How to Achieve Big Goals with Tiny Steps

Would you like to achieve big goals for your business but have no idea how to get you there?  6 easy to follow steps is all it takes!

Wanna know one of my pet-peeves?

The emails and social media posts that start landing in your inbox as early as October about ‘New Year Resolutions’,  or ‘Goals For The New Year’,  or ‘How to achieve goals for 2022’.

They irk me, not because I don’t believe in planning or goal setting. But because of THE TIMING OF IT.

See… in October I’m busy planning my Q4 and I’m 100% focussed on achieving business goals I set out for THAT year. I’m not thinking about the NEXT chapter … yet. And I don’t want to either. Doing that would completely take away any focus.

The simple thing to do is, of course, just ignore them. But that’s easier said than done when there’s this constant niggle at the back of your brain.

SO…at the end of last year, I decided to shut down the chatter in my head there and then.

I scheduled a date with myself to map out my goals once the year is over.

Guess what?

IT WORKED!

The chatter stopped because I knew I was going to deal with it in due time and I could continue to focus on what needed my attention.

But the real reason I wanted to talk to you is because … NOW is the time to set business goals for the new year. It’s a rather important process, and you’d be amazed at how much you can achieve in just 12 months.

I know, because I do it every year! (With success, may I add.)

So let’s dive into the process of achieving your wildest dreams goals in business. (Euh…No, I’m not overselling this!)

Achieving the ‘impossible’, step by step

Step 1: What’s Your BIG Goal/Dream/Vision For The Year?

This could be something like doubling your revenue with your signature program in the next 12 months while maintaining a 30% profit margin.

Don’t worry if it feels very far-fetched and lofty. You don’t need to see the road at this stage. Just pin down what it is you would really, really like to achieve.

Share your Big goal with the team, so all noses point in the same direction.

Note: Chances are good the SMART goals come to mind. But I’m even more of a fan of Michael Hyatt’s SMARTER goals. There’s overlap between the two, but the Smarter goals take it just that (important) step further.

This is what SMARTER goals stand for:

Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Risky
Time-bound
Exciting
Relevant

I like the addition of RISKY because it implies you need to push yourself a little; get yourself out of your comfort zone.

I’m also all for EXCITING because, in the end, if we don’t get excited about our big goals and wild dreams, what are we doing? Also, it’s the ‘exciting’ that will get us through the tough bits and the setbacks. And there’s no denying we’ll encounter those at some point.

Step 2: Set Your 3 Goals To Achieve Your Vision

Next, set 3 key priorities that will help you achieve your vision.

The THREE is important because anything more will muddle the focus.

Thinking about our earlier example, we could decide that growing our email list to 5,000 subscribers will help us grow our revenue by the end of the year. We could also decide to systemize our client delivery process with some SOPs, so we can do more in less time.

Step 3: Identify Which Projects Will Get You There

Building on our example, you could decide to host four webinars to generate an email list of some high value potential clients.

Deciding on exactly which projects will get you to achieve your goals happens in 3 stages.

• First, it’s time for some solid brain storming. What projects would help us achieve those 3 sub-goals? DON’T judge during the brainstorming session.
• Only afterwards can you get out the 3 evaluation buckets called: Great/Good/No-go
• Third, you roughly map them out on a calendar.

You probably have an idea of how long you take to organise four webinars. Certain times of the year might be out of the question for you or your potential client. Some projects might depend on the completion of another project. So scheduling that out on the calendar will be a weeding-out process on how workable your thinking is.

YOU NOW HAVE A HIGH-LEVEL PLAN FOR YOUR BIG GOAL OF THE YEAR!

It’s Time To Hone Down On The Nitty-Gritty Of Your Goal Planning Process

But here’s an important caveat: there is a fine balance between over-planning and under-planning your project. Over-do it and you lose agility. Under-do it and the overwhelm and stress will be through the roof.

So my golden piece of advice: Create a full project plan ONE QUARTER AT A TIME. This allows for any change that will occur during the year. (And if we’ve learned anything from the last 2 years, it’s that you need to be able to pivot!)

Step 4: Set Key Milestones For Each Project

Key-milestones are the anchors of any project. They are the deadlines for certain vital points. If you fail to meet those, your project is in danger of going down the gurgler.

For my own event business, for instance, the event date and the opening of the event registration are key-milestones.

Step 5: List Out All The Tasks For Each Key Milestone

Create a checklist with all the things that need to be completed before you can reach those key-milestones. Every identified task needs a line in your goal-setting project plan.

Back to my event example: one item on the checklist for the registration milestone is sending out a registration email. But that’s still not enough detail!

So you break the task down into the simplest of steps.

For the registration email, it looks like this:

• Write email content
• Approve email content
• Upload the email in the marketing software
• Send a test-email
• Final approval of the test-email
• Schedule the email

Although that looks very granular, this simple task of sending an email may actually involve three different people going over 2-3 days, so the detail is important in streamlining the process.

Which brings us to our final step….

Step 6: Put The Entire Project Into A Project Management Tool

By far the easiest way to keep your project streamlined and on schedule is with a Project Management Tool. It’s a game changer and if you’re not using one yet, you really should look into it.

As to which one I would recommend? I feel like I’ve tried them all and the one I settled on was Monday.com because of its visual appeal (I want to able to see in the blink of an eye what’s going on and where we’re at), plus its customizability (My business isn’t your business, right!?).

The best way to find out, of course, is to try Monday.com for yourself, so I’ve included an affiliate link for you to try! Here it is sandrajulian.co/Monday.com.

But in case that’s still daunting, or you’re short on time, or your current project management tool isn’t quite what you had in mind, I can do even better!

HOW ABOUT I SET UP YOUR PROJECT PLAN IN MONDAY.COM FOR YOU!

Here’s how:

• Send me your questions about Monday.com or my VIP days in a DM on Instagram (@SandraJulian.co)
• Book a VIP Day
• At the time of the VIP Day, I’ll set up your project plan in MONDAY.com in a way that is completely customized to your needs. In the meantime, you can do all the other things that need doing in your business.
• At the end of the VIP Day, it’s all ready to go. I’ll show you how to use your MONDAY.com project plan (and you receive video-instructions on top)!

I also have a FREE Step-by-Step Guide for the fans of a good diagram that will map out your goal planning process. You can find it here. (SandraJulian.co/plan)

I really hope this has been helpful to you! It would mean the world to me if I would get a message from you at the end of the year that it was my podcast or blog that gave you the push or the focus or the tools to achieve your dream goal.

Any question, as always, just get in touch!

But as much as I like to help you, you can also do me a favour: please share this podcast with a friend, a colleague or on your own Social Media (Just take a screenshot, share it and tag me and I’ll also give you a shout-out!) so it can find the people who need to hear this.