It’s only six weeks into the new year and if you are like most people, your resolutions were tossed out the window weeks ago. Why is it so hard to set goals and stick to them? While there are multiple theories on that one, we’re going with the “because I didn’t know how to get started” reason.

We’re sure you have had good intentions with setting goals in your business. We all do. But following through takes planning and action. Do you find that when it comes to getting those goals and plans on paper you end up just sitting there staring at a blank page? The saying “Start at the beginning” can trip you up when you don’t even know what starting looks like.

What’s to be done? Flip it around. Start planning with the end in mind. It’s so much easier to know what our end game is than what the start game is; that’s why we start right at the end and work our way backwards.

MOVE BACKWARDS TO MOVE FORWARDS

Imagine for a moment that it is December 2019 and you are reflecting on this past year. You are high fiving yourself for accomplishing what you set out and you are feeling great about it. What is it that you are looking at that is proof of your accomplishment? That right there is where you start. Suppose for a moment one of your goals was to expand your social media audience and increase engagement. On December 31, 2019, how would you know you have achieved this? It would be evident by the increase in your social followers and connections and the frequent interactions. Ask yourself: What did I do to make this happen?

The answer, of course, isn’t going to magically pop out. Rather, you’ll likely come up with a ramble of tasks and actions that need to be organized. As you start writing all these out, keep asking yourself “how did I make that happen?” which allows you to keep moving backwards. It looks like this….

• Goal: Expand social media audience and increase engagement
• How did I make that happen? Consistent posting, targeted hashtags, discovering where my audience is, engaging with other profiles on their posts
• How did I make the consistent posting happen? Created a content calendar, spent time batching my content, used a scheduler tool, and rewarded myself for the commitment!
• How did I make the content calendar happen? (Hello, you downloaded our Free 2019 Content Planning Calendar!).

You get the drift. For each big action, you look at the previous step that you had to take to make it happen. Eventually you will wind up at the start and will have a game plan of what you need to start doing. It’s not a cut-and-dry situation though. As you move through this, you will often come back to a step and realize you need to add something in. And that’s totally ok. You can’t expect to lay out a plan and have it be perfect. But you expect to build a framework that will help to keep you focused and on track and allow you some flexibility.

KEEP YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE TO YOUR GOALS

Figuring out where to start is fantastic, but it takes more than that to see a goal through to completion. Holding yourself accountable to following through means making a serious commitment. We like keeping track of our progress and ticking off those boxes which inspired us to design our popular Smash Your Goals Planner. We’ve been using it since last September to help us stay focused and on track of reaching our largest business and personal goals and couldn’t be happier with the level of accountability that flows from it. Want to grab a copy of your own? We’re dropping the price this month (February 2019) from $11 to just $7. What can we say? It’s our way of showing you our love!

Need help staying on track? Pop on over to our Kits + Courses shop and pick up our Smash Your Goals Planner. It’s designed to help you keep track of your goals and take action to keep them moving forward. Ready, Set, Goal!