How do I make long-term goals that fit my work style?

Corey Winter 0:01
Welcome to 10 minutes to being boss, a bite size show for creative business owners where we give you actionable insights, tools and tactics. I'm Corey winter. And here's your host Emily Thompson.

Emily Thompson 0:14
All right, Cory, what do you have for me today?

Corey Winter 0:16
So I've got a problem. And this seems to be a problem a lot of people have Don't laugh at me.

Emily Thompson 0:25
I know you got some problems.

Corey Winter 0:27
I got all these questions are actually my questions. These are not community members questions. These are all my questions. I'm just trying to,

Emily Thompson 0:33
like, go read these. And they're like, Oh, that's my question. Do I'm gonna go.

Corey Winter 0:37
This is so me, I relate anyway. The question is, I struggle with making long term goals. But I desperately want to move my business forward with intention. How do I create goals for myself that move the needle while still working in the way that I work best?

Emily Thompson 0:54
Thank you, right, that you can't make any

Corey Winter 0:56
long term goals for today.

Emily Thompson 0:59
Right? Ooh. And this is something that I think most creatives struggle with, for sure. And just new business owners in general, really struggle with this. So we can certainly talk about this, I got you, I got you. And all you bosses out there may struggle with this. We'll work through this together. I think the first thing that we need to recognize is that we all work differently. So in general, especially and you know, all these like business like the super business business, he spheres, it's all like five year goals, where are you going to be in 10 years, all these things like not all of our brains work that way. So first thing you have to do is simply recognize that you can be a great business owner, even if you are incapable of setting extremely long term goals for yourself, it's fine, you can still do business, you can still do really great business. In fact, I'm one of these people, when people are asked me, you know, what's your five year goal? I have no idea you want to see me clam up guys asked me that question. Next time you see me, because

Corey Winter 2:07
my five year goal is to have more goals.

Emily Thompson 2:12
Good, because that will probably be the case. So you don't have to be able to make long term goals. And if you struggle with that, don't like beat yourself up about it, don't beat yourself up trying to do it, even if you can't find a way that works for you. So I really struggle with five year goals, I'm really good at about a year or two on a good day. That doesn't mean that I'm incapable of moving my business forward with intention, it just means that I'm moving a little more in the moment, I suppose. So first and foremost, identify or come to terms with the idea that we all work differently, and identify what sort of timeframes that you will work best in and do this by just testing some things out, you have to be mindful of your own process, I think a great way to do this is to sit down and you know, take a piece of paper, and but at the top, or down the side, it doesn't matter, whatever your orientation is, for how it is that you best make lists. And do a do one month, three month, six month, 12 month, to two year, five year and 10 years. And just get going with some goals. And wherever you start filling those blocks, let's say you start getting really blocked at about 24 months at the two year mark, then you know that you're going to work best making goals. Two years out or less. And that's fine. Work with that. So being very mindful of your own specific process and how it is that you best plan will help you sort of take control over what does work for you and make it work for you. So where are you at? Cory? Is he over there thinking? Are you thinking about your goals? Are you just

Corey Winter 4:22
trying to think about how I'm setting goals currently? Yeah, it's about a month, a month to month right now.

Emily Thompson 4:31
Well, and I will say do this a time when month to month goals. If that's the best you can do, then you're doing better than a lot of us, for sure. And I think we can all identify that depending on our sort of level of security or what's happening in the world. It can absolutely have an effect on our ability to make goals. So I myself have found myself making much more short term goals than ever before. Because right now short term is all he can work with. And I think that's really fine. So instead of getting angry at the fact that, you know, I can't make my six month or 12 month goals, I've just really shortened down my timeframes and really worked on making those work for me. So, for me, I work really great. Quarterly, I like to work in terms of three month goals. 12 months is really where I shine, or within 12 months is where I really shine, anything beyond that always looks a little fuzzy. I think that's also the nature of online business. And how we do business these days, things change so much so quickly, even before current state of the planet. That is really difficult. And I think, almost a waste of time for us to truly consider anything further than two years out whenever it comes to doing business online, because things shift so swiftly. So for me three month goals, or like I think in three month chunks, up to a year, kind of fuzzier in that like 12 to 24 month phase, or timeframe. But I found myself really struggling with those three month goals. Even over the past couple of months, I've instead started making six month or excuse me six week goals and working in six week cycles instead of three month cycles. So whereas usually I would sit down and plan out a solid three months and know exactly what projects I'm going to tackle within those three months, I can't really do that anymore, it makes me feel weird, I don't know what's going to happen, I get really anxious thinking about it. But where I've found a great amount of comfort is instead thinking in these six week cycles, and thinking about what I can get done in six weeks, and just going from there. And being in six weeks cycles, I've actually been able to map out what I'm going to be doing through the rest of the year, which at this point is about seven months or so. And that feels like quite a feat. if I do say so myself. Anything beyond that I have no idea. And right now I'm not gonna force myself to figure it out. But I am able to keep going based on these six week cycles of planning and implementation. And the way that you do this with intention is to hold your values in place, and values come into play. Regardless of whether you're planning six weeks or six years, they are the foundation of any or should be the foundation of any goal that you're setting for yourself or your business that will lead you to where you're supposed to go. Even if you can't see what that looks like. So and we have a resource on this, you can go to being boss clubs slash values. To learn more about values. We also talk about that a lot in our in the being boss book, which you can find anywhere books are sold, or let's see where else we have that, oh, it's also part of our CEO day kit. So values is very much so part of what we do here at being boss. And that is how you move your business forward with intention. Regardless of how far out you're able to plan.

Corey Winter 8:09
We also have a goal setting worksheet that is free to download.

Emily Thompson 8:13
Perfect in the show notes. Cory will be there. Perfect. Awesome. So as I help you out, Cory.

Corey Winter 8:22
So before we run out of time, do you have any specific tips in general that anybody could use to set short term goals?

Emily Thompson 8:31
For sure. So let me share with you how it is that I do this. And I'll even share how I'm doing in my six week cycles. So six weeks is a very sort of short amount of time. And I'm really thinking for the next sort of seven months, so through the end of the year. So I sat down and just very realistically made a list of all the projects that I want to complete. So and these are projects that I'll move my business forward. So it's like doing some upgrades to the beam boss community. It's doing some upgrades to CEO date yet. It's a new being boss website, which is actually been lists for about six months. But we're not talking about that right now. Still, it's fine, it's fine. It's still no I'm so sitting down and thinking about those things that you want to accomplish in your business. I always think of them as projects. And then I laid out my six week cycles throughout the rest of the year. So I think there's probably five, six weeks cycles left four or five if I'm not mistaken. And I gave myself a little break in between each cycle. So I can sort of have some buffer time, those sorts of things. So I laid out those next couple of cycles and had this list of projects that I wanted to do. And then I literally just started designating which cycle these projects would go in and I gave myself limits with the idea that I can only complete two projects per cycle per business because you always have to remember that I'm running two businesses and I did this for both being boss and for Almanac supply Co. So in each six week cycle, I'm going at two projects. Per business, so four projects and all for each of those cycles through the end of the year. And sure there's a couple of projects that are going to have to be pushed to next year. But the key is that I now know in which six weeks cycle each of these projects are going to get done and I'm moving my business forward over the next seven months. Despite everything crazy that's happening with plenty of buffer in there in case shit hits the fan because we all know that it might and I'm doing it with intention because each of these projects are very much so aligned with my core values and the values that we hold true here at being boss and then also at Almanac supply Co. So for me, list out those cycles in this gonna be quarters, I used to do this with quarters, four quarters in a year, I list out all the projects that I do in each quarter, all the projects that I want to do and just start assigning them and then get to work.

Corey Winter 10:54
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