Episode 17

Beyond Resolutions: Embracing Goals, Progress and the Power of Small Wins

Guest host Alia Saouli of CACM sits down with Korinna Peterson, CACM Education Events Coordinator, to explore the pressure of New Year’s resolutions—or the decision to ditch them altogether. For community managers, the start of the year can feel overwhelming with so much already on their plate all the time. Instead of setting unrealistic resolutions, this episode focuses on achievable goals and celebrating small wins. With years of experience in the events industry, Peterson shares insights on being your own toughest critic, while emphasizing the importance of recognizing progress and having the courage to keep moving forward. Tune in for this refreshing conversation, designed to inspire and refresh you for the new year!

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Alia Saouli
Korinna Peterson

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INTRO: on this week’s episode of CACM chat HOA life to hear exclusive insights and expert perspectives on community association management from leaders across California. This podcast is about the hard work that managers do to positively impact the lives of more than 15 million residents living in over 50,000 homeowner associations across California.

ALIA: Hello, hello. Thank you so much for tuning into the CACM HOA Life podcast. Our newest episode, you’re probably tuning in mid-January, but we’re recording this right before Christmas. So, we are in the thick of it with the wrapping and the traffic and the amazing holidays and all the things. So, I am stoked to have Korinna Peterson on with us. She is the education events coordinator for us.

And she comes to see CACM with a slew of knowledge. And this girl is a high achiever. She’s funny. Her sarcasm is on point. I’ve heard about her preteen daughter who sounds like the coolest preteen I’ve ever heard of. And she brings such a wealth of knowledge because she used to own her own events business. And I think it’s really important that we kind of collaborate together. And really, I wanted to introduce her because one, she’s amazing. And two, we both agree that resolutions suck.

KORINNA: Yeah. Your words, not mine.

ALIA: Okay. Yeah. My apologies. So rude. New York resolutions, New Year’s resolutions. 88% of people who lock them in before the holidays start by January 1st, after two weeks, 88% don’t follow through and they like throw their resolution out the window and they say, forget it.

So, the reason I wanted Ms. Korinna on is because she’s a high achiever and she’s very goal oriented and she makes it look super easy, even though we know it’s not, as it takes grit and hard work to make things happen. And she makes it look effortless. So, I wanted to pick her brain a little bit.

KORINNA: I do. I do. OK.

ALIA: Yes. So, what would you say are things that we could do differently outside of resolutions? I know that a better word would be a goal.

KORINNA: Yeah, I think you hit it right there on the head, you know, and more so for me, when I think of resolution, sounds so big, right? Like it’s one of those things that you set yourself up for and you make a big to-do out of it. And then, you know, and probably why people kind of just wouldn’t, if they don’t hit it or if they stray from that road, they just go, I’m done.

You know, I think one of the other things that we can do is ensure that we set up smaller goals or goals within the year achievable goals. and you know, I think just looking at the big picture and, seeing overall what it is that you really, really want to accomplish and understanding that, you know, sometimes the road to wherever it is that you want to end up in sometimes it can get a little bit longer than, than you want to stay on that road, but I think the overall idea is just ensuring that you stay on the appropriate, the right path to get there. So,

ALIA: Celebrating your wins along the way I think.

KORINNA: Celebrating your wins along the way. And that’s also, I think, recognizing those wins along the way. Because sometimes when we frame our minds into going, this is the ultimate goal right here.

And you don’t achieve that right away or within the timeframe that you want. You sort of forget where you started off and how far you’ve really come. You know, so, so I think it is, you’re right. Recognizing the, the wins along the way and even when, you know, having somebody else or other people point that out to you, cause sometimes we don’t see those winds along the way. We don’t always step back, and you know, sometimes it’s good have a reality check from others that you work with or those who are in your life.

ALIA: Yeah. I have noticed that I feel like we’re both goal driven.

KORINNA: I believe it’s called goal getters.

ALIA: we’re different. No, definitely not. I’m marrying for love for sure. No. I actually, I digress. I think for me, I’m really hard on myself. It’s like, have this expectation. So perfect example. And I’m just going to say it because I don’t think I said it before, but I had this like weight loss goal for myself, and it was no longer about how I looked. It was more about losing weight so I can be the healthiest version of myself before I’m a mom. For whatever reason that why gave me more ammo,

KORINNA: right

ALIA: to fulfill it. And then I was like, okay, well, I’ve had this goal so many years and it’s not working out for me. So, I’m going to get my hormones checked. I’m going to go to the doctor and do like a total blood panel. I’m going to watch what I eat. I’m going to put my workouts on my calendar. I’m going to track how I’m, you know, navigating food and like stay away from sweets and let’s lay low on the wine girl. Like, would like to make sure that’s my tangible goals instead of this astronomical number. And most of the time I missed it by three pounds. So that was my goal. I should be celebrating.

KORINNA: Yes.

ALIA: and right now, I’m so proud of myself because it was outside of me. It was something for something else in the future. Right. And I think that why it kind of helped. But I will say if it was any other years than right now, I would have been like so mad at myself for not like you did all of this, but you missed those three. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m so hard on myself. We should be celebrating like the other things.

KORINNA: Right. right.

ALIA: Anyway, I wanted to, I don’t think I was transparent.

KORINNA: Yeah. And on the other side of that too, right? There’s, there’s also that, that little thing where being hard on yourself, I think for people like us, it also propels us to like, to move forward and to actually get there. So, it’s this odd kind of balance of going, wow, I’ve come really, really far too, but I didn’t quite get it.

ALIA: Yeah.

KORINNA: You know, how, like, how am I going to continue to get there?

ALIA:  I think it’s okay to recognize it. But when you’re beating yourself up because you missed the mark, that’s where there’s a problem. Would you agree?

KORINNA: Absolutely. You know, and I think with what you’ve said is having the why there, like, why am I doing this? Why? Why is this happening? It’s huge because that that gives you great motivation versus just going this needs to happen.

ALIA: Yeah, so absolutely. So, the reason I chose you for this specific episode is because I know you’re, so goal driven and you owned your own business. And I think you’re a mom, you are an amazing spouse, you are amazing at our office, you’re so good to us, you’re a good friend, all yada, yada, yada. At the end of the day, you know about goals because when you own your own business, it’s on you.

KORINNA:  Right.

ALIA: Do you have some, if resolutions were not on the cards for you in the beginning of the year? But you know you have to hit marks on certain things. What does that look like for you as you celebrate those wins?

KORINNA: Gosh, that’s a great question. You know, I have to say that I was incredibly hard on myself when I owned my own business. I don’t know if I celebrated those little wins to be perfectly honest.

ALIA: I appreciate the honesty.

KORINNA: And I’ll tell you why. Usually what I did was at the end of the year, I would assemble together a meeting of my colleagues whom I really respected. And we’d all, we’d take that meeting as one of those things where, you know, we pass ideas through each other. And it was a great tax deduction. Like a weekend, you know.

ALIA: like a press mal-linery kind of place.

KORINNA: Yeah, exactly. You know, it’s like, which hotel are we going to go to?

Um, but it was, it was a great thing where we could really sit down and talk about the year and talk about what’s happened, talk about the industry. And, you know, I remember one year as we were talking about successes and whatnot, um, you know, somebody, one of, one of my colleagues told me, you know, that, that, that business was going really, really well. And, you know, whether or not I felt like things were successful that year.

And, you know, I said, gosh, I, I, yes, absolutely things were successful, but I feel like it wasn’t enough that there was still other things that could have been improved upon. And, you know, and overall, if, you know, taken, taken out of that scenario, if somebody asked me whether or not I felt like I had a successful business, you know, the answer would have still been, I’m still trying to get there, I’m still working.

When the truth of the matter was like, in the Central Coast, I ran one of the more prominent event production businesses there. And I remember she looked at me and she’s like, you’re crazy, and X, Y, Z. And I thought, gosh, it’s funny that you measure success by those things.

But the measurement of success for me wasn’t that. We had different measurements. And so, she saw the things that I didn’t see because I had my mind set on what I thought was the ultimate goal. So yeah, and I think honestly, was through that conversation when I was like, gosh, you know what? You do have to celebrate the little things or sometimes those little things aren’t little things. Sometimes those little things are huge and they’re big, but you know, we bypass them, and we overlook them because they’re not quite to what you totally envisioned.

ALIA: Let’s be real. I get what you’re saying because I think I can do something specific. And in my head, I’m like, but it could have been better because I could have done this differently or said this differently or, you know, added this thing. I don’t know. Just I think it’s important for us to recognize where the value is being added. Not a dollar amount, but like the value to that person, whatever that project is. And this is me speaking to myself right now. If I get through that, then I think maybe that’s a win and I need to just be okay with the end product. Cause if you keep going, it will get there.

Somebody told me recently; I don’t look at wins. just make sure that I’m daily doing something that makes me uncomfortable.

KORINNA: Oh, okay.

ALIA: And it was the older gentleman, has climbed his way up the ladder. He’s a big wig at an organization in our industry. And he said every single day I do something that makes me uncomfortable. And if I do that, then I know that I’ve accomplished something that year.

KORINNA: So what did you do that was uncomfortable today, Alia?

ALIA: Finished my report.

KORINNA: And there’s a win right there.

ALIA: Honestly, what are things that we tangibly can do? And I’ll give some examples outside of making those resolutions. For me, it has to be on my calendar or does not exist. Have you ever made a vision board?

KORINNA: You know, I haven’t made a vision board. yeah, I just to be perfectly honest, I don’t know where to start. It would probably start off as a vision board and it would just end up becoming like a segue to where is my next international trip. That’s go-to.

ALIA: That’s okay. So, I am going to challenge you because I love vision boards. don’t care if it’s a vision board on your phone that you made on Pinterest or an actual tangible vision board on like magazine cutouts, printouts from whatever and putting on your board. I normally do them every year. I didn’t do them last year, so 2024 didn’t have one, but it was kind of cool seeing 2023s start like unfolding in 2024.

The goal is to find something and visualize it. Okay. Feel what it feels like. Let’s say you want to go to Thailand. I would love to go with you too, by the way.

KORINNA: Let’s do it. Let’s make it happen. Put that on your vision board.

ALIA: Let’s do it. It’s actually on there. And I want to go to the elephant sanctuary. There’s something that I’m drawn to it. I want to go. But I have so much gone on this year. I’m like, how am going to make this happen? But or let’s say I’m in a place in my life where I wouldn’t normally afford it, whatever it is.

You’re putting it on your vision board where if time and money wasn’t an issue, you’re calling it in and you’re pretty much telling the universe I’m ready to receive. Okay. I know this is a little woo-woo. So, bear with me, Korinna.

KORINNA: I mean, it’s like it’s a visual checklist, right? Of what ifs if I had no, you know, if nothing was taking me back.

ALIA: I just feel like I put certain things on there and they’re slowly unfolding because I’m giving my intentional time space for it to happen. Now that doesn’t mean I’m sitting back and watching all these things unfold. I’m putting hard work in, right? But I think all this to say, if you haven’t done a vision board before, do a vision board. They’re really fun.

KORINNA: So where do you keep your vision board? Is this something that you see daily and it’s just like a constant reminder of this is it?

ALIA: Yeah, I think it depends on who you ask. I mean, I put it on the back of my office door. So, my office is closed and I’m working, I can see it. But that doesn’t mean I see it every day, because then I have this office and I’m on the road all the time, right? So, some people are like, you have to visualize it and look at it every day. And I don’t think so. In my mind, I think if you’re asking the universe to support you, and I don’t know what you believe, so please, this is source, universe, whatever you want to call it. In my mind, if I’m asking the new universe to support me and saying, I’m ready for this, whatever that is, and saying, I’m willing to put the work in to get there too. It’s not just me watching.

Then I think, I don’t think you need to look at it every day. think that’s, who has time for that?

KORINNA: Right. So, I can’t just like ask you to create a vision board for 2025 with me on a yacht on your vision board. I absolutely need you to envision that for me and let’s make it happen.

ALIA:  I will call that in for you. Please next thing that we do as a team too is pick a word. We pick a word for the year in our office. What was your word this year, Korinna?

KORINNA: Okay. Well, my word for this year is wave maker because I, I, from what I recollect, it was a word that we wanted to manifest, right? For, for next year. We’re all about manifestation here in CACM guys. so, my word was wave maker.

And that goes back to the, know, this is a new position that I’m in with the educational events and wave maker is a, you know, I don’t even know if it’s a real word. It’s a word that I made up.

ALIA: It is because you made it.

KORINNA: Thank you. Thank you. So, a while ago when, um, when I ran my own business and, uh, we were based in San Luis Obispo, I used to talk over at, uh, at Cal Poly. So the Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo had a wonderful events program. And once a year I would go and I would talk to the students and, you know, tell them all about our business and how to prepare themselves for, for, uh, for entering the real,

ALIA: the real world,

KORINNA: the real world. And, um, I used to end all of my little Ted talks with, you know, in business or really kind of like, when you’re faced with any challenge, you can be one of two things. You can either make the waves or be on the shore waiting for the waves to hit you.

So, so, so that’s why wave maker is, is big in my mind is, you know, I think that’s for anything, especially in business is you can either take the reins and make the waves and be the one creating those waves versus just being the business or whatever, being the business that’s standing on the shore and waiting for things to just come. So yeah,

ALIA: I absolutely love that.

KORINNA: Thanks.

ALIA: So, my word last year was intentional and this year it’s present because I feel like I’m intentional with my time. Got that down. Intentional with who I’m with, who I’m spending time with. I want to be more present. I think as a woman, don’t know if this is a woman thing or what, but you’re scared to be a wave maker because you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings and you don’t want to say no because you want to be supportive, loving friend. like, do you remember in the Barbie movie, the girl at the end that describes how it is as a woman?

KORINNA: You’re a million things and you’re expected to be good at all of them?

ALIA: Yes.

KORINNA: Yeah no

ALIA: I need to just, again, we’re going back to the celebrating those wins. So, wave maker sounds amazing because how can you not be more innovative and not make change and not make things amazing if you’re not stirring the pot a little bit? So, I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I got excited.

KORINNA: Well, I mean, its courage, right? There’s like so much of what we do whether or not it’s improvements or just general changes in our personal lives or in business starts off with ideas, but ideas are just placed on the shelf unless you have the courage to really act on them. so going back to your thoughts of doing things and being more present and having more intention of last year, that takes courage because it’s one of those things where you can put it in your mind, but unless you’re really acting on it, it doesn’t, it’s not really good for anything.

You have to do it. anyway, so there it is.

ALIA: I think other ways, if you’re going through a hard time practicing gratitude for where you’re at, even if it’s in a tough season and also acts of kindness to strangers.

KORINNA: 100%.

ALIA:  Somehow that just brings you back to perspective and like what’s important. Yeah. And I don’t know why I got on that topic, but at the end of the day, I think we’re in like a weird life season this era.

KORINNA: Are you going to start talking about like Mercury retrograding or?

ALIA: I don’t even know what it is. No, I’m not going to do that on our podcast. I will off the record or for lunch though. But I think, And I’m saying this as managers in the field, you sometimes you take a lot of angry calls or angry emails and celebrating it as a win when you get through the day sometimes. That’s still celebrating.

So just give yourself some grace. And if you have a goal, break it down into chunks.

KORINNA: Right. On that note, you know, with regards to managers, it’s celebrating, it’s really stepping back and also not forgetting how much of an impact that you all make. When things are hard and when you’re swimming in emails and deadlines and all of that aside, a pipe bursts.

It’s just- being able to step back and also just maybe just in the back of your head understanding that you’re making a change and its quiet appreciation. You guys are awesome.

ALIA: And we’re always rooting for you guys too. So, I want to close with this. Let go of your resolutions. Be more intentional with your time. Be present with the people you love the most.

KORINNA: Absolutely.

ALIA: Not things that you have to do I will come back to you on my, I’m going to do things that fuel me and bring me joy more often, because I think I put them on the back burner. Being present, creating a vision board. If you do send them to Korinna and myself. And if you pick a word, share it with us. I think the only reason that I was able to accomplish my quote unquote not a resolution that was a resolution, I just called it a goal, it was because I put it on my calendar. And so, I celebrated all year long and that’s not like me, and I was so much nicer to myself.

So, we love you, we appreciate you guys. And send us your feedback, send us your words, send us your pictures of your revision board. And let’s welcome Ms. Korinna in her brand-new role supporting our education in our events.

KORINNA: Thank you. Thanks, Alia. I appreciate you. you know, I have to say I was not paid at all to say this, but well, maybe I am paid to say this. Since they are my employer, we do absolutely cherish and appreciate all of our members and our industry partners here at CACM. During the holiday season, it would be wonderful if you can just step back, be kind to yourselves. And I do want to add Alia to what you’re saying with all of the different ways to get through your various goals for the year.

We didn’t touch on this, but I do want to remind everybody the power of no.

ALIA: Oh, yes.

KORINNA: And being wise with what you say. Being wise with what you say yes to because what I’ve learned as I’ve progressed in my years is that when you’re wise in selecting exactly what it is that you say yes to.

It becomes more special, and you can give it more of yourself than saying yes to everything. So, the power of No is wonderful. so, there it is.

ALIA: Honestly, I appreciate this conversation because I needed to hear it too. So thank you.

KORINNA: That’s great. Thank you. And remember to put me on a yacht in your vision board.

ALIA:  Happy new year.

OUTRO: And that concludes this week’s episode of CACMChat HOA Life. Have questions you want answered? Send them to podcast@cacm.org and we’ll address them in an upcoming episode. Make sure to regularly check out our website at cacm.org. And don’t forget to join our rapidly expanding social media community. Just follow @CACMchat on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Thanks for joining me.