How To Create Actionable Goals

For any online business owner, setting goals is the first step toward consistent growth. 

Think of it like going on a road trip… If you set out on a road trip with no destination in mind, how will you know when you’ve arrived?! 

Sure, the journey might be fun, but when you’re growing a business, you need to have a plan in place for how you’ll reach each target you set. 

Effective goal setting as a business owner lets you measure progress, overcome procrastination and visualise your dreams, therefore helping you to reach them faster.  

Put simply, if you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you can’t create a plan to get there. 

When you’re setting your goals, there are two methods that work:

The S.M.A.R.T. method & the Goal Stacking method!

Let's look into  both methods here and you can decide for yourself which method will work best for you:

The S.M.A.R.T. Method To Set Goals

SMART Goals Are:

• Specific: It’s not enough to say that you want more sales.  Instead, your goal should be “I want to increase my sales by 15%” or “I want to earn £250,000 in the next 3 months.”  Those are both very specific goals that leave no room for doubt or uncertainty.  You know exactly what you need to do. 
• Measurable: You may have heard the quote “What gets measured gets managed,” and nowhere is that more true than in business goal setting.  Your goals must have some kind of measurement attached to them – either in monetary terms, subscribers, followers, or another countable figure. 
• Attainable: It’s great to dream about doubling or tripling your income, but unless you have a solid plan, you might just find yourself discouraged at the end of the year if your goals are not truly attainable.  As you create your goals, ask yourself if it really is attainable or not. 
• Realistic: In order for a goal to be realistic, you have to have the skills to pull it off.   And if you don’t have the skills yet, one of your goals should be to learn them by taking a course, hiring a coach etc or to pay someone who does have the skills to do it for you!
• Time-based: Good goals have a hard deadline.  After all, if you have the rest of your life to add 100 subscribers to your email list, what incentive do you have for working on it today? 

There is one school of thought that says you should toss out ‘attainable’ and ‘realistic’ all together, and instead set yourself big hairy, scary goals and stretch yourself beyond what you think is possible. 

This is where the Goal Stacking method comes in to play.

Setting Goals For Quantum Leaps In Your Business

The way I work with my clients is with what I like to call ‘Goal Stacking’.  For each objective you want to achieve, you actually need to set 3 goals.  

Goal Stacking Works Like This:

Let's say the rough goal is to earn more money this month:

Goal #1: You set the ‘Big, Hairy Scary’ goal: “I will earn £100,000 this month”

Goal #2: Set your ‘I Can Make This Work’ goal, which is the basic amount you want to achieve, e.g. earning £20,000 this month

Goal #3: Set your middle goal eg: earning £65,000 this month

Goal #3 should light you up, motivate you and get you out of bed in the morning, so set it as high as you can without it making yourself faint!  A little unease is good though, so if it doesn’t scare you at least a bit, it’s not high enough!

Do what feels good for you!

Only you will know what goals you are comfortable with, but do keep in mind that if they are too easy to reach, you may find yourself unmotivated - or even bored - in your business!

The next step to creating your goals is to devise an Action Plan so you know the exact steps you need to take to reach your goal!  You can read more about that here, or get stuck into the Cash Calendar, where you’ll review your last 90 days of business, set your goals for the next 90 days and plan your sales & marketing!