Episode 14: How To Make Your Goals Work For You

In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about how to get clear on your goals, how to manage them and what to do if things aren’t going to plan.

Now it’s something that many people struggle with, myself included. When I first started out I had a big plan, I had a big vision. I knew what I wanted to happen, but I didn’t necessarily have the specific details of how that was going to occur. Listen to the episode to find out more.

Here are the highlights from this episode:

{01:28} Breaking down your goals into steps

{02:58} The importance of micro wins

{04:08} Having accountability

{08:04} Mindset and goals

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Dawn McGruer:

So welcome to episode 14 of my podcast, Dawn of a New Era: Chronicles of a Serial Entrepreneur, with myself, Dawn McGruer, digital marketing speaker, author, and trainer, and passionate about all things digital. Anything to do with online marketing and growing your business is absolutely my day to day passion and something that drives me. Now, it’s not just my passion, it’s what this episode is about that drives me, which is all about how to get clear on your goals, and setting clear goals and how to do this. Now it’s something that many people struggle with, myself included, when I first started out, because I had a big plan, I had a big vision. I knew what I wanted to happen, but I didn’t necessarily have the details specifically of how that was going to occur and how the steps would help me get closer each day to that goal.

So a couple of things that I need to, I suppose, front load, and things that I’ve noticed myself when I’m setting goals. When I have super clear goals, when I have this feeling of clarity around them, then I always feel more involved with the goal and closer to it. Now one of the things that happens is that the reason we feel unclear when setting goals is that we have this overwhelming desire to get to where we are, or sorry, where we want to be, and we don’t look at where we are. Now, what that means is that you have to really, really think about each aspect that is involved. So breaking down the goal into steps. This really helps two things. It helps you get clear and it gives you this clarity, but it also gives you the confidence behind it, because when we struggle with our goals, one of the things that happens is you might get excited about an idea and you think, “Yeah, I’m going to march on with it.” And either a setback holds you back or it makes you falter slightly on that goal and it knocks your confidence sightly.

The other thing is if there’s something underlying, like if you know that tech or something like that is going to be an issue, it means that you don’t fully commit to the goal because you feel like there’s a weakness and there’s an obstacle. And what naturally happens is our mind starts stepping back more and more. Now, what you need to do is really think about yes, being very clear, but being specific, setting a goal to increase web followers or something like that, or Instagram followers is fine, but it has to be broken down into who’s going to do this and how is it going to occur and what’s the timeline and every single bit that’s involved. And once you get that in place, it sounds like you have to be really focused on the minutia. It’s not.

But the devil is kind of in the detail, because if you understand that you have to do X, Y, and Z to get so far, the next bit, or the next piece in the puzzle, is tracking progress. And one of the things that I see quite a lot is people looking back over a month and thinking, “Well how close did I get to it? And did it happen?” And then feeling really, really, really low because they’re no further forward or they haven’t quite hit where they needed to be to achieve it. So by putting incremental targets in place, so little micro wins, a mini wins each day, you start to see that you’re getting closer and closer. That builds also in your enthusiasm and motivation towards achieving the goal.

And really acknowledging setbacks. It’s something that people try to avoid. And sometimes if you’re trying to forge ahead, get a goal completed, and you’re working really hard and then something happens. You hit a pitfall, you hit a challenge. You have to record it and think about, a mistake. It’s not. It’s a learning pattern. And it’s definitely great in terms of making sure you won’t do it again. People feel that they’ve failed if something happens and they hit negativity. It’s not, it’s just that you have learned something new and then you start creating this new route of how you’re going to overcome it.

So how to achieve your goals and dreams is very much about also accountability and making sure that you really, really set realistic, but challenging goals that are going to push you a little bit and having an accountability buddy or group. I know that, for instance, for us in the Consort Club, this is what it’s all about. If you’re part of any groups or membership clubs, one of the things you’ll notice is that setting goals and planning and accountability is key, and we dedicate the last Thursday of every month to do this. So getting super clear on what your goals are. Not overwhelming yourself, but maybe just setting out three very clear goals, looking at how you’re going to achieve those, getting some advice and feedback and some support, but also accountability. Looking at declaring your mini wins and celebrating the success because that will just keep pushing you on. And I think most importantly, when you look at goals, when I hear someone’s goals, I can generally tell, and you’ll be the same, someone is passionate, they exude the whole fun loving mission and vision and you feel it yourself.

If somebody doesn’t say that and you don’t feel it, you know that that person isn’t truly aligned to the goal, so it’s going to be harder for them to achieve. So it’s important that your goals are for you, and you’re not just getting wrapped up in other people’s goals. You’re seeing a business doing X, Y, and Z and you’re thinking you have to do the same. It’s all relevant to where you are in your journey. And also what you want out of it. No one said that you had to have goals that were all financially based, but customers and profits are a key outcome of a successful business, but it doesn’t mean that you could have a huge, huge business who’s turning over massive amount of revenue, but then a micro small profit, and then on the other side, you could have one person solopreneur, absolutely running the leanest, most efficient, and effective business. And you shouldn’t feel small because it’s all relative to the profit.

Because you might be turning over a fairly small, in someone else’s eye, revenue, but your profit margins could be huge. And one of the things I’ve always tried to stay focused on in my business is that we’re not huge. We have a team of 17. Not everybody is full time. And we are very lean, we’re very efficient, and we spend a lot of time dedicating it to automating processes, to not only enhance the customer journey, but to enhance the team’s day to day. Because one thing is that trying to achieve your goals is great, but if it generates a lot of work, then we all get put off and it’s true for your team members. They don’t want to be doing churn and the grind day to day. So if you can make life easier for everybody in terms of automating the processes, you invest now and it pays dividends later.

So make sure your goals are inspiring and goals have to be something that you really, really want, so that at the end of it, you’re getting a reward that is truly recognizing the efforts that you put in, because if you don’t do this, and I’ve been guilty of it myself, have goals of, “Right, well I’m going to get to this X, Y, and Z.” But you have to think about, “Well if I get to that, what am I going to reward myself with? What what’s my payoff.” So they have to be inspiring and they have to be challenging and they have to be something that really, really is exciting for you so that when you share these goals, that your accountability partners, groups, memberships, whatever, feel inspired by your whole mission and vision too.

So in my podcast, I share all things digital, online marketing, social media, but the key focus is that there’s the three core fundamentals or pillars that I believe are true to succeed in business. And yes, marketing is one of them. I’m very passionate about that. But motivation and mindset, these honestly, when you are looking at achieving your goals, if your mindset is not in it, and we all go through the ups and downs and some people hate Mondays and you’re getting back into the grind, but you have to change that. And I probably have lived longer than most being in that turbulence because having multiple businesses and having this just work ethic that I’ve really struggled with on a mindset, I feel that you have to take time out. And for me, I’ve had to schedule some of this to make myself do it.

But when I look back on my goals, and if I look at things that I haven’t been overly successful in, or I have been successful in, I can see a stark difference about my mindset and motivation during them, and other people are fueled by that. So it’s important that you recognize where you’re at and what your current state is, because if you’re feeling a little bit disheartened about your business, when you’re setting your goals, this will come through. You need to take a step back and then remember…  why you set out in the job that you’re doing and start thinking about what would make it good? Can you delegate? Can you get rid of tasks you don’t like? And can you set goals that are maybe different to the ones you’ve got now?

Because if you are not achieving those goals, there’s a reason. Maybe they’re not specific enough. Maybe the targets are just unrealistic. Maybe go to an accountability partner or your groups or memberships and share these goals and get some advice back and look at maybe switching these goals up and looking at how you could change the goals so that every week or every day, you’re recognizing these mini wins that spur you on and really, really get your mind focused, but more importantly, get your business getting the results that make you happy. So I hope you enjoyed this week’s podcast, and each episode is really short, sharp bursts of my true life experiences, really, and how I’ve navigated the world of being an entrepreneur, because sometimes it’s lonely.

So remember to come and join the Business Consort, marketing, motivation, and mindset group on Facebook, just type in Business Consort and the group will come up. And I shall see you in there. So there’s lots of like-minded fellows in there that you can come and join. And guess what? You never know what collaborations and customers you might meet there, or even accountability partners. So I will see you in next week’s episode, take care and have a great week. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode, and don’t forget I’m going to be with you each and every week. So download and listen on dawnmcgruer.com or on iTunes and come and join us in our Facebook community too. All the details are on the website and I’ll see you next week.

 

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Dawn McGruer's Marketing * Motivation * Mindset Group

Speaker. Author. Podcaster. Strategist.

Multi-award-winning speaker, strategist & best-selling author of Dynamic Digital Marketing - Helping to inspire entrepreneurs to rise to meet today’s challenges and be powerfully present to shine online.

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