The New Year is upon us and I, like many, always take this time to set up some goals for myself for the year ahead.
For 2021, I’ve made it a priority to focus on growing my business and setting up some specific goals I want to accomplish for the upcoming year.
Here’s a highlight list of my top 3 business goals for 2021:
Implement a consistent blogging strategy’
Improve my learning by taking and completing a variety of online courses
Grow my clientele and meet my monthly income goal
They are some pretty lofty goals but I’m excited to start working towards them!
Before I dive deeper into each of the goals, I first wanted to talk a bit about the act of actually setting goals.
I’ve always been a proponent of setting goals but it wasn’t until I took the Dale Carnegie course that outlined setting S.M.A.R.T goals that I really clued in to how to perfect my goal-setting skills.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of S.M.A.R.T goal setting, I’ll quickly explain. Setting yourself up for success when it comes to achieving goals comes down to the quality of the actual goals you are setting. Meaning, are they actually tangible goals? That’s where the concept of S.M.A.R.T comes in. As you guessed, S.M.A.R.T is an acronym and stands for the following:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R - Relevant
T - Time-Based
Breaking Down S.M.A.R.T Goals
S is for Smart
Setting specific goals means digging into the nitty-gritty of your goal. For example, if you’re a business and you want to grow your social media followers, saying “I want to get more followers” isn’t a good enough goal. You have to be specific and outline exactly how many more followers you want to gain on each platform. It’s important to be clear and concise about what your goal really is.
M is for Measurable
This point is important for me because seeing progress towards a goal is such a fulfilling feedback boost for me. Clarifying exactly how you are going to measure your goal and, ultimately, any progress towards your goal is key. Using the same social media example, it’s quite easy to see how you will measure your progress - by your number of followers. But, not all goals have such a clear metric of measurement.
When setting goals, outlining the exact metric you are going to use to measure your progress will help you clarify exactly what you need to do in order to achieve your specific goal.
A is for Attainable
Admittedly, this is one aspect of goal planning that I suck at. Setting goals that are challenging but realistic can be hard. I tend to shoot for the moon, forgetting that there are lots of steps along the way that I need to achieve before I get there.
Setting goals that are achievable requires you to be honest about where you are at. If you want to grow your social following to 1 million followers but you are only at 1K? That might be too much of a lofty goal. Try setting your goal for a target that is a stepping stone along the way. Maybe 25K is a good place to start. Plus, if you hit your goal, there’s no one saying you have to stop there!
R is for Realistic
This, for me, goes hand in hand with attainable. Setting realistic goals also requires you to take a hard look at the reality of where you are in, in reference to your goal, and how far you need to go to achieve that goal. Understanding that there will be obstacles along the way, you want to set yourself a goal that requires hard work but also takes into account the capabilities of you and your team.
If you’re a solopreneur, this is even more important because you’re only one person! So ensuring that your goals are realistic will help set you up for success right out of the gate.
T is for Time-Based
Simply, this means to put a deadline on your goal.
Open-ended goals invite the procrastinator in all of us to take over. When you set a deadline for your goal, it ups the ante for you to get your butt in gear and get to work towards that goal. Your timeline is completely up to you. 2 weeks, 6 months, this year. Whatever you set as a timeline for your goal, make sure that it aligns with being attainable and realistic.
My 2021 Business Goals, Rephrased
So, keeping in mind that setting S.M.A.R.T goals helps lead to successful goals. Here are my goals outlined in the smartest of ways.
I want to set a goal of writing a 1,000-1,500 word blog post once a week for my business that covers a range of topics relevant to my business for the duration of 2021.
S - I will be writing a 1,000 - 1,5000 word blog post
M - I will be writing one blog post each week and I will be able to track my progress easily
A - From going from 0 blog posts to once a week is an attainable target for me
R - Again, it is realistic for me to start with once a week based on my current time commitments
T - I’m giving myself one full year to implement this goal into my work routine
I want to improve my learning by choosing a topic each month to either take an online course or spend time reading and researching that topic.
S - I have outlined 12 topics I want to focus on learning about in 2021
M - Each month, I will choose one topic to focus on
A - Giving myself 4 weeks to complete the course or research will be enough time to not be overwhelmed by this commitment
R - It is a bit of a stretch, but I am confident that prioritizing one topic each month is manageable
T - I’m giving myself 4 weeks per topic to improve my learning in 12 areas over the course of the year
I want to grow my consistent clientele to 5 and meet my $10,000/month income goal by the end of 2021.
S - I want to gain 5 consistent clients and reach an income target of $10,000/month
M - I will be able to track my number of clients I am working with each month and my monthly income
A - Currently, I am sitting at 2 consistent clients per month and about $6,000/month income so hitting these targets is both attainable and realistic
R - see above
T - I am giving myself the duration of 2021 to hit these goals as I understand the current client (COVID) and unforeseen circumstances (losing a monthly client) may happen
So, there you have it. My top 3 goals for 2021 for my business. I also set numerous goals for my personal life, health, and fitness, finance, etc. But, that’s a blog post for another day!
What are your top goals for 2021? Do you set them up as S.M.A.R.T goals or do you have another method you like to use? Feel free to share in the comments!