003: Goal Setting for the Year

New year means new beginnings, and rededicating yourself to you biz right?

Let’s start the year off right with goal setting for the year.

The Foundation

Now, if you haven’t listened to yesterday’s episode, episode number two, it talks about your, “I’ve made a business” and how to find that statement, but the gist of it is knowing and writing out on paper what your business needs to look like for you to confidently say that you’ve finally made it for your business.

The reason for this statement is to have something to base your goals off of so if anything pops up, like if you get really passionate about something new, or if you hear about something that’s working out great for another business, you have something to validate it against to make sure that it’s a right fit for your own business and where you’re headed.

We’re talking all about setting your goals for the year and you’re going to use your “I’ve made it business” to create those goals.

Breaking Down Your Dreams

So what I like to do is to work through what I need to do for the next few years, to reach this “I’ve made is business” so I make a three-year business goal and then I create a one-year business goal. And I’m gonna tell you right now to really try and push yourself.

Overcome Fear in Goal Setting

When I first created my one-year goal, I was very nervous, because honestly busy mamas just don’t have a lot of time to work on these their biz. I was really nervous just about not reaching my goal.

I personally am like a recovering perfectionist and workaholic, so I was nervous that writing something down on paper, it would just make me kind of upset if I wasn’t able to achieve it.

But I knew that I didn’t want to write something and not reach high enough.

So what I recommend is just forget all of those fears that you’re feeling right now or thinking that it’s just ridiculous to write down a goal overall, right?

It is well worth your time to create a goal of where you want your business to be in just one year from now.

You have 365 days, I think. I don’t know if this is a leap year or not, but you have a lot of days, right?

You have plenty of time to make progress in your business, but the fact of the matter is is that if you don’t have a goal, you might not even get anywhere, right?

You might just run around in circles. Whatever your business is, you might just do the bare minimum to get by.

You might spend your time in ways that are not the most productive, that don’t push your business forward, but that just really meet your status quo, right?

It’s just pushing yourself along far enough to stay the same. And I don’t think that’s what any of us want, right?

We want our businesses to grow so that we can have more time with our families or to take care of ourselves. Right? So yes, creating a business goal is important. Okay.

Creating a one-year goal is important and you really don’t need to be scared about not meeting your goal, not because you need to set it low enough to achieve it, but I would argue actually the opposite. Right?

For myself, when I first created a goal, I created a six month goal. Okay, and did I get there? Not. Not Technically. Right, but I did get closer, so instead of creating this giant thing that I had originally planned, I created a smaller version of it and if I hadn’t created that goal in the first place, I probably wouldn’t even have done any of that to begin with.

So I would say that, yeah, be a dreamer when you create these goals, but don’t push yourself so intently on achieving these goals.

Know that this is where you do want to end up eventually, but maybe not necessarily within that timeframe. I would say that you need to have something that will push you a little bit.

If your goals don’t scare you a little, then they’re probably not the right goals.

You’re probably reaching a little lower than is right for you. So, okay, you need to create your yearly goal, right? And you need to create something that scares you a little bit. Okay? Because if it’s not scaring you, it’s not pushing you hard enough and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to get there necessarily, but it means that you’re going gonna get a lot closer to your “I’ve made it business” than you would have had you not creating the goal at all.

Quarterly Goals

You need to create your goal of what your business is going to look like by 2020. Then what you’re going to do with that goal is you’re going to break it down into quarters.

What do you need to get done each quarter to be able to reach this end goal for your entire year?

Then you have kind of an idea of how you need to proceed along in your business. How you should be spending at least a little time each week getting closer to these goals so that even if you don’t necessarily meet that goal by the end of the year, you are still that much closer.

And sometimes, things happen. You are still moms, right? We don’t have any childcare. If she gets sick, if I get sick, it means that I take time off from my business, right?

Things will happen in life that we don’t necessarily have control over. Or maybe we just need, we need some time for ourselves, right? We don’t want to work ourselves crazy.

So you won’t necessarily meet your goal.

And if you push yourself hard enough when you’re writing these goals, you probably won’t meet it. But the thing is, you will be so much closer to your, “I’ve made it business” just by creating these goals, then you would have without any goal.

You have direction by creating these goals and you know how to slowly make progress over the quarters to reaching these goals. Even if you don’t hit your quarter one goals by the end of March, maybe you’ll get there by June and you’re that much closer, right?

It’s not about setting up unrealistic expectations for yourself. It’s thinking about where you want to be and helping yourself to get there.

These goals are not set in stone. They will shift. Mine definitely did.

It’s more about planning out how to get there than it is about “in these many months I need to check off this, and this, and this. So I need to be working like 40 hours a week while my kids are asleep. And so I’m not going to get any sleep and on, and on, and on.” It’s not about that.

It’s just about kind of having a roadmap.

Things will get pushed back, that’s totally normal. Maybe you’ll find a better way to do something so that it cuts out a bit of time and you can focus on another goal that you have for that quarter, or maybe you want to cancel something out altogether because it’s not such a good fit for your I’ve made it business.

Your action step for today

Look back at your “I’ve made it business” statement or create one if you didn’t already, and then write out your goals for just one year.

How do you want your business to look by the start of 2020?

Then kind of set up a roadmap on what needs to happen each quarter for you to get there.

And remember, if these goals don’t scare you a little bit, then they’re probably not right. So don’t feel nervous if they do scare you and remember that this is more of a roadmap.

Yes, it’s something that you’re trying to achieve, but as a Bizzy Mama, things happen. Goals get pushed back, kids get sick. It’s all very normal in our businesses, right?

So think of it more as a roadmap, like, this is how I need to go down the road to get to my end “I’ve made it biz” goal. And you’ll be so much closer by even starting down this road, than you would be if you were still sitting back at the start line.