SDH 456: Mid-Year Goal Reset with Amanda Boleyn
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Hey friends! Today on the podcast I want to talk to you about a fun topic that I absolutely love: goal setting. As we are coming up on the half-way mark for 2021 it’s the perfect time to dive into this topic. In this episode, I’m going to talk about the exact process of setting goals and using results planning to guarantee you get those results.
When it comes to goal setting, there is the process (tactical) side and then the emotional side. The tactical side is reviewing results, planning your goals, creating massive action lists, putting your activities on your calendar and executing. The emotional side of goal setting is...our thoughts, the feelings that drive our actions in how we set goals, and how we think about our goals and the results we create.
Tactical (Actionable) Steps
Reflect on the results you have created thus far in 2021. These results will be facts. For example, the amount of money you made, the size of your email list, the number of clients you have or have worked with.
Decide the one main goal you want to achieve by the end of 2021. If you’re already in business, I recommend making it a financial goal.
Then break your one main goal into 6 mini goals, one for each month that will help you achieve your main goal.
Create a massive action list.
Schedule and plan your results on your calendar.
Execute.
Emotional Steps
When you reflect on your goals, do it from a clean and neutral place. Maybe you hit the goals you set out for yourself at the beginning of 2021 - amazing. Maybe you didn’t - that’s okay. You want to avoid judgment, shame, frustration on the results you achieved or didn’t achieve. For example, let’s say you set a financial goal that you didn’t hit, rather than shaming or judging yourself for not hitting your goal (which will cause you to think negative, non-supportive thoughts), we want to remain as neutral as possible during this step. It is important to set your future goals from a clean place and not carry emotions that don’t benefit you.
Decide the one main goal you want to achieve by the end of 2021. If you’ve already launched your business, I recommend making it a financial goal. I recommend setting one that inspires you and stretches you. One that gets you excited about the next 6 months but doesn’t overwhelm you at the same time.
Then break your one main goal into 6 mini goals, one for each month that will help you achieve your main goal. Here you might use a tool that I call “timeline tool.” When you’re starting out building your business, you don’t have as much evidence or track record to plan the future with. When this happens, attempting to plan in detail the next 6 months or 12 months can be overwhelming and leave you feeling uncertain. Anytime you experience that, I recommend bringing the timeline in closer to you. Here, you know what your goal is at the end of 2021 but rather than trying to plan a mini goal for each month, start with the next 30 days and trust that at the end of the 30 days, you’ll know how to plan the next 30 days. For some of you, you’ll know the focus for the next 6 months and some of you won’t. That is okay, nothing has gone wrong. Meet yourself where you are.
Create a massive action list. Let’s say you’ve decided on your mini-goal for the month ahead. Create a massive action list of everything you need to do in order to achieve the goal you set out for yourself.
Schedule and plan your results on your calendar. When you do this, focus on what you’re going to produce, not just do.
Execute. You can do all the other steps in the planning process but if you don’t take action, you will not produce the results you desire nor achieve your goals. If you have activities scheduled on your calendar but not taking action there could be a few different things at play:
Is what is on your calendar specific enough for your brain to easily take action?
Time of day
Need to create a track record of success
Identify supporting thoughts which I’m going to dive into in just a moment
Now that you know the results you’ve created thus far, let’s shift and focus on who you want to be, who is your future self? Take space and time to vision who your future self is (what does her life look like, how does she feel, what is she thinking?). If you’re not used to doing this exercise it may feel a little uncomfortable at first and your brain may resist the idea of you creating any life that you want but I promise you that the more you practice invision and getting to know your future self the more it will come naturally. For this step you want to really tap into the emotions of what she feels on a regular basis. If at any point you do feel heavy resistance, zoom out, get less specific.
The last step is to create a list of thoughts to think on purpose. Decide your top 3 feelings you want to feel on purpose that allows you to take action so that you produce your results. Next, create a list of thoughts to think that generate that feeling.
If you want to feel confident, you could think:
“I know what I’m doing.” “I can handle anything.” “I can do hard things.”
The more supportive thoughts you have listed out the more you can pull from when you need them.
For example, going back to the execution step, maybe you’re not taking action because you’re thinking about how tired you are after working a full day at your corporate job. How can you replace that thought with a supporting thought that inspires you to get motivated? What thoughts do you want to think on purpose when you run into a roadblock as you build your business (whether it be tech not working, no one signing up for your offers)?
A Final Note
Anticipate and expect challenges and problems along the way. Plan ahead of time how you want to think about the problems and challenges. Will you make them mean that you’re not cut out to do what you’re doing OR will you accept them as part of the process and press on? Remember that problems are forever and you’ll learn how to navigate them.
The future only exists in your mind and you can either create your future from your future or from your past. Your brain loves to create from your past because of what it already knows.
Finally, Have fun. If you wait to have fun until you reach a certain milestone you will always be waiting. Don’t wait for a condition to be fulfilled in order to be a certain way. Behave a certain way regardless of the external circumstance and that is how you become your future self.
Until next time, friends, keep doing it your way!
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