Nikki Humphrey (00:00)
Get ready because on January 26th, 2026, a brand new journey begins.
Hope Mangiafico (00:05)
Equipped for Wholeness is a Christ-centered course created by myself and Nikki designed to restore every part of who you are, body, mind, and spirit, so your God-given radiance shines in every area of your life.
Nikki Humphrey (00:18)
if you are feeling in old patterns, if you long to heal past wounds and replace lies with God's truth, if you're ready to see yourself in a way that God, our Father, sees you, radiant, purposeful, and deeply loved, this course is for you.
Hope Mangiafico (00:35)
We'll walk with you step by step as you renew your mind, strengthen your spirit and embrace a joyful grace-filled relationship with yourself.
Nikki Humphrey (00:44)
It's time to lay down the weight of worldly expectations and rise into your true identity in Christ, already complete, already cherished and already equipped for wholeness.
Hope Mangiafico (00:56)
Sign up today to secure your spot and begin your transformation, your journey to lasting wholeness starts now! Link in the show notes.
Nikki Humphrey (01:05)
Hi, I'm Nikki.
Hope Mangiafico (01:06)
Hi, I'm Hope. Welcome to Equipped Fellowship where friends become family through Christ. We're two Jesus-loving friends on a mission to share personal stories, resources, and real talk about our triumphs, breakthroughs, struggles, and setbacks. Why? Because we believe you are called to live victoriously and we're here to equip you with Holy Spirit-led tools and strategies to strengthen your faith, transform your mindset, and walk boldly in God's promises because here's the truth.
You have been given great and precious promises by God. So grab your coffee, lean in, and let's grow together. It's time to step into everything God has for you.
Nikki Humphrey (01:47)
Yes. And it is time to grow together because right now, my friends, we know this is the season where people start to set goals. And I know in the past that I have learned that I set a lot of my goals through a lens of hate for myself. I look in the mirror and I hate what I see. So I try to change it, make a goal, reflect on that, or my business is going one way and I'm really discouraged with myself and I'm not feeling really confident. So.
Hope Mangiafico (02:15)
.
Nikki Humphrey (02:17)
I'm upset and I make a goal for that. But today we're not talking about those kinds of goals. We want to talk about goals created from love instead of self-hate because here's the truth. You can pursue a goal and still NOT like yourself the entire time. I've done that a lot. You can be disciplined yet driven by shame. You can be productive and
Hope Mangiafico (02:20)
you
Nikki Humphrey (02:41)
still believe you're not enough. And God wants so much more.
for you than that. Let's call it out. Many of us set goals because deep down we feel insignificant. That was me for a long time. We may say things like, I need to lose weight because I hate how this body part looks. I needed to get it together because I feel like I'm failing. Or I should be further along by now, like so-and-so.
Hope Mangiafico (02:51)
Okay.
Nikki Humphrey (03:10)
Goals built on pressure, frustration and comparison or insecurity.
That was my jam for so long. But God flat out rejects the belief that you must fix yourself to be worthy of his love. That's where we're going today, people. So buckle up.
Hope Mangiafico (03:28)
Absolutely, I love that listening to you speak Was thinking a lot of my notes for today's topic kind of had me just in reflection Right of like my history of goal setting and as you were speaking I was like man the theme I noticed when I would make goals out of hate and dislike of myself
had a laundry list of goals, right? And then it's overwhelming. And so then yeah, you just get, you dig a deeper hole, a bigger hole, I should say, of hate because they're unattainable, period. And now that I'm even saying that, I'm like, well, it's probably because the backbone wasn't good to start with, right?
Nikki Humphrey (04:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
When I did that, when I had that laundry list, hope, and all those goals were about something that I hated on myself. Like you said, they're unattainable. Not only that, but you never felt peace or you never felt like a cause for celebration because boom, as soon as you hit that goal, you're looking for the next best thing that's wrong with you. And then that's your next goal. So you're on this again, cycle of dysfunction, of setting goals based on hate or things.
Hope Mangiafico (04:18)
and ⁓
Yeah
Nikki Humphrey (04:34)
like about yourself.
Hope Mangiafico (04:36)
You remember when I think it was a self-help versus God-help episode, I talked about how you have these ten areas of your life and you rank them and you like work towards raising up one. That's exactly what that was. That was actually a paid course I did. Surprise, surprise, right? And when you think about it, it sounds good in theory because, my lowest ranking was, I don't know, my finances, right? So let me set all these goals for that and bump that up.
Nikki Humphrey (04:46)
Yes.
Hope Mangiafico (05:06)
But if you actually would know, I'll say me at that time to have paused and be like, why am I doing this? Well, it's because of all these empty shallow and probably hating myself for not being further along anyways because the person teaching it had actually remember this, they had a house cleaner and this. So my goal was to make more money for these things that I didn't even want. And I was just envious and jealous and all the nasty things.
So anyways, I wanted to kind of come full circle with that of why all those just don't work because they're just not built on a firm, correct foundation that produces true fruit and character in us to have impact, to be healthy. Your body matters, your health matters. But you can't build on a hateful substance because it's not built for life.
Nikki Humphrey (05:52)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Right,
it's so true. And we always talk about the three pillars being alignment, like your body, mind and spirit. And if you're hating yourself with these goals, like you're always like, if you're hating your body and you have a body goal, then it automatically pulls the others down, you know, and vice versa. And it's always this battle that we can't line up. And God's like, no, that is not the right way to follow goals.
Hope Mangiafico (06:18)
Right.
Absolutely.
Nikki Humphrey (06:31)
not
the biblical way to do that. And it wasn't until I started to sit down and really realize that, I was setting goals in the wrong way. And I was teaching people to set goals in the wrong way. Like, so again, we're feeding the beast. I'm like, think about these areas you don't like in your life and not like, God was totally out of the equation. And I'm teaching people to do the same dysfunctional habits that I.
Hope Mangiafico (06:38)
me too.
Well,
I mean, I've even heard that kind of teaching from a pulpit and it actually has been so, I mean, it was over a decade ago and I can still hear the sermon and where he said you get to a point where you just dislike it enough to where you're ready for a change or dissatisfied enough and I understood the heart behind it. But if you don't have the full picture of what that means,
Nikki Humphrey (07:17)
Hmm?
Hope Mangiafico (07:21)
that will quickly because we're all broken, we've all been through things, we are not healed people all the way yet. That translates as hate without adding God into it because the guy, was a, he's a preacher, right? But he in that moment was talking about goals. And so he accidentally stepped outside of, let me tie it back to the Lord.
Nikki Humphrey (07:30)
Yes.
Yes.
Hope Mangiafico (07:44)
And it's
it's wild.
Nikki Humphrey (07:48)
And so what helped me was I started thinking of goals of like, instead of like, what do I need to fix about myself? I started asking, how can I honor who God created me to be?
Hope Mangiafico (08:03)
Yeah. Yes, stewardship is a key word.
Nikki Humphrey (08:03)
just a different lens, but I was taking the shame aspect out of it and thinking more of stewardship. Like how can I steward my body well for God,
what he called me to do.
Hope Mangiafico (08:22)
Yes, I love that word because it's biblical. Instead of it being also driven by worldly desires or superficial things too, stewardship has this like beautiful responsibility and care attached to it, which is something we need to learn, right? While we're growing as individuals and kind of complimenting what you're saying you do. I've now haven't been a goal setter in a while.
Nikki Humphrey (08:26)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Hope Mangiafico (08:49)
But it's because I figured out what worked for me. And I don't know how long this will be, right? Like as you're evolving and growing as a person and becoming more whole with the father, you'll adjust these things. But for me, I go into a new year, we'll just kind of be, you know, typical and say new year goals. And I have a word from the father. And so I put that in the background of my phone. And so all my thoughts and everything I do goes back to
his word that he said. as an example this year, my word was rescue and then it was beautiful rescue. Well, I got that probably in November of last year. I'm like crap, what does that mean, right? Like it's like, But I noticed that everything I did, I would look back at that word and be like, does this feel in alignment with what God's saying about what he wants to do in my life this year? Which would then say, well hope.
hating her body, right? Trying to lose all this weight in some unhealthy ways or trying to do push, I still kind of sometimes push beyond my limits, but I'm still learning. But it allowed me to pause and be like, well, pushing further is actually gonna push me further from getting rescued out of a situation, you know, in a beautiful way on top of that. And so that really helped me grow in that area of healthy goal setting for lack of a better term.
Nikki Humphrey (10:13)
I love that your word was beautiful rescue because like we've said before, like we are still working on being too independent and not asking for help and you can't rescue yourself. So I've seen it play out for you this whole year, hope so beautifully that you're allowing the Lord to rescue you from all these different circumstances, events, thoughts, behavior patterns, like relationships over and over again. And
Hope Mangiafico (10:21)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Nikki Humphrey (10:42)
You you couldn't have seen that outcome. You couldn't have planned for that, right? And all those different areas of your life. But just me as a bystander watching you, it's like, it makes so much sense for me all at once.
Hope Mangiafico (10:43)
No!
Exactly! And to your point, God speaks it. You're like, okay, I'm here. And then I looking back, that's what the whole year has been. It's been stinking hard, but...
Nikki Humphrey (11:05)
Hmm? What?
What do you think about somebody flailing in the water to get rescued? Like, that's not easy. Like, that's
Hope Mangiafico (11:15)
But I knew what my father said, you know, and it's like he's a good father. We're built on this truth. He is love. So if we know we talked about loving like God, we've talked about being his daughter, right? All of these things. I have to lean on that. And it has been beautiful. Even
Nikki Humphrey (11:35)
Yes.
Hope Mangiafico (11:39)
I debated about sharing this. I won't share it long because it's so surprising to me that as we're wrapping up the year, I was struggling this morning a little bit, just being really tired, like super exhausted. And I could tell like I really wanted to lay down, but I shouldn't. know, a little fight that needs a pause. And what was really interesting is in our journal, I was just kind of writing out what was happening in my mind because that's how I overcome that like
pushing because I'm hating that I'm tired or you know, those roots of hate. And he was like, he gave me this image of like, am actually, I am whole enough to where that alignment is there. And because that alignment is there, and I hope this preaches to someone actually, once you're like, okay, I want this alignment, I'm doing the work, so my spirit and my soul or my mind and my body are all together, you can't just be ripped out. But you can operate,
in a less than ideal level in one of those areas. And so for me, the Lord said I was running away from myself and my mind. And he gave me an image of me on a treadmill that never stopped and never got off of it. And you zoom out, it's small because it's a treadmill in my mind. You know, it's not big, but it made me exhausted. And he said to me,
You've been running away from yourself because you feel this is very much in line with hate. You are a threat to yourself.
Like,
Like seriously, all because I'm tired, this is what you're telling me? But it made sense. And no joke, it was as simple as taking me off the treadmill and kind of like wrapping me up in a blanket and I fell asleep for two hours. And it's like a peace washed over me. And it goes back though, I think about on the back of my phone, beautiful rescue, that sounds like a beautiful rescue.
Nikki Humphrey (13:45)
Hmm? It is.
Hope Mangiafico (13:48)
And it took the whole, I mean, we're at the end of the year in December and the word has been my word for the year. And so it just shows that as you push into him or press into him and who his character is and what he speaks over you and you, as you like say, you're like lock and step with him. So you're locking step with everything he says with you. There may be moments of a goal setting that
hate comes in or dislike, ⁓ Or dissatisfaction. But because you're working on that alignment and wholeness, you did not get fully removed in the name of Jesus. You are still in that alignment and you can get popped right back in to have that proper goal setting mindset.
Nikki Humphrey (14:35)
I just, it resonated so much when you said that you felt like he was saying, like, hope you've been a threat to yourself. And that's how those unhealthy goals are to ourselves. They're a threat to ourselves. Cause we don't think we're worthy until we achieve our goal or we're not lovable until we achieve this or we only have value if we accomplish X, Y, and Z. And that's a personal threat to our mind, our body, our spirit, and our relationship.
Hope Mangiafico (14:42)
Mm.
Amen.
Amen.
Nikki Humphrey (15:04)
to God, our relationship to others, our influence that we have on people. We're not only a threat to self, but everybody else who is around us.
That's what resonated with me the most about that. like, wow, that makes so much sense. When I was in those, that unhealthy goal setting mind space, I really was a threat to everybody around me. My clients, my people, And it's not to say that there wasn't fruit that came out of it and not to say that if you've never made a goal, like we're all gonna make mistakes and we're not saying like,
Hope Mangiafico (15:18)
as the truth.
Yes.
Nikki Humphrey (15:37)
If you're still making goals like that, that you need to like jump ship real quick. But we're just saying from our life experiences, real time revelation is coming out right now. And I could see definitely the negative impact of that and getting so frustrated because I wasn't further along or my body wasn't responding or the influence or like you said, when you said that housekeeping.
doing that be like I can't wait to have you know disposable income so I could have somebody clean my house again.
Hope Mangiafico (16:08)
And a
But then, but then Nikki, what you said is that proper stewardship. If God, I mean, it's okay to have a house. I mean, I would love to have some assistance around here, no joke. ⁓ But when I started flipping the script and talking about stewardship, well, if I don't have a housekeeper, God gave me this home and I want to show up and take care of it because it's his, he blessed me with it. I want to take care of it as long as possible.
Nikki Humphrey (16:23)
Yes. That's right.
That's right.
Yes.
Hope Mangiafico (16:43)
Because what he thinks about my ability to care for what he's given me is the most important thing in the world. It's not about, this is where I got things real twisted in my goal setting. It's not about me trying to get all my time back and having all this free time, which was preached all over the place. I understand the heart behind wanting the freedom to do X, Y, and Z with your time makes sense. Can't say it's scriptural though, I'll be honest. ⁓ But I wanted a cook and...
a housekeeper and all this stuff so I would just have this free time to do what?
Nikki Humphrey (17:16)
Yeah, we never had that figured out, did we?
Hope Mangiafico (17:19)
No, I did not. Because at the end of the day, I learned after the fact when I removed myself from that world, what is most important to me is a peace of mind, energy. If I have energy, I don't care about cleaning my house. I can do it all day. Feeling loved. Knowing my heavenly father. And none of those goals were
Nikki Humphrey (17:21)
I didn't either.
Hmm?
Hope Mangiafico (17:49)
aligned with that because I didn't know better. I didn't know how good peace felt and to feel the love of God and to love myself. I mean, even just like I said, that was just this morning where I journaled that, but I do love myself more than I used to. And God showed me, he actually said ⁓ specifically that I was able to run away from myself in my mind because I'm integrated.
Nikki Humphrey (17:52)
I didn't know about that either.
Hope Mangiafico (18:18)
but I'm not fully healed. That was the term. You're integrated, but not fully healed. The integration is what is forcing this out of you now because you can't actually run away anymore. We've done too much work for that to happen. And so as you get into that alignment and that wholeness, things that you didn't know were there will still start showing up, but it's because of the integration, the wholeness that this stuff comes up, not because of hate.
not because you failed, but because you're integrating into your whole self.
Nikki Humphrey (18:54)
That's right.
Hope Mangiafico (18:56)
That is so cool.
Nikki Humphrey (18:57)
Yeah. And when you do that, we've talked about this, you know, it up levels everything. It up levels your armor and up levels your relationship with God, with other people. It, what you create, like everything has a different lens on it.
Hope Mangiafico (19:05)
Yes.
Yeah, that's the truth. You put on all new lenses and I think the big one that's like if you have different lens and like a microscope, right, to zoom in, like love is that one that gives you the hyper zoom onto everything and makes everything more clear and focused.
Nikki Humphrey (19:34)
And you don't have that nagging disappointment when things don't work out just as you had planned.
Hope Mangiafico (19:41)
Yeah. And that actually, that's something that I mentioned about also working for me besides like having a word for the year is revisiting the goals with the Lord and to see if there's still an alignment and if my lens is still proper and is still love. Because if, if you start off with a goal and it's more long term and format, a lot of times it will start producing hate in me because it's not going to
Nikki Humphrey (19:56)
Thank
Hope Mangiafico (20:09)
things you already said is not going fast enough. I'm not there yet. Comparison may come in. And so I have to keep going back to the Father to see if I'm still aligned and then if that goal is still appropriate for this season because God is a God of seasons. And we think, you know, four seasons in a year. Nah, man, it could be a five year season. It could be a two week season. We don't know. So we gotta check in.
Nikki Humphrey (20:34)
Right, like in our Bible reading today, in God's time, one day is like thousand years. So we don't know, we don't know how long something's gonna be.
Hope Mangiafico (20:40)
Yeah.
I know that scripture's always been so interesting to me and just kind of fun. We read today to 2nd Peter, which is part of our intro where it's you've been given great and precious promises by God. And I was like, that's our podcast. But yeah, we have no concept and I think we all know that scripture even if we've never read it in the Bible ourselves. But we have to take that to heart and understand that he really does work outside of time.
and be at peace and okay and I mean I'm preaching to myself and and something okay.
I think this will bless someone too as we're talking about God working outside of time. I have a market coming up where I make these frames. Cool. I said yesterday, this is a good day to do that. Let me make some. About an hour passed and I couldn't stand the one I was working on. And it was because it was black and black doesn't go with the way that I set things up. Cool. I got six of these puppies. Let me try and paint them.
Hehehehehe
I was not happy. Should I have put everything down? I should have. eyes are watering because it was so bad. And instead, I forced, I pushed, I tried to put a second coat of paint on sooner than it should have been. Then I tried to throw in some wax and then I tried to add something else and then I hated it so much I took w-
And so you shouldn't do that. And what's so funny about all that is Shawn comes home and I'm like, Hope, you were supposed to at least had this put down before he got home so you would be present. But I allowed the frustration and then with myself, it was all about me because the frames did nothing wrong. If I would have taken a breather, it would have been fine. And Shawn was like, Hope, you didn't need to do that all day. It's like, no, you're right.
but I got stuck in the cycle and I didn't pause. So the first thing when I woke up this morning and Shawn was getting ready, he was like, do not touch those frames. But do know why I forced it the way that I did? Because the market's coming up in a couple, two weekends. In my mind, I don't have enough time and if I don't try as soon as possible to get it all done as quickly as possible, I'll fail. ⁓
That's not true. If I do it with a peaceful mind in alignment with my father, I probably could have done six of those in an hour because that's God. But when you try and force something out of time in a bad heart position, you're not in his alignment with that timing. That was not God's doing. He'll redeem it and help a sister out just like he did today because Shawn said, don't touch it. I didn't touch it and lo and behold, look what God showed me.
Nikki Humphrey (23:25)
Mm-hmm.
Hope Mangiafico (23:44)
And I got to rest because guess who didn't rest yesterday?
Nikki Humphrey (23:50)
Well, you know, and I'm laughing as you're saying all that because you don't know Hope. She's got a lot of tools and techniques for painting, which is a good thing when used in a single project. sometimes we use all the wrong tools at the same time and then we expect a different result than we get. Yeah.
Hope Mangiafico (24:15)
Mm. Yeah, absolutely.
Nikki Humphrey (24:19)
I've done that because we have so many tools from like health and wellness and all this and like weird things aren't working out. Let's throw another thing at it. Let's throw another thing at it. And it doesn't have to be painting. It could be anything in our life.
Hope Mangiafico (24:31)
Anything also that you're naturally gifted at, you're a creator in a different way than I am. We both are, but they come out differently. And anytime, that's usually often an area that feels most under attack or where we're most vulnerable because it is actually this beautiful gift God gave us. But we can twist it so quickly and make it unhealthy, just like goal setting.
Making progress in your life, in all areas, your marriage, your health, your spirit, your relationship with God, all of that is so good. But it's like the better something is, the more easily it can be manipulated and twisted.
Nikki Humphrey (25:21)
the more confidence we have in ourself and the less reliance we have on God, that'll get things out of whack real quick too.
Hope Mangiafico (25:28)
That's and that's the problem. that's exactly it
I know it is for me at least when it comes to the creative side of me. So yeah, that'll preach.
Nikki Humphrey (25:42)
So I have a question that's popping in that people listening might be asking themselves. So they might be like, and so if I set a goal and it's like a physical goal or like a goal, say like to run a marathon or something, is that bad? Are you telling me that's bad?
Hope Mangiafico (25:47)
Okay.
Absolutely not. You should have a follow up question, right? To the Lord. Is that what you were thinking too, Nikki? Like ask the Lord because you have, and you've shared this in the very beginning of our podcast. I think it might've been zero. If not, was episode one. It was episode one about your relationship with running. You running a marathon this year would be vastly different than you running a marathon eight years ago, five years ago, whatever. You're in a completely better, healthier head space.
Nikki Humphrey (26:05)
Yes. Yes!
and my reasoning would be so different.
Hope Mangiafico (26:35)
well, exactly. But we sometimes don't even know our own reasonings without thinking, okay, I want to do this goal. You got to go to the father to even know your reasoning sometimes. So then the next question would be Lord is should I run a marathon this year? Or is that a good idea? You know, some kind of question like that.
Nikki Humphrey (26:55)
Yeah. How can I steward my body well during marathon training? What should be my focus? You know, like things like that.
Hope Mangiafico (27:00)
Yeah. Yeah, if you if you're like, yes.
Yeah, like once you're like, okay, I'm doing it. I got a yes. The best follow up questions that stewardship question you had mentioned. Absolutely. Because that can that can be a wild time and you really got to be laser focused on the right things.
Nikki Humphrey (27:22)
Right. Not
just your body, like how can I stir up my mind well? How can I stir up my relationships well while I'm doing this? can I, whatever question pops up, whatever has been lacking in the past, go to the father about it.
Hope Mangiafico (27:39)
Yeah, and remember, keeping them simple, start with the yes or no, and then go into the more in-depth stewardship question like Nikki gave, and you know, I find that writing it out helps me the most in hearing the more elaborate kind of responses, right? But yeah, use your relationship with him 100%. something that I was thinking of when...
you had mentioned this as a topic is that concept of study of one came back up and how valuable that is because going back to what you said as the example of a marathon, I assume you would know this better, and your family as a whole, that marathon training is going to vary from person to person. so you, if you're really serious and maybe you should have like a running coach or something.
but you have to be very careful of just taking blanket stuff. the reason I'm even saying that is God had highlighted to me the concept of study of one, that you have to sit down and create goals during a time that you've not gotten off social media and just like consumed a bunch of information such as how should I prepare for a marathon? Because that's gonna quickly stir up confusion in you. And that will creep up so fast that you won't be ready. So you wanna be in the right
mindset, headspace for that study of one with the Lord and not just getting off of reading a bunch of articles or whatever it may be. ⁓
Nikki Humphrey (29:11)
Yes.
I love that because even back into my eating disorder days, you can take good information and twist out real quick to think that you know better and you're going to circumvent the system or like...
Hope Mangiafico (29:28)
circumventing the system. Girl, I love doing that or trying to do that and everything.
Nikki Humphrey (29:32)
Yes.
Yes. And that's why you need, I think, like spiritual accountability. You need accountability from God. You might need accountability partners, you know, because we're all a study of one. And yes, things may need to be tweaked, but you have to be careful how you tweak things.
Hope Mangiafico (29:54)
Yeah, it's very true, very true. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like even using that marathon example as an example, we're just showing how we're all imperfect and it is easy to go on either side of a perfect goal. It's wild. And I think the biggest thing, if you talk about something that's very big, like a marathon that seemingly is like larger ⁓ in comparison to other things,
Nikki Humphrey (30:09)
Yeah.
Hope Mangiafico (30:24)
That's where you then have to be, to your point, Nikki, about all the different levels of preparation for something like that. One of the sneakiest things would be comparison. So you have to be armored up. And so it's like, okay, God, do I do this? How do I steward my body? Well, what do I need to be aware of? Or what do I need to protect myself from? That's actually a pretty good one while I'm preparing for this.
Nikki Humphrey (30:42)
Hmm?
Yeah, those are all good. And then I realized that I have some questions too to help you rewrite your goals. So one thing that I wrote down is like, is this goal motivated by love or fear for myself?
Hope Mangiafico (30:55)
⁓ great.
Interesting.
Nikki Humphrey (31:08)
Yeah. Like love, like am I doing it out of like self love and trying to help myself or fearful because I'm not getting what I want. I don't look the way I want. I'm not making enough, like all of those things. And then the second one was, does this goal bring me closer to God's heart for me?
Hope Mangiafico (31:26)
Mm.
Nikki Humphrey (31:27)
which is important. Three, am I trying to become someone else or a stronger version of me that God designed?
And then the last one, will I still believed I am loved even if I don't hit this goal perfectly?
Hope Mangiafico (31:38)
That's a huge one.
Nikki Humphrey (31:51)
That was the one that I'd always get caught up on. If I didn't hit my goal, boy, was it gonna be a river of self-hate and self-loathing, condemnation flowing. And that victim mentality, whoosh, would appear.
Hope Mangiafico (31:54)
Yeah, that's a
Yeah. Yeah. And we've even talked about the concept of like our relationship with accomplishments in the past. And I know we're not alone in that boat because so many people operate from that place, even if they all have different roots as to why they do it. But either way, it is rooted in hate instead of love.
Nikki Humphrey (32:16)
Mm-hmm.
Hope Mangiafico (32:32)
whether it's always because you were told you were never good enough or that was the way you received love in the past so you keep doing to receive more love. Like that's a really heavy question and is honestly what flips the script on goal setting because as a society in Western culture here in the United States, we treat goal setting kind of, simple is not the right word, it's kind of what I'm thinking of, like just simple, like okay.
January 1 is coming up, 10 goals. Let's go at it. But what Nikki's revealing through these questions is like, now these are a big deal.
Nikki Humphrey (33:05)
Yes.
Hope Mangiafico (33:14)
This is not new year, new me. Let me do X, Y, and Z. You tell me what to do and I'm just gonna follow. This is like what we said with the study of one plus on another episode about how I think it was the self help versus God help. He personalizes your goals. Do you want a help that is just for you? If you do, Nikki's questions are the way to approach it.
It's a big deal.
Nikki Humphrey (33:43)
It's such a big deal because you're putting time, money, effort into all this hard work, consistency, like all of that. And if you're going to spend that much time and effort and money in pouring into something, for me, if it's not in alignment with God's plan for me, it's not worth it.
Hope Mangiafico (34:10)
And to compliment that because we both have spent time and money on things that were not in alignment, Just because it costs more or it's being led by a guru doesn't mean it's in alignment or doesn't mean it's worth it. You just disregard the fact that it's a large sum of money, that it's a lot of your time. Because I know when I,
was in my most broken state, which I believe wholeheartedly that every person that's listening to us is on the way to wholeness and so they therefore are not that deep in the pit. But on the journey sometimes I admit that I thought instead of pausing and asking God these questions, I just, I hoped that throwing it out there, the money, the time, it would be the answer without me having to do what I would classify as the hard stuff.
Going to the Father for a personalized plan, it sounds beautiful and it actually is, but it's not always easy because you have to resist the flesh, the worldly things that you're going to see other people pursuing and it is hard to resist. It makes me think when scripture where it says like resist the enemy and he shall flee. That's always been a sweet little scripture, but when you think about it,
Nikki Humphrey (35:05)
not always.
Hope Mangiafico (35:26)
If you can make the enemy flee through resistance, you think it's just like a backhand slap and you're done.
No.
Nikki Humphrey (35:40)
That's a lot with the goal setting and not wanting to jump on the bus.
Hope Mangiafico (35:45)
That's a good way to put it, yeah.
Nikki Humphrey (35:48)
because now is the time of year where everybody's promoting a program, a thing, this, that, and we used to also like...
Hope Mangiafico (36:00)
Yeah.
Nikki Humphrey (36:01)
And you, like Hope said, it's worth spending time with your father because sometimes we come with the expectation of what we think it's gonna be. And we sit down with the father and he's like, that was cute, but that's not really it. And we need to be prepared to that and shift course and know that God's plan for our life is so much better than anything that we could ever imagine.
Hope Mangiafico (36:11)
gosh.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. you almost like you go to the Lord and you know that it may not be in alignment, but you're also kind of like looking forward to seeing what comes out. At least I know that in my heart, I'm like nervous, but also excited, you know, both can exist at the same time of what will happen because we've seen.
I know I've already said it once in this episode, I cannot help but to keep emphasizing how good he is. ⁓ And that actually feeds really well into this little snippet that I wrote.
I'm just gonna read it. With goal setting, less is more. And remember, nothing is written in stone. Things evolve because you do, and God's waiting with open arms to redirect your steps if needed. He is your biggest advocate and greatest compass towards love. We all set goals at some point that have a hint of hate on it, and it's okay.
Because as you continue to pursue His love for you, it'll become less and less. And keep in mind, God's goal for you, be it spirit related, mind related, or body related, looks much different than ours. So if your love-filled goals feel a little odd and unconventional, you're likely on the right path, my love.
Nikki Humphrey (37:56)
That is so good. The less is more. And then the uncomfortability of like setting a less is more goal, know, listening to your father, all that is so good because that is true. And you need to know that it's not going to feel like it always did. And it's not going to be like a checklist of boxes. Like, I achieved this one. I, cause just think of like,
Hope Mangiafico (38:19)
Right.
Nikki Humphrey (38:24)
Hope story from this year and how it played out. She couldn't have made check boxes for all those little things.
Hope Mangiafico (38:32)
I could not have. It was very unconventional. I have found less is more visitations with the father and knowing the more odd it seems, the more accurate it probably is for what I need.
Nikki Humphrey (38:49)
Yeah, when a couple years ago, you know, I do goals like Hope does, I get a word from the Father. And then a couple years ago, my word was amen. And everybody thought that was so odd and so weird. And like, people are like, you sure? Because it means like, it is finished. But that year, I had to be like, it is finished with all these dysfunctional patterns and thinking and relationships and everything.
that was in my life. Like I didn't know what amen meant or
Hope Mangiafico (39:21)
right.
Nikki Humphrey (39:22)
God revealed it through like it is finished. It is finished with this and this is how we're going to finish it and with this relationship and this instant and this job and this all of these things. So the more bizarre like you got to know that God is God's got something good for you. And even if other people don't think it makes sense or maybe other people might be like choose again.
Hope Mangiafico (39:40)
Yeah!
Nikki Humphrey (39:47)
No. Go with what God gives you.
Hope Mangiafico (39:52)
currently has been my favorite way to goal set. And I don't even know if I'm goal setting when I do the word, but it also like aligns with the father's personality, if I can call it a personality, because it has this flow to it, this permission that we need to give him and we don't always do a great job when we go in with that checkbox
I've been doing the Word for the year since 2017, so golly, it's almost been nine years, and I already have my Word for next year. ⁓ And it has, I think, been a big catapult contributor to my increase in like ebbing and flowing with the Holy Spirit and loosening my grip. I must have had a really tight grip, because my grip has not been that...
necessarily been loose, but reflecting back, which is what making goals should also involve, I think. I'm like, God, that actually played a huge part in my life.
Nikki Humphrey (41:01)
That's what makes it beautiful.
Hope Mangiafico (41:03)
Hmm, yeah, exactly.
Will that do it?
Nikki Humphrey (41:08)
I think so. I think that'll do it.
If friends of this encourage you today, share it with someone who needs a reminder that growth doesn't require self-rejection. It requires love. You were created to flourish and I and hope are cheering you on every step of the way. Until next time, keep shining, keep growing and stay equipped in him.
Hope Mangiafico (41:12)
Awesome.
Amen. I'll see you in the overflow.
Nikki Humphrey (41:38)
Don't forget, Equip for Wholeness launches January 26, 2026. Heal, renew, and shine in mind, body, and spirit. Sign up today and step into the radiant life God has created for you.
