This is by far the biggest factor to why I am where I am today. I don’t just dream and visualize, I create a plan of action with specific smaller goals in order to achieve the overall big ones. The ones that matter most! Like being financially free, traveling the world, spending my time the way I want to spend it, helping as many women as I can, the large “how do I get there” goals.
Setting your goals is just as important if not more than reaching your goals because how can you reach something you never had the mindset or drive to reach in the first place? You have to intentionally think about what you want to accomplish and then create individual goals and plans around that thing.
Wanting something is not enough, you have to work for it and sometimes it can take a day, a week even years to reach 1 individual goal. It’s a process, but it’s totally worth it.
So today, I’m going to break down my process that has helped me reach my biggest goals as well as helped others in reaching theirs.
1. Determine your biggest goals.
Sky's the limit! I want you to dream BIG! Throw reality out of the window and really dream. These goals are what I consider life-time goals, meaning in your life, what do you overall want to achieve.
Don’t allow yourself to get stuck on over thinking. Blurt out your wildest dreams and write them down. When I was 19 I wrote these down as my big goals:
- Own multiple successful businesses
- Be a millionaire who gives back and makes a difference
- Travel the world and live free, never wanting for anything
- Have best friends who I can grow old with
- Be happily married with a big family
- Have multiple homes in multiple countries
- Do something I love that makes a positive impact
- Build generational wealth
Every-time I look at this list it makes me so proud! I have definitely reached most of these goals and obviously now at 27, I have newer and even bigger goals.
I am 100% sure that the reason I’ve been able to reach these goals is because of my intentionality and strategies that I put in place. However, another simple reason is, because I wrote them down, I was always conscious, aware and reminded of these goals. So as I go through life, and make daily decisions I always have these things in mind.
If you don’t take the time to be intentional about your biggest goals, you will go about life with a day to day mindset which will never help you move forward. You will be stuck being an average person who is living to work, instead of working to live.
So you have to ask yourself, where do you want to be when you’re 60, 70, 80 years old? What will your life and legacy look like when you’re gone?
If you don’t really know who you are or what makes you happy, creating this list could be hard. So my advice is to listen to episode #2: “Who Are You - Finding Your Identity”.
Again, the point of throwing reality out the window and writing down your biggest dreams is so that you can adjust your mindset in believing that those things are possible for you.
So many people refrain from dreaming big, they think comfortably and never reach their full potential because of it. Dreaming big sets the bar high and subconsciously shifts your thoughts, behaviors and decisions to align more with where you ultimately want your life to go.
Think about it, if you set a goal to be a millionaire, you’re going to start thinking like a millionaire, researching millionaires, learning of their stories and realizing it’s not that crazy or unheard of. You will start to build confidence that you never had before simply because you’re learning things that align with people who are where you want to be.
When you make decisions based on your future instead of where you are right now, those decisions will always yield better results.
2. Break Down Your Biggest Goals
Now, the work begins. If you’re aware of the end goal, you can start seeing what would realistically need to happen in order for you to get there. The big goals are so large that you have to break them down in order to feel they are actually possible for you and not just some crazy and wild dream.
Take the list of big goals and for each one of them, create a list of things from small to big that align with reaching that goal.
I’ll use the millionaire goal as an example:
If my goal is “I want to be a millionaire” here would be my sub-goals:
- Make an income while making an impact
- Have multiple businesses
- Learn about finances and investing
- Properly budget
- Get rid of debt
- Perfect your skills and work ethic
- Have daily routines to maximize productivity
- Build your confidence
- Adapt a millionaires mindset
- Read books
- Listen to podcasts
- Research current millionaires and their stories
With all of these things in the back of your mind, you will begin to do more that aligns with this goal. The more you do, the quicker you will see results and the closer you will get to the goal.
In the last couple of years, my mindset has totally changed when it comes to how I think of money. The concept of a dollar and my thoughts about how much I should be paid for my time and services has continued to increase as I learn more, master my craft and get people results.
3 years ago when I first started consulting, my hourly rate was $50. Now, my hourly rate is $650. That a $600 increase in 3 years which means that my value has continued to increase due to consistently learning and providing more for my clients. I charge $950 for a 90 minute strategy session. Do you know how mind blowing that was to me when I had my first strategy session client? I used to work minimum wage jobs where it would take me 2 weeks of 8hr shifts to make that type of money. So to make it in 90 minutes? Wow. Mind blowing.
But as I continue to grow and become more valuable because of my experience and expertise, I realize how easy becoming a millionaire is.
Dre and I’s goal is to both be millionaires by the time we are 30 and we are right on track for that goal. But let me tell you, If I didn’t start putting in the small steps at the age of 19, this would not be my story!
Think of someone like Jeff Bezos. He’s a millionaire but he started an online business selling books over 20 years ago. No one talks about the time and hard work it takes to get to the point of success but it’s the most important part!
Having high expectations and goals and never giving up no matter what makes all the difference. Know that your mindset is the number one factor that can get in the way of your success and be intentional to make sure that doesn’t happen.
3. Prioritize & Plan
Now that you have your big goals and sub goals, it’s time to prioritize and put together an action plan. You CANNOT go after all your goals at once, you will overwhelm yourself, fall short and give up.
Look at your list of goals and choose 1-3 to focus on first. Based on the goal, your plan and timeline will look a little different.
Let’s use my list for example.
I would combine the goals of having life long friends and being happily married because they both fall under the “relationship category” and include me working on myself as a person to be a great friend and a great partner so that I could prepare myself for those relationships. Those relationships are very important because my friends would be my support system and my husband would be someone who I would build wealth with so he would have a part in accomplishing my other goals.
Secondly, I would choose the goal of “do something I love that makes a positive impact” because this would be the thing that brings me overall happiness and success. If I do something I’m passionate about that also helps others I would make an income while making an impact.
Lastly, I would choose the goal of “own multiple successful businesses”. This goal will directly get me closer to my other goals of being a millionaire, traveling the world, being financially free and building generational wealth.
Creating, launching and growing 1 business is hard let alone multiple businesses. Which is why strategizing a plan and doing the proper research is important.
Now that I’ve prioritized the goals that I’m going to focus on, it’s time to create the plans and commit to the process.
Now, after you make your plans you may realize that focusing on 3 is too much at 1 time which is totally fine, you have to do what feels comfortable and realistic to you even if that means only focusing on just 1. Focusing and accomplishing 1 is better than focusing on all of them and accomplishing none.
So here is how I create plans. I think of my goals in terms of a maze. I'm at the beginning of the maze and I have to make the right choices and choose the right path in order to get out and reach the goal at the end. I’m a visual learner so I love drawing maps and seeing my goals and plan fully written out. I’ll warn you now, you’re going to need lots of paper!
On 1 paper I write where I am now and on another, the goal. I place the first paper far left and the goal paper, far right. Then I take 4 pieces of paper and write the benchmarks from 1-4 of what needs to happen in order to get the finish line. I line them up in order and use sticky notes to write down the sub goals for each benchmark. I like looking at things in a year time frame. This means each benchmark is a season which allows me 3-4 months time to accomplish the sub goals.
The reason I do this is because when I was simply going after things without a plan, I would look up and realize a year has passed and I haven’t moved closer to my goals. I like to be realistic which is why I use a full year to reach big goals versus creating an unrealistic plan that leaves me feeling overwhelmed and under accomplished. Giving yourself a year also allows room for errors and mistakes which will undeniably happen at some point. This way you plan and prepare for it to allow yourself the time needed to bounce back, re-strategize and continue pushing forward.
Creating yearly plans also helps to make sure you have different seasons with different goals. I wouldn’t be able to focus on just 1 thing all year round which is why I break things up by season.
For example, in 2019 when I made my plan for 2020, I used the end of the year to create, automate and launch my podcast by Jan of 2020. I spent 30 days strategizing the branding and focus of this podcast. That month was filled with researching, trial and error, testing and finding my inspiration.
I spent the next 30 days creating the scripts for 6 months worth of episodes.
The final 30 days I created and recorded my intro and outro for the podcast, 6 months of episodes, marketing material, created a social media account and automated out my content calendars, podcast episodes and blogs.
Come Jan 2020, my podcast launched and this episode you’re listening to was created and recorded over 6 months ago.
This is the perfect example of how having a strategic plan will always get you closer to your goals because it will allow you to work SMART not hard. Imagine if I were recording episodes every week, having to create my marketing material and schedule our content real time. I would be spending hours of my time each week dedicated myself to this podcast which would take time away from me reaching other goals or even just having the free time to enjoy and live life.
So instead, I spent a couple of full days last year that was dedicated to making sure my podcast would succeed without ever overwhelming myself. Now, as my episodes release each week, allowing me to intentionally show up for you, I’m working on something even bigger.
Once I have my full visual, I use trello to organize the plan and set deadlines and tasks. Trello is a desktop and mobile app that works as a virtual planner. I look at it everyday! It’s the only thing that keeps me organized and allows me to have a daily To-Do list that I know will assist me in reaching my biggest goals.
Getting into this habit of working smart instead of hard will be a challenge at first because it’s not the norm or something you’re used to.
But it’s the thing that will set you apart and allow you to begin the process of turning your dreams into reality!
Until next time, be shameless!
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