Goal Setting 101

It’s almost the new year!! Can you believe that? I definitely can’t. March seemed never ending but then suddenly we blinked and here we are. While there are are a lot of things that you can do at the end of the year to start 2021 off strong, goal setting is one of the best things that you can do if you want to truly grow your business next year.

One of the very first things that we did when starting our business, way back when it was a side hustle, was to set goals for ourselves. It’s been a part of our monthly and yearly rhythm from the very beginning to have things to strive towards as well as a way to look back at how far we’ve come. We both say that this ritual has been essential to our success and growth. The goals that you set will be very specific to your company, but we’re excited to share our process with you and inspire you to implement goal setting into your business. We’re confident that setting the right goals and tracking them throughout the year will help you not only to grow more, but to actually see your growth and have a reason to celebrate.

One note - this process does not need to happen at the beginning of the year. While taking the time at the end of each year to evaluate your progress is super helpful, if you’re reading this in July, you can take these principles and start now. If you want to make this a yearly practice then just make goals for whatever amount of time you have left in the year and then set yearly goals come December. The important thing is to start and not let anything keep you from making progress!

So why is it important to set goals?

goals help you see your growth

A lot of growth is slow. There are times where companies blow up overnight, but typically that isn’t the case. Most businesses are built one client, one social media follower, one idea at a time. We actually think that in a lot of cases slow growth is better growth, it’s often more organic and lasting. Sometimes when growth is too fast or explosive it can be hard for companies to scale and keep up without fizzling out. We think that instead of just celebrating businesses that explode, we should also celebrate slow, steady growth that will make a difference over time.

The downside is that usually when you’re growing slowly, it can be hard to actually see that growth. It’s like that measuring chart your mom had up on the wall when you were a kid - a year would go by and you wouldn’t feel any taller, but the chart would prove otherwise. Having goals that you review regularly will allow you to actually measure your growth and see just how far you’ve come.

goals will motivate you

If you’re not able to see if the work that you’re putting into your business is actually doing anything, it’ll be hard to stay motivated to keep going. Having goals will give you something to work towards while taking time to look back and actually see growth will motivate you to keep pushing because you know that your effort is paying off. Without goals it can feel like you’re just constantly swimming upstream without a specific direction and never making any progress.

goals will help you see problem areas

Setting goals will help you to see areas of struggle in your business. For example, maybe you’re never able to meet your financial goals, or maybe your website views never increase. Tracking all aspects of your business will help to see if it’s time to make changes, outsource, or get some advice. We all have weaknesses, and oftentimes we can be blind to them. Your goals will be like a spotlight pointing straight at what you need to improve or change.

goals will help you get new ideas

Some of our best ideas for additional revenue streams, products, or something new to try out in our business have come through our goal setting and/or reviewing sessions. Looking at your business from a bird’s eye view and then zooming in will help you to see new areas that you could monetize, or maybe inspire a new project. You’ll get a fresh look at what’s working, and often this perspective can be super inspiring. Since you’ll also be seeing problem areas, you’ll be forced to come up with creative solutions for what isn’t working right now.

goals will help you see what should be on your to-do list

Having goals to refer back to will help you when you’re making your to-do list each day. You’ll want to check your list against your goals to help you decide if each task is helping you move towards your objectives. If a task is not related to a goal, then maybe it doesn’t belong on your list, or maybe it’s the last priority. You have limited time, especially as a business owner, and prioritizing your to-dos will help you to work more efficiently and be more successful over time.

We like to color code our tasks based on the category of goals that they fall into. This way we can quickly see if there’s anything that doesn’t help us move towards our objectives. It also helps us prioritize tasks that are goal-realated since some goals will have a higher priority over others. We’ll dive more into this a little later, but eliminating anything that doesn’t move you towards your long term goals is a game-changer for your business.

goals will help you accomplish things you never thought possible

Ok, ok yes this sounds super cheesy. But it’s true!! If we hadn’t set goals and then come up with very specific plans on how to achieve them, we never would have launched a podcast, created passive income streams, and hit 10K on Instagram. Truly all of these things were the result of our goal-setting process. I do want to mention that there are definitely goals that we didn’t meet for lots of different reasons, but the majority of the successes we’ve had in our business have been because we have throughly planned and tracked every step.

goals will help you have a reason to celebrate

We could all use more reasons to celebrate! As we mentioned, a lot of growth is slow, and if you don’t have a record of it then it can be hard to see that you were even growing. When you’re tracking your progress, you can look back and say, “dang, I’ve actually come a long way!” This gives you a reason to celebrate and feel accomplished every time you meet a goal, and it will help you to see your success, not just the areas where you’re struggling. As business owners we tend to be really hard on ourselves and forget just how incredible it is that we’re doing so many different things all on our own.

We’ve talked about goals in the past and shared a little about the different objectives that we’ve set. You can read those posts here, and here. However, this year we decided to dive way deeper and not only share some of the goals that we set, but take you into our process so that you can apply it as well! This started as a blog post but I got carried away and made it into a download that you can purchase along with a strategy document and goal tracker that you can customize with your own goals. These templates are fairly simple but trust me that if you apply the things that are laid out in the workbook you will see an incredible amount of growth!

Here’s what you’ll get in the download:

*A fun workbook with fillable fields to help you define your goals and vision and clickable links to over 60 of our other favorite resources
*A printer friendly version of the workbook in case your more of the pencil type
*A goal tracking spreadsheet
*A document for creating your strategy

The workbook will guide you through how you should go about setting goals, coming up with your company vision and long term plan, examples of goals you could set, tips for sticking to them and celebrating as well as a ton of resources to help you in this new year.

We hope that this helps you grow by leaps and bounds in 2021!

Is it the weekend yet?

Elle