Setting Intentional Goals For The Year
You know there’s no better momentum to propel your business in the right direction than that of a New Year. We know you’re ready to see big changes and even bigger results. But there’s also something a little nagging about all those goals you want to set right now. Because you know that this time last year you did the same thing and you didn’t quite see the results you were aiming for. You know that you should set goals so you do, but then that’s it. Nothing really changes. So what gives?
You’ve Been Thinking About it All Wrong
It’s really simple. You’ve been thinking about goals all wrong. Especially at the new year it’s easy to get really lofty with our goals. We bet you started with something like “start a new business” or “quit my day job”. The problem is these are way too broad. Don’t get us wrong, they aren’t too broad to be attainable, but rather that you won’t know how to get them accomplished. We would make these same mistakes. We are the first to admit that we have “oprah sized goals” and we talk about them a lot, but this is the year that we actually break them down into actionable steps.
We’ve been learning from a pretty smart guy lately named Todd Herman. He’s the creator of the 90 Day Year and the program is pretty amazing. He points out that goals must be set no more than 90 days out otherwise they’re a vision. This explains why we get so overwhelmed with our goals, because they’re just too big and unattainable. We knew we had to break it down further.
So What’s Your Vision?
It’s great to start here! This is usually the fun part. The big dreams of lifestyle changes, connections and influences. This can be your “end game”, but it also needs to include everything outside of the 90 day window. What do you envision you business to be like after the first quarter?
For us here at Think Creative Collective we envision connecting with more influencers by being on podcasts, speaking at events, guest blogging and working out our affiliate program. We see a business with more team members or more work that’s outsourced so we can stay as the creative machines behind the wheel. We want more vacation time and more income for our families. Some of those things we know we can accomplish sooner rather than later so we move those to the front of the line.
How Can You Achieve That With Goals?
To reel in our vision into goals that we can measure and check off we break everything down into steps. What will it take for us to appear on podcasts or speak at an event? What will it take to go on a paid vacation? What will it take to grow your Instagram following to 1k or 10k?
If the task isn’t exactly in the scope of your abilities then make sure you take a step back and have that as your goal. So for example before you run a Facebook ad to grow your email list to 10k you might need to research and learn about high converting Facebook ads.
Break it Down Even Further: Be Super Intentional
We are very intentional about being super specific with the numbers that will get us there. For example we write down exactly who we want to approach about being on their podcasts (bonus points: assign a date to this task). Or if you’re trying to achieve a certain number of products or services sold you might want to grow your list from 300 to 1k.
Remember that goals are actual things that you can check off as “done” so make them specific. We like breaking down goals into quarterly chunks and write down what we want our 12 month goal to be. Then we fill out the rest of the quarters and steps all aimed at getting us to the icing on the cake.
We Made it Easy For You
We know, we know, we know. It’s all great to be intentional about goal setting, but it’s another to follow up with yourself. You want things to be easy and we get it. Wouldn’t it be great to have worksheets designed for you to map out a year in goals, measure out your results month-to-month, and have a daily goal accomplishing push? We created all of that for you (and more)…check it out today!
We believe in your vision, your goals and you. We believe in the power of putting pen to paper and getting all those dreams floating around inside your head into actionable steps.
