As we enter into 2020, this topic might be more important now than ever. I wholeheartedly believe in setting goals so that you can do things to stay focused in your pursuit of accomplishing all you want. It is by no mistake that one of the first things I have my mentor students do is list out their top 3 business goals. We need to be focused on where we’re going + be intentional with our time. Here are some of my tips for setting realistic, attainable goals + setting yourself up for success!
Don’t let your goals depend on someone else’s movement
What I mean by this is try to avoid goals that have to do with things you yourself cannot directly control. Stay away from anything that has to do with the numbers game + here’s why:
Previously, I’ve had a goal of the number of weddings I wanted to book for the year. It was a little ambitious, however I felt that I should be able to obtain that. When I didn’t quite land that number of bookings, I felt like a failure. I was more focused on that failure than the fact that I was reaching other goals I hadn’t made for myself - like getting featured by bridal shop magazines, wedding blogs + online publications, or the fact that I made 3x as much income in my business than the year before. I wasn’t allowing myself to celebrate that I booked + traveled out of state + even internationally multiple times for shoots + weddings, had developed my mentor program and was even invited to teach among some of the industry’s top name photographers at a workshop.
After that, my goals looked more like getting all my back-end things taken care of during slow season, developing online workshops + courses, hosting workshops, traveling out of state for shoots - even if I have to set them up myself, stay on top of my bookkeeping, locations I will shoot at, so on and so forth.
write them down
as soon as you’re done reading this, go write them down. put them someplace you’ll come back to them, see them + be motivated. studies have shown that if you see something enough, it helps you to stay focused and therefore are more likely to accomplish those things.
break it down
especially with huge ambitious, scary or even just time consuming goals, break them down into little chunks that are realistic to complete. this serves a few purposes:
it helps you feel accomplished - you are able to see the steps you are taking
it helps you stay motivated - when I have a long list of to-dos, I need to be able to cross things off. If I work all day and wasn’t able to check off a couple tasks, I feel defeated.
it gives you more focus - you don’t have to worry about the big scary thing. you just work on one little thing at a time. and then you’ll get there.
get accountability partners
once you’ve written them on paper, broken them down into manageable steps, tell some friends. there’s something about speaking it out loud that makes it real. plus having other people that will be checking in on you, encouraging you, and celebrating with you when you accomplish it will make such a huge difference! (this is a great way to use our cohort group chat too!)
grow your goals
when you go throughout the year, feel free to add new goals to the list. don’t box yourself in. some of these goals might be by the end of 2020, some might be overarching business goals that you want to reach at some point. either way, add to it, challenge yourself + let yourself dream big.
however I can help you chase those dreams, I will! that’s what I’m here for - I will always be a cheerleader for you, motivator, challenger + encourager!