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You need a goal. And a system.
What if you don't need a goal to do what you need to do? Let's talk about what a goal is good at, and not good at, and get you ready for the rest of the year!
Welcome to the second half of 2018. This is the perfect time to look at the goals you set in January and be real with yourself. Are you truly working on them? Have you made progress? What do you need in order to work on them?
Today we're going to talk about what to do AFTER you set a goal…and we're going talk about some advanced-level stuff – maybe you don't need a goal at all.
A few weeks ago a Starship Captain said, “You know, I can't really think of a goal. I feel like my business is going in the right direction, if I just keep doing the work I know to do.”
YES! That is what it's all about!
See, a goal is not the POINT, a goal is just a tool to help you get what you want.
A goal should:
- Inspire you to kickstart work you haven't done before (or get more consistent with the work)
- Clarify the direction you want to go, so all your actions can line up to what you actually want
- Make it obvious what you need to do and what you need to commit to, to make it happen.
This is why not reaching your goal is sometimes just as productive as reaching it. You can learn from a goal you don't reach. Maybe you learned that your timeline or expectations were wrong. Maybe you learn you don't actually want that goal. Maybe you learn you need a different business model, or you need to work on totally different projects.
The GOAL of a goal is to bring you that clarity, to help you learn the lessons in your business.
I wrote a whole book about, and lead people through the process, of setting a goal and breaking it down into a plan because I've found that having a set goal, and then working towards it, is the fastest way to learn from your business.
Setting a goal AND creating the plan makes you:
- Get specific about what you need to do
- Organize your time so you can do the stuff
- Try stuff you might otherwise put off
- Create systems so you can be consistent in all aspects: making, marketing, photography, shipping, etc
For MANY of the makers and artists and essential oil educators that I work with, setting a goal and then breaking it down into a doable plan is the first time they've gotten serious about their business. It's the first time they've really looked at what they even want, and what they're willing to do to get there.
Without a goal it's easy to just keep reading articles, researching, wondering why people aren't buying, and then go read another article. With a goal, you have to take action (or you realize you haven't been taking action!).
And here's the cool thing about all this – after a goal gets you taking action, getting organized, creating systems for getting things done…you don't always need a goal to keep going.
In fact, the system itself can keep you reaching your next goals.
In his book How to Fail at Anything, Scott Adams, writes that systems are better than goals. Systems of action, applied overtime, bring about better results that one of goals. When you don't reach a goal, you feel bummed, but when you're working a system – every day that you do the work, you can feel great and accomplished.
What's a system?
Posting on Instagram is a system. My podcast, with it's transcript and free downloads and blog posts and youtube videos and audio version on iTunes – that is a system. I don't have a goal to put out a podcast, I have a system that gets it out consistently
Now, I disagree with Scott, because I think he doesn't address a major issue in accomplishing anything – activation energy. Activation energy is the energy that it takes to START something. What I've found in working with hundreds of women in creating the business they want is that a big, exciting, motivating goal can help you over the hump of activation energy. It can inspire you to spend that energy and move forward powerfully and quickly. A system isn't that inspiring 🙂
But after you're over the activation energy, a system is what you need in order to keep moving forward. A system about when you work, what you work on, how things get done.
Today I'd like you to look at where you wanna go in your business and your goals for the rest of the year – where would a system help make it easier?
I made a worksheet last year about staying consistent that will help you spot these places for systems. You can get that worksheet here:
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