In today’s episode, we’re going to answer the question: should I be focused on my short-term goals or my long-term goals?
The answer may be a little different to what you are expecting!
Let’s dive on in…
When it comes to growing your business, setting goals and focusing on them, there are so many options for us. It can be quite confusing to know what types of goals to be setting, and what types of goals to be focused on.
I know that there are people out there who say that they don’t plan for the long-term because it’s too far away and it’s not tangible to them or it doesn’t motivate them. And there are also people who say that they can’t set short-term goals because they end up putting too much pressure on themselves, don’t achieve them and end up feeling disappointed all the time.
Writing long-term goals on page
On the other side, there are also people who love a particular type of goal.
I know for myself, that I love setting money goals and income goals. I love setting them for the very short-term – up to about 30 days – and that’s really where I focus my energy and attention a lot of the time.
But I also don’t want to let go of my bigger goals.
My goal income for 2021 is $1.25 million – the top line income in my business – and I don’t want to lose sight of that goal,
At the same time, I’m not going to make $1.25 million in the next few days. There are things that I need to do for the short-term to bring in the current level of income, but there are also things I need to do to make sure that I’m setting myself up for the larger launches that I want to focus on towards the end of the year that are most likely to contribute to that big financial target.
I understand why it can be a bit confusing to know where to focus your energy and attention.
I regularly say the quote, “The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is that the millionaire writes down their goals once a day, and the billionaire writes down their goals twice a day”. People always wonder what goal.
It’s one of the most common questions that I get from people.
In my Heart-Centred Business Planning system, there’s a space to reconnect with your goals and journal, and people are always asking whether they should be writing down their income goal for the day, week or month, or whether they should be writing down their big goals.
This confusion actually leads to a resistance to paying attention to and connecting with your goals.
We know that in order to achieve those goals and to stay focused on those goals, we want to be connecting with them regularly. Not coming from a negative place where you feel like you have to do it otherwise you’ll be a complete and total failure, but from the space of knowing you need to keep this at the front of your mind.
This is particularly important for womxn in business.
I know there’s a lot of rederick out there about how you shouldn’t be reconnecting with your goals too much, you should just let it happen and not get so attached to the outcomes. But that desire to detach from outcomes and detach from getting excited about your goals can show up as a money block.
It can come from a space of not wanting to focus on your money goals and continuing to just do what you’ve been doing and feeling like whatever you get is fine.
We know that the universe loves specificity, and when it comes to manifesting those goals and getting those results, a consistent connection to your goals is a powerful way to be very specific.
If we think about it in those terms, it can be so confusing… do I want to be specific about my $1.25 million yearly goal? Or do I want to be specific about my $100K goal for the month?
The answer is actually that we need both… but at different times.
Having a short-term goal (and a short-term money goal) keeps it close. It keeps it tangible. You feel like there’s a direct connection between the action you take now and achieving that goal quickly.
For me, my short term goals are generally either a weekly income goal or a monthly income goal.
If I’m in the midst of a launch (like I am right now) then it’s the launch goal.
I have a very specific number in mind that I want to achieve in this launch in terms of the number of people who buy, and therefore the income that this launch will generate.
That is the goal that I’m writing down every day. That is the goal that I’m reconnecting to and ensuring that I’ve got actions every day that are going to be contributing to me achieving that goal.
At the same time, I do have this goal of $1.25 million for the year in my business.
That long-term goal is the goal that ensures I stay consistent and focused on growth, and also focused on activities that are going to look after future Tash.
If I leave the achievement of my $1.25 million year for December Tash to deal with, December Tash is going to be really cranky at January, February and March Tash because I didn’t set her up for success.
I need both my short-term goals AND my long-term goals to ensure I have a balance between those close, tangible and direct actions that contribute to what I want now, and those consistent growth-based setting-up-future-Tash-for-success actions that are going to help me be more likely to achieve that long-term goal as well.
The big thing I want to say here though is that my short-term goal focus is not at the expense of my long-term goals.
Whilst I’m writing down my short-term launch goal every single day right now and I’m very focused on that launch, I also want to make sure that I’m not sacrificing my long-term goal in order to achieve that short-term goal.
Let me give you a little example of this.
In 2017, I set myself short-term goals on a very consistent basis.
One of the ways that I know how I can bring in a cheeky $25,000 in a weekend is by putting on a LadyPosse auction.
Those Ladyposse auctions bring in a bunch of people. I can put some big items up for sale in the auction for myself, and they go for pretty decent prices.
Usually, things sell for about 50-60% of the regular price.
In 2017 and 2018, I ran three auctions each year. Every time I ran an auction, I was putting all of my products in. At the time I had 100 Days of Colour, Courses with Heart, Take Off, the Heart-Centred Business Academy and VIP work with me as my five big things that I’d sell in those auctions.
They sold really well, generated a bunch of excitement, and I could bring in $25,000 in income just for me (plus other people were making sales). In most auctions, we were generating around $50,000 to $70,000 in sales and it was amazing.
But what happened was, for the two or three months after those auctions, my sales of those courses and programs would dry up because I’d started to train my audience that it would always go on auction. There were people who I knew wanted to do the Take Off program, and they were even messaging me and telling me that they were going to join the program, but they were just waiting for the next auction to get it.
I had to draw a line in the sand and be clear that whenever I focused on a short-term goal, I was conscious of not sabotaging my long-term goals as well.
In a nutshell, you want to be focused on both short-term AND long-term goals.
You want to have that long-term goal – that’s the one where I set it, I am not particularly attached to it, I’m not constantly thinking about it, but in my CEO dates with myself at the end of each month and at the start of each quarter, I will make sure I’m on track to that goal and I’ll look for what I need to do in that quarter or month to make sure I am going to be on track for that longer-term goal.
I don’t write that long-term goal down every single day and get really attached and freaked out if I’m not hitting my minimum monthly or my minimum daily income target to be on track to that.
I’m not going crazy over those sorts of things.
All I’m doing in more extended periods of time – monthly and quarterly – is I am consistently coming back to that and just making sure I feel like I’m on track… Are there any changes that I need to make? Do I feel like I’m working up to really building that momentum towards the end of the year?
I do check in with that goal, but it’s not the goal that I write down every single day.
When I’m on hold or am having a chat with Davey, I will reconnect with it and just do a little bit of visualising of what it’s going to feel like when I can see that amount on my profit and loss statement for the year as my top-line income.
I do have little pieces where I’m reconnecting with it, but on a daily basis, I’m connecting to my short-term goal because I know that motivates me and drives me for the activities that I’m doing on that day.
It feels like it’s very tangible, connected and close, and that there’s a direct line of sight between what I’m doing and the achievement of that goal.
I have my long-term goals and I have my short-term goals that I am focused on more consistently. Those short-term bursts I find are so powerful.
Even if I don’t hit those short-term goals, I know that they are stretching my capacity to receive.
They are helping me grow my reach, lead generation, audience, sales and conversion rates, because I can play with business strategies and do my mindset techniques and mindset work that’s going to help me achieve that goal in the short-term.
It is currently February when I’m recording this podcast episode, and an example of a short-term burst for me is that I am doing my 30-Day Business Blast with my students.
30-Day Business Blast is a course that I sell via Udemy.
It is a self-study program that you can join at any time and get started straight away.
There are 30 days of working towards a 30-day goal.
I have my 30-day income goal, and I’m doing that process with my students over the next 30 days because I wanted to have that more committed and dedicated short-term focus.
I wanted to reinvigorate my connection to:
- Setting goals
- Taking those steps to maximise my income
- Doing the powerful mindset practises that I know help me to uplevel and breakthrough that new upper limit that might be coming up for me as I’m growing my capacity to receive
If you would like to try this very powerful 30-day process for under $100, make sure you come and check out the 30-Day Business Blast HERE.
Don’t forget to come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let us know you’ve been reading episode 257, and share what some of your short-term and long-term goals are!
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
