How I Set Myself Up To Attain My Goals
If December represents twinkle lights, sugary warm bevvies, and end of year holiday celebrations…
Then January represents an organized home, a clean-ish diet, and a clean slate.
And what pairs better with a clean slate than fresh new goals for the new year?
If you’ve been hanging with me for a bit, you probably picked up on a passion I have for setting goals, creating plans to achieve goals, and reviewing progress.
(I mean, what kind of coach would I be if I didn't?)
But to help YOU achieve your goals this year, I want to walk you through the 5 things I do to set myself up to attain my goals each year.
But before I dive in… you should have TWO things in place.
Have a clear, measurable goal
I literally had to Google “SMART goal” to find out what it stands for, and I can attest that, yes, those are exactly the kind of goals you should be setting.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, but I want to emphasize the M in SMART goals…
making your goals mesaurable.
Why do we want our goals to be measurable?
Because…
measurable goals are more motivating than vague goals
measurable goals are more easily understood by our brains, and
these goals are way more fun to celebrate when you do achieve them!
How to set a measurable goal for your interior design business
So if your goal is to “attract more desirable clients to your design business” there are two things I would do to make this measurable:
Define “desirable"
What is “desirable” to you? Is it a certain client budget? Scope of work? Timeline? Personality? All of the above? Define what this is.
Define “more”
To make the word “more” measurable, look at all of your inquiries or clients from last year and identify how many of them fell into this “desirable” category. Once you have that number, ask yourself how many more you want this year, and make it a big round number. For example, if you had 3 clients last year who fell into this “desirable” definition, maybe this year your goal is 5, or 7.
If it helps, I took a course this past November with millionaire founder and CEO Suneera Madhani where she confirmed goals should be set based on two things:
facts, and your gut.
I loved that clarity as it's how I’ve been setting mine for years, but it was nice to finally have permission to trust my hunches.
So before you move on, have in mind at least one measurable goal you want to achieve this year.
2. Have Your Clear Measurable Goal Broken Down Into Quarters (& Possibly Months)
My next step is to take my annual goal and break it down into monthly and quarterly goals.
So let’s say my goal is to make 100K this year.
That would be…
25K per quarter (100,000/4 quarters), and
just over 8.3K per month (100,000/12 months)
And before I get too caught up in perfect 25K quarters, I like to take my revenue data a step further.
I review what my quarters statistically look like each year, and see if I can spot any trends.
For example, for the last three years, what have Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 looked like for me?
What I want to get at is the percentage of my overall revenue that I average each quarter.
So while my "goal" for Q1 could be 25K, if I statistically average 35% of my revenue each Q1, then my real goal might land a little closer to 35K in Q1.
(Now if there aren’t any trends, don’t stress about it. But usually, there will be! For example, for many of my clients, their biggest quarter is Q3.)
Note: if you do this exercise I am curious which quarter is typically best in your business! Please DM me on Instagram and let me know.
Now, the five things I do to set myself up to achieve my goals
So as I've mentioned, this blog post is about sharing with you what I do to set my year up for success to achieve my goals.
And here is where we take a deep-dive into what those things are.
Some of these are simple changes, some are spiritual shifts, but they all do one thing:
keep my goals in front of me.
I add “belief time” to my calendar each weekday from 7-7:30am.
Yes, I add time into my calendar every single day to build my beliefs toward my goals. Because if you aren’t exercising your belief muscles in the direction of your dreams… welp, you’re going to fall flat on your face.
So In the description of this slot on my calendar, I link to a Google Doc I created that details my goal and reminds me of why this goal is important for me to accomplish.
I remind myself of…
all the designers who are out there who need my help
how I plan to help them
the breakthroughs they will have from working with me
the big life I want to lead
how possible this all is if I continue to stay the course.
Do I actually do this every morning? Nah. But most mornings, I do. And it’s the habits you build most that win the long-run.
I create a Canva graphic of my priorities with check-boxes next to each one and add it to my cork board.
I create this list on my Planning Day that I run for myself each year, and these answers are developed from these three questions,
What do I need to learn to accomplish this goal?
What do I need to focus on to accomplish this goal?
Who do I need to become to accomplish this goal?”
From those three questions, I jot down what feels like the truth to me.
For example, this year it's important to me to learn email list building and email marketing, so I decided that would be the first course I would enroll in at the beginning of the year.
A few other priorities of mine this year include process automation and repurposing content.
I keep this little checklist on my cork board in front of me, but kind of off to the side as I use it to reference every so often.
I create a goals and strategies graphic and add it to my corkboard.
Also in Canva, I create a graphic that has 3 squares:
One square with my annual goals
One square with my quarterly goals
One square with my quarterly strategies
I pin this smack dab in the middle of my cork board so I see it daily.
I love it as it reminds me of my big-picture goal and my shorter-term strategies all in one.
I also update this graphic quarterly. The box with the annual goals doesn’t change, but the quarterly goals strategies do.
Struggling to come up with strategies?
My favorite way I’ve learned to come up with strategies is to grab a pen and paper, and jot down all the obstacles that could hold you back from achieving your goals.
Once you have that list, take each one, and flip it into a strategy!
For example, if one of your goals is to attract 5 clients with $300K+ budgets this year, an obstacle could be that you aren’t in that market yet.
So what would be the strategy? To get into that market!
(Pro tip: don’t leave it at that - start to strategize HOW you will break into that market. i.e. build relationships with realtors, pitch yourself for publications, highlight your best client stories, etc.)
I update a couple of my passwords to the goals I want to achieve
Not going to lie, I'm a little worried about writing that in print 🤣 since I don’t want anyone hacking into my accounts (especially with how AI seems to read our minds lately?) but I do this as a subtle way to remind my brain of what I’m making happen this year.
I share my goals with others
Listen, some people will tell you you HAVE to share your goals with others. And I actually don’t totally believe that… because if you only have unsupportive Debbie downers in your life, then I don’t want you sharing your goals with them.
But I would identify someone who does support you and who does dream big for you and share your goals with them.
Lucky for me, I have a wonderful, supportive husband whom I share my goals with. He knows exactly what I’m aiming for and believes in me as I go for it.
If you don’t have anyone like that in your life, please DM me and share your goals with me. Because I am 100% behind you making them happen!
And that’s really how I set myself up to achieve my 2024 goals!
If you take a look at what I do, I’m really just keeping my goals and strategies in front of me at all times, at a macro and micro level.
Structuring my environment like this allows me to stay motivated toward accomplishing my goals while holding myself accountable for what I said I would do to make them happen.
As I mentioned earlier, these goals and strategies stem from my annual planning day I hold in December each year.
In my planning day I review my year, set goals for the next year, and create strategies to reach those goals.
If you have never run a planning day for yourself, you can click here to download my 5 Tips for Your Planning Day and Planning Day Agenda.
And if you DO implement anything from this post, please snap a photo and tag me on Instagram @jeannieandresen_ so I can share it with my community too.
