What are your goals for the year 2017? How do you keep track of them and make sure that you can achieve these goals?
In this training, I’m going to share with you the system I’m using to keep my goals organized to succeed for this New Year. I hope this training will help you organize your goals as well.
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Writing Down My Goals
It was only just a couple years ago that I actually started writing down my goals in pen and paper. I wrote them in a notebook and worked to achieve them. In the previous years, I always had stuff done, but sometimes I’ve been scattered.
I always called myself creative because now I know that’s who I am. God created me to be that way. I just create prolifically whether it’s writing, art, videos, and blog posts. So those of you who are writer-entrepreneurs, you are creatives.
So as a creative entrepreneur, I always had new ideas. I always had new things to do.
But I usually, would tend to spread myself too thin. I would just do so much and then I wouldn’t really see the momentum. I miss the impact of what God wanted to do in and through my life until I really started to get focused.
Book Reference
There are a couple of key books that helped me. One of them was “The One Thing” by Gary Keller. I also recommend the “Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson. You can check out those books.
Focus for Success
Basically, the concept is having a singular focus, and I know that’s really hard. I know you. I coach with hundreds of authors every day. I hear you, I listen to you, I hear your struggles, and I know that you struggle with wanting to just stick with one project.
It’s more fun to start something new; typically it’s more fun. I’m the same way. Sometimes you start launching into that new idea before you truly finished this thing. You miss out in making this profitable, or successful.
Success is different for everyone.
God’s version of success is obedience. So it’s not always numbers. It’s not always sales. However, sometimes we need to focus.
When I began to focus I chose 90-day goals. These goals are more doable than setting a goal for a year, or longer. What I do is I take that 90-day goal and I break it down into chunks. I break it down and plan it out into doable chunks of time.
This is something that I teach inside Author Audience Academy in my PlanIt Day training. So if you’re an Author Audience Academy member, that’s usually where I recommend that you start. Go through PlanIt Day so you can get clarity on your focus.
We can also always brainstorm together, then go through the training and the coaching. If you don’t have a focus and you’re just scattered, it’s not going to be as effective.
In PlanIt Day I have you go through a system. On Step 4 which is Position, I have you rate yourself in different categories. This gives you an overall view of where you’re at, and what your priorities are.
After then I have you do a brain dump. I call it plotting. Then you prioritize the things that you’ve written. I walk you through all the steps and that’s when you pick one. You will pick your breakthrough goal.
The Journal
So I wanted to share one way to use that strategy and that system. But I’m doing this differently than I have before.
This is a little moleskin journal. It’s short and it’s really light.
I actually love to thrift store shop. So I was out thrift store shopping this last weekend and I happened to see this packet of three little moleskin journals. They were brand new and was never opened.
It was almost as if God just gave those to me as a little gift. It was just a few dollars for these journals. Normally they’re like $11. They were right there, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, I’m going to get these and use these with the strategy that I’ve set up in PlanIt Day.”
The reason I set it up that way is because that’s what I’ve done. This was what helped me to be successful over these last couple of years. And those are the strategies that I teach in PlanIt Day.
So, I’m not just doing it to do it; that’s what I really do. So I used my same strategies in a different physical manner.
Let me share with you what I’m doing.
This is light and so, it’s really easy to put into my purse. I can take it with me everywhere. Nowadays, I’m into lettering and art. So I created a fun cover.
You can do anything you want. You can just write something on the cover. You can have an artist do something for you. Embossing would be really cool I think. Once I get the tools for embossing like a gold or a real neat lettering on there that would be really cool.
You can also buy a journal that already has a front on it. As for me, I wanted it customized for myself.
So I have 2017 and it says, “Behold I’m doing a new thing”. This is from Isaiah 33:19. I love this verse for the New Year. It’s just a verse that God has been bringing in front of me over and over lately.
So I thought, “That’s what I want to put on the front of this journal.”
So, first of all, it’s just really pretty! Isn’t it cute? I’ve been practicing my lettering every day and I’m getting better!
On one of the first pages of the journal, I did what I teach you in PlanIt Day, the Position. I rated myself in different areas.
Typically when you’re choosing your breakthrough goal, it’s typically what we really want in life. So I just wrote this down here as a reminder for myself: “Your breakthrough goal is normally something that will give you more money, more time, or more accountability.”
Typically that’s what we really want in life, right? We want more money, more time, or more accountability to actually get stuff done. That’s the power, I believe, in Author Audience Academy.
It’s not just a training that’s going to sit on your hard drive, or that you go through on your own. It’s accountability. I am there for you every day, and then every week, right now.
We’re in the middle of a 90-day accountability group. You can jump in today! You can join us at AuthorAudienceAcademy.com. I meet my members every week in the Facebook group for accountability.
How about you? What do you need? What is your 90-day goal going to be based on? More money, more time, or more accountability?
Personally, I’m at the place in my business now where it will be based on more time. Last year it was based on more money because finances were a lot tighter. It was more stressful.
Now, it’s still a little bit tight at times because we’re in sales. When your business is sales, it can come and go. But through the membership of Author Audience Academy, I have a more reliable income. Thanks to the members who stay with me month after month, year after year.
Now, what God is showing me, is that I need to learn to not work so much. I can be a workaholic. So for me, it’s more time. I wrote down that my overall goal. It is to work less so I can have more time and less stress.
This means that I need to implement more automation in my business. Right now in Author Audience Academy, we’re going through a system called the Author Automation System. This is to put more automation into book marketing.
You will not have to sit behind your computer every day, doing all the social media and marketing stuff. I’m doing it too. I’m putting those same things in place this 90 days for my book Broken Crayons Still Color.
I’m not an author coach that just tells you what to do. I’m not doing it too because I want to teach you things that actually work. I teach you those that I’m actually doing myself. I’ve used this system for years. But I also want to implement it for my newest book Broken Crayons Still Color.
However, my really big goal for the next 90 days is to focus on helping my husband.
As I’ve grown Author Audience Academy over the last couple of years, his stuff has kind of taken a backseat. And he really needs some of my help with the technical stuff. Instead of hiring it out, we’re just working together.
That’s really my primary focus over the next 90 days. I will help him create products for his running coaching business and help him succeed. And that’s going to give me more time.
As his business grows that’s just going to give us more money. And then it’s going to free up my time so that I don’t feel like I have to be working all the time anymore. It’s going to be more balanced. We’re going to both be bringing income in in a significant way.
It’s just where I’m at right now, it’s his time. It’s time to really help him and focus on him.
So I wrote out ten goals. All the research says not to do more than ten goals. So here are my ten goals. I really don’t mind sharing them with you. I am so transparent and I want you to know how my system works.
So I wrote them in the journal. There are three of these journals that come in a pack. In one journal, I write my goals for the first 30 days. So it’s 30 days each, therefore I have three for 90 days.
My breakthrough is CJ’s products up for sale. But my overarching theme is more time and more automation. My second goal is to get the Author Automation System for Broken Crayons Still Color up.
My third goal is to host two virtual writing retreats, and I’m so excited about this. If you’re interested we are hosting one for Author Audience Academy members January 25th and 26th. I have a wall calendar, and it’s awesome. I just glance over there when I need dates.
I’m hosting one on March 10th and 11th. You can find out more at ShelleyHitz.com/VirtualRetreat. My fourth goal is to update my automated training. I have some training that I share, you can sign up for them at any time.
I want to really get that system perfected and really working so you can get good training. It’s not really working for me right now. My fifth goal is to get Facebook and Amazon ads up.
So the Facebook ads are for Author Audience Academy while the Amazon ads are for my books. By the way, Amazon ads work really well. You can check it out at AMS.Amazon.com.
You have to do some work, though. It took me about an hour to get everything set up. I had to do the keyword research and upload keywords for each book. But now it’s working for a couple of my books.
A couple of them I turned off. It was working, but not as well, so I decided to turn that off. When you find something that works, you’d say “Wow, it’s working!” So I want to try some other books in the next 90 days.
My sixth goal is to publish my children’s book. I have everything ready. I already have the illustrations and the text. I just need to figure out a system for formatting what I want to do and how I want to do that.
Probably I’m going to work on that book during my virtual writing retreat in March. That’s what I’m thinking but I’m not sure yet.
I want to set up more of our finances. So there are a few goals with that. I also want to exercise at least 10 minutes a day. I think that’s very doable. I’m going through a challenge right now with RevelationWellness.org. It’s an amazing ministry and community.
I’m using their online videos so that I can do them from home. I can fit it in at any time, so I really want to get into doing that more. I want to create art every day. I now have an art studio!
I also want to journal. I like to two-way journal where I’m listening to God and writing out what I sense Him saying. Then, I’m also journaling. So I want to do that 3-5 times a week. I also want to find a Bible study to get involved in.
I just wrote out some things of what this would look like for me. I had some balloons in there and then I just wrote out some things to the side. “More automation, more time. Fewer deadlines, less having to be on.”
I have done so many live videos and so many live webinars and it really drains me. So I’m realizing this year that I just need to take a little bit of a step back. I’ll probably still do my live videos at least once a week, but I may do more screen share.
I’m also changing my Broken Crayons Still Color podcast to an audio only podcast. So I don’t have to be on the screen. I’m just realizing that during this particular season in my life, I need to have less stress.
Yes, I’m good at it and I can do it. However, it drains me when I have too much on-camera video time. I also include “fewer book projects without deadlines”.
The end of the year 2016 I did too much. I did too many book projects and book launches. It was a learning experience.
I also added “Less big launches or promotions for Author Audience Academy”. So more automation.
Then I said, “More fun, more art, more exercise, more two-way journaling, more hikes, more day trips, and less social media.” I have deleted the Facebook app from my phone and I have not gotten it back on since November. It’s been a couple months now, and it’s been good for me.
Where to Start?
After I wrote all these goals at the top of the page, the next step is to list down all the things that I need to do to achieve these goals. This is so that it will give me an idea of where to start.
To be honest, I wanted to start with my automated training. However, I realized that I needed to do something else first for some of the things that needed to be in place. Then I could do the training. So doing it gave me clarity.
Sometimes you just need to get things down on paper to get clarity. Are you doing this? Are you writing out your goals? Are you brainstorming all the things that you have to do to get to that goal?
I will give you a word of warning, though. The first time you do this it can be overwhelming. So just know that when you first write out everything that has to be done, guard your heart and breathe. You have to realize that this is 90 days. This is not all going to happen tomorrow. This is just giving you an idea of where you need to go and what you need to get done.
So that’s really the system. If you’re using PlanIt Day, you use the Position. So you write down your goals. Make sure it’s not more than ten goals. Then you start prioritizing. Think of what the biggest priority is and what needs to be done first.
Then you just start doing that. I will walk you through that in Author Audience Academy.
So to continue, here’s what I did yesterday. I put the date at the top of the page and then put the things that I want to do for that day. I also have my 90-day goal, up at the top corner so that I have that in front of me every day.
Every daily page, rewrite your 90-day goal. Rewrite it up there so that it’s in front of you always. When you see it, you can stay focused. You won’t get distracted and you won’t get off on all these bright shiny objects.
Then, I wrote out a list of what I wanted to do that day. I recommend choosing three things. But this is solely depending on your time. I chose tasks that are not going to take more than 30 minutes or so.
Choose three things that would help you to reach your goals. Then just write those out.
As for me, I chose two things. But one of those things had more steps. Yesterday included adding auto responder bonus.
If you’re an Author Audience Academy member, I just added three bonuses to the member area in the Author Automation System. Please check it out.
That’s basically the process. Every day, you will have to do the same thing. Every day writes out one or three little things that are going to move you closer to your goals.
Do you think that this system could help you? You don’t have to do it the way I do it. You could also use a bullet journal if it works best for you.
End Note
This is just one way. How about you? What do you do? What helps you?
I want you to not just be a starter. I want you to be a finisher. I want you to finish the things that God has created you specifically to do. There are things that you are created to do that I can’t do. That’s because you were created to do that specific thing.
You were created to give birth to that book. You were created to create that particular video with that particular piece of encouragement. There are particular things that you were created to do. You were created to give birth to that book, you were created to create that particular video with that particular piece of encouragement, you were created to do this particular thing.
But whatever system you use, I encourage you to set a 90-day breakthrough goal. You can go through PlanIt Day in Author Audience Academy. You can also use whatever other goal setting training you want. But I encourage you to really do the work.
Go through the steps and get the clarity. Once you have that clarity then you can move forward with so much more momentum. This takes some time, though. It took me a couple of days because I first had to sit down.
I did some work before I started this. I sat down and I just did some brainstorming of what my 90-day goal would be. I had to see the different areas that I need to work on.
So anyway, do the work, and let me know how it goes. Let me know how you’re doing. I would love to celebrate your success. If you’re interested please join us in AuthorAudienceAcademy.com.
Join us if you need some accountability to get your book done. Get your first draft out of your head and onto paper. I like to say that I’m a “get it done” author coach. I help you get your first draft out of your head and onto your paper in record time.
You can join us at AuthorAudienceAcademy.com. Otherwise just enjoy all of my free training. If you have not checked it yet, check it out at ShelleyHitz.com/Free. I have tons of free training for you.
Just use the system that works best for you. Let me know what you found helpful if you did find this system helpful, please share this training with your friends.
Until next time!
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