Avoid these 5 common mistakes when setting your goals

Do you love setting goals? Are you someone who writes loooong lists that fill up the pages or do you keep most of it in your head?

Writing out your business goals will help you stay organized and make it more likely that you reach your goals. Some people think the planning stage is not so much fun while others stay stuck in the planning stage and never get to the “doing” part. Not having a solid plan is equivalent to being on a hamster wheel going nowhere. Let's not do that! 

Take a few minutes and think about what you want to accomplish in your business and make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes in your goal-setting process:

1. Procrastinating. You don’t have to wait until January 1st to set your goals. Try setting quarterly goals instead (I always suggest setting goals in 90-day increments!) If writing goals seem overwhelming, set a timer for 15 minutes and just brainstorm and have fun writing down your specific goals until the timer goes off.
2.   Not prioritizing. You can probably brainstorm tons of goals that you want to achieve but having too many will distract you from the most important ones. Give yourself permission to write out anything and everything that you want to achieve on a large piece of paper.  Do this for only 15 minutes and then spend another 10 minutes going through these goals and getting realistic about what you can actually accomplish in the next 90 days. Save all of the other wonderful things for down the line. You want your goals list to help you focus, not get distracted; so weed out the ones that are the most important and put them at the top of the list.

3. Not getting specific. Saying you want “more clients” is too vague and you don’t have any way to measure if you’re reaching that goal. Be as specific as possible (“I want to add 2 more clients per month”) so you can track your progress.
4. Being unrealistic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big believer in dreaming big. One of my favorite quotes by Walt Disney is, "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."  But, there is a balance that needs to be found. Setting goals that are big enough to excite you and make you actually work for them is important but setting a goal that is so big that you can’t attain it (or even a portion of it) can make you want to give up and say, “see, it just won’t work”. Be realistic (with a dash of magical dreaming ) about your goals and break down those lofty (magical) goals into smaller, more achievable goals. You can reach those large goals, but breaking them down can make it much more manageable. 
5. Not working on your goals daily. You need to take at least one action step towards your goals daily no matter how small. Every little step will eventually build upon another. 

It took J.K. Rowling 6 years to write her first book. But she kept working on it bit by bit and eventually got to the end of it. Then, after that she had to go through publisher after publisher who turned her down, but she kept at it and finally got her break. 

Keep working towards you goals and you will turn around one day and be proud of all that you’ve created.

Remember, you’re running a business, not pursuing a hobby. So think like a business person and get serious (yet still have fun!) about what steps you need to take to make it happen. 

If Making a Goals List Sounds Overwhelming, try breaking them down into 90 day segments. 

90 day goal setting helps you stay ultra focused. It creates a deadline that is near enough to promote a sense of urgency and yet, is still a long enough period to get a large number of things done. 

>Download my free 90 Day Goal Setting Workbook below

 It will walk you through effective goal setting and includes a printable template to hang on your wall so you can see your 90 day goals daily. You will stay laser focused on the next 3 months ahead.

You should be excited to wake up every day and work toward your goals; if you’re not, then maybe you need to mix things up a bit and change how you’re setting your goals.