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In Episode 38 of the podcast, Ayngelina Brogan from Bacon is Magic is back to have a conversation with me about setting goals that encompass both work and life - something that’s important as we head into a year full of uncertainty (but that will hopefully get brighter and brighter as we work our way through it!).

We talk about some of the tools we used to help us with our 2021 business planning, how we evaluated 2020 and used that information to decide how we want to build our life in the coming year. We talk about some of the challenges we’re both facing in our own businesses in 2021 and how we’re planning so that we can navigate those tough spots. And we’re also looking at the things we can change right now that can help us move forward.

Some of the important takeaways from this episode include:

the importance of setting goals that are achievable
the importance of measuring and constantly evaluating your progress
that it’s key to remember that your business, and the goals you set, are living things that can and should be reworked as circumstances change.

For the links to resources mentioned in the article, please scroll to the bottom of the post.

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Listen To the Episode

Here’s a direct link to Episode 38 - or you can listen via the players below:

To say 2020 has been a year for the books doesn’t do it justice. And for us business owners it has tossed curveballs and challenges at us one after the other. To think January 1st, 2021 will be magically different is a foolish mistake. It won’t be. And we’re probably several months away from seeing that light at the end of the tunnel significantly brighten.

But, maybe if there’s been a silver lining it’s that we’ve all learned a tremendous amount about ourselves, our businesses, our clients and customers and what’s really important to us. And that’s a great place to start building out 2021.

With 2021 we at least know that it’s going to be challenging from the get go and so we can plan for it. We can plan to be flexible and nimble and knowing that can even be a bonus. It’s a good lesson to remind ourselves that goals are meant to be flexible because they’re alive, just like our businesses are alive.

As we head into 2021, Ayngelina and I are both facing big unknowns in our business lives. Her business focuses on travel - an industry that’s been hit hard in 2020 and probably won’t start serious recovery for months yet. I’m in the process of trying to sell my main business along with my business partner. Both of those have us trying to figure out how we move forward while having two big items hanging uncertainly over our heads.

One thing we both know is that we can and should plan but we have to be flexible for what might lie ahead that we can’t predict.

Planning for Work And Life

One of the things Ayngelina and I are both doing this year is planning for our businesses and our lives simultaneously. This is something neither of us has been very good at in the past. While we both might make business plans and life plans, we don’t always get the connection of how the two can work together to build a really satisfying life that’s fulfilling. So planning in a way where we can see the impact of one on the other is an interesting way to go about it.

(As we mentioned, we both used Racheal Cook’s Plan Your Best Year Ever Challenge to help us with this).

Clarify Your Values

2020 has given us both the opportunity to get very clear what’s important to us from a values perspective. And that’s meant we both want to make changes in how we run our businesses and how we build our lives going forward.

What Did You Accomplish in 2020?

Before you can figure out where you’re going, you have to figure out where you’ve been. It’s really important to sit down with your financials and planner from the last year and look at what worked for you in terms of sales, clients, services, products. Do you know what brought in your largest amount of revenue? Was your revenue diverse enough? Where did your clients come from? Who did you like working with? Did you miss out on opportunities? What held you back? What were the roadblocks?

But it’s also important to look at what happened in your life. What made you happy? What stressed you out? What do you wish would disappear if you snapped your fingers? What do you wish you could make happen for you and your family if there were no obstacles in your way.

Review the year that’s coming to a close so you have a clear picture of where you’re at and what got you there and what could use improvement. Ayngelina and I are both the type of people who just barrel forward without necessarily taking the time to really evaluate what’s happened in the past so this was a good exercise for both of us. It helped us get really crystal clear on what’s important to us going forward.

Plan For Flexibility

As we’ve mentioned, 2021 is a year where we know we have to plan for flexibility and try to stay nimble.

In person events might start again - but when? Will it be in time for Christmas markets 2021? We hope so but what if it’s not? Will international travel be on again and when will that happen. Will you need a vaccine to travel or simply a negative test result? Have people embraced online shopping to the point that bricks and mortar may never get back to its previous sales levels? Or will people be so excited to get back into shops that online shopping will drop dramatically?

The truth is we don’t know so it’s important to stay flexible and plan for different contingencies.

Minimize your risk.

You may never need those backup plans but at least having thought through different scenarios will make you feel more confident in moving forward.

Make Your Goals Realistic and achievable

Creating unrealistic goals almost guarantees you’re going to fail. As soon as you notice you’re not making the progress you need to get there, most of us just simply ditch the goal and never revisit it. Make your goals achievable. You can always have “stretch” goals - goals you aim for if you hit your original goal but that ultimately won’t be disappointing if you don’t hit them. Like a “bonus” goal!

By all means, shoot for the stars. But maybe recognize that you might not hit them in 2021. Maybe that star you’re shooting for is a 2 year or a 5 year goal instead of a one year goal - and plan accordingly. What steps will you take to get there in 2021 and what steps are for 2022.

Get Help if You Need It

If you need help in your business - or in your life - get it. Could hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) for 5 hours a month to do social media management or write your newsletters or do some basic bookkeeping make a big difference in freeing you up to work on revenue generating activities in your business that will power you to those goals? Did you know hiring a VA for 5 hours a month might only cost you $125? If you could spend $125 and turn it into $500 would you do it?

As small business owners we’re often sooooo reluctant to get help - especially if we’re cash strapped. But freeing up some mental energy and your time can push your business forward in ways you never imagined.

Don’t forget finding help in your life, either. Having somebody come clean your house twice a month, or do your laundry, or provide few hours of childcare every week can make a huge difference and give you time back with your family. Hire a meal prep service or pay the kid across the street to mow the lawn and do some weeding. This is all part of planning for your ideal life (and your business can play a role in making this happen!

Do the research and find out what it would cost for you to get help where you need it. It might surprise you how affordable it can be.

Find A Mastermind Group Or some Supportive Peers

Finding supportive but honest peers can go a long way to helping you reach your goals. You may not need a formal mastermind group - it could be as basic as finding one or two peers who you can chat with once or twice a month.

The key is finding people you trust who will give you both the support and the constructive criticism we all need in our business. You need people who will be honest with you and tell you when something isn’t working but who will also support you and stop you from being overrun by your inner critic.

Being able to have frank financial discussions with your mastermind or peer group is also critical (which is why trust is so important - what happens in the Mastermind stays in the Mastermind!). Your group can’t help you reach your financial goals without having some indication of what those are and what your monthly numbers are. How can anyone tell you you’re undercharging if they don’t know what you’re charging to begin with? Don’t leave money on the table - find a group of peers you trust or get a good business coach who you can have these conversations with.

Normalize Money Conversations

Money is a tool. It’s not an indication of your self-worth. Make it a goal to get comfortable talking about money with people who are on your team. Normalize those conversations with your spouse or partner. Normalize those conversations with your kids. Normalize those conversations with your mastermind group or your peers or your business coach.

All businesses need to have revenue and profit goals - money pays the bills and is a part of life we can’t avoid. It’s a tool that gives us flexibility. It can help us live the life we want, whether that’s retiring early, giving back to the community, educating our family, traveling, expanding our businesses… but it’s still a tool that helps you get from A to B. It doesn’t have a personality, it’s not good or bad. It can be used for good or bad but that’s on you. Not the money itself.

Having frank discussions about money, revenue, profit, debt can really help make your goals achievable. If everyone understands where the goal line is, they can all work towards it together.

Address The Lifestyle You Want

You may be setting goals for your business but part of that should be addressing the lifestyle you want to have - because your business is what can help you get there. Think bigger than just your business and start planning for the life you want. What goals should you be setting in your business to help you get there?

What pieces of that lifestyle are long term goals and which pieces are short term goals? Which business goals could help you get a family vacation this year and which goals will help you retire 5 years from now? Which business goals will help make your life easier now? Because if your life is easier now that will, in turn, make it easier to work in your business, which in turn will make your life easier…

Do you see how the two pieces are linked and feed each other now?

Know What Your Ideal Life Costs

A big part of getting the lifestyle you want is knowing what it costs? Have you ever sat down to research what all the things you want will cost? If you haven’t, how do you know that your goals have you on the right track to getting there?

How much is that new laptop? That big family vacation to Disneyland? That gym equipment for your basement? A mortgage paid in full? A coop full of chickens? New tile for the bathroom floor? An employee who can cover for you while you take that vacation to Disneyland?

Figure out what it costs. You might be surprised what’s accessible to you right now!

Think About Systems and Streamlining

What pieces of your business (and even your life) can you turn into systems? Where can you streamline? Systems are another tool that can help free up your mental energy and allow you to focus on creating! Which pieces of your business could be systematized? Here’s a few to look at:

onboarding clients to your service based business (like photographers, graphic designers etc)
packing and shipping for your online shop
social media content creation and scheduling
invoicing
email reply templates to regularly asked questions

If you’re struggling with these things find tools or a person to help you streamline them and turn them into systems - leaving you more time to work on the big goals for your business.

Don’t Compare Your Goals to Others

Your goals are your goals and are defined by your version of what success is. And your version is not the same as anyone else’s so your goals won’t be the same. Your target revenues will be different. Your marketing initiatives will be different.

And remember: there is no wrong version of what success is.

Don’t Set It and Forget It

Writing all your goals in a cute notebook on January 1st is great. But what happens on January 2nd? Marc 23? August 17? December 6?

Goals only work if you’re constantly referring back to them, measuring your progress, tweaking where needed and pivoting if you have to. Your business is alive and you goals should be too - alive and flexible. You don’t know if an unexpected downturn (ahem…pandemics) is going to pop up. But you also don’t know if an amazing opportunity you couldn’t foresee (a book deal? A collaboration with another artist?) will appear.

Revisit your goals once a month (or weekly if that’s better for you). Track your progress. Take into account when your busy periods are and when you’re traditionally slow.

If you’re on target, great! Make notes about what’s working and what’s not. Can you adjust to get further ahead?

If you’re ahead of your targets, think about those stretch goals and how you can reach them.

If you’re behind schedule, ask yourself why? Look at your data? Did you have fewer clients than expected? Did your new product launch fall flat? Does next month look better? All businesses have ups and downs but if you’re down more than two months in a row, maybe you need to reconsider your goal and look at doing some pivoting.

Take Some Calculated Risks

Part of pushing yourself forward in your goals is taking some risks. Calculated risks. You can’t move forward without trying new things and that’s risky. But evaluate the risk.

What’s the worst thing that could happen? Could you lose your business? Could you take on unmanageable debt? Could you lose less than $1000? Could you wind up feeling embarrassed?

Everyone’s risk tolerance is different but if you can minimize the risk or work out the likelihood of the worst case scenario actually happening, it’s easier to reach further and go forward.

Share your plans for your business in 2021 in the comments - we’d love to hear about what you’re planning for the coming year!

Resources mentioned In the episode

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ASLU 038: Setting 2021 Goals For Your Creative Business