Break Down Your Goals | Free Downloadable Workbook

Before the new year gets started, I start setting goals. I had my Annual Goal Workbook filled out on the first of December. I mean, why start planning January on the first day I should be acting out the plan? So I am sharing my Annual Goal Workbook with all of you because it just feels so good to be prepared for the new year. And 2019 is going to be awesome. I know it!

I am an avid supporter of listening to life-affirming messages to keep you looking forward at all times. I have crippling anxiety, and I’m a terrible perfectionist: two things that make it very hard for me to keep my eyes straight ahead and my feet moving down the path.

I listen to a few podcasts that I really enjoy, and one of them is by Natalie Bacon. She is a life coach who regularly speaks on setting goals and believing in yourself. I find one of her messages particularly poignant: 

She says that “Thoughts lead to Feelings, Feelings lead to Actions, and Actions lead to Results.” So, in the end, everything that you can achieve has to start with the right Thoughts.

I LOVE this idea! It makes me feel in control of my future and the future of my business.

I know I am new to this, and laying out my life for you all to see might only be helpful for those in a similar place in their career. But I also want to keep sharing what is working for me, so maybe it will work for you too. 🙂

Set Your Destination in Your GPS

A major theme that runs through all self-help books, podcasts, and inspiring blogs is that you need to think big in order to accomplish what you want. Yes, little goals are baby steps to get you down the road, but if you can’t first see where you are going (and I mean REALLY see it), then how are you going to get there?

You don’t go on a road trip not knowing where you are going, do you? No! You have a destination mapped out with a distance in mind, how long it will take to get there, and what the marker will be when you are halfway there.

Looking ahead, you see that you will need lunch a few hours in, that you will need at least 3 bottles of water to make the whole trip, and that you will need to stop for gas 2 or 3 times. You have a place to stay already planned when you arrive.

Most of all, you know your destination before you leave.

So I set myself a goal for 2019 — a lofty one for me. I set an income goal, a goal for publishing, and a number of hits I want on my blog. None of them are easy, and they are all more than I have ever done before in a year.

Heck, you can’t go forward if all you ever do is expect the same from yourself, right?

So, with my destination in plain sight, knowing exactly where I was going, I plotted my route and packed my proverbial cooler full of Red Bull and beef jerky. Onward!

Break It Into Chunks, Then Nibbles

So you have your big lofty goal (or goals) for your business this year.

Say, your goal is to sell $5,000 in merchandise between craft fairs, your Etsy site, and custom orders. (I’m going to keep using this extended metaphor, so stay with me.)

Now break this goal into 12 steps to get to your goal. (This is also something I learned from Natalie Bacon.)

In this case, it’s unrealistic to split the income into 12 even parts because craft fairs are usually only at a certain part of the year, but you could set goals for February and March to apply for a certain number of fairs and use April, May, June, July to set goals for creating inventory for several fairs. August and September could be used for sorting inventory and creating paperwork for each fair. Then your last 3 months are when you work your tail off at all those fairs.

Now, break it down again. Each month has four weeks (yes, I know some have five. Use those for a catch-up.)

Take each of the monthly goals and decide what you need to do each week to accomplish that goal for the month. Focus on THAT goal. What 4 steps would accomplish that goal in a month?

Perhaps you know you want to make 100 hats for all the fairs total, so in your four inventory months, you need to make 25 hats a month, that’s about 3-4 a week. That is a reasonable step to take to achieve that bigger goal, which is the step to achieve your biggest goal of all. Get it?

Downloadable Workbook

So, I made myself a document (more like a goal workbook) to fill out for each of the yearly goals that will get me to where I want to be at the end of 2019.

Here it is! Fill it out for each of your yearly goals (if you are crazy enough to have more than one!) and let me know how it goes and how it feels!

I laid out the blog for the whole year (Oh, yeah. The whole year!), and I set goals for submissions each month and how much research I need to do for a book.

With it all broken into weekly goals, it looks so … dare I say … reasonable!

One mile at a time, I am getting closer to my destination. I have it programmed in, and I’m on the road. And the cool thing is that I know where my halfway point is, I know where to stop for gas, and I know I have enough Red Bull to get there.

Creators, start your engines! We each have a trip to undertake! See you at our destination!

Yarn on,

Kati