In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you how to set goals for your business.
I’m also going to give you some step-by-step processes to follow to ensure that when it comes to goal setting, you’re maximising the role of each goal to help you achieve bigger and bigger results.
If that is something you would like to do – you want to up your game when it comes to goal setting – then this is going to be such a powerful episode for you.
Let’s dive on in!
When it comes to goal setting, I find most people fall into one of two camps:
1. They LOVE setting goals. They find it so powerful, focusing and effective. Or,
2. They do NOT like setting goals. It makes them feel yucky and they’d rather just see what happens.
I totally understand why someone might fall into the second camp. Particularly if you’ve had experiences where setting goals feels uncomfortable, it was embarrassing when you didn’t achieve a goal, or it felt really upsetting when you didn’t get anywhere near accomplishing the goal that you set for yourself.
I can understand why there’s so much resistance around setting goals.
However, I also know that overcoming that resistance is the exact mindset breakthrough that takes a lot of people from camp two to camp one.
It creates this big shift.
For most people, the reason why you resist setting goals in the first place is the very resistance that is stopping you from achieving big leaps in your business and your results.
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of sayings about what happens when you set goals for your business… When you write something down, you make it closer to reality, or a goal shared is a goal magnified.
In order for those things to work (ie. when you write down your goal twice a day, you’re more likely to achieve it), you’ve got to overcome the resistance to setting goals in the first place.
The way that you set goals for your business and life can also have a big impact on your level of excitement, the energetic power that that goal creates for you, and your belief in your ability to achieve it.
The process of goal setting can be just as important as the goal itself.
Let’s dive into my five tips on how to set goals for your business. There’s also a little BONUS at the end of this episode that makes goal setting ten times more powerful…
1. Get all of your goals down
Writing business goals in notepad for scaling and growth
One of the things that I know can overwhelm people is that they’ve got so different goals. They have a certain income goal for the week, another for the month, another for the quarter, and so on.
Sometimes carrying all of those goals around in our brain can actually confuse us and defuse the power of the individual goals.
When it comes to goal setting, the first thing I would encourage you to do is get all of the goals down.
You might want to set goals for your business around:
- Income
- Projects
- Launches
- The number of clients you have
- Being awarded for something
- Being selected as a speaker for something
There are a bunch of different goals that we have that are probably just rolling around in your brain.
You might have:
- Business goals
- Health and wellbeing goals
- Goals around the time that you give to your business
- Goals around reducing your expenses
- Lifestyle goals – ie. spending time with family or going to the movies every week (that’s a goal of mine!)
I want you to get all of your goals down.
I love setting a timer and allowing myself the freedom and space to write down all of the goals that I can get down.
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. You may think that’s far too long and you wouldn’t be able to think of that many goals. But when you’ve got to use up the space, all of a sudden more and more of these goals come out.
There will be some things that you didn’t even realise you had as a subconscious goal for a while.
I want you to set yourself a timer and just get it all down.
You might want to go do this right now, or set aside some time to do this later.
Either way, set aside some time or do it now and then come back, and we’ll talk about number two…
2. Separate goal results from goal actions
There’s a difference between wanting to have a $10,000 month, and wanting to record four podcast episodes.
You have direct control over an action. You have indirect control over a result.
I want you to separate them.
In those goals you’ve just written out, you might have two categories for results and actions.
You might have a goal to pitch yourself to be on 20 podcasts. That’s an action.
Alternatively, you might have a goal of being selected to be a guest on 20 podcasts. That’s a result.
You don’t have control over how many people select you to be on their podcast.
You have control over the ACTION that most likely will lead to that result (which is pitching).
Separating your goal results and your actions will help you to get clarity and be clear on what you actually have control and influence over.
When setting goal actions in my business, I deal with them separately from my goal setting exercise. I actually deal with them in my planning.
I’m also a big fan of big goal, small list.
This is something we talk about in the Planning Posse (people who do the Heart-Centred Business Planner with me throughout the year).
This is our mantra for the year: Big goals, small list.
When I say small list, I mean small list of actions.
For most of your goals, there would be three or four very powerful actions that would make that goal most likely to be achieved. Yet, when we set our actions and create our plans, we are making lists of 45-50 things that we need to do in order to achieve that goal.
There are three main reasons why someone would do that are:
- They don’t believe they can get there, so they feel they need to work really hard and set more goal actions. They don’t believe in their core strategy or that they have the skills and capacity to get there just by doing the key actions.
- There are some blocks/barriers around a belief that they have to work hard in order to earn it.
- They see what others are doing and feel that they need to emulate it in order to succeed.
(One thing I want to say about number 3 is that no one else online is doing all the things that you think you need to do. Usually we pluck certain strategies from different people… but we fail to recognise that that person uses this as their key strategy. This means that we are taking on several different KEY strategies without seeing a single strategy through to fruition where we can nail and scale it up as effectively as possible.)
Separate your goal results from your goal actions. Set your actions aside for your planning, and focus on the results as the key goals that you want to focus on.
3. Get specific and focused about where your priorities lie
One of the reasons why we can take away the power of our goals is that we have a bunch of conflicting priorities.
You could have one goal that you want to be able to run 5 km, another goal that you want to make $10,000 this month, another that you want to work less than 20 hours a week, and so on.
A confused mind will say no.
If your mind is confused by your goals, and they seem to be in conflict with each other, then you will likely default to inaction or busy work that doesn’t get you anywhere.
Rather than creating that confusion, narrow down what is most important.
For example, in my quarterly planning process, I have three key goals: my income goal, my list size goal, and the number of hours I’m committing to my business.
I have direct control over the number of hours I put in. But there’s a disconnect sometimes with what I intend to invest in my business and what I end up investing in my business.
I like to keep track of that one as a very high priority goal for me.
I might also have goals around how many people join my Take Off program, but that will ultimately contribute to my income goal.
My income goal is my bigger goal.
When I first started my business, I didn’t focus on my income goal as my number one priority for several months.
Instead, I focused on paying customers.
I didn’t care how much they paid me, I just wanted to work with five paying clients every single week.
That was far more powerful for the stage of business that I was in and the growth and momentum that I wanted to create than some out-of-my-hands income goal that I didn’t actually care about at that point in time.
Yes, it would be lovely. But if I had to choose between having 20 paying clients for the month, or $5,000, I would choose 20 paying clients.
That $5,000 could come from two VIP sales… But does that actually make me feel like my business is creating this amazing snowball of momentum, and it’s going to get big results really quickly and I’m going to be able to scale this up? No.
It wasn’t actually as critical.
My priority was paying clients instead.
There are a lot of times in business where your priority may not be the income goal, it may actually be a number-of-clients goal.
There might be times when it’s more important for you to have a:
- List growth goal
- Followers on social media goal
- Lead conversation goal
There’s no right set of goals for your business.
But what you need to do is really get clear on what the priority is for you, and focus it down to those key goals.
When it’s time for you to set goals for your business, I would say that three key goals is the maximum when it comes to priorities.
Similarly, there are times when my income goal is more important at the yearly level, or when my income goal is more important at the short-term level.
Sometimes when I’m writing down my income goal, it’s a goal for a launch.
I may be launching the Take Off program and want to have a $75,000 launch. That is the goal I am focused on and prioritising.
Yes, I have a monthly income goal. Yes, I have an income goal for the year. But right now, my number one focus is the goal achievement of this launch.
There are times when it’s not necessarily about an individual launch, it’s about a month.
This month, my income goal is $55,555 and that is the thing that I’m focused on.
When it comes to me really focusing on, writing down, and reminding myself of my goals, I know what the goal is I’m focused on right now.
I’m about to start my 100 Days of Progress Art program. It starts on the 1st of June, and for the next 100 days, I will be focused on one goal.
That will be the goal that I write down and track towards every day.
There’s power in deciding what the goal is.
Even if you’ve got your income goal as your top priority, which income goal is the one that you’re focused on?
Instead of confusing yourself and writing down that you want a $10,000 month AND a $20,000 launch AND a $120,000 year (remember that I confused mind say NO), ask yourself: What is the goal that is most powerful, and the priority for me to focus on right now?
Get very specific and prioritise.
I also recommend that you set goals around your health and wellbeing. But again, you need to get very focused on those as well.
In my quarterly plan, I have three key goals for my business, and I also set three goals around inputs and lifestyle (because I find I can’t separate them).
It’s all well and good for me to say that my business is my business and my life is my life. But as a business owner, and as a lifestyle business owner, those things are so incorporated and intrinsic with each other that I actually have them all in the one plan.
That’s my third tip on how to set goals for your business… get specific, focus, and prioritise.
4. Stretch your goal just outside of what feels comfortable
I know that there are different personality types out there. Some people are really motivated by an audacious goal, some people are more motivated by ticking off the little steps along the way and having tiny little milestone goals.
Regardless of which you fall into, there is power in stretching just a little outside that comfort zone.
Allow yourself to tune into what makes that stretch a little bit uncomfortable for you.
There’s power in noticing your thoughts around the stretch.
There’s power in paying attention to why you have a belief that you’re allowed to earn $10,000, but $11,000 is far too much.
What makes that so different when it’s such a nominal little stretch?
When it comes to goal setting, I do like to ensure that I’m giving myself a little bit of a stretch when it comes to the goals that I’m setting for myself.
5. Pay attention to pop-up thoughts and beliefs that come up when writing a goal
This isn’t necessarily around setting the goal itself, but it does start the minute you set the goal.
When you think about achieving that goal, what is the first thing that your inner mentor/critic might say to you? What is the first pop-up thought that comes to mind?
It might be that when you set a stretch income goal, the pop-up thought is that you’ll be far too busy to achieve it.
Maybe you set a goal of growing your list by 1,000 people in the next 90 days, and that makes you feel uncomfortable because you’d be seen by so many people. Or maybe you feel like you won’t be able to find that many people that are interested in your work.
The power of noticing that thought is not to just squash it down.
The power is in being curious about why that thought has popped up, and deciding whether you want to keep it or not.
It’s not just a matter of pushing it down and hoping it doesn’t pop up again.
Look at the pop-up thoughts and beliefs with curiosity. Question where it came from, why you feel that way, what the cause may have been, and whether you want to keep that belief or let it go.
If I decide that it’s something that I want to let go of, I don’t just say that I’ve let it go and believe that it’ll never pop up again.
My EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner, Claire Kerslake, once explained to me that a belief is like a tabletop. It may seem like it’s just popped up, but it’s got four legs holding it up.
Those four legs could be childhood experiences, past failures or embarrassments, family mantras and programming, or your inner child trying to keep you safe from something.
There are a bunch of different sources of those legs underneath that tabletop.
You can tell yourself that you’re just going to get rid of the tabletop, but actually, the most powerful way to clear that and get it out of the way is for you to break the legs…
Understand what the legs are… and release them.
That’s why I am such a fan of paying attention to those pop-up thoughts. Pay attention to that mindset.
I understand that in the moment, deciding that you don’t want that thought taking control right now is a valid approach. However, if it keeps coming up, it’s got some legs. Would you like to just continue seeing the tabletop and telling it to go away? Or would you like to actually get rid of it?
This is where the combination of training your brain, using positive affirmations and powerful rewiring processes can be really helpful. There’s a space for uncovering, clearing and doing the deeper work.
That’s my fifth tip on how to set goals for your business.
Pay attention to those pop-up thoughts and beliefs with curiosity, and make a decision: Is that a thought I want to keep? Or is that one that I want to let go of? Am I going to just try and wipe it away? Or is it time for me to actually understand what the legs are that are holding this belief up?
I’ve also got a BONUS tip for you on how to set goals for your business!
If you’re someone who has goals you want to set for your business but you’re worried that you’re not going to achieve them, or there are lots of pop-up thoughts coming up that you can’t make sense of, my number one tip is to track your progress daily. DAILY!
I recommend you track your progress towards those goals daily because it:
1. Keeps it front of mind
2. Creates time and space every day to notice your pop-up thoughts
3. Allows you to show gratitude for and appreciate every little piece that comes on the way to achieving that goal
What we focus on expands.
It creates this amazing process of snowballing the littlest result.
If you’re working towards an income goal and you find $1 on the street, when you track that dollar and show appreciation to it, you’re snowballing that dollar into more money.
It’s also allowing you to create that consistency of ‘This is how we do it!’.
One of the biggest reasons why people decide that they don’t want to track their income every day is because it makes them sad or it feels uncomfortable. They don’t like tracking a zero every day. It makes them feel gross.
That feeling already exists in you.
The decision to not track your income because there’s no money coming in is already playing with your emotions at the subconscious level.
It’s already snowballing itself as a belief that you can’t make money every day.
Is that a snowball of belief that you want to keep? Or is it one that you want to get rid of?
If you want to get rid of that snowball of belief, your job is to track every $0 day.
That’s how you uncover it, and that’s how you clear it.
That’s how we get rid of the table legs.
That is my extra bonus tip for you: track your income. Every. Single. Day.
Track your progress towards your goals every single day.
If you would like to access my free resource on showing you how to do that, I have a beautiful Progress Art™️ free resource for you.
Progress Art™️ is the step-by-step process that I use to track my income every single day.
You don’t need to love colouring in, you don’t need to be artistic, and you don’t need to think art is a powerful transformative process in order for Progress Art™️ to work for you.
What Progress Art™️ does is it magnifies the consistency with which you track every single day. It’s a consistency builder.
In this free resource, I give you some artworks and tracking sheets that you can use to track towards your goals. PLUS a step-by-step guide on setting and tracking your way to your goals.
Gain access to my Progress Art™️ free resource here: CLICK ME
Make sure you come and share your questions, comments and lightbulb moments over in the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community using #podcastaha and the episode number (305).
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
