Goal Setting for 2021

Goals. Are you ready to set your goals and want a little help to set yourself up for success to achieve them?

There are tips, tricks, and manifestation practices to help you reach your goals. But, if you want guidance on how to set your goals and learn a few new strategies to implement to help you achieve your goals, then you’re in the right place!

First, it’s time you reflect on what you believe about yourself when you set your goals. What I mean is, are you setting goals from a place of scarcity and fear saying to yourself “I’m not sure I can actually do this” or “It’s going to be really hard, but I’m going to do this”? Or are you looking to achieve goals because you want to create more and change in your life?

This is important because the core reason why you want to achieve something impacts your mindset. A strong, ready mindset is a winning factor in achieving your goals.

Approach your goals from a place of positivity and desire for abundance. Thinking about what you would like to see happen this year, what is the one word or phrase that you want this year to represent for you?

For example, maybe you would like to feel “Blessed” this year. Or, the theme you want throughout the year is “To serve and grow”.

With your mind and heart decided on pursuing from a place of positivity, you can now evaluate the different areas of your life to decide what are the most important areas to work on.

One of the ways people do this is to measure their satisfaction in the different areas and work on those that are on the lower end of the spectrum because you’re not satisfied. However, I don’t believe that’s the best way. You can actually create more throughout all areas of your life by working even more on your strengths.

This is something I witnessed & experienced many times in my corporate career. Much of the workforce was suffering in silence because traditional ladder-climbing and annual reviews caused people to continually obsess over their weaknesses instead of their strengths. An example of this was that when reviews would come around, one co-worker of mine would get feedback from her manager that her opportunities were in areas she truly struggled with such as written communication (English was her second language) and presentations (again, cultural differences played a part here). He would say that he couldn’t promote her because she couldn’t present well to senior management or peers. Because of her weaknesses in these areas, she would not volunteer to present and he wouldn’t want to get her in front of an audience. This limited her ability to connect with people, find out alternative ways to present, and hindered any chance of her or anyone else finding out her strengths. Really, her “opportunity” was to find out what strengths she could use to present decision-making information to senior leaders. It wasn’t to write proper English emails and stand in front of a room with confidence. After alternative guidance aka, not from her manager, she teamed up with her coworker, she became the owner of the data and how the data was used to communicate ideas. Meanwhile, her teammate expressed to the audience the integrity of the data and why they should or how they could use it to make decisions. People asked questions and she was present, at the table, to answer them. She was confident in her data so the conversation was easy for her as she was simply clarifying or receiving comments and kudos for her work.

You see, to set your goals from the place of lack or weakness doesn’t empower you, it can actually hinder you from ever making progress. My advice is to work on the areas of your life that you would like to create change even if you’re super satisfied with it right now, but you still feel a burning desire to see change with it.

For example, maybe you purchased your dream home recently and you’re incredibly happy about that. So, the home area of your life could be at a 9 out of 10. But that 1 is missing because you don’t yet totally feel at home. It’s totally okay for that gap to your goal.

Or, maybe you have success in your business so you’re feeling great about what you’ve been able to accomplish so far. But, you want to see more consistent income months or you want to scale and grow bigger. Those are goals you should absolutely pursue! You’re good at building your business, so leaning into this strength and working on growth with this strength will make the goal fun and exciting.

Here’s what to do. Look at the different areas of your life: Career/Business, Love/Relationships, Spirituality, Finances/Money, Health, Family, Environment, Volunteer/Service.

What are the top 3 areas of life would you like to set your goals for?

Why 3? There’s no particular reason, but I can bet that if you breakdown the impact of change in these 3 areas, the other areas of your life will be impacted as well.

As much as we want to compartmentalize our lives and our ways of thinking, we can’t. We live whole lives. And one thing will always impact the other. That’s the natural way of life.

Before even thinking about the specifics of your goal, deciding on these 3 areas should feel good to you. If you are committing to yourself to work on one area of life like Love and this ties your stomach into knots or you just feel blah about it, then two things could be happening. Either you want to “fix” something or you aren’t entirely clear on why you would want to work on that area of life.

If it’s true that you want to fix something in that area of your life, remember that you should pursue goals from a place of abundance and positivity. How can you reframe in your heart that you’re not trying to fix that area of life but instead you desire to make a positive impact on that area of life?

Now, let’s set your goals!

Decide for yourself what goals you have in all three areas of life, making that they are very specific, believable, number or time-bound and would make you feel really freakin’ amazing should you achieve this goal!

For each of these goals, dig into why you want to achieve this. What would happen when you reach your goal? And what would you be risking or giving up by not reaching your goal?

This exercise of answering this question is so much more important than answering the question of “How will I reach this goal?” because goals require that you are self-motivated and moved to act. I could coach you on how to do things all day long, but if you have no heart-center as to why you should wake up at 3am to achieve your goal, then you won’t. If you have no burning motivation to give up carbs for 90 days, then you won’t. You get the point, right?

Now, onto the “How” because I know that’s what you’re dying to get to.

There are a few ways you can uncover how these goals can be achieved.

First and foremost, ask yourself what is the immediate thing you can do to inch your way toward this goal. Write down what comes to you. Trust yourself. Then, make a habit of making “the how” be your smaller, achievable goal. Once achieved, ask yourself again, what is the immediate thing you can do to inch your way toward your goal? Make that your smaller goal and achieve it. Then keep going.

Here are a couple of examples. If my goal is to achieve consistent $10K months in my business, the immediate and achievable thing I could do is look at my current income and assess what generated $10K months for me or what, if done more consistently, could generate $10K months? Seeing what currently works for me will be way more effective than doing something I haven’t yet tried. After I’ve identified that plan and feel good about the assessment I’ve made, I will ask myself again, knowing what I know now, what is the immediate thing I could do to work toward my goal? And I will keep doing this till I’ve reached my big goal.

Also imagine if your goal is to buy a home. The “how do I” list with goal like that can feel endless. Your goal should include the specifics of where, how much you want to invest, how many bedrooms, how big, etc. Or, if you can’t get specific, it should be very clear on how you want to feel when you’ve acquired that house. What could be the immediate next step after you’ve made the decision to buy this home? You could either fill in the blanks on the specifics you don’t know like look at different neighborhoods to decide where you want to live, look at current listings to see how much house you can get for your budget, or decide on a home value you want and create a budget that will enable you to invest at that price. The point is, choose a starting point then move onto the next smaller, attainable goal to inch your way towards your big goal.

What are some other ways you can achieve the goals you set?

• Commit to small habits that are proven to achieve your big goal. Some good examples of this are putting small amounts of money away to build emergency savings. Or, cutting small processed foods out of your diet, like coffee creamer, to improve your health.
• Talk about your goal from a a place of certainty that it will happen. And, do this often.
• Surround yourself with people who are also committed to achieving goals from a place of abundance. The chatter and mindset from a group like this will help you foster your motivation.
• Create a vision board and put it someplace you will constantly see it.
• Read books or listen to podcasts that are geared toward your goal. So if you want to build your business, listen to the Brand Boss Podcast. If you want to grow your email list, check out Amy Porterfield. If you want to write a book, look up Self Publishing School. If you want to work on your finances, check out Dave Ramsey. And so on.

Best of luck with your goals, love! 2021 is going to be amazing!

Download my Goal Setting Workbook to help you through this exercise. The best part is you could use this every year!