Setting doable, energizing goals for business
Channel: George Kao
Date: 2018-03-28

What business goal do you focus on?

Is it some big financial number (e.g. $10,000 per month or more) that seems far off from your current situation?

Intimidating goals can spawn anxiety and procrastination. You keep thinking (subconsciously) “I’m still not there yet… I’m still not enough.”

Read a well-formatted version of this article, along with links, here:
https://medium.com/@georgekao/to-go-big-think-small-c6565718cbc1

Or you’ll continually doubt your own plans: “What if this action doesn’t produce that huge result?”

Another problem is that thinking of big money tends to make humans anti-social, which means you’ll have fewer helpful relationships.

Similarly, I don’t recommend having a huge audience goal like 10,000 email list subscribers (if you’re still far off from there) because again, it causes anxiety. And, you’ll be tempted to make short-term marketing decisions to “get” subscribers, in ways that may be manipulative or otherwise damaging to your reputation.

Instead of always thinking of big goals, try focusing daily on the doable steps that are pointed towards the bigger goal.

By focusing on completing the small goals each day, the big goal will take care of itself.
Let’s take it deeper.

I encourage you to connect your big goal to a heartfelt vision for your life/the world.

Also, connect your small daily goal to your values, e.g. service, love, wisdom.

Step 1: Clarify your big goal, and connect it to a heartfelt vision.
It’s fine to start by defining a big goal. However, be sure to connect it to something that really makes your heart feel good and soul uplifted, so that you can align your whole being in one beneficial direction.

“I wish to earn $10,000/month, working no more than 30 hours a week, in order to spend more time loving my family, and helping people in my community.”

“I wish to have 1,000 real Facebook fans who engage, so that I can more effectively contribute to the spread of hope, love, and wisdom online.”

Step 2: Define milestones (think smaller).
Break the big goal into the most doable milestones. If $10,000/mo is the big goal, then the first milestone might be $2,500/month.

Now think smaller:

$2,500/month = $500/mo x 5 Clients
If you have zero clients right now, think even smaller:

Acquire 1 Client at $500/month… then repeat that 5 times.
Other examples:

If getting 10 new clients is daunting, then this may be more doable: 5 new clients + 5 previous clients who renew.
$2,500 / mo = 25 billable hours per month (assuming $100/hour) = 6 billable hours per week, so focus on getting those 6 billable hours each week.
Step 3: Plan consistent actions, connected to your values.
Based on your own life experience, as well as conversations with friends, colleagues, and a coach if you have one, figure out the plan of consistent action that you can commit to.

A simple example would be to contact 10 potential clients per month, if you are able to commit to that. 10 potential clients per month, depending on your quality of contact method, may lead to 3 exploratory calls, which may then land you 1 new client.

Again, think smaller: 10 contacts per month means 3-4 contacts per week. That is definitely doable. If you work M, W, F, then make it an even more doable goal and think “1 to 2 contacts per working day.”

Be sure to connect that daily action to your values, so that it’s an action you can really believe in, and continuing to fulfill your life purpose everyday, even if the action seems small.

For example: “I’m contacting potential clients from an energetic space of serving rather than selling.”

Instead of thinking of “playing a bigger game” let’s aim to “play a deeper game, everyday.”

Step 4: Be sure you are consistent in those planned actions.
If you are consistent in your actions, you’ll learn much faster. You’ll rapidly grow your skills.

With better skill comes better results. This is why consistency is so important.

To stay consistent, you may need to find a motivational method that works for you. Here are 7 examples:
https://www.georgekao.com/blog/motivationalmethods

Step 5: Be willing to change your goals or actions, in wisdom.
What if you start climbing a ladder, and find that it’s placed on the wrong wall? Get back down and try a different ladder.

Same with your big or small goals: If you go in one direction and find that it’s not aligning with your purpose, change directions.

The tricky part is to know when to persist, versus when you need to keep going. I can’t give you the “right” answer. It will come from your life wisdom. Get the perspective of the trusted advisors in your life.

Then make the decision to persist or change, and then learn from it.

Do the 5 steps above make sense to you? Any questions, feel free to ask.

Or if you have discovered a different set of steps that helped you achieve your big goals, without compromising your values, I’d love to know your story.