Planning your next steps? Stop and reflect first!
Are you thinking about setting goals for your portable business, or even your life?
You could be missing out on a really important step when it comes to thinking about those goals. It is so easy to rush from one set of goals to the next – we just tick the box and rush on to the next thing without a pause!
Stop!
I am going to share with you why you need to reflect and celebrate what has happened already and then show you how to use that reflection to set more intentional goals for your portable business, and maybe even your life.
To find more details about these tips below, click here to listen to the related podcast episode.
1. Why you should reflect
This is the step that so many entrepreneurs skip, and it is so important. There are three major reasons why pausing for reflection, not just at the end of the year, but more regularly is important.
- Learning from what went well…and what went wrong
If we are constantly moving forward, you don’t take time to really think about what you learned. Mistakes can be powerful teachers but without embracing and analysing them, you will keep repeating them.
- Building confidence and resilience
Do you realize how much you’ve achieved? Taking time to focus on all your successes, big and small, will build your confidence and resilience. It is OK to celebrate how awesome you are!
- Appreciating the journey
It is so easy to stay in ‘chase mode’, always running after the next thing on your ‘to do’ lists. While goals are important, the journey to reach them is valuable too. After all what is the point of goals if you don’t stop to celebrate them? You need to remember WHY you have those goals!
To help you reflect, learn and create your next steps, I have prepared a Planning Toolkit which will give you much more detail on how to work through this process.
2. The questions you need to ask yourself
You will find more detailed resources to help you reflect in my Planning Toolkit, but here are some of the critical things to consider when you pause to reflect on what happened this year.
- How did I feel?
Take time to think about how the achievements and challenges of last year made you feel. What brought you happiness or made you feel good in your business, or even in your private life? Then focus on how you can do more of the things that made you feel good or get you closer to those things. And don’t forget the hard things – putting words on the emotional challenges, can really help your embrace those parts of your journey.
- What are the facts and the numbers?
Make sure to track your numbers as well: your expenses, your revenue as well as your marketing actions. For example: The number of people in your mailing list, the number of people you are building relationships with every month, the number of events you go to or speak at etc…etc. Observe what works and what does not in order to set your next goals strategically, improve these strategies and avoid continuing to spend energy on things that do not work.
- What can I celebrate?
Take the time to make a list of what you can celebrate. I believe that every single one of you will have achievements to celebrate – even if you don’t! And then actually celebrate – do something meaningful for you to appreciate what you have done!
Also celebrate your challenges – they are what make you grow. Embrace your failures, write them down, identify the lesson of each challenge and then find a way to celebrate those lessons.
3. How to plan your next steps
In my Planning Toolkit there are more details on how to plan your next goals and a calendar for you to start planning how you are going to achieve them.
Here’s how to get started.
- Keep in mind the big picture
Take a moment to think about your big picture. You want to be sure that your goals for the next year get you closer to the life you want. To help you think about aligning your portable business and your life, click here for a helpful previous episode.
- Be specific
Your goals need to be measurable and specific, whether they are for your business or your life. So for example, if your goal is ‘more quality time with your partner’, understand why you want this and what it looks like to you, and then plan it – in this case, one week and four weekends together with no work and no other family. And then put it in the calendar!
- Focus on what you can control
This is one of the most important parts of setting your goals. You need to understand what you can control. For example, you cannot control how many people will buy from you. You CAN control your marketing strategies. What can you do consistently that will give you the results you want? And then be specific about exactly what you are going to do.
And FOCUS – Follow one course until success! Don’t try every strategy at once. Use one until you succeed.
- Create your calendar
Break down your goals into baby steps and them make those steps visible on the calendar (find the calendar in my Planning Toolkit) – start scheduling in the steps towards achieving your goals! Continue to pause daily and weekly to look ahead at what you need to do and to check in on your progress – review regularly and adjust as you learn, achieve and of course, celebrate!
Reflecting on our achievements and challenges and planning our next steps is not something you should just do once a year. It needs to be part of your routine. Keep asking yourself if what you are doing is really leading you closer to where you want to be!