‘Hey it’s almost March so why are you talking about goals?’, I hear you ask.
Research tells us that 80% of New Year goals fail by February and by March they’re long forgotten, so now seems like the perfect time to have this talk. Besides, at Mothers and Shakers, we strongly believe goals can and should be set at any time of the year. Most importantly, you shouldn’t give up on them even if you’ve failed several times before.
If you’ve set New Year’s resolutions and not managed to stick to them, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, why not look at why this happened and what you can do differently? Otherwise you might wind up setting the same goals next year, with the same dud results.
To help you, we’re going to share a simple, step-by-step way to achieve your blogging goals. If you stick to this, you will have a far better chance of making those goals a reality. We’ve also got a freebie printable goal planner so make sure to get your copy below.
Failing to plan is planning to fail
As cliched as it sounds, it couldn’t be more true. The key to achieving anything is planning, and creating a successful blog is no different. We’re not just talking about a few random ideas in your head or even a daily task list. You need something more concrete and constructive, that will keep you moving towards your goals. We highly recommend sitting down with pen and paper, because the act of writing out your goals helps cement them in your brain.
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So how do you create this plan for your goals?
1. Find your Why
Finding your WHY is an extremely powerful place to start. Why are you even blogging in the first place? If you’re reading this, you are most likely blogging as a business rather than a hobby. So your first answer might be that you’re blogging to make money. However, you need to go deeper, far deeper. For instance, why have you chosen blogging when there are so many (often easier) ways of making an income? And why do you want to make money? Maybe you’re not in it for the money, but you want to raise awareness for a particular cause. Why is this cause important to you? Ask yourself what drives you. What will make you get up every day and show up for your blog?
One blogger told me her big WHY was to earn enough so her husband could quit his job. Her husband was miserable and each day she saw him return from work looking a little more broken than the day before. She chose blogging because she had always been passionate about communicating her ideas. She wanted something she could start at a very low cost and most of all, she wanted to work from home, around her little kids. All of this together was so compelling that it kept her going, even when things were tough.
Now that you’re clear on why you’re blogging and what you want to get out of it, let’s dig a bit deeper.
2. What are your life goals? How do your blogging/business goals align with your life goals?
Here’s an example from one of the bloggers in our network:
One of my big life goals is to travel much more and I have defined exactly how much more. My specific goal is to travel 3 times a year while my kids are still in school – one city break, one exploring a new country, and one luxury beach holiday. To do this, I need more income than I am currently creating, so that is where my blog/business goals come in. I have identified 3 ways in which I can boost my blog income and those are my 3 big blogging goals for the year.
What are some of your life goals? Maybe you want to become a published author some day and your blog is where you will develop your writing skills and create a portfolio of your best work. Perhaps you home school and you want to share all your ideas, with the specific goal of evolving the education system. Maybe you are saving up to buy a house and you want to work from home, around your family. Maybe you want to finally lose that weight so that you can be healthy, and sharing your journey online will help keep you accountable.
Remember, your life goals don’t have to change the world. They only have to be truly meaningful to you.
So once you have your big blog goals, now what?
3.Write down the specifics
Now it’s time to get specific. Define exactly what you want to achieve and by when. Set a date and make it measurable so that you will know if you’re on track. For example, if one of your goals is to grow your email subscribers this year, state exactly how many email subscribers you are aiming for and by when. Of course, you need to identify WHY you want to grow your email list in the first place and how this ties in with your bigger life goals.
4. Make a plan
Next, you need to create a plan by breaking down your big goal into smaller monthly goals. Say you want to get to 8,000 email subscribers by the end of the year and there are 10 months left. That works out to 800 subscribers a month. However you might need to set up certain things before you can aim for 800 subscribers a month. So you could start with a smaller monthly goal and build up as you get your systems in place.
It might look something like this:
Month 1 – 150 subscribers
Month 2 – 300 subscribers
Month 3 – 550 subscribers
Month 4 – 800 subscribers
Month 5 – 950 subscribers
Months 6-10 – 1050 subscribers per month
Next you need to figure out how. List out all the ways in which you plan to achieve this goal and once again divide it into months. This list might include a course you need to take to learn how to grow subscribers quickly, a system you need to buy, or people you need to connect with to help you. It will include specific actions you need to take, which could be things like creating 4 content upgrades every month, or creating a compelling freebie.
5. Let’s work out our weekly and daily to-do’s
Now that we have our monthly goals, we need to break them down into weekly goals, and then break down the weekly goals into daily actions. Once you go through this process, your daily tasks will feel much more achievable. It will also take the guesswork out of sitting at your desk everyday and wondering what you should do first.
6. Reflect, review and revise as needed
This is a type of blueprint for achieving a specific goal but it’s not set in stone. Reflect on your progress daily and review it weekly. If you are not moving closer to your goal, your plan might need revising. Or you might find that one specific activity is bringing you 80% of the desired results. So this is where you need to focus. It’s only by reviewing regularly that you will spot what needs tweaking, so don’t skip this step.
Let’s look at a couple of examples to help bring it all together:
Blogger One: Rosie, aspiring author
- Life Goal: Becoming a published author of novels.
- Reason Why: Because I need to prove to myself that I can.
- Big Blogging Goal: To build up a writing portfolio.
- Blogging Goals for the Year (that feed in to the bigger goal): 1) Publish content once a week, 2) Guest post on a minimum of x no. of sites, 3) Grow email list to x no. of subscribers.
Blogger Two: Jen, mother/advocate
- Life Goal: To make the world a kinder and more accepting place for people with autism.
- Reason Why: My son was diagnosed with autism and I fear for him as an adult, especially after I am gone.
- Big Blogging Goal: To create a far deeper understanding of autism so people aren’t afraid of it.
- Blogging Goals for the Year (that feed in to the bigger goal): 1) Weekly stories of living with a child with autism, 2) Getting x no. of interviews/features in mainstream media 3) Growing Twitter following to x no. of followers.
Each of these example bloggers has figured out why they’re blogging, aligned their blogging and life goals, identified their overall blogging goal, and defined no more than 3 goals for the year ahead. Now all they need to do is break these goals down into monthly goals, weekly and then daily tasks.
It may feel like this goal planning will take hours and it will. But it will save you endless hours in the long run and you will have a day by day plan to reach your big goals. And you know what that means right? If you stick to your plan, you will achieve that goal. This works for any goal you have, not just blogging and business goals.
And one last note — don’t give in to overwhelm. Yup, we’ve been there. When I started planning my goals in this way, I found that starting with just one goal was much more doable. Once I’d mapped out one goal, I moved on to the next. I don’t ever have more than 3 to 5 goals for a year, sometimes even less if they are really big goals. Do what feels manageable to you, rather than trying to do it all and achieving nothing in the end.
Don’t forget to get your copy of the free goal planner above or below.
ABOUT THE PLANNER:
Your free goal planner is two sheets to help you plan you bigger life and business goals and then break them down in to smaller monthly goals. Once you’ve done that, working out your weekly and daily tasks will be a lot easier to do in your regular planner.
The first sheet is about your life goals, your why and your 3 big blogging/business goals. The second sheet is for your bigger goals to be broken down in to smaller monthly goals. We’ve created this sheet to work over a 90 day period (or 3 months) as we find it’s a lot more doable to plan for 90 day periods rather than a full year. Once you download the goal planner, you can print out a new sheet every 90 days as it’s not dated. Or else if you prefer to plan for the year, just print out 4 sheets at once. Hopefully this will all make sense once you see the planner.
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