Goals that set your business up for the long run
I sit writing this in January, when there are as many emails about setting stretchy goals for your best ever year in business as there are about ditching goals altogether, being guided by waves of creative flow that capture your aliveness in the moment and trusting that the universe will provide.
And I get it.
All of it.
I love dreaming up the big stretchy goals that I’m not sure will ever actually come true as much as I love acting on a spark of inspiration in the moment.
In my first year of business I went with the big goals approach. I set a highly unconventional target of £100k of sales and promptly set about doing all of the things.
After 18months of very little payback I burnt out.
I took the Summer off and struggled to get back into my business, deciding only to work when inspiration struck.
It felt much better in terms of only acting on inspiration, but it was so sporadic and haphazard that I really struggled to feel a sense of achievement in what I was doing and also struggled to make tangible progress in terms of having something to show for my efforts.
By this point my confidence was well and truly lacking and I was feeling more confused than ever what my business was all about and whether I had what it took to make it work.
Fast forward to now, having tried both sides of the pendulum - the big stretchy goals and the exclusively inspired action - what I’ve landed on is a middle way. One that feels both supportive and inspiring and helps me get things done in a way that leads to tangible outcomes and financial results.
I’m planning to lay out the details of this in a later blog post, but for now I want to lay out some of the reasons why I think this middle way is important.
The piece I think is often missing from both of the approaches above is the wider context in which they exist.
And it’s the same for both - having an established business where you have enough experience and have doing enough trial and error of your own to know what works.
You have learnt your own strengths and the places where you need support. You have learnt what your community respond best to and the things that you can offer that best meet their needs.
Most of all, you have learnt the actions you need to take in order to reach a particular outcome.
One of the hardest things to do as a business owner, especially in the early years, is figuring out what you need to do to turn your big vision into reality and how to create a structure to make sure that you actually do it.
Yes, you can set a big stretchy goal to reach six figures in your first year, but there are so many variables to test out that it’s hard to know whether the action you are putting in is truly supporting your goal.
And just because one particular approach worked for someone else, doesn’t mean that it is the one that will get you there.
Likewise, you can act only on your creative flow, but in order to get good at what you are doing, you need to practice to hone you skills and without the gentle discipline of some sort of structure, it will take a long time to get there.
The approach that I use gives enough structure for you to link the actions you do on a daily basis to the results you want to achieve and enough space that you can get creative and play to your strengths. So that as well as working towards your goals you are also actively figuring out what works best for you and building this foundation of knowledge for the long run.
Looking for more support with creating clarity and confidence for your next year in business?
Check out Cultivate - an online training with 1:1 support that that helps you link the activities you do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to the results you want to see in your business.
➡️ Go to www.debbielee.co.uk/cultivate