Today I’m going to talk about goal setting for 2022, and just in general. I get the vibe when I talk about it with potential clients, current clients, and my staff, that some people might think that planning or projecting or budgeting or goal setting is just one of those things that people do to waste time, or it is a waste of time, or there’s nothing to it really than pure wishful thinking.
I have to strongly, strongly disagree with that. And to be honest with you, I’m not a lifelong goal planner. I’ve actually just started doing it over the last few years. And I do it more and more because it actually, truly works!
A Personal Example of Goal Setting Success
The first time this really came to light was when I went on vacation as I try to do every January. I’ve been doing that for about seven or eight years now, because, let’s get real here, I live in New England and I hate the cold.
When on vacation, I like to read a lot of books, but I also kind of brainstorm ‘stuff’. I take notes and one year, about 5 or 6 years ago, I wrote down a sort of ‘legacy’ vision for my company. How I wanted to see in it when I was done building it, and when it is the best it could possibly be. What would it look like? I wrote a few sentences, perhaps half a paragraph about that vision. I didn’t give it a lot of thought after that, and put that journal away in a beach bag when I got home from Aruba that year and totally forgot about it.
I didn’t see it again until the next January when I was packing for that trip back to Aruba. When I opened it up and looked through it again, I read those thoughts and realized, “oh my god – we actually got there!”. I had listed around five key points. All of them had happened within that year. And that was pretty amazing because after writing them down on that trip, I don’t remember going back to that at all or even thinking about them. I set the intention, put it out there in the universe, and closed it. And then I set upon my normal path of building the business the way I wanted to build it, and I achieved all of those things in that one year. I was floored sitting there that next January and looking at that journal. I just kept rereading it in a bit of shock.
It was a pretty amazing moment. So of course ever since then, I’ve been writing down my aspirational goals, and no, they don’t always come through. But most of them do. But if You set your intentions, and follow through on the work – most of them will happen.
Here is a helpful step to help you get started:
- Write some aspirational goals down, whether it’s during the break between Christmas and New Years, or when you just have a slow time. It’s worth taking a few minutes to grab a journal or a piece of paper or wherever you keep your thoughts recorded, and just write some stuff down! Stuff that you’d like to happen, whether it be personally or professionally, and put it away and see what happens. Amazing things can happen. What have you got to lose?
Business Made Simple
I have taken several courses on goal setting, both personally and professionally. I do a lot of them through Business Made Simple, an online business university created by Don Miller of StoryBrand. If you haven’t heard of him, look him up (and we have a blog about his book StoryBrand HERE). He’s amazing.
Don’s online university is not only extremely inexpensive, but it also offers so many things. It’s basically a master’s degree in business for around 500 bucks a year. He has a lot of courses and they’re all great. I’ve taken more than half of them. The one that I find most valuable for myself and Spark right now is ‘Hero on a Mission’.
‘Hero on a Mission’
Hero on a Mission is really about your life plan – who you want to be, how you get there from your age now to the age where maybe you think you’re going to die (and of course we don’t know that but I mean, set it out there).
Then it covers what you do every year, every quarter, and every month from now until then, to become the person that you want to be. I’m oversimplifying the course here, but it’s such a powerful exercise. You’ll also write your eulogy, which is an emotional and inspiring process. Writing your own eulogy brings out a lot from you: who you want to be for yourself, for your kids, for your family. You write a life story summary, which was really interesting.
Your Life Story Summary
So what is a story summary? It originates in the movie industry. Every movie has a story summary, which you sometimes hear during a commercial.
You can change your life story summary at any time. I don’t recommend you read it every day unless you’re making big changes and need daily reminders of the person you’re shifting into. It does kind of relax you a little bit when you feel a little bit off kilter, but once you’re in the swing of things, seek it out only when you need that reminder, or you run the risk of it becoming desensitized to it.
My Personal Life Story Summary:
A self-made Millionaire struggles to make and maintain relationships by being laser-focused on success, self-development, and creating a life of wealth and privilege. But her willingness to walk through fear, make mistakes and learn from them, and become an extraordinary role model for her kids and others, creates a life filled with purpose, love, and redemption.
Mission Statement Made Simple
‘Mission Made Simple’ is a course about leadership, which can be for business and personal reasons. Recently, Don put out three simple tasks every leader should do in 2022.
- Number One: Create a life plan.
- Number Two: Write down and track your goals.
- Number three: Pretend you’ve already lived today. And to expand on that, he says to pretend you’re living this day for the second time. What would you do differently?
The Goal: Living Intentionally
By asking ourselves this question at the start of the year, we can live intentionally and with more wisdom. Goal setting and planning is about living intentionally. Because when you do that, you build the life of your dreams.
The same can be said for budgeting and with money and it’s also where Profit First originated from. So when you put intention behind money, you can make amazing things happen as well for your business and personally. You’ve heard me talk a lot about Profit First, I will probably talk alot more about that again in the coming years. If you’re not doing Profit First, man, you are crazy because that shit really works. As with goal setting, it’s about putting an intention behind every dollar, just like in your life.
Put intention behind every step that you take, and amazing things can happen as Don Miller says, and as I can attest too. 🙂
Get a Spark-Approved Planner
We created a Quarterly Planner that is up for sale in our Spark Shop, and a FREE Daily Printable Planner HERE. We love and have used them both, but the planner is definitely more comprehensive with the ability to set goals over 5 years, 1 year, quarterly, monthly AND daily.
