[00:00:00] Welcome to the Balancing Busy podcast. Today, I have one of my. Most amazing friends, Kelly France, we’ve had her on before, but I have to have her back because Kelly, your book, One Goal for 100 Days has come out and we have to talk about this amazing thing. So first off, will you just tell everybody a little bit about you?

[00:00:55] Kelli: Hi, thank you for having me again. Um, I’m Kelly France. I live in Southern California with my husband and my four kids. Kids. I joke that my kids are like salsa. I’ve got hot, medium, mild, and Pico. Um, and I am a serial entrepreneur. I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve done a lot of different businesses over the years and, um, it’s been a journey.

[00:01:20] Kelli: You know, I started out as a photographer. That’s how Leah and I met. And then I started mentoring photographers and, um, Started a photography school and magazine with my husband and then we sold that and I jumped into the direct sales world and, um, and that’s been an awesome journey. And I also empower women to be more confident, um, and.

[00:01:49] Kelli: And then, yeah, and that’s, there’s, that’s about me.

[00:01:55] Leah: okay, so you are the confidence queen. One of the things that I love about you is that you are always trying to empower women to claim their confidence, to stop allowing those inner voices that can be so brutal and mean to stop us from our progress and to keep us from reaching our goals, right? Like that life that we really want.

[00:02:18] Leah: So tell me about you writing this book, One Day for 100 Goals. Why, why did you feel like this, this book was important and needed and, and that, you know, you needed to write it? 

[00:02:32] It all started kind of when I went to a conference, and it was actually a virtual conference because it was during 2020 and I was listening to a speaker talk about her.

[00:02:45] Kelli: Experience, um, she’s the author of Hello Fears and she was talking about, um, how she had faced her fears for a hundred days and, you know, how helping facing her fears for that many days, like really empowered her and, um, she did like a different fear each day, you know, and did some crazy stuff over those 100 days and I, I loved that.

[00:03:10] Kelli: But the thing that I really loved about her. Keynote speech was. This idea of focusing on something for a hundred days. Um, and so my friends and I were like chatting afterwards and we were like, we should do, you know, we should do, um, our own goals for a hundred days. Like we should all pick a goal and do our own goals for a hundred days.

[00:03:33] Kelli: And one of my friends mentioned a business school she had. And then I told, um, and I was like, wow, I should have my team like do something similar. And. So I put it out there and then I was like, wait a minute. I should just have everybody, like all of my followers do this with me. Um, cause I just loved, I just love empowering women.

[00:03:55] Kelli: I love to do things together with women and bring women together. And, um, so we started doing this and, um, and it’s been, you know, this started in 2020. So we started and these women were having incredible results. Like so many of them were. Able to focus on one goal for a hundred days and accomplish it.

[00:04:17] Kelli: And it was just super empowering to them and boosted their confidence. And I did it too. And it was just amazing to see what happens when you focus on only one thing for a hundred days. And so this continued on. I continued doing these like challenges and just having all these women have so much success.

[00:04:39] Kelli: Um, And I just thought I need to, I, I want to write a book like sharing their stories because there were so many stories of women, including yourself, Leah did it to, um, doing different things for a hundred days and, it’s such a confidence boost, right? When you do something for a hundred days, and I even wrote the book in a hundred days, so I was able to write a book and self publish it in a hundred days.

[00:05:06] Kelli: And that. Was no small feat. No, 

[00:05:09] Leah: it was not. I mean, getting to have a, uh, behind the scenes view that most people don’t get to have of getting to see you go through this process and just how much it’s taken and, um Just the effort and the work and the love and the passion and the frustration, even, you know, as things do not go according to plan and deadlines are not met.

[00:05:33] Leah: And I mean, it has it’s been this huge challenge. So one of the things that I only love about one goal for 100 days. Well, I’m actually gonna name more than one thing, um, but, um, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, one of the things that I talk about so much within my sphere and with my community and in this idea of balancing busy is really focusing on incremental progress and not getting so stuck on these huge, big.

[00:06:02] Leah: Results to where we then end up sliding backwards because we just get overwhelmed. It’s too much. It’s too big. And we slide back to our comfort zone. One goal for 100 days. It’s not let’s work on this, this, this, this and this. It’s what is the one thing that you are going to do. every single day for 100 days.

[00:06:22] Leah: And so you shared, you know, I did it too. You’ve done multiple challenges and I did, I don’t know if it was your second or your third, uh, but I was like, okay, I’m going to do this. And I set family history. So those who don’t know about me, I’m a total family history nerd. I love genealogy and I love working on it.

[00:06:41] Leah: And I’ve had, I’ve been working on it and, and doing family history for. Um, almost 20 years, and I’ve had times where I can put a lot of time into it, right? Like, I am making huge progress, I’m, I feel like this detective, and I’m unraveling and finding these secrets, and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is so cool.

[00:06:59] Leah: And then there’s times where I got out of the habit, and I barely touched it for a year or years, but it brings me so much joy. So whenever I fall out of those habits, I’m always really discouraged, and it’s something that I miss. So, you know, when you put out the next The next challenge and you’re like, okay, one goal a hundred days.

[00:07:18] Leah: I’m like, yes, I’m doing this and I am going to do it for family history and I will say that even choosing that, like the productive side of me, um, or maybe the efficient side of me was like, it should be a business goal. It should be a health goal. And I was like, no, this, this is the goal because it brings me joy.

[00:07:36] Leah: And it’s been amazing. And what I love is that it didn’t stop at a hundred days. Like, I love that. If I, so I have, you know, a little tracker on my phone and I tick every day that I do my family history. And I think I’m on, um, I think today is, well, according to my tracker, it’s three hundred and. 49, I think.

[00:07:59] Leah: And it’s actually even more than that because I had been starting to do it. And then, you know, I got like real and consistent. And so that’s so like one day for a hundred goals for me hasn’t stopped at a hundred days. I’m on 300 and something and it feels so empowering and so good. So that’s one thing I love about it.

[00:08:19] Leah: The second thing I love about it is. The way that you do this book, and, and, and the way that people can, they can grab this book with their girlfriends, with their sister, and they can do it as a community, and then add this accountability component to it, so that You’re not alone, like, you get to encourage each other, even though my goal is probably completely different than every other person who did your challenge.

[00:08:49] Leah: I highly doubt there was another person who was like, Genealogy is I don’t think anyone else did. I don’t think 

[00:08:54] Kelli: so. I, I, I think I am unique. I 

[00:08:56] Leah: loved it. I think I’m unique with that one, right? But I still was doing it with others because I wasn’t the only one trying to do this goal. And, you know, that encouraged me from you.

[00:09:06] Leah: And I love with the book how there are so many stories of other people that you can get inspired by, plus opportunities. For me to like document and share and think about my experience and it’s just it’s so yeah 

[00:09:22] Kelli: and so many women who did it beyond a hundred days or did different rounds with different goals.

[00:09:29] Kelli: It’s just been really cool to see how people have done it for beyond a hundred days. 

[00:09:35] Leah: Yeah, because now I really feel like the family history, it is a habit, right? Like, this is a habit now. And so I’m completely ready to add the next thing and say, okay, what’s the next thing I’m going to stack on top of this one for the next hundred days?

[00:09:53] Leah: And then that’s going to be a habit. And then I can say, okay, what’s the next thing I’m going to stack on top of that? So tell me, tell me why. The, you know, goals are so important. Talk me through why, why we need to have goals. 

[00:10:10] Kelli: So it’s fascinating because most people don’t keep their 95 percent of people don’t keep their New Year’s resolutions, right?

[00:10:16] Kelli: We, it’s like, we, we want to have goals, right? And, um, but here, let me tell you this study that is so motivating this, um, research that was done by Harvard MBA students. They studied these MBA students and, um, they studied them over 10 years and those who, there were 84 percent of them had no goals, 13 percent of them had goals in mind, and only 3 percent of them had written down goals with a clear plan, and they discovered after the 10 years that those who, this is the part that blows my mind, , those in the 3 percent that had written their goals with a clear plan made 10 times more money than the other 97 percent combined. Like, who doesn’t want to make 10 times more money? 

[00:11:07] Leah: And not just that, let’s like, I, I remember this research state because let’s also remember, we’re talking about Harvard MBA students.

[00:11:15] Leah: These are clearly the smart ones, okay? These are the smart people. And yet only 3 percent actually took the time to take that goal and get it down onto paper. And that translated into a massive difference in their level of success. That’s so 

[00:11:36] Kelli: crazy. Yeah, it’s mind blowing. So when I read that, I’m like, I want to be in the 3%.

[00:11:42] Kelli: That means that you’ve got to write it down, which is one of the reasons I wrote this book, because it’s a journal. It’s a motivational journal where you are, you have prompts that help you, like, write these things out and really, like, think through what you want to do. Because here’s the other thing, I remember as a teenager, I remember, um, you know, being pretty goal oriented and, but I would sit down and I would write a list of like, okay, here’s my physical goals.

[00:12:08] Kelli: Here’s my intellectual goals. Here’s my spiritual goals. Here’s my social goals. And I would write like at least five things under each category. So there’s four categories times five, 20 goals, right? And I would be so overwhelmed because I had 20 new goals to figure out on the. On the new year, so I didn’t do any of them, right?

[00:12:28] Kelli: Because that’s what we do. When we get overwhelmed, we run. It’s like fight or flight, you run. Um, and so the thing I love about this is that it’s like, it’s just one, you’re just focusing on one. And I really strongly encourage people to not add two, not add three people. It’s very tempting, right? But just start with the one.

[00:12:50] Kelli: And then like you said, you can have it stack. Once you got that down as a habit, you can add a new one, you know, or you can do it for an extended beyond 100 days. But, um, it’s just, I think another reason to have goals is because it is such a confidence boost. It’s a way to keep our promises to ourselves, which is one of the most powerful ways to, um, increase your confidence.

[00:13:16] Kelli: So that’s why we need to have goals and that’s why we need to write down our 

[00:13:21] Leah: goals. Yes, I love this so much.

[00:13:25] Leah: 

[00:13:25] Leah: this episode is going live on December 26th, like we have literally just finished Christmas and we’re.

[00:13:33] Leah: In the aftermath of all the, the Christmas hangover is like probably what I was experiencing this week, but everyone’s going to be transitioning into new year’s resolutions goals. So what can help us be more successful with our 

[00:13:51] Kelli: goals? Okay, so I share some of these in the book. Um, they’re the five C’s of success.

[00:13:58] Kelli: And these are just kind of things that I’ve learned from my own experience. And I’ve noticed in the women that have been successful. Who’ve done the one goal for a hundred days challenge. Um, and I’m just, I’m just a word nerd and I love to, to, you know, break down to alliteration and like, so these C words are just these, these are like the five most powerful ways to really get success with your goals.

[00:14:24] Kelli: So the first one is to commit obviously, um, with this. You know, 101 goal for 100 days challenge. You are, you really have to sit down and be like, is this something I want to commit to for 100 days? Right. And, and so when you have that mindset, you really kind of have to take a minute and think about, is it something that I want to, you know, do longterm?

[00:14:50] Kelli: And. I share in the book a story about how I signed up for a half marathon, um, a few years ago with my daughter and cause I was turning 40, she was turning 18. We wanted to celebrate by running this half marathon together, during our birthday month. And as we started in this goal, um, it was like the first week, which I call orientation week where you’re just trying it out.

[00:15:14] Kelli: You’re testing out your, you know, your, whatever you committed to. And we started running and we realized like. In order to actually train for a half marathon, you have to run for a very long, long periods of time. I was like, I had, you know, I’d done cross country as a teenager, which is only about 30 minutes a day.

[00:15:36] Kelli: So committing to like two hours a day, um, or more. Felt like a lot and I’m a busy mom with, you know, lots of businesses and things going on. And I was like, yeah, no, this is not, this is a no, we’re not doing this anymore. And my daughter agreed. She didn’t want to spend hours and hours running either. And so that’s when we realized like, okay.

[00:15:57] Kelli: We can, you know, we’re changing our mind. This is not what we want to do. And that’s why I encourage you to allow yourself kind of that orientation week. Once you’ve tried, once you’ve committed, give yourself a week to test it out and be like, is this what I really want to do? And if not, then you change, you know, try something else.

[00:16:16] Kelli: If so, then you just keep tweaking it. And, um, and yeah. The other thing is calendaring it. I’ve noticed, I feel like, you know, it’s easy to have these ideals, right? But when, um, you know, and I mentor a lot of business women and they tell me like their goals and then I say, well, um, you know, when are you going to do it?

[00:16:39] Kelli: And that’s, that’s fascinating because a lot of them have no idea when they’re going to do it. They just know they, they want to do it, but actually putting it on the calendar is much more likely to make it happen. Um, so just figuring out when am I going to focus on this? And then, , the other C is cheerleader.

[00:16:56] Kelli: Everyone needs a cheerleader, or in other words, an accountability partner. Um, it really, really helps. Even in writing this book, Leah, I had my editor. Um, she and I worked together and I started, I set up like weekly calls so that I would be accountable to stay on track for my own goals. Um, and it helped so much to have to know that every Friday morning I, I had to have so many pages written, um, you know, for her to edit.

[00:17:28] Kelli: So really finding an accountability partner, um, you know, studies show that when you commit your goals to another person, your chances go up 65 percent and Even more when you schedule a, an, uh, an accountability appointment, like the one that I did, um, with my editor, your chances of succeeding go up to 95%.

[00:17:58] Kelli: That’s such high chances, right? If I were to tell you, Leah, you, there’s a 95 percent chance you could achieve your goals. You’d be like, sign me up. Um, And that comes from, you know, really having that, that cheerleader that you, you know, partner with. Um, the other, the, let’s see, what are we on? We’re on the number four, the fourth C is consistency, you know, showing up every single day.

[00:18:28] Kelli: And that’s another reason this works so well is because you have this. This cut off that’s actually the fifth C is you have this cut up, you know, you have about 100 days to achieve your goals. And so you want to kind of maintain your streak. I will say, though, I do have to say this disclaimer because there are there are going to be people that fall off the bandwagon and that maybe miss a day.

[00:18:52] Kelli: And I don’t want you to, um, just like Throw in the towel and give up the day that you, you know, maybe have a bad day, the day that you miss or skip. Um, and that’s why it’s one goal for a hundred days and not one goal, like. You know, every single consistently for it’s it’s about doing it for a hundred days And so it’s okay If you skip you just pick yourself up you put you use our tracker that I have available on my website And you just keep going but it’s that consistency of trying to to maintain your streak You know, like you say with your app you like don’t want to miss your day, you know, you don’t want to have A blank day on your calendar, right?

[00:19:40] Kelli: So, um, and then the cutoff is just having those, those deadlines. So knowing that you’ll be done in 100 days or maybe 102 or you know what I mean? But having a deadline helps distract you from the fear, like how I had a day. I knew every Friday I had to, like, have so many pages written, um, with my editor.

[00:20:04] Kelli: So those are my best tips for having Success in actually achieving your goals and New Year’s resolutions. 

[00:20:12] Leah: love that. I really, really love having that exploration window where you can kind of, maybe it’s that research phase. Maybe it’s testing it and trying and seeing, does this really fit? Maybe it’s just getting curious and asking questions like, well, why do I want this goal?

[00:20:29] Leah: What do I believe it’s going to do for me? How do I believe I’ll fit? feel once they reach the end of the school. So I really love that component. And then I couldn’t agree more with the power of calendaring. You know, we don’t do what isn’t scheduled. We can have the best intentions, but if we’re just hoping that the, the planets are going to align and Open up this window of time available for us to do the thing that we say matters that we believe will bring us more happiness will help us feel more confident if we’re just working on a hope and a prayer that like we’re just going to be able to find that time then guess what.

[00:21:08] Leah: We’re not, but if we can actually schedule it in, it just becomes so much more doable. So I love that. And scheduling it might look really different. You know, I was thinking about this for me with family history. My goal was. I’m going into my app every single day, and I’m doing one task. So there’s a section within my, my family history app, and it’s just a task.

[00:21:35] Leah: It’s lists and lists of, um, little hints of maybe it’s, um, some records that have recently been added. Maybe it’s World War II draft cards or their census studies. And so I go into the tasks, I find one task, and I go, I review it, and then I, I, Attach it to the family person and, uh, to that family member and, and connect the pieces.

[00:22:00] Leah: And I can do that often in less than five minutes. Now sometimes I get super excited, I get sucked in and I’m in there for an hour. It totally happens. But if I don’t have the time, I can do it in easily less than five minutes. So it’s been awesome because I make it a habit. To go on to that app if I’m in line at the grocery store, which let’s be honest, I’m almost never in line at the grocery store because I have everything to look for carpool right to pick up one of the kids, or maybe I’m, um, waiting to do something else.

[00:22:31] Leah: I will just I’ve made this habit that that’s the app I open and I’ll do a quick family history task. And so in scheduling. Um, that one’s almost a little bit different where I just scheduled in downtime is going to be when I do this thing. Now one of my next goals and that I want to maintain for a hundred days is working on my Spanish because I really, really want to learn Spanish.

[00:22:56] Leah: And with that one, I know it’s going to need to be bigger. I’ve been trying to do it where I’m just like, yes, the goal is Spanish and I’m trying to fit it in. And guess what? I’m barely making progress. I mean, weeks go by and I’m like, I think I got a total of 15 minutes of Spanish practice. So I know with this one, I need to calendar it.

[00:23:15] Leah: I need to actually schedule 30 minute blocks that show up in my calendar. I been, I actually yesterday was thinking, I think I’m going to make it my lunchtime thing for 30 minutes during lunch. I work on Spanish. And so that’s how I’m going to work. There you go. So not every goal might be exactly the same on how we calendar it, but making a plan for when it’s going to happen, it just makes so much difference.

[00:23:39] Kelli: Totally. It really does. And like, and something else you said that I want to touch on is making it small enough. Like don’t start out with like a, I’m going to exercise for an hour a day or make it like I’m going to exercise for. Three minutes. You want it to be so small that it’s like not intimate that, that on those crazy, crazy days, you’re like, well, I can do a minute of exercise or I can do a minute of reading or whatever your goal is. Um, versus. An hour, you know what I mean? So it’s got to be just really make it small because you will for sure get sucked in and end up doing a lot more, right?

[00:24:21] Leah: you still get to have that boost of I made progress. 

[00:24:25] Kelli: Mm hmm. Yeah, totally. . 

[00:24:27] Leah: Kelly, thank you so much for being on the podcast with me today, for talking about goals.

[00:24:32] Leah: I mean, this is seriously the perfect timing. I’m so excited for you and for your book. I know. I, we have been friends for a long, long time. What are we going on? Like, I don’t know. Twelve Twelve to 15 years. I have no idea. I’m not good with numbers, but it’s been a really long time. And I know this has been something that’s been on your heart for so long.

[00:24:49] Leah: So it’s so exciting to see this book coming out to the world. Will you share with everybody where they can go find the book? Of course, we’ll have it linked in the show notes, um, where they can find you. And that would just be amazing. 

[00:25:05] Kelli: Yes. Um, so you can find the book on Amazon or you can find it on my website at kellyfrance.

[00:25:13] Kelli: com slash book. You can also download a free tracker. If you want to do this one goal for a hundred days challenge with us at kellyfrance. com slash tracker. And I’m also hosting a, an accountability group for anyone that’s doing it. Um, you can go to my stand store at. Uh, my, on my Instagram at Kelly France and check it out.

[00:25:36] Kelli: This is a, it’s called you go girl, and it’s for all the gold girls out there that want to rock their resolutions and get some extra accountability. Um, so thank you so much for having me, Leah. 

[00:25:48] Leah: Oh, thank you. I love every chance I have to ever hang out with you, especially when we are off on some adventure.

[00:25:56] Leah: In our pajamas, jumping on hotel beds. I saw here a little the other day and I’m like, Hey, that’s me. And it was, it was, I mean, I think our third or fourth time over the years of us in bathrobes on jumping up and down, having pajama parties. So fun. Okay. I love you. I’m so proud of you and this book. I’m so excited for all the women.

[00:26:15] Leah: I know it’s going to help and just increase their confidence, get them closer to their dreams and their goals. So it’s amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Go grab One Goal for 100 Days on Amazon.

[00:26:29] 

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