How To Move Forward? Goal Setting For Your Business

In this story, we will reflect and pause. Get a pen and paper if you can’t verbalise your answers right now.

Do you feel stuck? In your life and your business? Do you have this feeling that for the past four months, nothing significant has happened? Do you feel like you are longing for something to happen or a time to come when you get the ball rolling? Welcome to the club, I guess. I and my colleagues and friends have shared similar experiences for the past few weeks. And it got me thinking — is this maybe a collective experience we are all having? Do we struggle to move forward because we feel a little lost or unmotivated?

What do you think the cause might be? Feel free to reach out and share your personal opinion I am always curious to see what and how other people think. Is it because we are not high anymore on adrenaline from the fear of the pandemic? Or is it that every day something outrageous happens, and we find ourselves thinking — what’s the point? I don’t know. I am just thinking out loud in text format here. 😁

But if we ignore the past, focus on the present and dream about the future, where would we like to be? With our businesses and lives. What makes us get up from bed and think: okay, let’s go! After you think about that for a second it is time to set your goals after you have checked your motivation.

1. Let’s look at the big picture — where do you see yourself and your business in your wildest unlimited dreams? How do you feel doing what you do? Yes, here think about your mission, vision and overreaching objectives. These bigger pieces will help you get more specific later on, but to get to that you need to know where are you heading exactly and why!‍
2. ‍Think about the W’s — Who, what, when, why, and how: these are all critical considerations when it comes to user experience, business and your overall goals. It’s called, getting specific with it.

• Who: Who are your target users or ideal clients you want to work with? It helps to create personas to determine their wants, needs, likes, and dislikes. It’s like creating the game character you want to interact with! I am in the process of doing that exercise myself.
• What: What kind of product or service are you building? What is it meant to do? What will it accomplish and resolve for the user or client?
• When: When is your team (or yourself, if you are a solopreneur) looking to bring the product/service to market? Deadlines are an important factor in any business (UX) process.
• Why: Why should or do people want to use this product/service of yours? Why are you creating it in the first place?
• How: How do you expect clients or users to use it?
  

3. Let’s make it official and put a deadline on it! — part of the SMART method, of which I bet most of us curious gang members have heard (this is my newsletter group name by the way 😅). Time-bound, Realistic, Actionable/Achievable, Measurable, and Specific are all part of the acronym for successfully achieving your goals.

4. Prioritise, and stop procrastinating — what are 4 goals you want to focus on this year, and achieve them? Keep it simple and specific, remember.

5. Review your available resources — what do you already have that can help you excel in your business? What are your tools and advantages that you can utilise right now, without waiting for a perfect moment? You must have some to be already where you are now, so think of ways how can you can incorporate your resources in order to achieve your goals.

6. On a more spiritual level if you will, how do you see yourself achieving those goals? — how do you feel? What are the qualities you have along the way? Do you need a course? Do you need to collaborate and ask for help? Maybe you need more discipline in your time management.

7. Face your fears — what are the things that hold you back? The first thing that comes to mind, say it, admit it and face it. Observe your limitations and own barriers to move forward with your progress. Do you think first of the worst-case scenario? I do. 😅

8. Time to break down the small steps towards the goals — now we know where we are going, but how do we get there? Let’s start with the steps we need to take on a monthly, weekly and then eventually daily base to get there. One tile at a time to build the pathway.

9. Choose your North Star — for me this was the hardest step, choosing someone I look up to in order to learn from them and their success to achieve my own goals. Because you know what, we learn better when we learn from others' experiences. And finding who are your role models in terms of personal brands or companies you look up to, and want to be like them, will help you create an, even more, clearer perspective of what you want to achieve. So give it a go and try to think not only about famous entrepreneurs, freelancers and business owners but also about people around you that inspire you.

And start! Start taking action after defining all these important goals of yours. Block the time in the calendar, set up meetings, reach out to people you want to work with and get busy.

Stay curious! 😊

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