This week on the podcast I talk about goal-setting and performance.
We’ve been talking a lot about goals on the podcast because being able to set and achieve a goal in a way that feels good and honors you, the human, is a FUNDAMENTAL skill. It’s a required competency for running a business.
In The Bold Profit Academy we’ve been working on building goal-setting and planning skills throughout our Q1 curriculum.
Our Q1 curriculum has been focused on generating revenue so you can generate significant income, increase your profits, and start your sales year strong.
The Bold Profit Academy is open for enrollment, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate to join today by going to theboldleadershiprevolution.com/academy.
We know that setting goals increases your performance because they give you a focal point and something to measure. Setting a goal is an easy way to organize and direct your effort to increase the likelihood of you actually getting what you want.
Setting a goal does not mean you will achieve it. You still have to put that goal into action and most importantly keep it at the forefront of your mind, on a regular and consistent basis.
Achieving a goal takes focus. Achieving a goal takes consistently showing up for that goal. Achieving a goal takes habit creation, a change to how we normally do things, and it takes persistence to keep going even though you might doubt whether or not you will achieve that goal.
Achieving a goal requires you to cultivate self-beliefs that might require you to create new neural pathways and unlearn previous beliefs.
Achieving a goal takes patience and the ability to delay gratification.
It’s not like you decide to set a goal and then it’s automatically achieved.
Achieving a goal is like going on a journey: It has a starting point, a middle, and the end point. And like any good road trip, inevitably someone gets bored, starts whining, and asks are we there yet?
So, while everyone likes to talk a good goal game, it’s no surprise to me that most of my clients and students don’t like setting goals. Sometimes they avoid them. Or downright resist them.
I can’t help but think we keep getting goal-setting twisted up.
I’ve been in a lot of conversations recently with clients about goals, and I want to take a moment to reframe the conversation before I even get into why people seem to be so goal resistant.
Reframe 1: Grace over goals. What is possible for our ability to set and achieve a goal if we prioritize grace. If the goal takes a little longer to achieve, that’s ok. If you decide that the goal you set is no longer the right goal for you, cool don’t force it. If you fall short of hitting your goal, how about giving yourself a high five because where would you even be if you never set the goal in the first place. Thankfully, most of us don’t operate in a high stakes environment where goal outcomes are life and death.
Grace.
Reframe 2: Performance over achievement. What if we took achieving the goal off the table and made the journey about honing your performance. Things like commitment, consistency, courage, skill-building – the who you become along the way. What if we made this about falling in love with the process?
The end result – the tangible part of the goal – is a lagging indicator of success. If you set a goal on January 1 and a timeframe for completion of March 30, you might not know if you will achieve the goal until February or March. There’s a lag from when you start the goal until you are rewarded with goal achievement.
But if you fall in love with the process, you’ll love doing the activities that lead to success or what we call leading indicators of success.
While you might not feel you have control of the end result, you absolutely do have control over the leading indicators
Now that we have done some reframing, Let’s talk about what the world is going on that is creating so much goal avoidance and resistance.
The other week I was delivering a strategic planning training called Your BOLDEST year yet in The BRAVE Society. While the strategic plan is a high-level, 30,000-foot view of your business direction, we did talk about goals.
One of the participants asked a great question: “Why do I think people are so goal resistant?”.
It was a great question and I wanted to unpack it for you here today because you might recognize yourself in this conversation.
I find people who are goal-avoidant really interesting because they want a specific outcome, they genuinely want to achieve their desired result – more money, more profit, pay down debt, increase sales conversions, but they resist committing to the goal that will get them there.
First, if anything in this podcast so far is setting off alarm bells because it sounds like you, I want to acknowledge that this is a real thing, I work with MANY people who experience this and are deeply frustrated with themselves.
It’s painful when you resist the thing you want the most. But what I want to do next is give you some insight into WHY you might be resisting setting goals.
I’ve personally done this MANY times with revenue goals and for me, it’s usually always linked to my self-confidence in going and doing the things I know need to be done to get to where I want to go.
SO, self-esteem is a big one for why people avoid setting goals. Self-esteem is defined as confidence in one’s own worth or abilities – self-respect.
Here is another way to look at committing to a goal. Committing to a goal is like being in a sales conversation with yourself. Logically, you want to set a goal because you know that’s what will bring you closer to what you want. You’re selling yourself on going all-in on this thing you want.
And then there is the part of your brain that’s afraid. Afraid if you set the goal, you might fail. Or if you BUY the goal, it will end the way it has in the past. Let’s face it, you haven’t always risen to the occasion. You’ve duped yourself and broken promises and have disappointed yourself. Most likely more than once.
So you start to think…what will make this any different? How do you know you won’t disappoint yourself again.
Like any sales conversation, you need to focus on the value of the goal. The transformation that will take place. You have to get clear on your reasons for the goal and sell yourself on why now is the perfect time to rise to this challenge.
Aside from a fear of failure and disappointment, other reasons why you might be avoiding setting goals is because you’ve created a story around what goal-setting means…
Like goals equal hard work, or achieving the goal you want to set might lead to burnout. Lots of women fear as they grow their business and step into greater levels of success that they will burn out.
Maybe you’ve reached a level of success that you never thought possible and now setting a goal to go beyond that is uncomfortable.
Are you a control person and feel like you have no control over the goals you set?
Maybe you don’t like feeling tied to one particular goal.
Maybe your dream feels so big it’s overwhelming to try to break it down into actionable goals and steps.
I want to tell you the truth – none of these things are true.
You CAN trust yourself to set goals and achieve them with joy.
You CAN set goals that feel aligned and easy to achieve even though they will challenge you to grow.
You can set goals where you can have greater control over the outcome because you can control your actions.
You can learn how to set goals that break down that big goal into smaller milestones.
You can set goals that are exciting, fun, and deeply fulfilling.
It’s been a privilege to share this episode with you. Please I know I believe in you and the power of small business ownership. Take good care.
