Goal Setting Hack: Achieving Your Goals Without the Stress [M&M #025]
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I really suck at setting goals. š£
I never know how ambitious or realistic to be. š
I never can figure out the right deadline to attach to it. ā³
And Iāve been known to struggle with committing to goals due to shiny object syndrome. š
Can you relate?
If so, hereās a quick hack to ease the pressure while remaining focused on what you want to achieve in a given year.
Pick a theme word or phrase for the year.
Something concise that summarizes what you want the year to be remembered as once itās another chapter in your life story.
Iāll share mine in a minute but first, can you guess what the word of the year for 2022 was?
Letās Google it...
As we continue, let's look a how a simple word can be a positive thing for us struggling goal-setters.
Benefits of Picking a Word of the Year
Setting a theme word or phrase for the year has a multitude of benefits.
Focus ā can help to keep your focus on what is important and make sure that all of your goals are in alignment
Motivationā gives you something to hold on to and strive for
Clarity ā makes setting goals for the year much easier, as you can easily determine which goals are in line with your theme word or phrase and which are not
Instead of struggling to set goals or failing to keep up with resolutions, try picking a word or a phrase as the theme for that year. It can help keep you motivated and on track to achieving your goals, making the year a productive and positive one.
A Brief History of Evan's Word of the Year Journey
2019: Try It Started Freelancing on the Side
I had no idea what I was doing in 2019, but I was desperate to leave my job. I started going back to school for a marketing degree (spoiler: I dropped out after 2 semesters) and created an Upwork profile where I landed my first few gigs.
2020: Commit Left My Full-time Job
After seeing massive opportunity in front of me, I committed to learning everything I could about marketing and made a promise to myself that I would do everything possible to replace my current salary with freelance clients. I left my job in October-ish of 2020.
2021: Say Yes Took on anything and everything
Time to crank it up. I thought all one-person marketing businesses were supposed to become their own little agency, so I started stacking clients the best I could. I was saying yes to everything - which in hindsight made for wayyyy too much stress and anxiety. Nonetheless, I was cramming years of experience into a 12month window. Then in late 2021, the floor dropped out from under me, and I started losing clients left and rightā¦ (a different story for a different day)
2022: Redefine A pursuit of figuring out who I wanted to become
January ā22 I was down to only a few low-paying clients and full of worry. I knew I wanted to be in marketing but didnāt want to necessarily build a big agency to become profitable. Client work was fine at best, but I really wanted my business to be something different - something that didnāt need clients to thrive. I chose to hire a business coach and begin the process of redefining my aim. Who should Evan become as a marketing guy that would also satisfy my entrepreneurial spirit? Products, Brand, Content, Community. These became the paintbrushes to take to the fresh canvas of my future business and self.
2023: Build Coming in with more direction than ever
Here I am. Wednesday 1.11.23 @ 8:30am, writing the 25th entry of M&M. Which is essentially six months of weekly email/blog/podcast content Iām using as the seed to sprout new opportunities and revenue streams. Iām still working with a select few clients to feed my family as I build my brand, content, message, and audience. This is a year of building. Iāve got big plans for new things coming this year, but Iām also committed to not chasing shiny objects - saying no more often than I ever have. Man it feels good!
Looking at that quick summary of my one-man business journey is useful. In all honesty, I didnāt leverage this theme word exercise at all until last year but itās easy for me to dig into the archives and pull a theme from previous years. But imagine what more I couldāve accomplished while avoiding unnecessary stress if I wouldāve started doing this earlier.
Kind of like lego blocks stacking, you can see how the themes from each year piggy-back off each other.
If you donāt decide how to spend your time, someone else will decide for you.
If you donāt have a plan, someone else will give you one - their plan.
This is why so many people are leaving their jobs and starting something up on their own.
If you donāt set some intention for what you want to get out of this year, get ready for misery where self-deprecating mind games may haunt you.
Sometimes the slightest little shift in thinking can get us out of a rut and back on track.
If goal setting is tricky for you like it is for me, then start by committing to a theme word or phrase.
What wouldāve been your theme word from the last few years?
What should it be this year?
Pick one word to represent the theme for you this year.
Write it down, post it up, and commit it to memory.
Until next time āļø š
- Ev