Goals

Turn New Year’s Resolutions into Achievable Goals

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SMART-goals

Has this happened to you before? You set a few great new year’s resolutions, feel empowered into the first two weeks of the year and then seem to lose momentum by the end of the month. By February you’ve forgotten you even set any resolutions.

Why does this happen? Many of us lose focus and motivation, get distracted by other daily issues or don’t commit to follow through and take action. This can happen both with personal and professional goals.

Whether your goal is to finally follow your passion and mission, gain more clients, write a book, turn a hobby into a business, or any other personal or professional goal, the following tips can help you become more successful in fulfilling your goals this year:

  1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals For The Year! Visualize your ideal life in all areas, including Mission, Business, Finances, Health and Lifestyle. I challenge my clients to choose one or two stretchhhhh goals over the next year and make it their mission to accomplish them. The trick is to make your goals S.M.A.R.T.: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based. For example, a S.M.A.R.T. goal for your business may be to earn $10,000 more per month in revenue by December 31st. Vague goals are harder to carry through to completion.
  2. Write Down Your Goals! Playing off of that old saying, think “In sight, in mind!” Write down your goals on your fridge, computer, flash cards, journal, vision board, or some other written or visual format that works for you. Make sure to review your goals at least once every day! For example, write down your ideal client or account you’d like to land and make sure you see it every day. Keeping your goals top of mind will help you to reach them.
  3. Create a Plan for Action For Major Goals! Write down your plan for action, broken down into major task items along with deadlines. If this feels overwhelming, start with just the first month or week. Schedule these deadlines in your calendar or agenda in advance. For example, suppose you’d like to obtain 5 new recurring clients this month. Write down the major tasks to accomplish this such as: Week 1, research and make a list of potential leads; Week 2, contact each lead; Week 3, set up follow-up calls or meetings; Week 4, provide quotes to interested leads, etc. Then of course, make sure you actually do each action item, or refine the plan as necessary.
  4. Find Support or Accountability Partners: Share your major goals with a mentor, friend, Master Mind group, your partner or family members you trust. Tell only those people who won’t be judgmental, who will hold you accountable for your actions, who will keep you on track and support you when you start to lose motivation. Having accountability partners provides you the support you need, making it easier to follow through on your goals.
  5. Work On Mindset: A very important part of ensuring you actually follow through on all your goals is to work on your mindset. That means that you become aware of any self-limiting beliefs, thoughts, habits, decisions, patterns and actions and make sure you have empowering ones. We usually need to ELEVATE our mindset to reach these goals, especially the stretch goals. It takes a lot of self awareness to identify our self-limiting beliefs and patterns (clues including procrastination, anxiety, sickness) and to act in spite of them. The best accountability partners can also help you spot these disempowering beliefs and help you move past them. If you need extra help or want to do it faster, hire a coach trained to help you with all of these steps to accomplish your goals.

Setting goals that are S.M.A.R.T., writing them down and reviewing them every day, following a plan for action, finding others to support you, and identifying self-limiting patterns, are all powerful ways to accomplish your goals.

If you wish to gain more clarity, direction and work toward a plan for action to accomplish your goals in 2020, I can help; sign up for a Clarity Call. 

May this be your best year yet! Here’s to your success in 2020!

*For more guidance discovering your mission, getting unstuck, feeling more passion and joy, or whatever your soul is desiring at this time, I’m offering new year coaching specials through the end of the month. If you or anyone you know needs that extra push, now is a great time to start! You can also set up a complimentary Clarity Call where we’ll help you gain clarity and put you on the right path to achieving your goals. Either way, you’ll find a ton of value in this call. 

M is for Mission-Based

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blue target iconA couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about turning resolutions into achievable goals.

Following my own advice, I set a goal for myself to close 5 new clients in January. 2 weeks in, I had taken lots of steps in the article, started getting tons of leads and even got a couple of new clients.

But I discovered something very interesting. Although my leads were soaring and I started getting prospects really interested in working with me, many were not my ideal clients. Although I could technically offer what they were looking for, there were enough differences in each type of client that I would have to dedicate extra time, energy and resources to working with all of them. I would be all over the place.

They were not my ideal clients because they weren’t in line with my mission and how I can best serve humanity.  

So I was stuck having to make a decision: do I close these clients who I’m not super passionate about working with and potentially not deliver my best and be drained working with them?

No. You see, this is not a sustainable business model.

It is true that many times we must follow one path that doesn’t feel like it’s fulfilling our mission, but that provides us income to survive and certain skills we need to strengthen and prepare ourselves to continue fulfilling our mission.

I have a client who is an attorney entrepreneur who was doing mindless freelance work, when I helped her get clear about her mission and path about a year ago. We were both really excited, and she had and still has so much potential. A month after our Mission M.A.P. session, I did a follow-up with her in which she told me she replaced her freelance work by becoming an independent agent in a completely different industry. She still wanted to pursue her mission, but needed to gain some stable income first and couldn’t do the mindless legal work anymore.

Recently I spoke to her and she told me that looking back, she was just not confident in her abilities and her competency back then to go all-in with her mission. Over the last year she has built her network, learned how to be a salesperson and gained other valuable skills that are going to be important once she goes all in into her mission-driven business. Very importantly, she was clear that the job she’s in now is not her forever career.

A sustainable business is not one in which you close whatever clients are low hanging fruit just to get a check. That is survival. There is no strategy to that. Looking back over the last 7 years, I realized I went through periods of this. This is a recipe for burnout, not success.

You can have 1 or 2 clients or business avenues like this to build a financial foundation, parallel to building a sustainable business model with your ideal, mission-based clients.

Remember knowing who you want to work with (your target clients) and how you can best serve them (unique value proposition/client offering), is part of the Mission-Based Business & Branding process.

So to add to the previous article, make sure you create S.M.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Mission-Based, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound.

Has this ever happened to you? Share in the comments below.

 

*For more guidance clarifying your mission,  creating your brand, setting business goals, and creating plans for action to achieve your goals, I’m offering new year coaching specials through the end of the month. If you or anyone you know needs that extra push, now is a great time to start! You can also set up a complimentary Discovery Call with me to learn about the Mission Based Branding and Business Method and see if it’s right for you.

Wait Til Next Year To Change?

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Photo Credit: Alexandra Figueredo, Montserrat, Spain
Photo Credit: Alexandra Figueredo, Pano shot at Montserrat, Spain

Time and Space are illusions.

When you understand this concept of time and space, you realize that almost nothing is impossible. It might not appear possible in this moment in time, but with a decision and inspired action, the wheels of motion can be set that will bring it into reality. If it is real to you, it is real.

About 6 months ago, I was on one path in my life, my Plan A, as I call it–a path that was heavily inspired and guided by my own intuition and crafting. I was getting new clients, creating new brands and programs, and gaining more success in both my personal and professional life.

Then suddenly, in a moment, I received an intuitive hit in just one meditation: “I need to move to Spain.” I didn’t know why or for how long. The timing was most definitely not perfect; in fact I’d call it bad timing because I’d have to leave everything I had spent that year working on. I was excited yet skeptical. As a Missionpreneur, I knew I needed to follow this inspiration, so I answered the call. I was entering the Gap of Faith.

Perhaps as a form of self protection, I verbalized all the practical excuses that I was uprooting suddenly to Spain: to dance in Sevilla, write my book, and work on a travel-related project. Still, some of my family members called me crazy, impulsive and irresponsible. Staying firm to my decision, and checking in with God along the way, before I knew it I rented out my condo, packed my personal belongings, moved out and begin this new journey.

Not surprisingly I fell in love with Southern Spain and more importantly fell in love with myself! I believed I needed to stay at least 6 more months and I was excited thinking about new opportunities and possibilities for my life.

A couple of months later, while I was meditating on why I came to Spain and my course in life, I received a series of messages: “I am a blank slate. I can create whatever I want for my life. It’s time to step up and focus on making a greater impact in the world.” I was inspired to dream and act bigger. Nearly overnight, the original “practical” reasons I went to Spain no longer mattered to me. At that moment, it was no longer in my best interest to stay in Spain. Damn it! I was fearful that once again my family wouldn’t understand and would think I was being irresponsible or flaky. Yet once again, I listened.

When I returned to Miami, the following morning I went to church with my mom. The priest’s homily was about a Florida bishop who had already started his career in finance when he got the call to become a priest and enter seminary. Even though he had started on one lucrative path, he got the spiritual call and answered the call, even when it seemed out of place, inconvenient and hard to believe. I thought to myself “Wow, what a timely blessing this is, and it parallels my life! Now my mom will understand what I’m going through.” But I came to find out, that sermon was really more for me. It was confirmation that I was exactly where I needed to be and that God’s loving call is far more important than any fears or insecurities or worries from my family, friends, society or even my own.

We are constantly receiving messages from God and it’s our job to listen. Every day, I check in to make sure I’m on the right path. I listen and ask, and I act even when I have no idea why I’m doing it. The Gap of Faith can be terrifying, but also shows one’s resilience and perseverance. Since that intuitive hit back in Spain, I have been inspired to create new projects and start new businesses that have the potential to serve millions.

Your life at any moment is a BLANK SLATE

You have the ability to create anything you want right now. You don’t have to wait until the beginning of the year, or the summer, or next year or “when the time is right” to do what your soul desires. You can even start working toward your “Plan A” today and decide tomorrow to course correct or change that path. The timing is perfect. What’s important is that you listen and be inspired to act at this moment.

Try this. Right now close your eyes and be still.

  1. What is your soul urging you to do right now? What have you been ignoring or putting off?
  2. What is one fear or limiting belief that is holding you back from acting on this dream?
  3. What is one inspired action you can take at this moment to get your dream closer to becoming a reality?

No time like the present, as they say.

Feel free to leave your messages in the comments or ask the community for support! Connect with others on their own journey at Mission Muses group on Facebook.

 

If you feel inspired to follow your Mission and LIVE THE MISSION through your best mission-driven life, I would love to help. Click here or email me at Alexandra@MissionbasedBranding.com