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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Locally Owned. I created this week's mini episode because this is the time of year when we're thinking about our goals. Now, it's not only the time of year that people set goals. It's right about the time that most of us start giving up on our goals. This two part series is going to help you see your goals all the way through to completion. If you ever try to create anything online, you have no doubt used a template. A template gives you a massive head start in the creating process. It puts everything you need in place so that all you have to do is customize it. And today I'm going to give you a template that I created that's going to give you a massive head start on writing out your goals. It's got some built inside to ensure that you stick to your goals and stick around to the end. Because I'm going to give you a little bonus today. I'm going to share with you a process I learned from Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four Hour Work Week that guarantees that you're going to take more time to do the things you love doing and spend less time doing the things you find annoying. All right, let's get to it. Foreign I've been helping people with their goals for quite a while now. About 11 years ago, I realized I actually had my own system for setting goals. Granted, it's an amalgamation of things I learned from courses and books and seminars mixed with my own observations of what's actually working for me. But the key thing was that it was helping me build my company to be the way I wanted my company to be. And then one day it hit me. Everything that I learned about goal setting was so helpful. I thought, I wish I'd learned this in high school. And then I realized that most of my employees probably didn't learn this in high school either. So I thought it would probably be really helpful if I started teaching this stuff to them. And so I did. And I was amazed. It really helped them reach their goals every year. And the cool thing was I'd hear them talking about their goals just as natural as they would talk about what they did over the weekend. It started to become a part of their mindset. And so recently I created this template that I'm about to share with you, and it's what I use this year to envision and set my own goals. Now keep in mind, goal setting is a skill. It's not something that you learn once and then you know it. Just like Any skill, the more you learn it and the more you practice it, the better you're going to get at it. I think that, you know, you can observe that God gave us this natural desire to look at where our life is at and to naturally desire it to be better, to see things that we want or to see things that we want to achieve or want to have. Like, that's a natural part of our desire. But just because it's a natural desire to do it, it doesn't mean that we naturally do it well. We still need people to help us learn how to do it better. We still need people to help teach it to us and to model it for us. Think about it like this. Desiring relationships is something that comes natural to us, right? But most of us need help handling our relationships. We have to learn how to have great relationships and develop skills in order to do that. And so that's why there's so many books and courses, counselors out there that teach us how to have great relationships, because we're not good at it, even though we naturally desire to be. So goal setting is the same thing. The more you learn it, the more you practice it, the better you get at it. And the great thing about it is that you end up discovering a lot about yourself, who you are, and what you really want out of life. Because the foundation for goal setting is that we have to set goals based on who we see ourselves becoming, rather than on what we want to achieve. So the first thing when you set a goal is thinking about the skills that you're going to need to acquire in order to achieve it. Think about it like this. Imagine if you're going to build a coffee table and you have a lot of tools because you're a brick mason, but you have brick mason tools, and you can't build a coffee table with those tools. So you would need to get some woodworking tools. So the tools you would have dictate what you're able to build with them. So think of your skills in the same way. In order to accomplish a goal, think of what skills you're going to need to have in order to accomplish that goal. So let's say you really want to grow your business through referrals. Well, you're going to have to develop your networking skills. So you might take a course, you might read some books. You might join a BNI group or the chamber of commerce. Take leadership positions in those groups to raise your status. You're gonna do things to start developing the skills that you need to be Effective at networking. Now, keep in mind some goals don't require skills. So for instance, you might set a goal to take your kids to Disney World. You don't really need skills for that. But remember, this is a template, not an exact roadmap. So a template for building a website might have a place where you can click and pay for something. But you're building a blog, you're not selling anything, so you wouldn't need that. So keep in mind some goals you're going to have to develop skills, others you don't. Alright, so the second thing to consider when setting your goals is what habits are you going to need to start to develop? James Clear says that success is the product of daily habits, not a once in a lifetime transformation. And long before James Clear came along, Aristotle said, we are the sum of our actions and therefore habits make all the difference. So habits define who you're trying to become. Let's say one of your goals is to lose £20, right? What are the habits you envision yourself doing to lose and never gain this unwanted weight back? Well, you might decide that you're going to walk or run three miles a day before breakfast. It's a good habit to get into. That might even be more of a routine than a habit. But that habit might prompt you to get in the habit of setting your coffee maker the night before or laying out your running clothes the night before. You also might use a tracker for your meals to see how many calories you're eating. You're going to have to start developing habits in order to accomplish your goals. They're the little pieces of setting a system in place and in motion to ensure that the behavior you're creating overall is moving you towards your goal. As an aside, I'll have a link in the show notes to James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. It's one of the best books available for learning about habits. Even though he kind of disses goals, I understand where he's coming from. I think he's misunderstood that goals and habits go hand in hand. Now there's another part of Habits that I'm going to cover in part two. I'm not going to get into here. But you do have to spend some time figuring out what habits you have now that the person you're trying to become doesn't have. In other words, what bad habits do you need to get rid of? All right, so any goal that you're going to accomplish, you're going to want to think about what are the relationships or resources that I'M going to have to establish or develop in order to accomplish this goal. I heard this quote by Jim Rohn, author and speaker. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So in other words, the people we spend the most time with have the biggest influence over who we are. Now, there's no greater investment that you're going to be able to make than investing in building great relationships. So when you're thinking through your goals, who comes to mind that's already doing what you're trying to do? Make a plan for how you can build a relationship with that person. And this can be tricky because if it's not somebody that you already have a relationship with, you're going to have to establish that relationship. And sometimes the people that we want to be like are busy people and they can't say yes to everything. So you got to respect that. But keep in mind, most people really do want to help other people, no matter how busy they are. So, biggest thing that you can do is figure out how you can make it super easy for them to help you. In other words, don't make them work to help you. Developing relationships take skills, but they're skills that will not help, only in goal setting. All right, the last thing that I want to mention today on this episode is when you're figuring out your goals, you got to figure out a way to hold yourself accountable. Now, we've probably all been part of some sort of accountability system or someone holding us accountable, or we had to hold them accountable and it was kind of miserable. You know, there's, there's a. Certainly a wrong way to do it that. Or a wrong way to look at it that, that we just end up doing it poorly. So the tendency for most of us is to shy away from accountability. But here's the best way to look at it that I've learned. So if I'm telling you that I don't want to be held accountable to accomplish something, then what I'm really telling you and myself is that I don't believe I'm going to accomplish this goal. Now, if I had a boss, and that boss is going to hold me accountable for certain KPIs. Well, as long as that relationship is healthy. What my boss is really telling me is that I believe in you. I know you're human and that you're going to make mistakes like everybody else. But I believe that if something goes wrong, I know you'll figure it out. I'm not worried. I believe you can get this Done, because I see in you talents and abilities to do things. So the message to hold someone accountable can be a very positive one. But if there's no accountability, isn't there really the message that if you don't get this done, it's no big deal? I don't take you seriously anyway? Right? That's a horrible message. So when we build in accountability, we are really fighting maybe our own doubts in ourself, and we aren't giving voice to those doubts. We're saying, yeah, I hear you, but I don't believe you. I believe in me. So build in accountability to every one of your goals. Find a way to make sure you're accountable for getting it done. So let's say you want to offer a new service this year, and it's going to require an expensive piece of equipment. So one of my goals when I had my business was I wanted to build a rug cleaning plant. So to keep myself accountable, I called the manufacturer and ordered the equipment and gave them a very sizable deposit. So that made me accountable to follow through on that goal. Because I'm not just saying I want to build this. I have now put a substantial amount of money in the direction of building this. So that's one way of making sure you can be accountable. You just got to figure out how you can do that. So Tony Robbins says, it's not about accomplishing a goal. It's about becoming the kind of person who's capable of accomplishing that kind of goal. So in order to become that person, we need to develop new and perhaps existing skills, take on new habits and quit old ones, and develop relationships with those who are further down the road that we want to be down, and then create systems for holding ourselves accountable for accomplishing these goals. All right, now, I promised you a bonus. And this is a practice I learned from Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four Hour Work Week, among other books. And this is a great little thing to do, especially at the beginning of the year, that ensures that this coming year you're going to do more of the things that you love doing and less of the things that you find annoying. So if you use a calendar, it's a whole lot easier. But if you're not in the habit of using a calendar, you could still do this. It's just a little more difficult. You gotta rely on your memory. So what he suggests doing, and this is what I've done, is take out your calendar and go through the entire last year, and then you're gonna make two lists as you're going through it on one list. You're gonna list all the things that you did where you had a great time and the people that you had a great time with. The second list is gonna contain everything that you did that you didn't enjoy at all or everyone that you did it with or had to be around that you would rather not be around them. So let's say you went to your first professional football game and he had a great time. Put that down. Put down the people you went with. All right? And then what you're going to want to do is, when you're done making these two lists, is you're going to look at all the things that you did that you had a great time and put them in your calendar for the coming year. Not only put them in the calendar, but if possible, go ahead and buy the tickets, book the flight, book the hotel room, commit your resources to that. Right now, it's so much more likely that this is going to happen if you book it two to three months in advance, rather than two to three weeks in advance. One, you're going to be looking forward to it for two to three months. But also, when you get down to two to three weeks, there's always a lot of things that feel very pressing and make it difficult. So chances are you're not going to plan the trip if you wait for two to three weeks. And that goes the same for everybody else that you want to plan the trip with. So that's why it's so much more likely to happen if you plan it two to three months ahead of time. And then the other list, look at the list of things that you didn't enjoy doing and the people that you didn't enjoy doing them with and eliminate as much as possible anything on that list. That way, it guarantees that this year, you're going to be doing more of the things that you love doing and less of the things that you find annoying. All right, so that's the bonus. That's the four pieces of this template that I'm giving you today. There's three more that I'll be giving you in the next episode. Look, I know that I may have only taken a few minutes to cover some really important steps here, but it's probably going to take you several hours, maybe even several days to think through and plan all this. And that's okay. It really should. The more you're willing to imprint your goals on different areas of your brain, the easier time your brain is going to have bringing these goals to life. And I really want you to succeed at accomplishing your goals. All right, that wraps it up for today. Good luck getting started and we'll finish up in part two. Hey, you know, I just got done with recording this and I realized there's a lot of stuff that would be better if you could actually see what I do and see my system. So I'm going to make a video and post it on YouTube. So check back in a few days or a week and look for the link and you'll see the same things that I'm teaching, but it will have a visual element to it that might be easier for you to grasp. All right, that's all for now. Thanks for listening to another episode of Locally Owned. I hope you found this episode to be helpful and offer quick, actionable strategies. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe button and leave a review. You can find more episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or go to our website streetsmartentrepreneurship Biz to find show notes and links and more.