Episode #151: The problem with goal setting
Y’all know I love goal setting, I love systems and automation, I love business models and productivity, but time and time again I see a HUGE gap in the coaching industry.
And really it’s two things:
The actual goal setting process
AND the self-accountability to those goals that you set
It’s not that your goals or bad or you have bad intentions when you set them, it’s that for so many of us we don’t understand what it actually takes to accomplish those goals. We know on a superficial level, as in I need to sell 10 spots in my course to create my first $10K month, but that’s it. Oftentimes we don’t go deeper. And I see it in myself, I see it in my clients, and so I figure if this is something I’m seeing as often as I see it, it needs to be addressed.
In today’s episode I want to talk about goal setting and holding yourself to those goals and what self-accountabiltiy actually looks like.
Let’s first talk about the main problems I see when goals are set.
#1 problem with your goal: The goals aren’t realistic.
I’m a BIG fan of BIG goals. I believe that massive change can happen pretty quickly with the right work in place. BUT, and this is a HUGE but, figuring out what that works looks like may take some pretty serious trial and error to get there. You might see the people in the online space having 6-figure launches and making it seem so freaking easy. Or the people who book out their 1:1 services in their first week of business. That’s great and it only shows you what’s possible, so if you’re feeling triggered by other people’s success, know that their success is only proof that it is possible for you.
But, the reality of that situation is that you don’t know the work that went in to make that happen for them. You’re not behind the scenes with them. All of that stuff you’re experiencing, they’ve probably experienced, plus more. I truly believe that the most successful entrepreneurs, you know the ones that you look up to, are just too gosh darn stubborn to give up. So they fail, and they learn from their failures, and then they retry, and then retry, and then retry over and over again. Until they get it “right”.
While big things can happen and WILL happen in your business, your goal should not only be actually attainable, so when you accomplish it, you not only feel satisfied, but also really friggin’ proud.
Which brings me to my next point.
#2 problem with your goal: You don’t have the back-end work in place to make it happen.
Yes, you can set the intentions and do the mindset work around your goal, which needs to happen (I’m not discounting that at all), but if you don’t have the actual stuff in the background to make this happen, it’s not going to happen.
Let’s say you want to have a $10K launch for your course, you’ve had a $5K launch before but that launch totally burnt you out. So clearly you had a successful launch, the launch is proven and the product is validated, so it’s time to dig deep. Do you need more numbers? Or do you need to introduce some automation into the on-boarding process? Do you need to have the emails pre-written and scheduled? Facebook Ads to get you the numbers you need?
It’s time to reverse engineer your previous launch and figure out how you can support this next launch in a bigger way to get those bigger results.
Whatever you have going on in your business, if you want to magnify it, you have to do it differently. Meaning you NEED to have the stuff in place to bring you to the next level. The action that got you to that first level will not be the action that gets you to that next level.
Is is scary? Heck yes!
Is it guaranteed to work? Absolutely not.
But the only way you will figure out what the support that you need actually looks like, is by doing it and seeing how it goes. There’s no blueprint for YOUR business. YOUR business is just that, YOURS. And it has to actually work for YOU.
#3 problem with your goal: It’s centered around someone else’s action
Selling 10 spots in your course sounds amazing, but I am actually going to advise you to rethink that goal. And here’s why. You are responsible for your goals, no one else. And so your goal being dependent on someone else taking action is a problem. You can’t force anyone to do anything.
So instead of a sales goal, I’d consider changing your goal to be dependent on your action. So what does that look like for you?
I’ll share an example from my business:
Something that I’ve been focusing on as I launch the Legacy Mastermind for 2020 is talking about Legacy Mastermind every single day on my Instagram Stories. I get a lot of traction over there and I find it to be the place where I connect the most with my audience. Plus, I find them to be a lot of fun!
Something else that I’m doing is emailing my list every Wednesday about the Mastermind. I’m tracking the people who click the sales page and I’ll be sending them extra emails as the cart comes to a close. And, this is the part that makes me really happy, all of those emails are scheduled through the end of the year. Which means I’m freed up to do that active work, like Instagram Stories.
So while, yes, I’d LOVE to get 20 women in the program this year, that’s not my goal. That’s the residuals of the action I take. My goal is having genuine conversations, building program awareness, and connecting with my audience around topics that we cover in Legacy Mastermind consistently. And so everyday in my Full Focus Planner one of my daily big 3’s is talking about Legacy Mastermind on my social media platforms, especially Instagram Stories.
#4 problem with your goal: It’s not YOUR goal
Oftentimes we chase after goals that we think we want instead of the goals that we actually want. For the longest time in my business, I thought that I was supposed to want to be a digital nomad. After all our businesses give us that freedom, right?! We can literally work from anywhere as long as we have wifi. So why wouldn’t we want to travel 24/7? And I would set this as my goal but it never really felt amazing. I thought there was something wrong with me! I wanted to travel more, so why wasn’t this incredibly exciting to me?
Eventually I had to come to a conclusion on this, because every time I would write this down or say it out loud I wouldn’t get excited. It felt like more of a burden. Yeah, I want to travel, but I want to travel on my terms and be disconnected from my work so that I can actually enjoy the travel. I don’t want to have to worry about finding a cafe with internet to take client calls or record a podcast episode. And if I’m being totally honest, I don’t want to always travel with my kids. That sounds super stressful to me. I want to travel for pleasure, not because it’s a part of my actual life. I think it’s healthy to get away and enjoy other cultures, but also to have a home base. That appeals to me.
Maybe you want to have that $10K month, but you don’t want to have a $50K month. That sounds super stressful to you. You want to live comfortably, but you’re not interested in becoming a millionaire. Your “more” looks like more snuggles and home cooked meals made from organic ingredients. Not nanny’s and babysitters and personal chefs and nights out.
So whatever your goal is, it needs to actually be YOUR goal.
#5 problem with your goal: you let yourself off the hook
This is where self-accountability comes into play.
The goals you set are essentially promises you make to your family, your community, but most importantly to yourself.
And we all do this, so if this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable, it’s time to lean in and really dive deep here. So oftentimes when we realize we’re not going to hit our goal, or things just aren’t going our way, we pull back. We tell ourselves the story that it’s ok to not hit our goals and we start to make excuses as to why its not going to happen.
We need to treat ourselves with kindness, but this is also an opportunity to lean in.
If something isn’t going your way, this is the opportunity to change it. This is the opportunity to 10x your efforts, instead of shrinking back into what’s comfortable. It’s the time to do the thing that scares you, but that might produce the best results. We all know what that thing is, but are we willing to actually do it?
It’s ok to not hit your goals, but it’s not ok to let yourself off the hook and to tell yourself some crazy story about why it didn’t happen.
Every time you let yourself off the hook, you’re lying to yourself. And week after week, month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year, those lies start to add up! And you start to not trust yourself. And y’all if you can’t trust yourself, who can? It’s a slippery slope that can and will pop up in many parts of your life, not just your business.
You have to get to a point where you know that you’re capable of doing whatever it is that you set out to do, and part of that is holding yourself to your promises that you make.
An example from my own life:
I committed to working out 3 days a week starting in September. And I kept it up for 6 weeks. I was starting to feel stronger, more awake, I was sleeping better, my energy was more consistent throughout the day, and my posture was improving.
If you don’t know this about me, know this, I have TERRIBLE posture and after 35 years my body is finally revolting against the position I’ve put myself in. I have been dealing with some pretty intense back pain and a pinched nerve that sends shooting pain down my left arm and out my middle finger. Nerve pain is next level pain. So as a result of that, I’m in chiropractic care weekly, have crazy posture strengthening exercises I’m supposed to do, so for me, improving my posture was a huge win.
And then life happened. My husband took an unexpected road trip across the country with his brother to help him move to Colorado. So my 6:00 am workouts had to temporarily stop during that time, since there was no one to watch the kiddos. But during that time I didn’t adjust my schedule to prioritize my workouts. So they stopped. Which meant I wasn’t sleeping as well, which meant I turned to sugar and caffeine, which meant that my energy was all over the place, which meant that my mood was all over the place, which meant that my anxiety was all over the place.
See how this one small thing, snowballed into this thing that took over my life?
Plus, and this is the BIG part, I broke that promise I made to myself. I let myself down. And that made me question if these lifestyle changes were actually sustainable.
Part of this is I need to have a back up in place, and not fly by the seat of my pants. Because that clearly doesn’t work. And the other part of this is I need to be committed to actually bettering myself, even when it gets inconvenient and hard. Because the minute it got hard, I stopped.
So whatever your promise is that you make to yourself, keep it. Regardless of what happens in your life. You’re the loudest voice in your head, that internal dialogue needs to be one of trust and love, not of failure and judgement.
One of the changes we’re making in Legacy Mastermind this year is of accountability. This is a subtle shift, but a shift nonetheless within our group calls. I’m actually calling them group accountability calls in 2020, instead of group coaching calls which is what I’ve called them for the past two years, because that’s really the main focus. The calls aren’t going to necessarily be coaching sessions (coaching will be included if that’s what’s needed at the time), but rather a transition to focusing on goals and the action behind those goals. We’ll dive deep into what you’re going to do to accomplish a particular goal of yours and what that might look like for you, specifically. Through a shared Trello board and our Facebook Group, you’ll work through the action, if it worked, what to do if it didn’t work, and even what’s blocking you from taking the action required to accomplish the goal. I’ve been experimenting with this subtle shift in Q4 this year with the current Legacy Mastermind-ers, and they’ve really gotten a lot out of it. So I’m excited to introduce this into the 2020 round of Legacy Mastermind.
Just a reminder, doors are open now for the Mastermind. If you’re looking to create a 6-figure business on your terms in 2020, then this is the Mastermind for you. It’s pretty simple! You can learn more about the program and book a call to chat with my team to work through if the Legacy Mastermind makes sense for you, your business, and your goals for 2020 by clicking here.
RESOURCES:
If you have a clear vision for a 6-figure business in 2020 but aren’t sure of the HOW, then the Legacy Mastermind might be a great fit for you! Enrollment is now open for 2020. Learn about the program and check out November’s enrollment bonuses here
Discover the action behind your goals through the Full Focus Planner
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