Setting
goals for your business is one of those things we all hear lots about when
we’re setting out as entrepreneurs. Writing a business plan, knowing what
you’ll be doing in 1 year, 5 years – maybe even 10 years time. That’s the right
way to do things, isn’t it? Thinking big! Aiming for the stars!
But when
we’re up to our eye-balls in getting paperwork for tax, attracting our first
clients, watching our finances, learning how to navigate social media and
everything else the shouty world of the internet tells us we need to have to
run a successful business, who has time to set goals?
The
thing is, setting goals for our business is essential to keep moving forward,
boost our confidence and guarantee growth.
Without
goals we’re all just paddling along doing the same old things, wondering why
it’s (often) not working.
Here are
my top 3 tips when it comes to setting goals as a health entrepreneur:
Start
small when you’re at the beginning
I
recently wrote a blog post about how when I started my business I tried
to follow the age-old advice of planning my whole year and setting income
targets for myself every month.
Needless
to say, not having a clue what I was going into, I completely failed to meet my
self-imposed targets by month two and ended up feeling totally deflated. Not
exactly like a successful entrepreneur.
No matter
what anyone else tells you when you are in the early days of your business, if
everything seems new and constantly changing, try setting yourself 30 day goals, instead of 365 day
ones.
This
means that you can constantly evolve and move with what’s happening, and take
things at your own pace. Rather than expecting yourself and your business to
know what a whole year is going to look like on Day 1.
For
example in Month 1 I set myself four goals:
- Get 50 sign ups in my new Facebook group (all health and wellness entrepreneurs
welcome!)
- Finish two resource videos to help
my audience
- Secure one more speaking
engagement to spread brand awareness
- Book three clients
These
were small, manageable goals and each day I could check back in to see what I
was focusing on and whether I was taking action to move towards achieving these
goals.
Which
leads us neatly on to….
Break
your goals down into easy to do tasks
Let’s
take one of my goals as an example.
Writing
down “book three clients” on my to-do list wasn’t going to make me very
productive. My brain would totally see an enormous and overwhelming task like
that on my list and immediately send me to browse around on Instagram and faff
around reorganise folders on my computer instead of taking action.
Yup – a big task like “book 3 clients” would bring out my Instant Gratification
Monkey. If you haven’t heard of the Instant Gratification Monkey you need to
get on over to this blog post from Tim Urban at Wait But Why.
In order
to take small actions that were going to add up to achieving my goal, I needed
to break down the big task into smaller ones. Then I could look at my list and
pick something small and manageable each day, which I knew was going to move me
towards my overall aim.
Taking
“book three clients” and breaking it down could look like this:
- Write to 5 people I know to ask
for a referral
- Design some promotional graphics
to put on my Instagram Stories
- Promote my coaching services on my
Facebook page
- Send an email to my mailing list
about my coaching services
- Direct Message 3 people on
Instagram to offer them a coaching package
Don’t let
the Instant Gratification Monkey distract you from the task in hand. Break
things down into little do-able tasks that you can happily tick off with that
immense feeling of satisfaction. That’s what achieving goals is really about.
Make
time to review your goals
Setting
goals and taking action really doesn’t amount to much if you don’t schedule in
some time to step back and assess how it went.
At the
end of each month (or whatever period you’re working to) it’s essential to make
time to reflect on whether you achieved your goals and really look at the
actions you took. Doing this will help you make a decision about how to move
forward into the next month or goal setting period.
For
example with my goal of booking three clients – if I hit the target, then I can
take stock of the actions I took and replicate most, if not all of them, the
next month to try and repeat the same success.
I should
also take a bit of time to think about how the month went with this goal. Perhaps
the goal was too easy? How did it feel? Shall I aim for the same next month, or
push myself to go for 5?
If I
didn’t book the target number of clients – why not? What actions worked and
secured clients? Which ones felt like a waste of time? What were the tasks I
didn’t do that would probably have got me better results? How can I overcome my
fears or break down tasks further to take more action?
If we
don’t do this sort of assessment, we run the risk of just repeating over and
over the same sort of activities that aren’t getting us anywhere. Whilst
reflecting and assessing might feel like a distraction for the ‘real work’,
it’s actually essential to setting more goals and writing better to-do lists
each day.
It’s also
really important to review because if we achieve our goals then we can and should
celebrate!
Celebrating
and rewarding ourselves reinforces in our brains that there is a positive
outcome from all the hard work and pushing out of our comfort zone. Without
that reward, why would we keep doing it?
Find a
way to reflect and celebrate your hard work. In my Facebook group for health and wellness
entrepreneurs we have Celebrate
The Wins Wednesday posts where we can share those results together, feel free to join us if you’d like a
supportive community to celebrate with.
What do
you think? Will these tips help you set goals in your business?
If you’re
still struggling to get started download my Just Start Now Checklist
of 10 things you can take action on immediately to get your business going.
BIO
Vicky Shilling is a coach, helping wellness
industry entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into reality. Find out more
about Vicky, dig into her extensive set of resources www.vickyshilling.com
Setting goals for your business is one of those things we all hear lots about when we’re setting out as entrepreneurs. Writing a business plan, knowing what you’ll be doing in 1 year, 5 years – maybe even 10 years time. That’s the right way to do things, isn’t it? Thinking big! Aiming for the stars!
But when
we’re up to our eye-balls in getting paperwork for tax, attracting our first
clients, watching our finances, learning how to navigate social media and
everything else the shouty world of the internet tells us we need to have to
run a successful business, who has time to set goals?
The
thing is, setting goals for our business is essential to keep moving forward,
boost our confidence and guarantee growth.
Without
goals we’re all just paddling along doing the same old things, wondering why
it’s (often) not working.
Here are
my top 3 tips when it comes to setting goals as a health entrepreneur:
Start
small when you’re at the beginning
I
recently wrote a blog post about how when I started my business I tried
to follow the age-old advice of planning my whole year and setting income
targets for myself every month.
Needless
to say, not having a clue what I was going into, I completely failed to meet my
self-imposed targets by month two and ended up feeling totally deflated. Not
exactly like a successful entrepreneur.
No matter
what anyone else tells you when you are in the early days of your business, if
everything seems new and constantly changing, try setting yourself 30 day goals, instead of 365 day
ones.
This
means that you can constantly evolve and move with what’s happening, and take
things at your own pace. Rather than expecting yourself and your business to
know what a whole year is going to look like on Day 1.
For
example in Month 1 I set myself four goals:
- Get 50 sign ups in my new Facebook group (all health and wellness entrepreneurs
welcome!)
- Finish two resource videos to help
my audience
- Secure one more speaking
engagement to spread brand awareness
- Book three clients
These
were small, manageable goals and each day I could check back in to see what I
was focusing on and whether I was taking action to move towards achieving these
goals.
Which
leads us neatly on to….
Break
your goals down into easy to do tasks
Let’s
take one of my goals as an example.
Writing
down “book three clients” on my to-do list wasn’t going to make me very
productive. My brain would totally see an enormous and overwhelming task like
that on my list and immediately send me to browse around on Instagram and faff
around reorganise folders on my computer instead of taking action.
Yup – a big task like “book 3 clients” would bring out my Instant Gratification
Monkey. If you haven’t heard of the Instant Gratification Monkey you need to
get on over to this blog post from Tim Urban at Wait But Why.
In order
to take small actions that were going to add up to achieving my goal, I needed
to break down the big task into smaller ones. Then I could look at my list and
pick something small and manageable each day, which I knew was going to move me
towards my overall aim.
Taking
“book three clients” and breaking it down could look like this:
- Write to 5 people I know to ask
for a referral
- Design some promotional graphics
to put on my Instagram Stories
- Promote my coaching services on my
Facebook page
- Send an email to my mailing list
about my coaching services
- Direct Message 3 people on
Instagram to offer them a coaching package
Don’t let
the Instant Gratification Monkey distract you from the task in hand. Break
things down into little do-able tasks that you can happily tick off with that
immense feeling of satisfaction. That’s what achieving goals is really about.
Make
time to review your goals
Setting
goals and taking action really doesn’t amount to much if you don’t schedule in
some time to step back and assess how it went.
At the
end of each month (or whatever period you’re working to) it’s essential to make
time to reflect on whether you achieved your goals and really look at the
actions you took. Doing this will help you make a decision about how to move
forward into the next month or goal setting period.
For
example with my goal of booking three clients – if I hit the target, then I can
take stock of the actions I took and replicate most, if not all of them, the
next month to try and repeat the same success.
I should
also take a bit of time to think about how the month went with this goal. Perhaps
the goal was too easy? How did it feel? Shall I aim for the same next month, or
push myself to go for 5?
If I
didn’t book the target number of clients – why not? What actions worked and
secured clients? Which ones felt like a waste of time? What were the tasks I
didn’t do that would probably have got me better results? How can I overcome my
fears or break down tasks further to take more action?
If we
don’t do this sort of assessment, we run the risk of just repeating over and
over the same sort of activities that aren’t getting us anywhere. Whilst
reflecting and assessing might feel like a distraction for the ‘real work’,
it’s actually essential to setting more goals and writing better to-do lists
each day.
It’s also
really important to review because if we achieve our goals then we can and should
celebrate!
Celebrating
and rewarding ourselves reinforces in our brains that there is a positive
outcome from all the hard work and pushing out of our comfort zone. Without
that reward, why would we keep doing it?
Find a
way to reflect and celebrate your hard work. In my Facebook group for health and wellness
entrepreneurs we have Celebrate
The Wins Wednesday posts where we can share those results together, feel free to join us if you’d like a
supportive community to celebrate with.
What do
you think? Will these tips help you set goals in your business?
If you’re
still struggling to get started download my Just Start Now Checklist
of 10 things you can take action on immediately to get your business going.
BIO
Vicky Shilling is a coach, helping wellness
industry entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into reality. Find out more
about Vicky, dig into her extensive set of resources www.vickyshilling.com