7. How to Accomplish Big Goals | Round Table Discussion

Our latest learnings about how to accomplish big dreams and goals by setting a plan of action, and following it. In this family round table discussion, you’ll learn what we’ve discovered about how reaching goals takes a systematic approach to planning & action.

QUESTIONS DISCUSSED

--Think of some big dream or goal you’ve had that felt so massive that you didn’t know if it was possible, but you ended up finding a way to accomplish it? What was the dream or goal? Why did it seem overwhelming when you first set your sights on it? What did you end up doing to break it down into actionable steps and discipline yourself to make progress? What did you learn from that process?

--What do you think keeps people from setting or effectively pursuing big, important goals?

--What has helped you personally move past your hesitations to accomplish big goals?

--What is the most effective system you’ve currently found to break down your big dreams or goals into action plans that help insure regular progress? What are some real-time learnings or best practices about how you are doing this now?

A SIMPLE GOAL SETTING SYSTEM

Chelann referenced the goal setting system that she uses that is described in her book. Following is an excerpt from Dear Millennial, If you want to order the entire book, you can find it on Amazon or Audible.

GOALS TURN YOUR MISSION AND VALUES INTO REALITY

The point of an audacious goal is to reach for something that appears to be bigger than life, and most definitely bigger than what seems realistic. That’s why it’s a goal—it seems just out of reach, and that is the exciting part. The challenge is that we get excited in the moment, and once that excitement wears off, we tend to become daunted by the dream. This leads to feeling like it’s too big to accomplish.

That’s why action steps to your goals are going to be your best friend. They take a giant
objective and break it down into small and realistic action steps. When we are goal setting we constantly apply the saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Although, on a side note, I’m not sure who ever wanted to eat an elephant in the first place. But it works for the analogy.

As I mentioned above, too many people stop at creating their mission and values. They may read over them a couple times here and there, but because they aren’t taking action on them, they get discouraged and stop all together.

A car without wheels is of no use to anyone. Your mission and values are your car (the
foundation and engine to your dream) and your goals are your wheels. Goal setting is your map to success. And with a plan, your dream will seem more than realistic to accomplish. You’ll feel fully equipped to chase it instead of stressed about the unknown.

WHAT MY GOALS HAVE DONE FOR ME

If a 15 year-old can create a compass for herself without having any idea of what she’s doing, you can, too, no matter what your age. I’m going to help you break your dream down into actionable steps with your mission and values as a foundation.

When it comes to my compass, I break life down into spheres. A sphere is each major
component of your life. You can create your spheres in whatever fashion you would like. I have a sphere for myself spiritually, mentally and emotionally, financially, physically, and for me as a business woman, which contains sub-spheres each of my business endeavors below it.

Underneath each sphere is a description of my overall object for that sphere that year. This helps me categorize different areas and roles in a more organized fashion.

Here’s an example of what one of your spheres could look like. This is a sub-sphere underneath the overarching sphere of business; it’s essentially what I used to break down the giant objective of writing this book plus or minus a few details.

Sphere: My first book

Overall objective of that sphere: I will have my first book published the week of September 26, 2017. Through the book, resources, and processes that come from it, I am establishing authority as a young entrepreneur and inspiring and empowering the younger generation to live in extreme freedom and complete life balance through the platform of being an entrepreneur and Christ follower.

Yearly Goals:

- Book published by September 26, 2017.
- Have 5 cold lead documents for exercises throughout book
- Over 10,000 copies of book sold within a year of publishing
- Have book reach Amazon best seller status in two categories
- Get over 100 positive reviews on Amazon within first year
- To be generating $$$ a month from book sales
- Grow email list to 5,000
- Have a process/program people can purchase through book (convert readers into
customers)

Monthly Goals:

- Finish writing rough draft of book
- Hire an editor
- Research how to create an audio book
- Research how to create pdf book
- Create two of the cold lead documents

Weekly Goals:

- Write three chapters for rough draft
- Publish an ad for editors on Upwork
- Ask 3 people who’ve created an audio book how they did it
- Research pros and cons of pdf book vs print
- Create one cold lead document

After reading through that goal sphere, do you see how all of a sudden my giant goal of writing my first book before the age of 21 not only has a step-by-step plan but also feels realistic to make happen? This is one of my favorite topics to talk about because no matter how big the goal, there is always something you can do today to get a step closer to accomplishing it!

As you can see, I started with my overall objective. This is basically a phrase that summarizes your overall goal in a sentence or two. I like this sentence to be formatted in the present tense, like it’s already happening. That way, when you read it, it affirms your ability and desire to achieve it.

SMART GOALS

Next, make your yearly goals. Take your overall objective and break that down into bullet points of specific SMART goals that need to happen for that overall objective to be accomplished. It’s very important that these goals are SMART goals.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed. Meaning, I’m not just going to put “sell a lot of books” as one of my goals because, when do I reach that goal? When I sell a hundred books or when I sell 10,000 books? Instead, I put a specific and realistic number of books to sell by a set time. As a result, I know without a doubt exactly when I will reach that goal and can celebrate that victory. Your yearly goals are the big overarching goals that you need to have done in order to accomplish that big main objective.

Next come your monthly goals. These goals are your yearly goals broken down into what you need to accomplish month by month. I usually go through each of my yearly goals, picking them apart and placing them into my monthly goals in a way that results in them being completed within a year’s time.

Now we get to the fun part—your weekly goals. Go through each of your monthly goals and break them down into your week. Break them down into specific action steps that need to be done each week.

This part isn’t on my compass because that would be one long document, but the next obvious step is breaking your weekly goals into daily goals. Every evening, I sit down and look at the weekly goals I need to accomplish in each sphere. From there, I write down what I need to accomplish for the next day. One of my most effective hacks for having a productive day is planning out the day the night before! Waking up with a plan is one of the best feelings. It leaves no room for wasted time or purpose.

TIME BLOCKING

If you’re super list oriented like me, you’ll take those daily goals and organize them into a time-blocked timeline for that day. Time-blocking is a simple system I use each day to insure that I stay on track with what I need to accomplish for that day. I’m sure you’ve heard the concept of a task expanding to the time you allot to it. Well, I’ve tested that out multiple times and it’s true. If I allot one hour to finish a chapter in this book, it’s going to take one hour. I time-block by starting from the end of my day moving backwards. If I want to be in bed by 10:00 p.m., then I’m going to start time blocking from that point backwards.

Here’s an example of what my time-block schedule could look like for any given day:

10:00 p.m.- bedtime
9:30 p.m. – get ready for bed
9:00 p.m. – time-block tomorrow
8:30 p.m. – get home from family dinner
6:00 p.m. – family dinner
5:30 p.m. – get ready for dinner
4:45 p.m. – edit and finalize one Entrepreneur Before 25 Podcast episode
3:45 p.m. – respond to all messages (emails and texts)
1:45 p.m. – edit 3 chapters of rough draft of book
12:00 p.m. – workout
6:45 a.m. – work at NUYU Juice Bar
6:15 a.m. – get ready for the day
5:00 a.m. – morning routine

You get the picture. Notice how I have set and given myself a realistic amount of time for each task. I like to add this buffer to make sure I set myself up for success. I know that it might not take me an hour to respond to all my messages, but I’m going to allot myself that much time anyways just in case I’ve fallen off schedule somewhere else in the day and need some catch-up time. Now, time-blocking might not be for you, but I would encourage you to at least give it a try. Time-blocking allows me to get everything done that I need to throughout the day, and with my personality, that level of organization takes my stress levels down from where they would normally be.

Through this break-down process, we took a giant objective and broke it all the way down into what you need to accomplish today in order to make your big, audacious dream a reality. How exciting is that?

Don’t be overwhelmed by this process. It’s a process that can take place in many different forms. You just need to find the one that works best for you. But no matter what, goal setting usually has this same type of foundation.

If you have a dream that scares you, and you feel like is bigger than life itself, you can and you will accomplish it using this process.

TAKE ACTION

Now it’s time for you to take action to create another system for your success. Download the systems for developing your personal mission. Then take some time answering the key questions that will help you begin to define your personal life mission.  Go ahead.  Take this foundational step to designing the life of your dreams...a life full of fulfillment and purpose!

 

RESOURCES:

To access the Tello app which was referenced in this podcast as a tool to help you organize your goals and tasks, go to https://trello.com/ or you can search for it on your mobile phone app store.

For a template on creating the goal portion of your compass, go to this link: https://www.chelanngienger.com/compass-template

THANK YOU!

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