Small Habits, Big Wins: How Parents Can Set Goals That Actually Stick | E54
“Small, incremental steps will always get you further than a giant leap, especially when they’re rooted in your values.” – Deb Meyer
As we turn the page into a new year, goal setting becomes more than just a buzzword. It’s a tool for transformation. In Episode 54, host Deb Meyer dives deep into how parents can set intentional goals that actually stick.
Learn why small, sustainable habits beat massive overhauls, how to identify and overcome limiting beliefs, and how to create SMART goals that align with your family's core values. Whether you're aiming to save more, invest wisely, or improve your health, this episode provides a simple roadmap to start strong in 2026. Get practical steps, faith-filled encouragement, and real-life strategies to help lead your family with clarity and purpose in the year ahead.
⏱️ Episode Highlights
(00:37) Deb’s personal journey: Weight gain, body image, and making a change
(07:30) Applying those same goal-setting principles to saving money
(11:00) Should you work with a financial planner or coach?
(15:30) A unique goal-setting exercise: writing your future self a letter
(20:00) How to handle setbacks, redefine your “why,” and pivot your plan
📘 Resources
Books: Finish by Jon Acuff and Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt
Support from a registered dietician: Nourish app
XY Planning Network for fee-only, fiduciary CFP® professionals
National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA)
Compass Catholic Financial Coaching: https://compasscatholic.org
🙋♀️ Want Help with Your Family’s Finances?
Deb has availability in the new year if you're looking for a faith-aligned, fiduciary financial planner for your family. Click here to book a free, initial consultation.
Connect with Host Deb Meyer, CFP®
Founder of WorthyNest®, helping faith-driven parents build financial plans that reflect their values.
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Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:00.706)
Hey, let's pull on the truth bomb that Joe Saul Sehy shared in the last episode. He said at the end, automation is key. That, for him, is how he turned his money situation around.
And I think it's so powerful, especially as we're heading into 2026. For a lot of parents, this is a new year. It's a fresh start and it's a time for goal setting.
The one thing I really want to convey in this episode is how small incremental steps are going to be so much more powerful than one giant leap when it comes to achieving your goals. And for any lasting change to be effective, we really have to want that change deep in our bones. So let's think about starting with a broad goal, an achievement goal, and then create some mini habit goals to support it.
And before I get into some examples, I just want to share, I'm getting over a little illness. So apologies in advance if I sound a little bit different than usual, have some allergy issues and other illness I'm getting over. Thanks in advance for giving me some grace. All right, let's start with a personal example. When I moved to Missouri last year, I ended up gaining like 15 pounds.
And for me, that was a big amount of weight. A lot of people were like, well, you're in a colder winter, your body's naturally putting on some more pounds, but it felt so big. I am taller, I'm like five eight. So it wasn't super noticeable to a lot of other people, but it was very noticeable to me. I was very unhappy with how I looked in my clothes or once my clothes were off. And I knew...
I had been at a different weight before, I knew that in my mind, like, hey, I can get back to that ideal weight that I had been in Florida. So when we decided to move back to Florida this year, one of the first things I did in early August when we moved back was I hired a nutritionist through an app called Nourish. And I just want to go through each of these steps because I think it can be replicated even outside of weight loss goals. In my situation, my belief was I was unhappy with how I looked beneath the clothes, and then I knew I could go back to my ideal weight.
The habit to actually achieve that goal of weight loss was hiring a nutritionist and then working with that nutritionist. I had an accountability partner so that I made healthier food choices. Part of the way the Nourish app works is you have to log every meal. So taking a picture of whatever you're eating morning, day and night, as long as you're working with the nutritionist. Now in my particular situation, I started working with her in August
I got back to the weight within about five pounds of my ideal weight by like end of October. And so we've just been meeting less frequently and likely we'll be wrapping up officially this year. But in this situation, having that accountability partner, someone that was seeing exactly what I was eating, it forced me to make some healthier food choices.
because I knew what I should be doing and I knew what I was actually eating and sometimes those don't always align. One of the other habits that I really thought was important in this weight loss journey was rejoining the gym. I used to belong to Wellway and I rejoined the gym actually along with my husband. So he started taking his physical health seriously, too.
And I really utilized all their available services. They are not a traditional gym in that you pay a very low monthly fee and you show up and use the equipment. They're more holistic where they offer a nutritionist there on-site. They offer personal training. They offer small group training. They do body mass measurements, all kinds of different things, dry float therapy, the list goes on and on.
So one of the things I really took advantage of was that holistic wellness with them and specifically added strength training to my workout routine. And those two things, between eating healthier and adding strength training, really did help me with the weight loss achievement. Again, about 10 pounds lost just in a pretty short time.
Now the new belief I have is “I'm okay at this new weight.” And although it's not the exact weight I was two years ago, I'm still within a very reasonable range. If I want to get back to that prior weight that I was in Florida, before the move, I would really have to ruthlessly eliminate pretty much all of the things I enjoy food-wise with desserts. And I love tea, so I would wouldn't be able to have any sweetener in my tea.
Occasionally, I will drink an alcoholic beverage and I would likely have to do away with that too just to get back, really get rid of all of the hidden sugars or not so hidden sugars. And the other nice new belief I have is that my BMI is still within a normal weight range.
If I had a doctor telling me, you have to lose weight in order to be healthier for your family or something like that, that would be a different situation. In this case, it was just more me just wanting a better self image beneath the clothes. So let's take that same principle of having an old belief, some habits, and then a new belief and apply it to saving more money.
Let's just say your thought is “I should have more in investments based on my income.” Okay. That's your belief. Now there might've been a time where you carefully monitored cashflow, but you recognize you haven't been as diligent about it lately. Okay. So a good habit in your situation would be get a budgeting software if you don't already have one.
Or if you have a budgeting software really focusing on monitoring it, using it as a true tool to inform your decision making on spending. So let's just say with your budgeting tool, you determine there's an extra 500 a month you could be saving. Go ahead and take Joe's advice, automate it. Take that transfer, move it from your checking account wherever you're...
paychecks or income are deposited and move it over to savings automatically on the same day each month. That way it's gonna go in there, set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about it in the future. So that would be one good habit to form. And now for some people just doing the automation or the budgeting alone isn't gonna be as helpful. They want more of an accountability partner like I had with the nourish dietician.
In that situation, if you need more accountability, usually a financial coach is gonna be a good person. They really do focus on cash flow and they're gonna be meeting with you frequently to make sure you're achieving those goals. Now, if finances are a concern, because obviously you're not saving as much as you want, I will share that Compass Catholic does have some really affordable financial coaching once you go through one of their flagship online programs.
If you're Catholic and you're looking for that resource, it is available and I'll link to it in the show notes. Okay, so that's one financial situation. Maybe you're just not saving as much as you think you could. Now another situation could be maybe you and your spouse aren't, or you are saving enough, but you haven't really seen the growth of the investments like you think you should, right?
So you're not quite sure about asset mix and if you could be taking on additional risk in your investments. So maybe for you and your spouse, you would like to retire earlier, but you don't even know if that's realistic based on your current plan. Now, one of the habits you could do to support that goal of really maximizing the investment return would be to hire
Deb Meyer (09:09.87)
a certified financial planner, a holistic fiduciary one like myself, and you'll really be able to go to that person and they can assess your current situation and then point out the blind spots. So I'm not doing this as an advertisement for my services. I'm just one of many holistic certified financial planners. You can go to XY Planning Network if you want to find others. NAFA is also another good resource.
All of us are fee only fiduciaries and we do focus on the whole picture, everything that affects your taxes, to your investments, to estate planning, insurance, all of that. All right, so regardless of who you go to, just figure out, okay, get an independent viewpoint from that person, help them point out the blind spots, and then that person will also help you really get an appropriate investment mix.
So regardless of whether your accounts are held at an employer sponsored 401k plan or in an IRA that the advisor's managing, vehicle they're in, that doesn't matter as much. It's saying, hey, based on where you're at in your life, what are your values? What are your goals? What's your preference for risk?
they'll be able to analyze that and give you more of a defined asset mix and then make suggestions on the investment changes you might want to make in the future. So the habit would be, again, hiring the certified financial planner. And then the new belief that you'll have as a result of doing that is, hey, we don't have to do this alone. We have someone else who's independent, can provide a very
experience viewpoint on our situation. They've worked with lots of different clients and understand that there are unique situations in every family, but they have lot of knowledge on figuring out ways to help you reach your goals. And the other new belief you might have as a result of working with an advisor is that you're being a better steward of the gifts God's giving you. Okay, so let's take a quick break. If you are looking for a one-on-one relationship,
Deb Meyer (11:25.95)
You want a fee only trusted fiduciary. I also happen to be a CPA, financial planner. Happy to have you schedule a consult with me. I'll link to that in the show notes. My availability is limited the rest of this month, but I will be opening sometimes in the new year and would love to have a chat. Okay, let's talk about goal setting and whether it's still relevant today.
I did write an article at the beginning of 2021 called, is goal setting relevant? And unanimously, I believe yes. Now there are a lot of different ways of going about goal setting and I'm gonna draw on different people who either wrote a book on the topic or in this case, like when I wrote the article, I had just finished Jeff Gohens mastermind group. It was his last group was done in 2020 and
You know, it was interesting, even though I wrote it back in February of 2021, a lot of these same ideas are still ringing true today, several years later. So one of the things that I just want you to know if you're kind of anti-goal setting or just don't understand the reason behind it is that if you don't engage in the goal setting, usually you can become aimless or unmotivated. It can just be really hard to kind of figure out where your true north is.
And there's a very fine line between having a solid financial plan, but also clinging to it so tightly. So we don't want to be at either extreme where we're like, hey, this plan is intact and there's nothing that can change it. We want to be able to adapt as new circumstances arise. again, when we think about working with a financial planner,
The benefit is that they're keeping that plan in there, but they're able to adapt to whatever changing circumstances. If you have a new goal or you have to revise the goal, whatever it is, we're able to easily do that in our software rather than you trying to figure it out in an Excel spreadsheet. So one of the suggestions that Jeff had to our 2020 mastermind group, this was in December, he gave us an assignment.
Deb Meyer (13:42.346)
and it was to write a congratulatory letter to ourselves that's dated one year later. So I had never done anything like that before and quite honestly, I found it refreshing. At the time, I was really into writing and I haven't been as into writing since my mom passed away a few years ago, but I would encourage you if you're at least open to it, give it a try.
you could include both personal and professional accomplishments. So if you're listening to this in December, where do you wanna be in December, 2026? What things do you hope you will have attained either as a family or in your careers? And then if you want a more traditional goal setting framework, I'm gonna go through those steps now. So number one, you wanna start with an abundance mindset.
Abundance again is looking at the possibilities rather than the limitations. It's a concept I've brought up a couple of times on the podcast, but it really is a key differentiator when you're looking at goal achievement. If you're stuck in a scarcity mindset where you just think this is it, there's nothing I can do to change my circumstances, it's very hard to actually make any change, right?
one of the keys in that harnessing that abundance mindset is really finding the limiting beliefs that might have held you back in the past. So when I talked about those old beliefs, those can be limiting beliefs sometimes, right? They might have even been ingrained from childhood. And if you're able to identify those, you can also kind of say like, okay, why are they limiting? What would be an unlimited belief?
something that is giving me more freedom and flexibility. The other thing I'd encourage you to do as a second step is really examine your definition of success and use a lens of your values. A couple episodes ago, I did talk about values again more. It's a consistent theme through the work I do at Worthy Nest, but it is so important to understand like what do you really value as a
Deb Meyer (15:58.52)
family, especially if you're married, you and your spouse, what kind of core value do you share or core values? And every person's definition of success is going to be very different. But along the way, you can use that to inform what I like to call a family mission statement where you're really thinking aspirationally about where you want your family to go and how those values are going to be integrated into it.
Okay, so that third step is creating a family vision statement. And you're doing this because as a parent, you're the leader of your family. If you're married, you and your spouse are leaders of your family, okay? And anything that you guys can do, even in the thin margins, I know December can be an insanely busy month. Maybe it's not until that time between Christmas and New Year's that you'll be able to fully listen to this. But I really hope you do take time to listen and have some...
moments of self-reflection because it really, it's gonna be so valuable as you head into the new year. And this is a habit that you could start now that you carry with you in the years to come. So one of the other pieces of traditional goal setting is the SMART goals. And I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this already, but I'll repeat it just in case you haven't. The goal needs to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant,
and time bound. Those are the five main criteria of a SMART goal. So specific, you don't want to just be like, hey, I want to lose weight. You want to be saying, in my case, I wanted to lose 15 pounds. Measurable. Well, how am I going to measure the goal of weight loss? In my case, I was stepping on the scale and seeing how much my weight changed. Now if I...
was taking it every single day. Sometimes I could get frustrated that I wasn't making more progress, but if I just did it like once a week, I could see, yes, things are turning down or no, things are staying the same. Achievable, again, you don't want to set, like in my situation, I wanted to lose 15 pounds because I knew that's an ideal weight that I had been at before. If I had set a goal for like 50 pounds, that would be a lot for me, especially on my body type already.
Deb Meyer (18:21.39)
it just wouldn't be achievable. So in your situation, you've got to really think like, okay, what's something I can do that's going to be a significant difference in my life, but is also something doable and manageable. Relevant would be another criteria. So just making sure it's consistent with the overall values for you and your family. And then time bound again, kind of.
putting a mental note of when you're going to accomplish this goal. So in my situation, I, after talking with the nutritionist about what normal weight loss looks like, I had defined a goal by the end of, I believe it was end of September, that I was gonna get back to my ideal weight. It took me a little bit longer than that. It was closer to end of October, but that's okay.
In fact, I was out for Halloween on October 31st and I was trying to put on this dress that I had previously worn like two years ago and unfortunately I just could not get it zipped up. I even had my young kids zipping it up. I mean it was it was just not gonna happen and that was a wake-up call for me because I said, you know what?
It's okay, I still lost 10 pounds. I just can't lose that stubborn five and that's all right. And I'm okay with my weight as it is now. So in your situation, if you're trying to, let's just say you're in that first example, you're trying to save $6,000 more in one year, the incremental goal is saving 500 a month over the next 12 months. So starting in January, okay?
Alright, inevitably obstacles are gonna come up and it's at that time that we can use some different tools. So one of the books I love is called Finish by John Acuff and then I also love Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt. These are both older books so they're not gonna be AI generated. When I say older, like a few years older, they're not like from the 1950s or anything.
Deb Meyer (20:35.31)
But both of those books, they bring different perspectives on goal setting. Michael is a little more structured with the goal setting framework and John, if you've ever seen Johnny Cuff's work, he's a very funny guy. I just love the humor he brings to anything around goal setting or perfectionism, whatever. So in a Cuff's case, he says to make the goals fun. that...
for me was a wake up call because I can be a very serious person most of the time, but when I'm like, hey, this can be fun. Let's see how much weight I can lose in this time, right? And then the other thing is to use mini celebrations to keep that motivation strong. years ago, like I talked about the debt avalanche versus debt snowball method when it comes to paying off debt. And Dave Ramsey is all about that debt snowball.
little wins, little wins, little wins, and then eventually you'll have so much momentum, you'll be able to pay off the much bigger debts. So the other thing to be thinking about in this goal setting is that it's better to be focused on one or two goals at a time rather than trying to scatter your time and attention on multiple goals simultaneously.
Think about what the big pain point is for you. Is it your financial health? Is it more physically related? Is it spiritual health? In each of these situations, it's not gonna make sense to try to fix all three at one time. You're just gonna find yourself frustrated and likely only doing a little bit of incremental change in any one of them and really not much goal achievement. So when I was moving back, my big goal was
Health, physical health, losing weight, that was the key. I haven't done my goal setting yet for 2026, but I'm sure it will be a different goal now that I'm feeling comfortable with my physical health. So the other thing when you're facing an obstacle is to revisit that why, and that can be apparent in the family vision statement that you've crafted. Really understand who are you doing this for, why are you doing it? It can be a big motivation to revisit it.
Deb Meyer (22:59.552)
And then if you're really having trouble reaching the goal, let's say you're three months into the goal and you set a six month goal, it's just not realistic. Maybe you could revise it down, maybe give yourself some more time to achieve it, whatever the metric that you have to do to say, hey, this is no longer realistic or achievable. How am I going to change it going forward to make it achievable?
And remember, “with God, all things are possible.” That's from Matthew chapter 19 verse 26.
Okay, I hope this was helpful. And again, if you don't have time to listen to it right away when it releases in December, mid December, go ahead and look for it or listen to it maybe in between that week, between Christmas and New Year's, okay?