Are you an entrepreneur who struggles with setting realistic goals? When setting your business goals do you feel lost without a plan?
Looking back on my journal this time last year I was setting unrealistic goals. My goals were:
1. Gain 50 paying customers
2. Make 55K
3. Leave stable full-time, benefit and pension job
I was dreaming way too small.
Wait, what? Yep. Way to dang small.
What I was failing to do was to visualize my potential for that year. I was failing to realize that if I worked just as hard as I do at my stable job, I could achieve great results in my passion project; results that I hadn't even mustered up enough courage to dream about! Insane.
Let's back track to your 2021 holidays
The struggle in resetting our focus & goal setting
Half-built bridges
So, here we are at a new year, marking the beginning of new goals and new fears that come along with these big audacious goals of ours! Let's go already!
Let's back track to your 2021 holidays
The holidays [more like holi-daze] is such a magical time for reflection and dreaming big for the next year to come.
If you haven't already, ask yourself...
What did I absolutely crush last year?
What could I do better at last year?
What did I totally fail [learn from] last year?
The struggle in resetting our focus & goal setting
This is such a fun and exciting time! Yet, it can be oh so confusing as to figure out what to focus on next, first, last - ugh, my head hurts.
Plus, if you're anything like me, you'll be wanting to do all of the things simultaneously, all the while absolutely doing them extremely well. Not possible. This is exactly why I used to play small with my dreams.
Here was my real life goal setting struggle shown via picture:
It's so easy to have all of these ideas and become a total idea junkie [my personal drug of choice!] but the reality behind this way of operating is that we create all of these half-built bridges which don't lead us to our desired end goal[s]. A mentor once told me it takes on average one fiscal quarter [3 months] to complete big projects thoroughly and with proper execution. The reality with running a business as an entrepreneur, is that we so often wear many hats and it's easy to get bogged down with the tidal wave of work that's barrelling towards us - on the daily.
Without an organized team or proper systems in place, it's almost impossible to properly analyze a project or task, and thus the paralysis of doing nothing at all sets in; or, just as easily, we can fall into the shiny object syndrome and quickly jump ship to the next “shiny” idea [hello more half-built bridges]. How many half-built bridges do you have?
How to execute
1. Make a list. Write it all down all the projects and/or goals. From small to big and audacious [there should be a few of those on there - if not, your goals are NOT big enough].
2. Start numbering and prioritizing them based on two outcomes -- monetary and experience.
Monetary -- what will make you more money? However, not always the priority since we're in the business of servicing our customers.
Experience -- will this improve the overall experience of the customer? Will they be more likely to stay a customer and recommend my business to someone by enhancing their experience?
3. Choose 12. Don't have 12? That's OK -- I can guarantee you'll make up for that shortfall throughout the year.
4.Take your top three and set them as the only projects and/or goals for the next 90 days.
5. Break each one down into bite-sized digestible chunks and assign with due dates to members of your team.
6. Review progress throughout 90 days, assess and adjust as needed.
7. Repeat next quarter with the next 3 priority projects and/or goals.
My promise to you –
Committing to a maximum of three ideas per quarter and working at them will be hard. You'll need to work at them when they're no longer that new exciting idea on the horizon. There will times when working at them is just down right hard. I urge you to persist though. Work at them stubbornly until you see that idea through. Because on the other side of that relentless work is your bridge guiding you towards your goal[s]. And it feels oh so very good! I promise you. And lastly – I lost a friend this past year. He was this young full of life guy, that seriously did not sweat the small or even the big stuff; he simply just got after whatever it was that he wanted to do. I remember being in awe of him so many times thinking - he's so brave! Because of this can do attitude and relentlessness he was also extremely successful. Sometimes it takes loosing somebody or something to knock some sense into us to realize that life is short. I'm here to remind you that it’s OK to make mistakes. The only mistake it's not okay to make is the one where we fail to make decisions in the face of fear or adversity. Do bold things. Be brave. Be relentless. Do big scary things. Set big goals. At the end of the day it’ll be OK.
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In doing hard things,
Jenna
Team StaffNet 😄
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