Don’t Skip These 3 Types of Goals for Planning 2024

No wind is favorable to a ship without a destination. You have to have something to point your energy towards to point your efforts towards as you're working, especially when we're entrepreneurs and we don't have a boss, telling us what our goals are, or helping us to be accountable to those things. That's all on us. So having this process will really support you in achieving that in having direction and feeling a little bit more connected to what it is that you're doing.

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur. To CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business, while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Welcome back to the show, I can hardly believe it. But it is the time of year to start thinking about the year ahead and setting goals for yourself. Now I am a big fan of goal setting and planning in any form, quite honestly, I really think I get as much joy out of the anticipation of things as I do when they actually occur. And I have really honed in on my CEO planning process in the past few years. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that business goals are not the only type of goal to set for yourself. So in this episode, I want to walk you through the three types of goals to set for the year ahead, so that you can feel more balanced and intentional as you step into the new year. And also, you can use this process anytime of the year. It's not about New Year's resolutions. It's about setting intentions and focusing at any point when you feel the need to revisit this. I'm not a New Year's resolution champion, I am more of a like I do love the feeling of the new year and the energy that comes with it. I think it's just as powerful in September, even any quarter, I have literally done this process in April, on a Wednesday in the middle of a month before. So you don't have to have it be like the beginning of the year. It is important to take the time every year and reflect on what just happened and think about how that might impact any of the goals that you want to move forward with into your next year. So building that into your process at some point, but ultimately making sure that you have this process to fall back on at any point when you need to think about changing plans or creating goals. Because the truth is, I love this quote that I heard, I don't know who it's by, but it is no wind is favorable to a ship without a destination. You have to have something to point your energy towards to point your efforts towards as you're working, especially when we're entrepreneurs and we don't have a boss, telling us what our goals are, or helping us to be accountable to those things. That's all on us. So having this process will really support you in achieving that in having direction and feeling a little bit more connected to what it is that you're doing.

So you completely resist the idea of planning out your whole year. I feel you and I have erased more plans than I can count. But I would still really encourage you to take the time to work through this so that you have that high level that you can look to that high level vision. Okay, so before we dive into the types of goals and what they include, I wanted to add that the process of setting goals can be really challenging to squeeze into your regular workday. So this is why I always host a workshop around this time of year. So just keep an eye out for that if you're listening, because carving out the time is really important. And I also find that you really need to like give yourself space in your brain to dream and expand. So I personally love doing this in a different environment. I typically will take myself away for a weekend welled up in a cabin in the woods where I can have snacks and wine, nobody to disturb me. And you know if you can read to an Airbnb or a hotel, or go spend a night at your friend's houses away in Mexico right now, any of those options are great because a change in scenery is incredible for creativity.

All right. So as promised, I'm going to dive into the three types of goals that you can set for yourself, let's go with the obvious one first, because that's your business goals. And business goals are the ones that we tend to get really excited about. And we can see ourselves actually accomplishing we can see the value that they create for ourselves. So anything to do with your business, moving forward, revenue streams, things that you want to launch clients that you want to bring in a lead generation number, maybe you're like, I'm gonna grow my email list by 500 people per month, or in the year, whatever. Are you looking to hire a team this year, getting some support, looking for a VA, maybe any of these things, I also put skill development on your business, because maybe you have realized that you needed to just get better at something like, there was a year when I tried to learn Facebook ads. And while that was a goal, I fail that. And I realized that it's just better to either not do it or have someone who is like, got the ability to focus on that all the time to do it. So those are the kinds of things you can put into your business goals, and sometimes the easiest ones to come to mind. So I tend to usually do these first.

The second type of goals are personal. So personal goals might be around your relationships, your marriage, or partner or spouse or getting one of those things, if you don't have and you want your kids, if you have your family like extended family. For me, I always include making some intentional notes around, I want to grow my relationship with my dad and my brother, and friends. Because adult friendships is so important to continue to have a have that as a priority, I always have a girls night, little girls trip or something like once a year, where I get away with my two best friends that I've been friends with for oh my gosh, who did the math the other day over 25 years, which is not a thing I thought I would ever be able to say that's related to a memory that I have. So all of these categories, thinking about the relationships that you have personally.

So you can also call this category relationships, right, because I have a third category, which I call self, which is still related to yourself and activities that you might do more on the personal side. But I look at these as the things that really fill your cup. So if you have health and fitness goals that you want to connect and write down, if you have self care goals, I love to get my nails done, I put that I get my nails done every month. And when I do that, it makes me not feel bad about getting my nails done every month because it's a goal. And this is just a little sidestep here. But the reason to have goals besides your business goals is to essentially write yourself a permission slip to actively pursue that things that you put into these other categories. Because as you're growing a business, it can be so easy to just tunnel vision on what that looks like and put so much effort into the business side of things, that we let everything else fall apart. And if you have heard some of the other podcast interviews on the show, it's not about that it's not about the chase. It's about finding that balance. And maybe balance is not a great word because I think we all struggle to see that as just two counterweights that are coming up even but finding the like integration of allowing you to be ambitious and pursue goals and want to grow your business while also feeling fulfilled and present along the way and it's the other pieces of your life that are going to give you that so much more and so much more quickly and without as much like stress as the business goals are so the self goals are all about filling up your cup health and fitness, self care, personal growth vacations all go here. And quite honestly I usually start any of my year planning with I want six weeks of vacation. So what am I taking time off and I build everything else around the time off that I want to give to myself. For my family. We have some big trips that we want to do in the year coming and 2024 we want to go to Europe, visit my family in the UK would really love to take my kids to Disneyland again because it's been a while and it's like my favorite place on Earth. Literally, I want to go there like all the time, and I want to get away for myself with my girlfriend. As I want to get away from my with my business, doing something that's specific to like a business conference, I actually already have one booked in September next year, where I'm going to be going to Dallas for an event for work, and hopefully speaking, that you have applied to speak at it. So putting that out there as a goal as well.

So when you can look at your life really holistically, and these sort of three categories, and maybe you come up with more, and again, these are not rules for you to follow. But simply like some structure that I've created, as I've developed this process and work through it, over the past four plus years, I've been specifically doing it this way, you can see more than just the business on there, you can give yourself the time to focus on the goals that are in the other categories, and realize the equal amount of importance that those also have. So and I'm just really harping on them because I don't want something that I struggle with a lot, especially in the earlier stages of my business when my business was structured like a consultancy, where I felt like if I was not working for a client, I was literally not being paid, and not being paid meant, like what was I even doing right? So we start to kind of self destruct with all those negative thoughts. And I wouldn't allow myself to even work out in the middle of the day, earlier on in my business, because I saw that as like directly competing with the business goals that I had. Yeah. So that's, that's the truth.

And now I'm actually able to see that they're more connected than ever, that the more that I am pouring into the things that are helping me fill my cup, and focusing on actually doing those things and making the time for them without guilting myself about them, the better I do at the business side of things, the better I do in my relationships. And these are really all like if it could be like that, that infinity symbol, but with three sides, I don't know, it's like a Venn diagram. And in the middle of it is like the gold. So all three of these pieces come together. And when you focus on all of them with some mound of equal illness, not necessarily meaning like, you're going to spend the same amount of hours on each thing, but because this is subjective, and it's whatever it is to you.

So looking at those three categories of your goals for the next year. I hope this is a helpful process. I want to hear about what your goals are. So please head over to Instagram and send me a DM @ksco_Kelly. And let me know one of your biggest, scariest dreams that you feel like even saying out loud, seems like crazy. Hey, because that the first step is putting it out there into the universe that is something that you want, and allowing that to like manifest for you. So yes, I'm a big fan of that. And I will be your confidant if you would like to send me a message and connect with me on this. And if you are looking for further support and goal setting, keep an eye out for my CEO planning workshop. It is available as part of Black Friday to join it live. But there'll be another version of it probably as it recording. afterwards if you missed the live dates or if you're on the other side of the world, and you want to just catch that as a replay. Happy planning, I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for you.

You did it you just listen to another episode of the Entrepreneur School Podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prep dinner or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here. I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram, head to entrepreneurschool.ca for tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community. And until next time, go out there and do the thing.