It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means? You guessed it. Goal setting! What are your goals for the next year? How do you plan on achieving them? What steps can you take to get you closer to reaching those big goals and dreams?
What if I told you that the key to achieving your goals each year is to write them down? Seriously.
If you’re scared to set goals or wondering how to set goals that you can actually achieve, then this episode is for you. Michelle Ellis is back on to talk about the importance of goal setting, why writing your goals down matters, and how your mindset and thought patterns about self-worth are related to the fear you have around your goals. PLUS, we’ll tell you how to overcome these fears with incremental steps so you can achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself and your business.
It’s time to say YES to your dreams and just do it–and you can start by writing down those big goals…and listening to this episode, of course.
Connect with Michelle:
Michelle’s website: https://michelleellisco.showit.site/#/
Michelle’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theorganiccopywriter/
Rachel: Hey guys, this time of the year brings us a lot of goal-setting. As we go into the new year, you might find around Thanksgiving, you start to do that analysis of the year or a gratitude list of what you’re grateful for and what you also want to change.
I know for me in business, that also happens every quarter. I hope you’re analyzing your business every quarter, looking at the prices that you charge, and making any changes to your business that you’ve got to make. But the big thing that happens in December is really that goal-setting. If you’re scared to attack that goal setting, you might need to work on that mindset and your thought patterns about self worth. That’s what we’re going to be diving into today, self worth, goal setting, putting on your big girl panties, and being able to actually say yes, I’m gonna go for my dreams, I’m gonna actually write them down.
So Michelle, let’s talk about goal setting, what would stop somebody from actually wanting to put their goals on paper?
What’s Stopping You From Writing Down Your Goals
Michelle: The fear of putting it out there and the fear of it might not happen. A lot of times, people won’t write down or even say out loud what they really want to happen. Because there’s that fear of, if I say it, and then it doesn’t happen, then I’m going to feel like I’m not good enough, or I didn’t get what I wanted or whatever internal fears are there. It just stops because once you put it down on paper, it becomes a real thing. Reality.
I remember when I went and hired a coach, Sam Loft, who was my first launch coach, I was in her mastermind. And we had to write down our launch goals. I was so freaking scared. I actually shared in the group, I’m really scared to do this. I’ve never actually written them down. I just say them. And she was like, No, you have to write them down. And when I wrote that number down, I actually hit that number.
How To Overcome Your Fear Of Setting Goals
Rachel: You have to do it. And the truth is, we don’t do it enough. I get that little fear that comes up. What if I don’t accomplish this? Especially in times of up-leveling and shifting business. So what is your tip if you’re feeling that fear of, am I actually going to write this down? What am I going to do? What’s your tip for attacking that?
Michelle: I learned this maybe five or something years ago. I had done a program with Todd Herman and he was all about this 90-day year. He had the strategy for good, better, best when it came to goals. And that helped me tremendously, and I use it all the time. Because I feel like sometimes we always think best formatting things into increments.
This is the best goal, but when you really look at it, this would be the best possible outcome, this would be good, this would be better. When you put it down in those increments, it gives you some flexibility. It doesn’t feel like a goal that’s so yes or no.
What’s really nice about that and looking through that mindset is you give yourself flexibility to hit different levels and to still feel really positive about it. I always look at it through that lens of okay, let me set a good goal. This is something I know I believe I can achieve. But I still have the other two brackets there, and that’ll help with anything. How many clients do you want? What are you charging? What do you want to launch? So many different things.
Even your personal goals. Let’s say it’s about weight loss. A lot of people want to lose 30 pounds, but there should still be a good feeling when you lose 10 pounds, so if you set the higher marker up at 30 pounds, then you’re achieving milestones with each level. If you achieve the top awesome, amazing, but you can still walk away feeling really good about yourself and your progress if you hit those lower two brackets. This changed my whole thinking around goal setting.
Why Writing Down Your Goals Is Key
Rachel: You’re talking about writing it down. Because we often have so much circulating in our brain, it’s really important to write it down. We know that this is definitely one of the essential steps for manifesting. We can’t just manifest to write, we have to actually write our goals down, we have to see ourselves in our future self. We also have to make sure that we’re seeing the steps that we need to take to actually have those achievable goals.
You can still do the incremental goals of good, better,best. But if you want to do that, actually write it down if you want to get more clients. How are you going to get more clients? Are you going to engage more in your Facebook group? Where are you going to create a Facebook group? Are you going to do a webinar a month? Are you going to do workshops offline?
See yourself actually writing down those steps. For example, if you’re doing workshops online, what are the 5 to 10 places that you’re reaching out to make a list of those people? Actually take those steps. Same thing with a webinar. What’s the content you’re launching? Do you need content?
I actually had a client that signed up with me yesterday, that’s like, I need to do a bunch of sessions with you. Because I need to map out my quarter. This gets me excited when a coach says I actually need to map it out. Because she’s got a big goal to launch a functional medicine program. She’s like, I need to be doing a webinar a month, I need to think about how I’m having my visibility, I need to think about my three offers. And she was clear. And because of that clarity, we were able to map out December, January, February, and March so she can go into it strong and build her list. And she already was like, Yep, I’ve been practicing doing workshops. I’ve been practicing doing webinars, and practicing getting comfortable on camera. And I thought that’s exactly the reverse engineer steps they need to have.
Michelle: Yeah, and knowing when to set your goals, then you’ll know the effort that has to go into each one of these and that’s really, really important. Because if you don’t have those action steps, then you’re not moving toward your goals. So it’s really good. It sounds so silly to just write them down as if it’s homework. But if you don’t do that, then everything will just stay in your head, it’ll stay a dream.
How Fear Feeds Into Our Thoughts Around Our Self-Worth
Rachel: You’re getting in your own way of success. And the fear comes in so much of that self-worth. You have to have that goal. Especially on what you’re charging. I had a coach email me for a strategy session and said that she was charging $100 a month. I said, Please, you have to charge more. Coming out of school I was at $197 and I made $13,000 that year. But I said to her, make sure you keep taking it up by increments every two months, every three months. $250 to $297 through to $397. Eventually, it got to $550 an hour.
She said, what do coaches charge for high ticket stuff? I said, there are so many coaches who charge $997 a month to $2097 a month because of everything that goes into it. Especially as an entrepreneur. There’s so much that you have to cover. There are so many different business expenses. If you’re using a coaching software, email marketing like Active Campaign or MailChimp.
So really, set your goals and everything you want for your business for yourself, and give yourself the opportunity to ask for what you really want in life for yourself and what you really deserve.
Looking Ahead Instead Of Backwards
Michelle: I love this time of year because a lot of times it can go either way. People can also become very depressed at the end of the year, right? People look back at their year and Warelike, Well, this year didn’t go as planned or I didn’t hit those goals or whatever. But what’s in the past is the past. Look at the new year coming in. What do you really want? It’s a brand new year, even if you’re in year seven of your business, it’s still a brand new year. You could have more success in that year. And then also be willing to.
Rachel: I love that you talked about looking back and being willing to look back and see if I didn’t get to this goal and why and what was actually happening. For my own financial goals, the last two years have been different because I had to take a little step back from social media. I wasn’t doing as much because I’m working on this deep trauma therapy that’s taking up a lot of space. So I’m probably not going to hit the goal that I want to hit. But I know what those steps are, what those building blocks are to actually hit that goal. I know what I need to do and I am willing to look back and have compassion and say, maybe this year, I wasn’t feeling my best. Maybe this year, I was dealing with impostor syndrome. So I knew all the steps I needed to take, but I wasn’t doing it. Being willing to actually be honest with yourself is so important.
Michelle: That’s super, super important to have that compassion factor. And also just being grateful for everything that did happen even though this didn’t happen, this did. Think about it through that mindset, and that’s going to be really pivotal for entering a new year with new goals and a new vision.
Rachel: Map it out. Write down your goals. Write down the good, the better, the best. Write them down in three columns, then reverse engineer and figure out what you need to do to actually make those happen.
What are your goals? To build your list? To get more clients? What are your financial goals? Also, look at your time freedom. Are you looking at working smarter, not harder? Where do you need to evaluate your time schedule? Some people spend way too much time in Canva. Really being knowledgeable, really being in tune to where your time is going.
When I was up-leveling, I took an egg timer to really be able to see how long I was spending time and where I was spending time. Was it on Facebook, where I was spending time in a scroll? Which was actually not productive. That became a goal of mine.
Setting Health Goals & Personal Goals
Also health goals. We talked about being health coaches, but for a lot of us, we deal with our own health issues. So what are your health goals for the year? What do you need to do? My health goal is to come out of this autoimmune hell, what do I need to do? I hired a doctor, did IV therapy, oxygen therapy, red light therapy, all these different therapies, and I was able to come out of that autoimmune house. It’s been one of the top goals that have to be there always.
Michelle: I think that is super important. Because it should be the first goal anyone sets. Because it’s so easy to lose sight of that even as health conscious. Things happen and life is busy. Sometimes it’s easy to forget or get out of a routine. Even for me, getting over COVID, my body was not in the same health as it was two months ago. I need to actually do more for myself health wise and really be aware of that and make smart decisions when it comes to my health. That’s made a big difference for me.
And if we don’t do that for ourselves and give ourselves a new set of goals, especially as entrepreneurs, whether we’re a new coach, or whether we’re a coach that has been around the block for a while, we won’t achieve the things we want to.. There’s so much that we always have to be doing in different parts of our business. We can get ourselves into a state where we’re in adrenal fatigue.
You’ll see people, especially coaches, come out of the hustle and it’s really important to actually make sure that in that process, you’re building your business or you’re leveling up, that you’re not sacrificing your self-care. I know for me, it was something that I did. It was like an addiction to work. I just kept working, and I had to really find that beautiful balance of, where can I work more efficiently without fear? But that was part of the overworking. Inside I just kept going and going.
But to make that a really good goal, it’s about how to work smarter, not harder. I would say the last part is to look at your relationships in life. What do you need more of? Do you need more girlfriends? Do you need a better connection with your parents? A better connection with siblings? Where do you need to let go? Where do you need to forgive? Would you agree?
Michelle: Looking at your support system and your people and atmospheres that drain you. Surrounding yourself around people who are supportive and if you don’t have family who’s very supportive, find friends or a local community. There are people out there that want support just as much and also to be a support to other people, because I think that just creates that energy exchange where it just comes back to you when you need it.
Also a lot of people love to do vision boards, I have one in my closet where I get changed. So I look at it every day. You can always put that list up there so you see it every day, and then put images around. So showing up for that webinar or doing that workshop, it becomes a really nice picture board for reminding you of what your goals are.
Rachel: Michelle, is there anything else that you think we need to add to make this conversation fire?
Michelle: I would say don’t hold back .There’s nothing terrible that’s going to happen if you don’t hit the goal. So just write it down anyway and go for it. And you’ll go farther than you would have if you didn’t write it down. So you’re already winning the minute you put it down, so you might as well just do it.
Rachel: Just do it, guys. I follow a lot of people who swear by writing things down in a journal and then it’s happening exactly that way. We know that this works. That’s my goal for this year is to get better at journaling because I’m not the best at it. But that was on my goal list. And it’s definitely something that I need to work on because I see it work for everyone, but I am a good goal setter. I am a good list builder when it comes to building those lists on what I actually need to do, so make sure that you are getting your goals this season!
