How to Set Goals You'll Keep: A Guide for Women Who Put Everyone Else First

I'm Deborah Jo Le. I've coached women my whole life: as a cheer coach, a Girl Scout leader, a personal trainer, a private weight loss coach, and today as the creator of The Recreation Method. The women I love working with most are the ones who give everything to everyone, except themselves.

If that's you, this guide is for you. It's the same goal-setting process I teach from the stage, and the same one my clients start with in their first week. No resolutions you'll forget by February. No pressure to be perfect. Just a simple, honest way to decide what "first" looks like, and then keep showing up for it.

Why do so many women put their own goals last?

Most women don't put their goals last on purpose. The kids, the business, the team and aging parents all come first, and her own goals slide quietly to the bottom of the list. After decades of coaching women, I see the same three reasons again and again.

1. No clear goals. You cannot put yourself first if you've never decided what "first" looks like.
2. No daily habits. Good intentions without habits fade by Wednesday.
3. No fuel in the tank. When your body is running on empty, everything runs on empty: your energy, your patience, your confidence, your leadership.

None of this means something is wrong with you. You're not lazy, and you're not broken. You've been carrying a lot without a plan built for you. This guide works on the first reason, clear goals. The second and third have their own guides: the habits that build confidence and where to start with strength training.

What does putting yourself first look like?

Putting yourself first doesn't mean putting everyone else last. It means your goals, your health and your energy earn a place on your calendar, the same way everyone else's needs already do. I call it putting yourself back on your own list.

For most of the women I coach, it looks small and ordinary at first. A morning walk before the house wakes up. An hour on Sunday to prepare simple food for the week, because when your plate is decided, your day is decided. Ten quiet minutes at night with a journal. A workout that stays on the calendar even when the week gets loud.

And before any of that, it looks like a decision. Not a mood, not a someday. A decision, made on purpose, that you matter on your own list too. Everything else on this page grows from that one choice.

How do I put myself first without feeling guilty?

See it as stewardship, not selfishness. The people who count on you need you strong, rested and clear, not running on empty. When you take care of yourself, you have more to give, not less.

I know this one personally. Not long ago, I spent six weeks caring for both of my parents in Michigan. I would do it again without a second thought. But one by one, I let go of every habit that made me me. The 4:30 alarm. My morning walk. The gym. My simple meals. My clothes stopped feeling like mine, and my confidence went with them.

Nobody asked me to stop taking care of myself. I just did, a little at a time. That's when I understood something I now teach every woman I work with: when we lose our good habits, it's not an overnight surrender. It's a slow process of quitting. One skipped walk. One late night. One "I'll start Monday." It's a hundred little quits.

So here's my calm answer to guilt. You don't need permission to take care of the body God gave you. You need a plan small enough to keep on your hardest day. Three things help:

• Say it out loud. Tell the people closest to you what you're doing and why. Most of them have been hoping you would.
• Schedule it first. Put your walk, your workout or your prep time on the calendar before the week fills it for you.
• Keep it small. A promise you can keep beats a promise that impresses. Small, kept promises are how self-trust comes back.

How do you set goals you'll actually keep?

Use three steps, in this order: look back at your wins, storm every goal you can think of, then choose your top 10. Starting with wins builds belief, storming gets everything out of your head, and the top 10 gives your daily habits a clear target.

The three-step goal method

Step	What you do	Why it works
1. Highlights	Write down your wins from the last 12 months, big and small.	Your wins are proof of who you already are.
2. Goal storming	Set a timer for ten minutes and write every goal that comes to mind. No editing.	It gets every goal out of your head and onto paper, where you can see it.
3. Your top 10	Circle the ten that matter most right now.	Those ten become the targets for your daily habits.

Step 1: Start with your highlights from last year

Before you look forward, look back. Most successful women skip right past their wins and go straight to everything they didn't do. Not this time. Write down what worked over the last 12 months: the hard conversation you finally had, the project you finished, the weeks you showed up for your workouts, the season you carried your family through.

This isn't a feel-good exercise. It's evidence. When you start from your wins, you set goals from belief instead of from disappointment, and belief is what keeps you going on day 40.

Step 2: Goal storm for ten minutes

Give yourself ten minutes and write down every goal that comes to mind. Don't edit. Don't say "that's unrealistic." Just storm. Cover your whole life:

• Your body and your strength
• Your health and your energy
• Your family and your friendships
• Your business or your career
• Your faith
• Your finances
• That trip you keep postponing

Most women are surprised by how much comes out when nobody's grading it. That's the point. You've spent years keeping everyone else's list. This is yours.

Step 3: Circle your top 10

Now read your list and circle the ten that matter most. Ten is enough to cover your whole life and few enough to remember. Those ten become the targets for everything else you do.

Then make each one clear. "Get healthier" is a wish. "Walk every morning before work" is a goal you can see yourself doing. Write your top 10 somewhere you'll look at every day. My clients use the Recreation Journal; a notebook on your nightstand works too.

What are some good goals to set for yourself?

Good goals are personal, specific and within your control. Set them across your whole life, not just one area. The strongest goals describe what you'll do, not only the result you hope for.

I teach this: the goal is the activity, not the result. You can't control every outcome. You can control whether you walked this morning. Here are examples to spark your own list. Take what fits and leave the rest.

• Body: Lift weights a few times a week.
• Energy: Move first thing every morning, before the day can take that time from you.
• Food: Prepare simple meals on Sunday, protein first, so you never decide what to eat when you're tired and rushed.
• Faith: Begin each morning with prayer or Scripture.
• Family: One unhurried, phone-free dinner every week.
• Work: Protect one block of focused time each day for the work only you can do.
• Finances: Review your money on the same day every month.
• Joy: Put a date on the trip you keep postponing.

Notice that none of these depend on anyone else's permission. That's on purpose.

How do you stick to your goals?

You stick to goals with daily habits, not willpower. Under each of your top 10, write the small daily habits that will get you there, choose habits you can keep on your worst day, and grade yourself every night.

"Your goals are the destination. Your habits are the vehicle."

Most women are trying to drive to their dream life in a car with no wheels. A goal without a habit under it is a destination with no way to get there. So:

1. Build your habit list. Under each of your top 10 goals, write the daily habits that will move you toward it.
2. Choose consistency over intensity. Don't pick habits for your best day. Pick habits you can do on your worst day, because your worst days are the ones that decide your results.
3. Grade yourself. Every night, give yourself a percentage. Five habits, and you did four? That's 80%. Average your days for a weekly score and your weeks for a monthly score. Now you're not guessing. You're keeping score, and what gets measured gets done.

And when you slip, and you will, get back up fast. One off day doesn't have to become a lost week. Not perfect, just honest. I go deeper on this in the habits that build confidence.

Is it too late to start over at 50?

No. Starting over at 50, or 40, or 60, is not starting from zero. You bring decades of experience, judgment and proof of what you've already come through. The process is the same at any age: start with your wins, decide what matters now, and build one habit at a time.

I know because I've started over more than once. I went through a divorce, and everything I thought my life was going to be was gone. I had to rebuild from the ground up. Later, Jimmy and I watched a business we had spent eight years building decline, and we started over again, and then again. Every time the ground moved under us, we got back up.

At 52, I stood on a national stage in a fitness model competition with more than 1,000 women, most of them in their twenties, and placed in the top 10. I don't share that so you'll compare yourself to me. I share it because age is not what stands between you and your goals. A clear plan and someone in your corner make the difference.

If your goals include your body, start with my guide to strength training for women, and check with your doctor before you begin a new exercise program.

What is a 100-day goal plan, and why 100 days?

A 100-day goal plan turns your top 10 into one focused season of daily habits, with a clear start, weekly check-ins and a checkpoint at the end. One hundred days is long enough to see your habits take root and short enough to stay focused the whole way.

Here's why I chose it. If a hundred quits got us here, a hundred days can bring us back. In The Recreation Method, the 100 days move through five phases:

• Reconnect: remember your reason, get honest about today and make your first commitments.
• Reset: set your daily standards for food, water, walking, preparation and a daily check-in.
• Rebuild: build strength, stamina and self-trust, one kept promise at a time.
• Reclaim: keep your standards in real life: restaurants, travel, holidays, work.
• Recreate: reach Day 100, look at the evidence and choose your standards for the next season.

Goal setting is exactly where we begin, together, in week one. You walk away with your top 10 written down, and I build your Recreation Blueprint around them: your personal 100-day game plan. Your habit list, workouts and macro counter live in your app. You track your progress in the Recreation Journal. You have a community of women walking the same road, and live weekly Zoom calls with me. Day 100 is a checkpoint, not a finish line.

See how The Recreation Method works →

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