So first up, there’s a couple things I want to highlight here.

• Traditionally the end of the year or the start of the New Year is always a good time to set goals. BUT I need to shout this loud for y’all → 2020 has been kind of a lot, so PLEASE be compassionate with yourself.
• And if any of you are naysayers out there in terms of New Year's resolutions, lemme say this: I get it. But you know what? If once a year you're reminded to sit down and think about what you want for your future, I’m all for that. We really do need to sit down and go over all this every once in a while, especially if we're business owners or have other big dreams on the horizon. So if this is when you're reminded to do it, then so be it, LOL!

Even within my own team, or the issues that I had travelling while running my business - this year just changed everything. And I know that’s super trivial compared to so many things that have been going on out there. I'm just really thankful that I've been able to continue to provide for my team through this company when so much crazy shit has been happening. So wherever you are right now, you just need to honor that 💜.

So let’s take a li’l peek at these goal setting tricks!

This can be a real mindset shift too. Because think about what have you done in the last year, or few years. It’s probably more than you realise! So you can use that to strengthen your mindset around what you're actually capable of and what your potential is.

Once you’ve done those two things, we can move on to the next part of this goal setting thang.

So I’m really excited to introduce you to this format of goal setting …..

🥁 🥁 🥁

“The 5-4-3-2-1 Method”

So this is a method to figure out your 5 year goals, and then break them down into goals for the next four months, three weeks, two days and, holy moley, one hour.

And here’s why we do it like this.

One year really isn't that much time, right? But five years is quite a lot of time. Think about how far you come in five years. And if you feel right now like you haven't, girl please! So many of us beat ourselves up for not achieving every damn thing, but when you start to make that list….Like, wow.

When I look back over it and really start to list things out, my last five years have really been amazing! I mean, I've had struggles too, don't get me wrong. But seriously, so much is possible in five years.

So look forward - how can you use the next five years to get to where you ultimately want to be?

I know that where you ultimately want to be might feel really far away from where you are right now, and it might feel like a pipe dream. But we all have to start somewhere, so why not right here, right now?

☞ Get out a piece of paper and jot down who or where or what you want to be in five years.

☞ Think about your career or your business. Think about your family and friends. Think about how you spend your time.

☞ Particularly if you're a business owner, think about what is your role, and how many hours are you working, how much time are you able to take off to enjoy life... I guess we still need to do that too 😅

And then, what I want you to do is out of that list of things, just pick one or two big goals to focus on, because trying to attack too many goals is not a recipe for success... trust me!

So at least for this exercise, try and stick to just one or two major 5 year goals.

5 years > 4 months > 3 weeks > 2 days > 1 hour

So once you've chosen one or two five year goals to focus on, it’s then time to break it down into your four month goals.

What you want to do is break that big hairy scary goal into smaller bite sized goals. And these goals need to be related, right? They should move you toward your five year goal but be something that's much more attainable in a shorter time frame that you can *actually* get done.

This becomes your action plan.

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10.”

Now, I’m not saying it’s gonna take 5 or even 10 years for you to achieve your goal. But a lot of people fall into the trap of creating a super unreasonable goal for the year ahead, or even shorter, and that can make it really hard for you to actually start to take action towards that goal because you don't even believe that it's attainable.

But when you set big goals and then take consistent action towards achieving it, then yes, it can feel like a long time while you’re in the process, but when you look back you’re like, “Wait a minute! Look at all that I accomplished this year!”

So take that big hairy goal, and break it down into the bite size chunks you need to do to get there.

• So, you could use your one hour goal to sit down and write out who your first hire could and should be. Write a list of all the different duties that you're doing at the moment and put stars next to things that you enjoy doing the most. Then circle the things that you know you most want to outsource.
• For your two day goal, pull that all together into a title and job description.
• For your three week goals, get that into an organisational chart, and start to map out the job titles and job descriptions for everybody on that organisational chart.

This is exactly what I did with my business just over a year ago when we were a team of five, and now we are a team of 18. It still blows my mind to see how quickly I got from my first dream organizational chart to here.

I wrote out our current organizational chart and so I had to think about the revenue that I needed to be making so that I could hire a team in the first place AND to then get to my end goal. And 1 year on, now I’m working with these 18 team members. We're actually split into departments, and each department has a manager. These are my leaders. And I'm having each leader, including myself, imagine that they had $150,000 of budget each year to work with to build their team, their specific department. This is where we get to think outside of the box, right?

This budget could be spent on brand new positions, or restructuring, or bringing in new employees that are going to be involved in services or products or projects that aren’t even on the table yet.

And right now we're working on our next dream organizational chart, because we have super big goals for 2021.

But that's just an example!

So think about your big hairy scary goal. Where do you want to be in 5 years? What can you do in 4 months to start to move towards that?

And I want to stress here that you also need to be making sure that you're fitting in time to review your goals. I recommend reviewing your goals at least quarterly. You want to sit down and take a look at your goals, see where you need to adjust, what are you doing right, and where you are off track.

The other reason you want to review your goals is to make sure that you still align with what you truly want and that you're going in the right direction.

And take it from me - if it’s taking a bit longer to get there, it’s ok!!

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” — Les Brown

If you set your four month goal and maybe it takes you six or seven months to get there, that's okay! You haven't failed, and remember, you are still moving in the right direction.

At the end of the day, that's all that we can really do is just keep going in the right direction.

If it’s a bit slow, so what! Don’t get flustered, and don’t give up. It’s happening girl.

So I’ve got one last thing for those of you that do have a team….

I want to remind you to communicate your goals with your team. It’s so important to the success of your business, and to you achieving your goals.

At Hot Mess, we have a monthly all-team meeting and we all get on a Zoom together, and we go over department updates to make sure everybody's updated with all the latest things that are going on. And yes, we actually go over our revenue and our goals!

For the last meeting of 2020, we went over all the crazy things that happened this year. And we shared our goals for 2021. I love being really transparent with my team and I think it really helps them be on the same page as you are.

But however you do it, remember to communicate your goals to your team. And remember to look after them because they're a big part of that. You really can't do these things alone.

As we like to say over here, teamwork makes the dream work. And it is really, really true.

So one last time …. Always remember to Dream Big girl!

This year, don't hold back. I know I would not be where I am right now if I didn’t set myself really scary goals that always feel far fetched at the time.

Go ahead and use this 5-4-3-2-1 method for setting your goals intentionally for 2021, and let's go do this!!!

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