Ep#100 - Goal Setting Tips for Ambitious Introverts
Emma Louise: Hello, and welcome to episode number 100 of the ambitious introvert podcast. Today is a solo episode with me, Emma Louise. And the fact that it is number 100, kind of crept upon me. So it's not a special episode, it's a standard episode, but I just wanted to make a nod to the fact that if you have been with me since day one, thank you so much.
You have listened through 99 and a bit of these. If you have more recently found the podcast, just a reminder that there are 99. Episodes. So there's so much value. I've had some incredible guests over the last almost two years. So thank you again, however long you've been here and do remember that there's that entire back catalog of value that you can tap into.
And I'm now gonna start thinking about something special to do for the second birthday of the podcast, which is in October, but for now, let's just have a little celebration together for episode 100. Which is all about goal setting. So I have seen over and over with my clients, a huge resistance to setting goals.
Big fear of not hitting them, which brings up a lot of emotions. Like if we set a goal and we don't hit it, we feel like we've failed, which is not a good place to be in. And it brings up a whole lot of other stuff, like shame and good enough questions, but goals are really, really important. For us as entrepreneurs, as part of our growth, both of our business and our personal growth, because they focus our mind and they keep us on the right track.
No one really teaches us how to set goals. Right. And there is a framework I'm going to talk you through in a moment, which is very standard it's used in, in corporations quite a lot, but it, I did it in two different life. Coaching certifications. It's a big thing in life coaching. It's called smart goals.
So you, you may have heard of it. I'm gonna talk you through the basics of how that works and then I'm just gonna share. Thoughts and observations. So don't think of this, like a training. I'm not teaching you how to set goals or telling you like, this is wrong and, and this is right. What I'm gonna do is share some of the things that I have seen that have worked for people.
And some of the things I've seen that haven't worked for people, and that doesn't mean across the board. Like doesn't work for people. Means, maybe it didn't work for one of my clients and you could be in a very similar situation, so it could really resonate with you. So I guess the advice I'm trying to say is, listen through take notes.
There's quite a lot in this. It's probably gonna be quite long, but take what you need and, and leave what you don't. The stuff that feels good that you, you go actually, I think that could be really helpful with my goal setting. Then take it on board. The stuff you listen to and you go, nah, not resonating, then ignore it.
So this isn't a how to, or a training. It really is just sharing. You know, my observations as someone that's been a coach for a lot of years and worked with a lot of clients and overlooked a lot of goals. So smart goals, I'm guessing you've probably heard of it. Big thing in the personal development world, big thing in life coaching been used by corporations more recently as well, and not without reason, it's like really good to have a framework.
If you find yourself thinking, oh, I just never set goals or I don't even know where to start. This is a good place to start. It is not perfect by any means, but what it does is it lets you filter out. What's not important and focus on the right things. So smart goals, lovely acronym. Because it creates a word.
a word that makes sense and relevance to what we're talking about. So we want our goals to be smart. Okay. We don't want 'em to be done, but in this case, smart means specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based. So I'll just dip a little bit into each of these to give you an example. So specific we want the goal to be specific.
We don't want it to be. I'm gonna make more money next year. We want it to be how much more money are you going to make? So, It really is as simple as that for keeping it specific measurable. Well, the fact that we've just said an amount of money on this goal, that makes it measurable. Can we measure when we get to that point?
Can we say yes, I'm measuring this against where I was and I have hit the goal. So yeah, in the example that I've just happened to give, which was a financial one. Yeah. It's absolutely measurable is it achievable. This is where this can get a little bit interesting. So this is very much down to the individual.
Some people will choose a goal that is very, very unachievable and then beat themselves up when they don't hit it. Other people will choose a goal that is maybe a little too achievable and they don't stretch themselves. So. It's a very relative term, but what we mean by achievable is can it be achieved by you doing certain amounts of certain things?
So if you said I'm gonna win the lottery next year, you could win the lottery, but unless you go out and buy all of the tickets for the lottery, It's kind of out of your hands. So where it's a financial goal to be achievable. It's like, can you have a plan? Can you make a plan of certain actions that you'll take consistently, which will keep pushing you towards that goal so that you have an element of control over it.
And that to me is what we mean by achievable. So rather than just throwing something random out there that we have no control over, it can still be a big goal. It can still be a stretch for sure. But it has to be achievable. It has to be something that is actually possible in the realms of reality. R is relevant.
Is it relevant? Is it relevant to you? Is it relevant to what you want to achieve long term? Or is it just random? Is it just something that you've plucked out of the air or is it actually going off in a different direction? Maybe you get shiny your object syndrome and you go, I wanna launch this course, but actually if your longer term goal doesn't have that.
Then is it relevant? So the goal has to be relevant to what you want to achieve. And lastly, the T is time based. So what this means is putting a time limit or a date on it, which is really, really great for, again, focusing the mind and giving you a clear point because otherwise the, you know, the horizon keeps moving or the goal posts keep moving.
As we say, here in the UK, where. It's just a goal and it's floating in the future and it's have like a specific time. So time, time based is really important. There is a little caveat to that, that I'm gonna talk about a bit later on with not being too rigid with your time goals, but let's just take this income.
Goal that I've just happened to have made up for next year. So to make it a smart goal, it needs to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based. So let's just say it is, I'm gonna add. 20,000 pounds. There you go. Specific and measurable to my revenue in the next 12 months. Yep. I know that is achievable.
I know the things I would need to do to do that. Is it relevant? Yeah, it's absolutely relevant because I have a business and I'm looking to grow my revenue in my business and it's time based because I've said in the next year. So that's the filter that we can use to check that a goal fits into the smart goal
criteria, hopefully that gives you an idea of if you've literally not setting goals or maybe you're setting ones that you'll know near achieving, maybe just run through that and make sure each time that you are hitting those. But now. I'm gonna move away from that. And I'm just gonna share, like I say, these are just really some thoughts and observations, and if you are doing these, it doesn't mean you're doing it right.
If you're not doing them, it doesn't mean you're doing them wrong. It just really, I think goal setting is such a personal thing. It affects our nervous systems very differently and people react very differently to goals. You know, obviously my brand is the ambitious introvert. Even the word ambition, people are very different within their ambition or what they class as ambitious and the same, the same goes for goals.
Right? What someone thinks is a big goal, someone else would think is a small goal. So. Keep that in mind, it is a very, very personal thing. The most important thing is that it feels good. And that if you somehow, aren't hitting your goals right now, or you're not making them that you can take something from here and strengthen that process.
Okay. So one of the first things that I see very often, in fact, because my clients are ambitious is they set goals that are too big. And I have no issue with, with big goals. Big is good. I have clients that set big goals and they achieve them. I have clients that set big goals and they more than achieve them really quickly because they're very, very focused.
So I've got no issue with big goals. The issue I have is when the goal is too big and it's not broken down into clear. Tangible steps because then it can feel really unachievable and it can paralyze us. So let's just say that my goal in my business for next year was to make 2 million pounds. That feels really unachievable.
Cause that's a big jump from where my revenue is now. Okay. but maybe if it was a smaller goal and it had tangible steps, I would go, oh yeah, I can totally see how I can do that. That makes a lot of sense. Let's do it. But when it feels so far out and we can't even imagine what we would have to do to get there, we are just going to freeze.
Our nervous system goes into freeze. So that's why big goals can, can be a hindrance. Now, what I would suggest is if you like big goals and you want set big goals, that is amazing. Set them and then reverse engineer the steps that you need to take to get there and make that your plan. So I usually work with 90 day plans on clients.
I used to do an intensive called the 90 minute business plan, which was literally. Their 90 day plan done in 90 minutes, they would come with their goals. I would reverse engineer, break everything down and put them into weekly sprints. And I'm actually making this into a digital product at the moment. So keep an eye out.
If that is something that you would like support with, cuz it's a really great way to make sure that you are breaking things down into achievable chunks and still getting the result that you want at the end. So they would come with the big goal. And maybe it's a goal they've had for a couple of quarters and they go, it's not hitting this goal, but they've never really broken it down or never had someone look at it and say, okay, well you need to take this action followed by this action, followed by this action.
So offer big goals, but just make sure that you then make the plan to achieve them. You put the steps in place rather than just seeing this big end result and having no idea how you'll get there. Second thing I see is. People setting goals that are too small. So yeah, opposite. End of the spectrum again, like I say, there's no right or wrong here, but people often do this because they don't have a belief in their ability or they are reluctant to stretch themselves or they just don't trust themselves to hit that goal.
And it can go back to that thing of, oh, if I don't hit my goal, I failed, which. Is not correct, but people feel that they're like, if I set goal, I don't hit it, then I'm gonna fail. So I'm just gonna set the goal smaller. So I'll definitely hit it. And then I'll feel like I've achieved something, but that's a false economy because the thing you've achieved, isn't what you actually wanted to achieve and what you could have achieved.
So I think separating this belief of not hitting a goal is failing. Is really, really important, not hitting a goal might mean that you didn't execute the right things to get to that goal. Not hitting a goal might mean that the goal you set was too big, but it doesn't ever mean that you have failed. It just means that you need to reassess reflect on what happened, reevaluate and work out what happened and what went wrong, that you didn't hit the goal and then course correct that that is all it means.
So, right. It doesn't mean that you have failed or you're a failure. It means there was a broken link somewhere in the process. So that's why I see a lot of people setting small goals because of this fear of what if I don't hit it. Now, what I will say for that is micro goals can be really, really good for the nervous system.
And what I mean by micro goals are like small wins. The caveat being that you have to celebrate them. Ask my clients all the time. How are you celebrating anything that they share with me that they have achieved? How are you celebrating? Because as we'll discuss later, when we celebrate the small wins, We attract more small wins when we downplay the small wins and just keep looking at the big goal.
We put ourselves into a negative mindset. So micro goals can be really, really good for the nervous system cuz they help us to build that trust in ourself and they help us to see lots of small wins, but they need to be followed by the next goal. So rather than set a micro goal for a month or a quarter, it's more, you'd set a micro goal and you go, and when I've hit that one, my next micro goal would be this.
And you have to celebrate. Okay. Number three, this is one that I have been guilty of before setting goals that you have absolutely no control over the outcome. Like a bit, like I said, with the lottery win. Okay. So setting a goal that you, you literally cannot do a thing about. So if it doesn't happen, You blame yourself, or you ha you've missed your goal, but you couldn't have done anything to affect it.
so I remember in my early, early days of online business, I very new, I had tiny, tiny audience, and I remember sharing my first offer and. My coach saying, okay, your goal is to book three, three sales calls this week. And I knew that wasn't gonna happen because I think I had about 20 people in my audience and straight away, I felt like, well, I can't, what can I do?
Emma Louise: I can't force people to book a call with me. Right. So I'm not gonna start messaging them all and saying, book a call, book, call. I was talking about the offer publicly. I was sharing it, but. That felt really icky goal to me because I, I couldn't control those people. I couldn't make them book a call. What would've been better is to say, right, your goal is to talk about your offer three days.
This week that is something that I control and that I could do. And then I could hit that goal feel good and, and keep going. And then hopefully book three sales calls. So an another example of that could be something like podcast downloads. So I really have no control over how many people download my podcast.
It, it really is an external metric, but there are things that I can do. Towards getting more people to download it. Okay. So I could market in new places, but. Then all I can do is hope that that grows. Okay. So in this case where you don't have a control over the final outcome, it can be better to make the goal, the process rather than the outcome.
So I could say. I'm gonna consistently market the podcast in three new Facebook groups for three months, three times a week. And if I hit that goal, if I keep doing that consistently, and that's, my goal is to do those things rather than the goal is the achievement. There's a good chance that I will increase my podcast downloads.
Right? So it's about making the goal, the action that we take in some cases, rather than setting it on, you know, I've got 10,000 new downloads of the podcast. It's more like reverse engineering again, saying, what action could I take to try to get 10,000 more downloads to the podcast? I could market it in new places more often.
Okay. Number four. This is an interesting one, which I have fallen far of as well, setting, rigid time based goals. Now, obviously in the smart framework, we have the tea, which is time based. What I mean by this is calendar based. So what I see a lot is people go, I've mapped out my year and I'm gonna do this.
And in January, I'm gonna. Sell this course. And if everyone gonna do this, and then in March, we're gonna do this. And then in say, August, I'm gonna run a group program. What can be better is actually to set a when X than Y. So my example with this is I planned to launch a group program. Like a year in advance thinking that it might take that long for my one-on-one spaces to fill up.
But my one-on-one filled up in, I think, three months, maybe four, four months. And I was like, oh, okay. So now I'm full and I can't scale. And I've got nothing in place for this group program because in my mind it was, it was next year or however longer way. So. If I had waited that long, I would've missed the opportunity.
I would've missed out on not only revenue, but the clients would've missed out on the support that they got. So I did pull something together and I launched the mastermind, which was, , you know, a great mastermind. And it was a really good launch for me and a great success, but I had been very rigid on dates.
So rather than, you know, some things do need to be planned on the calendar and they do need to be like, okay, it's gonna happen in this month. But when it's something that is. Reliant on something else. So for me, you know, it was important to fill my one on one up first, then I was gonna scale with a group program.
So it should really always have been when the one on one is full, then I will launch a group. So that's where rigid time based goals can. Leave you a little bit. Ah, cuz you could suddenly have all of this time that you could be doing the thing, but you've made it for, you know, October or whatever. So having that, like this will happen then the next goal, this will happen could just make it a little bit more fluid.
Okay next. Oh, in today's society. This is the one I think that I probably see the most. This is the one I probably see the most with new clients coming to work with me. They set extrinsic goals. By that, I mean, goals that are completely external to them and their values and their vision. So things like vanity metrics, things like wanting 10,000 followers or wanting a thousand email subscribers, you know, rather than thinking, I want a business that.
Generates X amount of revenue, because I want to take X amount of salary so that I can live my life in this way or move house or take vacation or whatever the thing is, they go on numbers and those numbers don't mean anything, right? Because 10,000 followers or a thousand email subscribers doesn't mean that you'll make any money.
Necessarily another one is revenue. That doesn't mean anything to you personally. So it's the 10 K months, the 20 K months, the a hundred K years. All, all of these like really great metrics that get thrown around a lot. Because they sound really sexy, but if it doesn't mean anything to you and you aren't deeply connected to it, it is going to be really, really difficult to take messy or uncomfortable action that you will need to take messy and uncomfortable action at times to reach your goals.
So when you are not truly deeply connected to it, when your revenue goal means something. Being able to take a salary that pays the mortgage on your dream house when it means being able to send your kids to private school, when it means that you can retire your spouse, when it means those things that really deeply change your life, it's easier to do the things that feel scary or to take the big step or take the big action.
When it's like 10 K month and it's actually just a number and it's a little bit of our ego saying, you know, oh, everyone else is doing this. This is what's successful. So I'll just make that my goal. Then it gets really hard to take that messy actions. That's why I always work with clients on things like their vision, their values, what is important to them.
And what does their business, what is it gonna enable them to do within their life? Because when you have that connection, it's much easier to take the action that leads to us hitting the goals. That actually mean something to us. Okay. Another one that I see quite often is expecting that the progress towards our goals is linear.
So I see this a lot in a launch situation where you are expecting, let's say you have a two week open cart. You are expecting that people are dripping in all the way through that. Now, very rarely does it work with launches and I've seen clients check out emotionally after. The masterclass or after the challenge or, or whatever, they've run because they've gone.
Oh, well not many people showed up. No one bought after the masterclass and no, no one's gonna buy. And the energy completely changes, but that's like the first phase of the launch and launches are their own animal. And the majority of sales are made in the last 48. Hours of launches and usually in the last 24.
So when people's energy and they have decided their mindset has gone, oh, it's not working. No, one's gonna sign up and they stop putting their energy behind it and they stop marketing all of this and then they don't hit the goal, but they've actually checked out way too early. So it's really important to remember that it might not be linear.
I could have a goal for, I don't know 25,000 pound month. And I could be on 20,000 pounds for the month. And on the last day of the month, someone could sign up to work one on one with me in pain full, but the day before the last day of the month, I could be going well, I'm, I'm not hitting that goal is not happening.
Right. We have to stay in it until the end. And we have to remember that it's not linear. We don't always see the steady stacking of results. We can still hit the. Any, it can change in a second. Everything with business can change in a second. So really staying invested and, you know, being in the goal right until the end.
Another one, I see. This is so common. So, so common is actually not setting a goal. Okay. And then. Measuring the success against some random quantity that, that they've just kind of made up, which obviously is never gonna be good enough. So I see this with things like email, open rates. So without looking at industry standard, open rates or conversion rates, or looking at how many people are on their email list or any of these things, people send an email and then they go, well, not many people opened.
And I've seen this so many times with clients and I'll say, well, how many? And it's like, oh, only 60% of people opened it, which, you know, industry standards about 20. So 60 is amazing, but they've got this random quantity, like a hundred percent open rate in their head, even though that was never the goal, the goal is to send the email, right.
And this is what happens with scope creep. So the goal is send the email. You send the email, you have achieved your goal. You should celebrate. Okay. But people don't, it creeps. It's the next thing it's like, I've sent the email, but that's not good enough. I need, need something else. And oh, I need everyone to open it or I need to make a sale from that first email.
So be really, really careful with scope creep and goals. Either because you didn't really set the goal solidly at the start and then you just keep adding and adding to it. Or another case I've seen this happen is you might say I wanna sign three new clients this month and then you sign those three clients in the first 10 days of the month. Okay. What you should be doing is celebrating and then thinking, Hmm, next month I can increase this goal because I can see that I can clearly clearly achieve it. But what we often do is we go, oh, I signed this three clients, so I'm gonna make it six.
Now I've done that in 10 days. So I'm gonna make it six clients for the month. And then maybe you sign another one or two. So maybe you get five clients, which is way above your original goal. But you're disappointed because it's not the six that you've just decided that it should be. So you never actually celebrate
your original goal. It all merges into one because you've just pushed and extended out. So you never feel like you're achieving it. So what, on the first of the month would've been, you know, nearly double the clients that you wanted to sign suddenly 30 days later is not enough. It's not enough. So be really careful of that.
Be really, really clear and succinct with what your goals are and when you hit them, acknowledge you have hit them and celebrate them. Don't just keep adding more things to them. You can definitely use it as a sign that maybe you didn't set them high. Or maybe it was easier to achieve than you expected.
And you take that into account when you're set in the next one, but don't let a goal just keep extending out and getting further and further away on, on the horizon. And you're feeling like you've never hit it when actually you've hit it many, many times over, you just haven't stopped. You haven't put that full stop on it and then decided to start.
And lastly setting your ideal outcome as a goal. So, yes, you're ambitious. I get this, but if you are, let's say you are brand, brand new to business. You. Literally just dipping your toe in the online space. You are listening to podcasts, maybe taking a course, but you, you haven't done anything, right? You haven't set up social media or a website or an email list or anything.
You haven't got your offer together. You, you know, your brand brand, brand, brand new as we all are in one day. And then you decide that your goal is to make a hundred grand a year. Okay. So then. You finish this course, and then you set up your social media and you, you know, take your photograph and then you set up a website and then you decide you're calling yourself whatever service provider name you are, and then you create an offer and then you start talking about it and, and you go, oh, but I haven't made a hundred grand yet, so I'm not successful.
And what you haven't done is you. Celebrated any of the progress that you've made, you've given yourself zero credit whatsoever for every action and the progress you've taken. And instead of looking forwards to that ideal, you would look back and you would say, wow, like to say, six months ago, I had zero business and now I have a business.
I have a name, I have social media. I have a website. I have offers. I have an audience. I have all of this knowledge that I didn't have before. I've completed a course. I've done X, Y, and Z. That is when we see the progress. I, I felt excited for you even saying that this made up person that I'm talking about, but.
When we are always, what super coach Dan Sullivan would say is in the gap. When we live in the gap between where we are and where we want to be, that puts us in a negative mindset all of the time, because we are constantly focusing on what we don't have. So we are in a constant state of lack because we don't have that one thing or we haven't achieved that.
One thing. We are constantly living in this gap between them. I can say like, and the difference in this is like day and night, my clients who focus on the progress that they have made enjoy their businesses far more, but not only that they get better results. If clients are in a bit of a mindset funk, if they feel like they're not achieving what they want, they're not getting the results that they want.
I have them share wins in slack every single day, every single day, because sharing wins and celebrating is part of mindset work. And when they start doing that, the difference is amazing. They start to see how amazing everything is. They start to look at things that. They had taken for granted and go, oh, that went really well.
This is great. It's a win. And every time within a week or so the results start coming in because they've taken themselves out of lack and scarcity and they've put themselves into an abundance mindset. So when we talk about abundance, it's not just money, it's not just money mindset or saying, you know, oh, I deserve to be wealthy.
Which of course you do. But it's an abundance of everything. When we start celebrating. Looking at all of the things that have gone well for us that day, you know, it can be the tiniest win. It can be like, you know, someone let me pull out at the traffic light. That is a win I'm taking it. When we start to focus our brain on all of those small, good things that happen, our brain starts to look for more small, good things that are happening.
Right. And that gives us. More positive mindset, where our attention goes is where our energy goes. So if our attention is going on lack and what we don't have and how annoyed with ourselves, we are beating ourselves up. That's where our energy goes. And then that means we attract more of it when our attention goes on all of the things that have gone well, when it goes on every small win
then that's where our energy goes and our energy is buoyant and it's magnetic and it's excited. And that means that we call in more of those wins. Okay. That is just simple law of attraction physics. When they focus on the progress, they make more. So if you feel like you fall, foul to that one, because this is the one I see so much.
Challenge yourself to note down your wins every day for at least a week and ideally forever as part of your mindset work. But I know that's a big ask, do it for a week, at least, because you'll be amazed how much more you notice you notice the wins you notice that everything's happening for you and not to you.
And you start to really appreciate all of these things and it puts you in just such a different mindset and it makes business way more enjoyable. And I say, this is someone that has been in that gap for big parts of my business, where I felt it wasn't happening quickly enough. I hadn't done enough. And the coach I was working with at the time had me do.
Refreshers every 30 days of what I had achieved. And we had a Google doc and it was just an ongoing Google doc. So it was like 30 days after I start, we started working together. She asked me to list out everything that I'd achieved. And then 60 days after 90 days after, and when I looked back the 90 day one, I cried so much because I had done so much.
Whereas if I hadn't seen that, if I didn't have the evidence there in front of me, I would've still felt like. Oh, it's not working. I haven't done enough. I haven't really made any progress. So it's so, so important to focus on what we've done and celebrate it. So those are my thoughts and observations about goals.
Really take some time and think about the goals that you've made for yourself. Think about whether you achieved them or not. And then take these things that I've discussed today. And see if you can see where maybe it wasn't right. Any of these things that you could either add or take away, if, you know, that's the case that you think could help your goal setting, be.
More more smart as such, but where you could feel that it works for you. You know, goals, I always say should be a stretch, but not a stress. Like you shouldn't have absolutely no idea how you are gonna hit it and you shouldn't be stressed and make it mean something about you, a person, if it doesn't get hit, but of course it should be a stretch because.
Asking us to grow the mere fact of setting a goal that is to do or achieve something you haven't already means that there's growth to be had there. So be kind to yourself. I would love to hear. What you think of this, what you have taken away from this? Anything that I have said that's gonna be helpful in your own goal setting as always feel free to reach out.
You can find me on Instagram at ambitious introvert on Instagram, it's just at ambitious introvert or pop into the Facebook group, the ambitious introvert network and share anything in there. I would love to hear from you. And I really hope that you have got some value from today's episode.