Take a leap with your goals this year!
I love the beginning of the year because it’s the time for planning. As one year ends and another begins, I get to spend time with my mentors, my team, and my clients strategizing and setting goals. There’s such promise involved with these projections for the new year and that promise breeds amazing energy.
It can however also breed a bit of fear. Don’t worry, if you’ve set your goals to encourage you to stretch in the coming year, you’re bound to be a little scared.
So let’s look at a 3 things you can do to make those goals seem less daunting.
1) Break them down
Whenever you feel overwhelmed by your long term goals, take some time to break them down into more manageable pieces. Let’s look at a yearly sales goal. Rather than looking at the big, scary number, consider breaking it down into quarters, or months, or even weeks. So instead of thinking, my sales goal is $100,000 for 2014 look at a smaller increment. That breaks down into $25,000 per quarter or $8333 per month. Those numbers can seem more attainable and mindset is often a huge component of reaching your goals.
2) Take action every day
Pick a few tasks that will get you closer to your goals to focus on. This could be following up with leads or working on your low hanging fruit list. Or it could be networking or building your community. Not every action has to lead to direct sales but there should be some correlation to increasing your sales at the end of the day. Some people find it helpful to pick a number like 3 and always make sure they do 3 actions a day that will bring them closer to their goal. Others find it helpful to think of it as units of time – say 1 hour a day is always devoted to attaining their goals. Whatever works for you is good, but it needs to be consistent because that’s what will help you reach your goal at the end of the year.
3) Find the support you need
When we pick those stretch goals, it can be easy to get lost in the stress of the hustle and bustle to get things done. Sometimes what we really need to do is to stop and think about the support we need to make them happen. It could be something as simple as outsourcing your calendar or your initial consult process. Or, it could mean you need to invest the time and energy into your skills. Think about what you’ve been putting off or meaning to do to help your business grow, and do that one thing! Then, see if there’s one more thing you can get support on because getting it will help you grow in other ways that will lead to your goals.
Goals don’t have to be scary and they don’t have to be stressful. Take some time to sit down with your goals and see how you can make them happen. Comment below on what works for you.
