I’ve spoken before about the importance of having setting smaller, more attainable goals as an entrepreneur. Focusing on the now and what we can achieve today. Rather than overwhelming ourselves with bigger, and more vague ‘dreams’ that lay further afield.
Your Most Important Asset
I think it’s important to set goals if you’re ambitious. Absolutely. And it’s something that comes up a lot when I’m working with people. When I ask people: what goals do you want to set today? I often notice entrepreneurs instinctively focus on work or their careers. Which translates into goals such as increasing profits, hire more staff, take on bigger markets etc.
Now, all of those goals are important to have. And it’s great that you’re looking at them. But, what I notice is – people forget about themselves when thinking about goal setting.
As I’ve said before, I believe we should focus on ourselves first. You are your greatest asset.
So it’s important to think personally, as well as professionally, when thinking about goals.
How we show up in our personal lives has an amazing way of reflecting how we show up in our professional lives.
Showing up
Long story short, if your personal life is a negative space, I guarantee that even if your career is unbelievable at the moment – it will suffer as a result in time.
If your personal life is primed, optimal and thriving – that will reflect itself in your professional life. You will think and react completely differently in professional situations when your personal life is in a good place, as well.
And I often find that if you’re successful in your personal life, success in your professional life will come as a by-product.
Focusing on the Personal
So what about those personal goals? What do you want to achieve? We so often get tied up with work that we forget about prioritising certain things in our personal lives. We forget that we can.
People often say things like “I’m going to diet a certain way,” “lose 30lbs,” “become more structured and disciplined.” And these things are great areas to have goals in. They’re also areas that can be really difficult, too. There’s a reason so many people have these goals.
There are so many articles out there giving you advice on what to do. And some of them are great tips. But as a holistic business coach, I’ve found setting more holistic goals with clients to be more beneficial. Simple things like saying: “I’m going spend time catching up with an old friend every week.” Or “I’m going to do something that scares me, every month.”
These bitesize goals as an entrepreneur, also overlap into our personal lives. And therefore, also contribute our health and wellbeing. And as I said before, you are your best asset. So taking care of yourself is always to your benefit, and as a by-product, your work life.
It’s ok to Enjoy Goals
It’s not a crime to set a pleasurable and enjoyable goal for yourself.
And the reason I say that is because it is fun. And that is important. Goals as an entrepreneur don’t always have to be a slog, giving you that sinking feeling of ‘ugh’ when you think of them.
Doing something fun that you’re going to remember. Say to yourself; ok I’m going to do something really different with my partner every month, and see where that takes me. Or maybe it might be a potential partner. Even investing time in your personal life at all seems like something entrepreneurs need to sit down and consciously make time for. Very often we take our personal lives for granted.
But this concept is something that’s worked really well for me.
Setting a goal like that for yourself is really important in terms of keeping things in balance. And you can often forget until you take the time to actually do it – that you enjoy doing it, and gain a pleasurable experience that adds value to your day, week, and over time…life.
Do you need help with goal setting? If you think what I’ve said has value to you, don’t hesitate to get in touch.