4 Different Types of Goals: How to Set Goals in a Way That Works For You
If you’re really over the whole idea of “hustle culture” — i.e. always having to set these astronomically terrifyingly huge goals and then chase after them like a maniac during the year, to the point that you feel super stressed out and unfulfilled and disappointed — it can be hard to know what goals you should set for yourself.
But it doesn’t have to be like that!
There are lots of different ways you can set goals for yourself!
I don't think that there's a right way or a wrong way here, it's just whatever way is going to work for you is the way that you should approach it.
Here are a few different ways that I have done goal-setting for myself and with clients.
Goal Type #1: Big Hairy Audacious Goals
Or as some people like to call them: BHAGs (pronounced “bee-hags”)
There have been different times in my life where I have chosen to set the “Big Scary Goal” for myself. Sometimes it's money, but sometimes it's other things.
Sometimes it felt really good. And other times, it just hasn't felt great.
Goal Type #2: Category Goals
Instead of setting one giant goal, you could set goals for different categories. In your business, this could include things like:
money goals
client goals
project goals
marketing goals
You could focus on one category, or you could do a combo of them.
If you want to have goals across every category of your business, that's fine, too.
Again, whatever is going to feel really good for you. Go ahead and do that.
Goal Type #3: Action Goals
So far we’ve talked about goals in terms of the results you’re aiming for. But you don't necessarily have to tie the success of the goal to a specific result.
Instead, you can tie it to an action.
Let's say you want to be a guest on five podcasts this year, and maybe you've never been on podcasts before. But thinking of people saying yes or no is stressing you out, so you avoid even pursuing the goal.
But you’re probably going to have to pitch to more than five podcasts in order to actually get five yeses, right? Or you may have to pitch 10-20 to reach the goal of 5 interviews.
So instead of focusing on booking interviews on 5 podcasts, you could just track how many pitches you send out, and kind of take it on faith that if you do enough, it’ll work out. The 5 podcasts is still the goal, but you’re not focusing on or tracking that as you go.
Or to take this concept even further, you can skip the outcome goal altogether (5 interviews), and just have a goal of number of pitches!
Let’s say you choose to pitch to 12 podcasts. And you're going to do it in the first half of the year. The goal is to check it off as complete, to feel really good about the process even if it doesn’t come through. You just want to practice pitching! And chances are you’ll get yeses!
And then you realize it's not that bad. And then you get excited and you want to quickly pitch to more! That's awesome!
You're allowed to do that as a way to set your goals as well.
Goal Type #4: Micro Goals
Another alternative to setting a big giant goal is to break it down into Micro Goals for your various projects instead.
Let’s say you want to start a podcast or a YouTube channel.
You could take the various components that you need to do as part of the process of getting it launched, and you could break those down into smaller micro goals.
For example, when I started my podcast, it debuted in April of 2018 (Q2).
So during Q1, I set up little mile markers for myself of things that I needed to do
acquiring equipment
getting the intro and outro music
recording the intro and outro
making the graphics for it
and so on
Instead of setting the goal “I want to start a podcast in Q1”, I set up these little micro goals that I was able to achieve one at a time over time.
And at the end of Q1 I was all ready to go and it was ready to launch in April, right on schedule. I had even batched a month's worth of episodes!
So rather than feeling this immense pressure from the goal “Launch a podcast”, I kept in mind that for me, January is better for projects. So I spent a lot of that January doing a lot of the minutia, and then February was a lot of recording and editing and just getting comfortable with everything.
When setting your own Micro Goals, choose a timeframe that works for you.
Be gentle with yourself!
And remember: you can always change your goals if you need to.
Remember 2020? Yeah, we all had to reimagine our definitions of success that year. And that’s perfectly fine!
Gamifying Your Goals: Know What Motivates You
We all know ourselves best and we all know what is going to keep us moving forward and give us that momentum that will build up over time.
For some people, that’s gamifying the process by setting up rewards.
Now, I believe that we can’t treat ourselves for the pleasure of it. We don’t have to earn rewards or fun or time off. But if you know that a specific thing will help motivate you to take action on your goals, then use it! Maybe you want to outsource, get new branding, hire a VA, etc.
For instance, a lot of times, people get wigged out about whether they can afford a VA. There’s that inner voice that says, “I should just suck it up and I should just keep doing all this myself. It doesn't take me that long and it's not that hard and blah blah blah”
We beat ourselves up when the reality is this: could you be doing higher level work for your business if you had support? You could be doing marketing that brings in new clients! You could take on more clients! You could even just rest more!
So hiring the VA becomes the reward.
So how much do you want to pay a VA for how many hours? Let's just say it's $30 an hour and you want them for 10 hours a month. So you know you need an extra $300 every month to feel really good about that investment.
So what is that revenue number you want to hit because it means you get to hire your VA? Maybe it’s when it’s a consistent extra $300 or you save and set aside a certain amount for a few months of support. And whatever that is becomes your goal!
Take a look internally and think about what tends to motivate you. If gamifying your goals might work for you, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try!
Remember The True Meaning of Your Revenue Goals
Revenue goals can feel very squishy and nebulous. It can be hard to motivate yourself if you can't visualize where you’re going or why your financial goal even matters.
If I have a revenue goal, l I often will have to attach that revenue to something else that indicates to me what this revenue goal really means to me. It could be something for my business, or it could be something personal.
A couple years ago I wanted to pay for our family vacation entirely from my business. I estimated costs with flights and Airbnbs and food and entertainment, all of that.
It was actually a really big motivator for me to do some stuff I might not have pushed through to try! I just need that little kick in the butt to get things going. And for me that felt very fun and inspiring.
But for somebody else, that might feel like way too much pressure.
You might not care about family vacations or traveling.
Maybe you’re motivated by giving $1,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 to different charitable organizations this year. And maybe that’s a certain percentage goal of your overall revenue, like 5% or something. And then you’ve clarified how much you need to make that year so you can write that check of 10k to your favorite charity.
If that feels motivating, tie that to your revenue goal.
No matter what your goals are or how you set them, always remember to make it your own!
There is so much rhetoric around how to make goals “the right way.” And there’s this idea that you have to set these really big goals, because if you don't, then you're not going to hit them and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The reality is that we are all different people. We all have different lives, different ambitions, different motivators, different reasons for why we do what we do.
Whatever your reasons are, whatever your goals are, that is fine.
Don't let anyone make you feel bad for your goals or how you set them.
