The Goal-Setting Struggles of a Planner

I have a confession to make… we’re a little over 2 weeks into the year and I’ve been struggling.  Struggling with narrowing down my goals.

What do I really want to accomplish this year, this quarter, this month, this week… today???

It’s hard for me to admit it but I don’t know.

And for me, a planner’s planner, that’s a super scary thought.

I mean…YIKES.

No Plan, No Direction

How can I ever know where I’m going if I don’t have a plan? Not to mention, how would I know when I’ve reached my destination?

How do I know if I’ve taken a left and gone off course? How can I correct my course?

How can I create a budget? How can I do anything “meaningful” in and with my business?

Hmm. So many questions, so little time. What to do?

Focus Factor

FOCUS. Right?

That’s the first thing that came to mind. Focus.

Focus on the people that I enjoy helping.

Focus on the things that will help the people that I enjoy helping.

Focus on the things that I enjoy doing that will help the people that I enjoy helping.

Focus on the things that I’m good at, that I enjoy doing that will help the people that I enjoy helping.

Just focus and everything else will fall into place, right?

Well sort of…

A HUGE Detour

After taking a little bit of a detour. Listening to a few business podcasts, I was encouraged to go back to the drawing board. In more ways than one.

I don’t want to get too “woo-woo” on you but I grabbed my Bible and prayed a little. Okay, I prayed a lot…prayed for some divine intervention. Some of which came through loud and clear from the podcasts that I was listening to. It amazes me how things come full circle like that.

During my full circle moment, that’s when it hit me. The reason why I was struggling with setting my goals.

I was struggling with my goals because I was struggling with foundation, my “why”, my purpose and struggling with the old stuff.

My foundation, my purpose and my old stuff just weren’t in alignment anymore. I was struggling to make the old stuff fit. It was like forcing square pegs into round holes and it just didn’t work.

The old stuff just didn’t play well with my new stuff.

Moreover, I was struggling because I was just going along and being content to write goals and do more of the same. More of what I just felt “blah” about. More of what wasn’t working.

But isn’t doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result a mark of insanity??? (thanks for that quote Einstein*). And since I’m far from insane (or at least I think I am)… I decided to do something crazy!

Reboot It All

I decided to throw it all away.

Throw away what I’ve done in the past and opt for a new direction…new products and services to serve my people and my tribe better.

This new map…this new blueprint is bound to take me places that I’ve never been before. And I’m kind of excited about that. And a little bit scared too. But mostly excited.

For the record, as the saying goes, I’m not throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

I am keeping remnants of what worked for me, taking it down to it’s core and transforming the good into something that I hope will be great. Mixing the traditional with the not so traditional.

Laser focused on the tribe of people I want to serve. Laser focused on what they need instead of what I think I’m good at providing to them. Laser focused on focus.

Goal Setting…Non-traditionalist

So did I ever get around to setting my goals? Well, no, not really. At least not in the traditional sense. But me being who I am, probably one of the most non-traditional accountants you’ll ever meet, I think the non-traditional goal setting route fits me perfectly.

Twists, Turns, Surprises

Hang onto your hats folks, it’s going to be a wild year.

With a lot of twists, turns and surprises. For both of us.

I can hardly way to show you what I have up my sleeve.

But I will.

Psst… by the way, this actually started off as a “goal-setting how-to” blog post. We see how that turned out. But seriously, here are a few times when I’ve written about goal-setting before.

Now, I think I’m going to go write down some goals. 😉

Until next time,
J

Notes:
*Full quote from Mr. Albert Einstein: “Insanity (is) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Podcasts I’m loving on at the moment:
Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur
Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn
The Fizzle Show

PS… do you have goal setting tricks and tips that you would like to share? I’d love to hear about them… so hit me with them in the comments. ~J