14] He has this like pie chart and goal that he has to meet every single week where he has like optimized his energy in a way that he gets everything he wants done, done. And feels supposedly great about his life. If you'd like to like take it to the next level of nerdiness, I recommend you go check out that episode.

[00:43:35] It was fascinating.

[00:43:37] Tara McMullin: Can I so. There's a lot of that that I really, really love. And there's a lot, there's some of that, that kind of gets to a part of the book where I talk about values hijacking.

[00:43:53] Emily Thompson: Hmm.

[00:43:53] Tara McMullin: Which is when we turn sort of these nuanced, complex, uh, ideas of value, and I'm borrowing this from a philosopher named C. Thi Nguyen.

[00:44:05] Um, when we, so we take these nuanced, complex, uh, pieces of value, and we, uh, apply metrics to them so that we can make them more easily comparable, right? We give ourselves points or we give ourselves a quota. And then what happens is that the value of achieving that quota or that point total becomes more important, more valuable to us than actually achieving the nuanced, complex, meaningful part of what we're actually doing.

[00:44:40] And so while there's a lot that I love about really digging into, you know, you know, what do I need to feel really good about my life and my work and all of that, love that. Um, when we start talking about like optimizing and, um, when we start turning things into much more easily quantified systems, we lose a lot of the nuance and complexity.

[00:45:09] And we lose a lot of the actual self-awareness that we are supposedly looking for. Does that make sense?

[00:45:17] Emily Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I think, you know, I think some of us, especially like someone as high performing as, as Rob is, like there's a bit of like OCD nerdiness around things.

[00:45:30] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:31] Emily Thompson: that you just cannot break.

[00:45:33] Tara McMullin: Oh yeah.

[00:45:33] Emily Thompson: No matter how hard you try. And I think I've, as I was listening to it, and literally the system he's built to help him calculate these kinds of things easily, all of this stuff is wild. Like it is an incredibly peak inside of what is really a incredibly interesting mind and existence. Um, I totally see how for just like average Joes and Janes or whatevers how that could absolutely begin to overshadow the purpose of it because you do just get into that like tunnel vision of numbers. Yeah. Which is what we're talking about is sort of the root of all of this evil. Anyway, right?

[00:46:11] Tara McMullin: You wear an Apple watch, right?

[00:46:13] Emily Thompson: Um, no, I don't anymore.

[00:46:15] Tara McMullin: Whoa. All right. Yeah. Well I am still an Apple Watch devote.

[00:46:19] Emily Thompson: Yep.

[00:46:20] Tara McMullin: Uh, and. Uh, and a fitness buff. And so I, there have been many times over the last five years where I have gotten really sucked into the goal of closing my rings.

[00:46:32] Emily Thompson: Oh, yeah.

[00:46:33] Tara McMullin: And doing whatever the watch tells me to do. Do I st I need to stand up, I need to walk 10 miles today instead of eight miles.

[00:46:43] Right. Just, I want the watch to not yell at me. I want it to be proud of me. This is what I'm talking about, because I.

[00:46:51] Emily Thompson: This sounds like a really healthy relationship.

[00:46:53] Tara McMullin: Yeah. No, see, this is the thing, and we do it with subscriber numbers, we do it with download numbers, we do it with Instagram followers of revenue numbers, hell, right?

[00:47:06] All of these different things. Metrics are great, but they're only great at measuring the precise thing they're measuring. Um, and so, and optimizing is great as long as it's within a container of nuance and complexity and, um, and sort of a and kind of holistic view of, of life. So I, I'm curious to listen to this and maybe do like a, a play by play with it.

[00:47:36] Emily Thompson: Yeah, you totally should. It, it blew my mind. I, you know, I don't listen to podcasts very often.

[00:47:41] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:41] Emily Thompson: And so to listen to one that actually like, had me incredibly engaged and going, wow, this is wild and amazing. It's a rare and beautiful thing. Y'all. I highly re we'll include the link to it in the show notes.

[00:47:54] Um, it was, it was really interesting and I would totally be interested in your thoughts on it. Um, especially giving the context of this conversation. So, okay. We talked about validation spirals and how you're in one with your watch.

[00:48:09] Tara McMullin: Not anymore. I've turned off all the notifications, it doesn't yell at at me anymore.

[00:48:16] Emily Thompson: Good, good. I, um, I went to a fossil watch because I didn't want any of those notifications and I wanted something super simple so that I could just tell time and see what my steps are.

[00:48:29] Tara McMullin: Yeah, yeah. Steps are great. Great.

[00:48:33] Emily Thompson: But I still have one metric, one that I just really, really want to get every single day.

[00:48:40] Um, so not totally weened myself off of that. Um, but, okay. So we talked about validation spirals. I wanna talk, we, again, you alluded to this a little bit, but I want to talk about how this is, this is not our fault. I mean

[00:48:54] Tara McMullin: Mm, mm-hmm.

[00:48:55] Emily Thompson: it is, right? I mean, we're, we're actively engaging in it continuing, but you're learning better. Everyone is learning better in this moment. Um, and I don't want anyone to feel any shame about this because

[00:49:08] Tara McMullin: mm-hmm.

[00:49:08] Emily Thompson: we've literally been conditioned to think this way. What is your take on that?

[00:49:13] Tara McMullin: Oof. Yes. So I'm going to reference something from the very end of the book and the very beginning of the book.

[00:49:20] Uh, perfect. So to your point of like, it's not our fault and there are things that we do that make it worse. Uh, that's a concept that, um, uh, a philosopher named Alycia LaGuardia Lobianco came up with called Complicit Suffering. And the idea is that we acknowledge the systems, the conditioning, the structural reasons why we suffer, and we also recognize the ways in which we contribute to that suffering.

[00:49:53] Um, and I think it's a really gentle, beautiful way to look at. Okay. Certain things suck. Sometimes we make them suck more. And good news, there's something we can do about at least part of it, right? Like, I love this concept. It feels very real to me. Um, and so, like I said, I kind of, that's towards the very, very end of the book, but at the beginning of the book, um, I really deconstruct some of the social, uh, and, and cultural systems that are at the heart of our drive to strive, our overachieving, um, our relentless goal setting the, the endless push for more and more and more.

[00:50:37] Um, And we, there's, this is a, it's a very American thing, right? And even for folks who aren't in America, because culture is such an export for the US there, it is a feeling I think that is growing in kind of global consciousness as well, at least, um, in, in capitalist countries, which is most of them. Uh, so.

[00:51:07] America was founded. We know this by not founded, but, um, initially colonized by Puritans. Um, or one of the, the initial groups was a group of Puritans and Puritans believed in, uh, a brand of theology, which put, uh, a lot of anxiety on their people about whether or not they were saved or not. And one of the ways that they eased that anxiety was by working really, really hard and becoming really successful because if they worked really hard at a calling and they were successful with that calling, they took that as a sign that, oh, yes, I'm among the elect.

[00:51:52] And so this is where we get this concept of the Protestant work ethic, right? This, uh, this idea that America is a country of hardworking people who strive to succeed and do what it takes to build this great nation, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So that's Protestant work ethic and, um, from that ethic, we get a particular brand of capitalism in the United States, which puts all of the emphasis on individual achievement.

[00:52:26] You know, rugged individualism. Um, time is money. Like you've got to maximize, optimize, work as hard as you can to make it. Anyone can do it. Let's ignore all those structural problems, right? So we see this start to develop, um, right as the Great depression hits. Herbert Hoover is the one who coins the term rugged individualism.

[00:52:49] Um, shortly before he is elected president. And then shortly after that, we get, uh, the stock market crash and the Great Depression. And so, that idea of rugged individualism, which grows directly out of the Protestant work ethics starts to inform, um, not only our cultural identity, but it starts to inform our economic identity as well.

[00:53:13] And so this push for individual success becomes a key function of the way our economic system works in the United States, where you are on the hook for everything. And so, um, this really comes to a head in the eighties and the nineties with Reagan, Bush and then Clinton with the personal responsibility doctrine, you know, it's up to you, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

[00:53:43] Um, you know, if you're, if you haven't made it, you're not working hard enough. All of those things. And so we see this through line, these of these stories evolving over time to give us every indication that if we're not striving for more, if we haven't hit that milestone, that we're not working hard enough, we're not good enough, we're not worthy, we're not valuable.

[00:54:11] And so what do we do? We try to work harder. We try to prove ourselves more. We try to set bigger goals and reach bigger goals, and it gets real nasty.

[00:54:23] Emily Thompson: Ew, that was not what I was expecting as an answer. Literally all. I need to soak all of that in for just like half a second. Thanks Puritans. Um, and everyone after really.

[00:54:40] Tara McMullin: Like, let's just blame John Calvin.

[00:54:42] Emily Thompson: Okay? Okay, sure. Whoever. We'll blame whoever. Um, so not your fault, y'all literally how we made it right here, right now. Um, deeply ingrained. And how do we throw that aside now?

[00:54:58] Tara McMullin: Well, that's what the second half of the book is. So the first, full first half of the book is not only that whole lineage of how we get these particular, uh, cultural beliefs, um, but you know, I really believe that deconstructing that stuff, naming it, saying, okay, this is what's going on.

[00:55:17] This is how it's represented in our schools. This is how it's represented in our jobs. This is how it's represented in our politics. Helps us build in this time instead of a, a self-awareness, a cultural awareness.

[00:55:30] Emily Thompson: Mm,

[00:55:30] Tara McMullin: of the messages that we are receiving and how those influence the way we think, or who we think we're supposed to be.

[00:55:38] Um, so that piece is really, really important to me. And then once all of that is deconstructed, then we can start to critically think about who do we wanna become? What's our vision for our lives, our businesses, um, what do we wanna take on first? What needs do we have that aren't being fulfilled? And really rebuild the scaffolding for our, our ways of working and living from the ground up based on being able to see the conditioning that we've all been exposed to with clear, wide eyes.

[00:56:18] Emily Thompson: Perfect. That's the goal. Everybody, that is the goal.

[00:56:22] Tara McMullin: That's the commitment.

[00:56:23] Emily Thompson: Which is, right. I love that. That's the word that came up. Right? So you all have your work set out in front of you. Let's all achieve. No, no. I think, I think this has been, this has been very eye-opening for me to think about how it is that we think about these things and, and also to think about how it is that on some level there is this, like this pocket of entrepreneurship that has already started considering, you know, here it's intentions. For you, it's commitment.

[00:56:52] Like what it looks like to actually bring some of those things in. Because we've instinctually realized that what has been happening isn't working.

[00:57:00] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:00] Emily Thompson: We've removed ourselves from most of those systems.

[00:57:03] Tara McMullin: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:03] Emily Thompson: to start these own things. So we wanna do things differently and that gives me hope for, for hopefully moving our culture in a different direction and also for at least us finding fulfillment in the ways that, that we most want to. Um, Tara, this has been such a great chat such's, just so great to chat with you again. If you were to want listeners to leave with like a one little nugget or one little actionable tip, what would it be?

[00:57:31] Tara McMullin: Yeah, so I think that one of the easiest ways to start incorporating this into your daily life and to really increase your self-awareness around these things is to make a log of your shoulds and supposed tos. So every time you find yourself thinking, Ooh, I, I should be doing that. Or maybe I, I shouldn't be doing this, or I'm supposed to be doing this, but I'm doing this other thing instead, and, and I'll get around to the supposed to, right?

[00:58:00] Anytime you start to encounter that feeling of I should do this or I'm supposed to do that, write it down and then when you have time, when you have a little bit of space to think, um, look at some of those shoulds and say, where do these come from? How did I learn this should, and it maybe it's that you learned it from a social media post that you saw, or an email that you read.

[00:58:24] Well, where did that come from? Where did, where did they come up with that should? And then where did that come from and where did that come from? And really tracing the history and the context of these shoulds and supposed tos can help us become more aware of when we're making things harder on ourselves, when we're talking down to ourselves for no good reason.

[00:58:48] Not that there's ever a good reason, but no good reason. Um, and it can start to, to increase our curiosity about where this conditioning comes from at its root. And I think that while that may not be everyone's intention, it is a valuable skill to learn. Uh, if it's interesting to you.

[00:59:11] Emily Thompson: Wonderful tip. And where can people find this book and more about you and what you're up to?

[00:59:18] Tara McMullin: Yeah. Uh, what works A comprehensive framework to change the way we approach goal setting is available anywhere you can buy books. Um, if you want links to all those different places, you can go to explorewhatworks.com/book. You can find the What Works podcast wherever you listen to Being Boss. In the new year, I'm gonna be doing a series on the economics of dot, dot, dot, all sorts of different things in this weird, uh, self-employment space that we find ourselves in.

[00:59:46] Uh, and then I write a weekly newsletter called What Works Weekly, uh, which you can also find at explorewhatworks.com.

[00:59:53] Emily Thompson: Perfect. And my last question for you, what makes you feel most boss?

[01:00:00] Tara McMullin: What makes me feel most boss is when people respond to me and say, Oh my God, I've never thought about it that way before. And now I need to go off and think about that for a while before I can do anything else. That's when I feel the most boss.

[01:00:16] Emily Thompson: Yeah, I would say initiating a powerful mindset shift is quite a boss move, for sure. Tara, this has been a treat. Thanks so much for coming in, chatting with me.

[01:00:25] Tara McMullin: Thanks, Emily.

[01:00:28] Emily Thompson: All right, boss, because you're here, I know you want to be a better creative business owner, which means I've got something for you each week.

[01:00:35] The team at Being Boss is scouring the news, the best entrepreneurial publications and updates and releases of the apps and tools that run our businesses, and is curating it all into a weekly email that delivers the must know tips and tactics in the realms of mindset, money, and productivity. This email is called Brewed.

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