How To Find YOUR Business Goals For The New Year
93% of people can’t translate goals into actions if the goals are irrelevant to them.
So OF COURSE it makes sense that you wouldn’t just pick goals from a grab-bag and try to reach them.
You need to have some interest in them, which is why only you can set your own goals in life, and in business.
So how do you find YOUR business goals?
Like, the ones that are really yours? Not the ones that anyone else tells you that you need to do, and not the ones you found on some Pinterest list (don’t get me wrong I love Pinterest) – but the ones that are uniquely yours, that have purpose and strategy built into them?
It is said that, “Entrepreneurs that develop a map to reach an achievement or overcome indecision are compelled to take action.”
If you’re not someone who is used to setting goals, or you’re new in business, or you feel like you can’t seem to slow down to even think about goals or where you’re spending your time to know if it’s actually worth it – this is for you.
BTW, I have two things for you:
First, my freebie: The Brand Habits Stack, which is your guide to get and keep a consistent brand (especially if that is one of your goals). Head to here to get yours.
Second: My most FAVORITE planner has given me a 10% off code just for YOU. Head to culticatewhatmatters.com/designwithclarissa and use the code: DESIGNWITHCLARISSA
Cultivate What Matters Goal Planners have been my go-to for years now, and they of course also offer daily planners, habit trackers, notebooks, accessories and one of my personal favorites, Write The Word notebooks. They’ve launched their new collection – which always sells out fast – so snag yours using my link and code in the show notes!
My Goal-Setting Story
Alright, to get this party started I wanted to share a bit of my goal-setting background:
I would say I’m kind of a serial goal-setter. Even when I was young, I was always motivated by setting goals and having something to look forward to.
But, I never really had a process. I’d write some things down, and then meander around and try to figure out how to make them happen.
I’d of course go out and grab a cute notebook or planner to help, but I didn’t really assign action items to my goals, or break them down, or have any frameworks to go by.
However, over recent years, I’ve fine-tuned my process with the help of some great tools.
I started listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos about goal-setting. I tried a LOT of different tips and tools, and I even tried to start my own stationery company because I couldn’t find anything that was exactly right for me.
I finally came across the PowerSheets Goal Planner from Cultivate What Matters, and I was able to use their system to figure out how to set goals, track them, and accomplish them in a timely manner.
I learned what works for me and what doesn’t, and what keeps me motivated and what doesn’t.
So for you, whether you’re new to goal-setting, or whether you’ve been doing it for a while, figuring out the processes, frameworks, tips and tools that work best for YOU is really the key here.
Rather than tell you what goals to set or give you ideas for goals, I wanted to share what’s worked for me, especially when it comes to setting BUSINESS goals, in hopes of helping you and inspiring you with your own goal-setting journey.
Now, I could do a whole deep dive off the cliff about how, in order to even set business goals, you need a Purpose and Vision and “Why” behind your brand – but for the sake of getting straight to it, I’m going to assume you have all of that figured out already. You know what your business is, who you serve, and why.
So, what should your goals be for the next year? Here are the steps I follow:
Step #1: Braindump First
You have to get any and every idea out of your head and onto paper.
This is really the only way that this works.
You need to write everything down so that you can move forward.
Maybe this doesn’t sound appealing to you, especially if you’ve never done it before. But I’ll tell you, I think this is the most fun part of the process, because I can just dream big and go crazy and write everything out that I think I want to do in the next year.
I can also write goals for the next 3 and 5 years too, if I wanted. I know that’s kind of a jump, so we’re not going to get into that, but you can definitely use this process for that if you wanted.
For now, we’re just going to talk about the next year. So the first step is to BRAINDUMP in a simple document like Google Docs.
Step #2: Organize Into Categories
Within the list, you’re going to make categories for different types of goals.
It might be helpful to think about the different categories or sections of your business.
For instance: Marketing, sales, and finance make up different areas of your business. So you could have marketing goals, sales goals, and financial goals. You could also have growth goals, networking goals, content goals, and so on.
Another category you could add is education for yourself and your team. Maybe there are some things within your business or your industry that you don’t know much about or don’t know how to do, and now is the time to figure it out.
Think about the different parts of your business and break those out into categories within your brain-dumping document so that you can actually see everything in front of you.
To recap, here are some potential categories for business goals:
Marketing
Sales
Finance
Growth
Networking
Content
Education
Hopefully these categories have given you some inspiration to get started!
Step #3: Look Ahead & Think Backwards
One of the best ways I know how to get some clarity around goal-setting is to look ahead, and then think about it backwards.
Here’s what I mean:
First, think ahead to where you want to be in your business in the next year, and even in the next 5 years.
For instance, maybe you’ve already thought to yourself, “Man I don’t have an email list, I should probably get on that”, then maybe that’s a goal for this next year.
Or maybe you’ve thought, “My website looks crappy, I don’t like sending people to it.” Maybe you should look into updating your website.
Or you’ve thought, “I really need systems and processes on the backend of my business so that I can work more efficiently.” That could be one of your goals for this next year.
When looking ahead, you can ask questions like:
- What do you want to accomplish?
- What do you need to accomplish?
- Where do you see your business headed?
- What do you want it to look like?
Once you look ahead to what you want to do, that becomes your list of potential goals. You can then think backwards about how to accomplish those goals, and the “how” for each goal becomes your action items.
Like I’ve already mentioned, only you are going to know the goals that you want to set for the next year, so taking the time to do these steps is crucial.
A little side note I feel like I need to interject here:
The whole point of setting goals is to move you forward so that you’re not staying stuck in business – or in life.
It’s not to make you feel bad about yourself, it’s not to make you feel like you suck if you don’t meet them. It’s meant to keep you motivated and excited about where you’re headed, and to give you something to track so that you know your efforts aren’t wasted.
Step 4: Break It Down + Narrow It Down
Okay, so let’s say you have your braindump document, and you’re like, “Now what?!”
There are a lot of ways that you could go about this, so I’ll just tell you what I like to do:
After you’ve brain-dumped, and you have your categories and a list of goals you think you want to accomplish, you then need to either break them down or scratch them off your list (for now).
I say “either/or”, because, maybe there’s a few goals that you really want to accomplish, but you need to first break them down to see what it’s going to take to get them done, to then see if it’s actually realistic to do within a year or whatever timeline you have set.
From there, you might decide to either keep them or remove them.
Now, I’m just going to assume that you either have a small team, or it’s just you, and based on your capacity and everyone else’s capacity, you’re only going to be able to accomplish so much. You probably know that 20 goals is not that realistic to accomplish in one year.
This is something you’re going to have to assess with each individual item that you have written down.
You also need to look at each goal in combination with other goals. Meaning that, if you’re looking at growing your email list and that’s the only goal you have for the year, then you can probably make that happen.
But if you have 6 other goals you’re focusing on, then you’re going to be pulled in other directions, and probably not accomplish them all to the level that you want – but not because you weren’t capable, it’ll be because you put too much on your plate at once.
Try to be realistic about what you are narrowing down and scratching off, versus what you’re keeping and breaking down on your list.
Here’s a practical example:
Let’s say you have the goal of starting an email list in the next year completely from scratch. You don’t know how to use an email marketing platform, you don’t know how to write emails, you don’t know the ins and outs of any of it.
Not only is there going to be a lot of setup, but there’s also going to be some education with this goal.
You’re not necessarily going to jump in and hit the ground running. You’re probably going to want to, if nothing else, research tutorials on how to set up your email list, learn how to write emails that get read and subject lines that get clicked, and learn how to get subscribers on your list.
There’s a lot that goes into starting your email list, so you could break that goal down into multiple tasks in order to accomplish it over the course of a few months, and that would be totally acceptable.
Now let’s take that same goal and let’s say you already have an email list but maybe it’s just a few subscribers or you haven’t really been sending emails and nurturing your list.
In this case, you likely already know how to manage the email marketing platform and how to send emails, but you want to try some different tactics to grow your subscriber base.
Either way, you’d break this goal down differently than someone who doesn’t even have an email platform set up.
(Now I would say that no matter which side of the goal you’re on, growing an email list is a really good goal for next year, so that’s one that I would say to keep – but that’s just my opinion!)
You want to look at your brainstorming list with the goal of breaking the items down into action items, but also narrowing the list down to what you REALLY want to do, so that you’re not trying to accomplish 20 things in one year.
Because yes, please, let’s be ambitious, but also be realistic.
And just know that even if you only have three goals for the entire year, depending on what they are, you might not get them done – and that’s okay!
That’s the point of goal setting: To have something that you’re trying to accomplish so you know you’re moving forward and not standing still.
Step 5: Set Due Dates
Once you have your goals figured out, you’re going to want to “officially” write them down, all broken out with your action items, and assign due dates to them. I recommend you do this using some sort of tool to keep track.
Personally, I’m a paper person, and I love to physically write things down and hold it in my hands. But, I also love digital documents and my digital calendar, so that I can see it in multiple places and access it from anywhere (plus, I really rely on those notifications and reminders!)
I use ALL of these methods in combination to keep track of my goals.
I assign due dates and timelines for each goal overall, as well as due dates for each action item within each goal. It’s not EVER perfect, but it is helpful and keeps me moving forward.
This year, I purchased the Fresh Start Daily Planner from Cultivate What Matters, and I’ll use it in combination with my digital apps to track and accomplish my goals.
I’ve used the goal planners from Cultivate for years and I love their process.
They have what they call “Prep Work”, which takes you through their proven process to help you decide not only what goals you want to set, but how to accomplish them with grace, not perfection.
They also offer something called Goal School, which is “Packed with regular accountability, premium education opportunities, and special offerings on current and future products.”
This is MY goal planner of choice. Figure out what tools YOU love to use, and what works best for you, so that you can go out and accomplish your own goals.
I know we just went over a lot, so here’s the recap:
Step 1: Braindump First – This is where you’ll get it all out on paper.
Step 2: Organize Into Categories – Thinking about the different sections of your business might be helpful.
Step 3: Look Ahead & Think Backwards – If you think about where you want to be at the end of next year, what does that look like? And then, how can you practically and actually accomplish those things?
Step 4: Break It Down + Narrow It Down – Not every goal is created equal. Breaking them down and scratching them off the list will lead you to the most important ones, the ones you know you can’t not work towards.
Step 5: Set Dates – This is where you’ll officially write your goals and action items down, and keep yourself accountable.
Don’t forget to grab your free Brand Habits Stack, and get 10% off at Cultivate with this link and code: DESIGNWITHCLARISSA