Let me guess: You haven't written out all of your New Year's business goals just yet?... Well, it is only the 3rd of January.
For me, I like to have ongoing goals - not just ones that pop up on January 1, and then seem to disappear by February. It's kind of like when you promise yourself you're going to go on that no-carb diet. It might last for a couple of days, but sooner or later you're going to crack and grab for that dinner roll.
New Year's goals are all fine and good, but in my opinion, as budding entrepreneurs, we should constantly be creating goals throughout the entire year, not just on January 1.
I've listened to several podcasts over the past few weeks that have all been focused on creating goals for the New Year, like Amy Porterfield's, podcast on How to Set and Create a Plan for the New Year, and Pat Flynn's interview with Michael Hyatt, "How to Make Next Year the Best Year Ever". (Bonus: I'll be hosting a free, LIVE Webinar with Michael Hyatt on Wednesday, Jan. 8 @ 12pm PST, 3pm EST on the same topic. If you're interested in attending live, just click here!)
These episodes have all included some very, very valuable tips for goal setting, and most of them have given extremely actionable advice - advice that, once I'm done listening, I can practice right away.
But much like that no-carb diet, will I choose to take action now - over the next couple of days - and then if something stands in the way of my goal just throw my hands up and not continue working towards other goals that might be important to me?
Absolutely not, and I encourage you to do the same. What if we took the advice we're gaining now from all of these established, successful entrepreneurs like Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn and Michael Hyatt about goal setting and planning and applied it to our business throughout the entire year? Forget New Year's goals, I'm talking All Year Long goals! What can you gain from practicing some of the best goal-setting techniques throughout the entire year instead of just at the beginning? Well, for starters, not everything is set in stone. You might have a goal to create a product and launch it mid-year, then continue to go on and have X amount of income as a result by the end of the year. But what if after starting to create the product, you realize it's really not what your audience is looking for? What if you launch it, only to find out that no one wants to actually buy it? If this were the case, would you just drop that goal, and then not make a new one? Of course not! You'd want to figure out what went wrong with your plan, and pivot. Create a new product, or perhaps take a step back and re-evaluate what your audience is really looking for.
See, goals aren't meant only for the beginning of the year - they're meant to be evolving, ever-changing and SMART, regardless of if it's January, or July. I hope that you'll take this into consideration when thinking about your business goals for 2014. Don't think that because you create a goal on January 1 that it can't change or evolve into something else mid-year. A quick example of this for me in 2013 was creating Podcasters' Paradise, a community where you can go to learn how to Create, Grow and Monetize your own podcast. At first, my goal was to launch a product called 6-Figure Podcasting - a one-time buy-in to receive a course that included video tutorials on how to create a successful podcast. But as I got more into the creation of the product, I realized that my audience was looking for much more than just a video course that they would watch once, and then possibly never implement. So mid-year, I pivoted big time: I started working on building an entire community that included some of the same video tutorials that I had originally planned on creating, but that also offered people that community aspect: a membership site that was filled with other podcasters who they could go to for support, motivation and accountability. This was a huge change of plans for my goal, and I couldn't be happier with the results. Today, Podcasters' Paradise sits at over 375 members and growing. Recently, after reviewing everything we've done since launching Podcasters' Paradise back in October 2013, we're really seeing the incredible value we continue providing our members with every single day. Paradise is established, with over 375 members, more than 100 video tutorials, an extremely engaged Forum and monthly live Webinars AND live Q&A's, and becase of this, we've decided that it's time to raise our lifetime membership price. Just yesterday we upped the price to $997. Because we want to help everyone out there who is thinking about starting their own podcast - and who might even have this as a specific goal for their business in 2014 - we're offering a special $300 discount until this Sunday, January 5, at midnight EST with promo code: 2014. If you're interested in learning more about Podcasters' Paradise, visit PodcastersParadise.com today. Or, if you're ready to purchase your lifetime membership at a $300 discount (remember, promo code: 2014), just click here!
Who knows, maybe you'll go on to accomplish even more in 2014 than you ever thought was possible! Happy New Year, and cheers to ever-evolving goal-setting throughout the year! ~ John
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