Hot Take: Your New Year Goal Is Holding You Back

In the whirlwind excitement of New Year's Eve, it's common to jot down ambitious goals, fueled by the promise of a fresh start. Yet, by February, many find themselves discouraged, feeling like the clock is already ticking against them. This week, we dive into this all-too-familiar pattern and discuss the importance of focusing on realistic goal-setting that keeps you motivated throughout the year. Here's how you can make 2025 your most fulfilling year yet by tweaking the way you think about goals.

Topics Covered In This Episode:

1. Maintaining excitement about goals throughout the year is crucial to keep making progress and not get disheartened when off-target.
2. Treating your goals with the same commitment you would have for helping a child succeed in school can prevent early abandonment.
3. Big yearly goals should act as a "north star" for decision-making, but the primary focus should be on smaller, actionable 90-day goals.
4. Business growth is not linear; it often involves peaks and troughs, just like academic progress isn't always consistent.
5. Rather than focusing on monthly revenue targets, focus on actionable tasks like discovery calls or outreach activities.
6. Understanding your key metrics and conversion rates will help set realistic monthly targets and increase the predictability of income.
7. Monitoring progress with quarterly reviews can help identify gaps and prompt creative problem-solving.
8. Enlisting help from coaches or utilizing different strategies can help achieve educational and professional goals more effectively, like the Strategist Society.

Find the full show notes at:  https://brandimowles.com/240

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Transcript

240: Hot Take: Your New Year Goal Is Holding You Back

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Today I'm getting a little spicy and that's because there's so much emphasis on your big year goal. Like what is that goal? But we know that the facts are that most people drop their goal by February. Like it's just plain old facts. And so when it comes to goal planning and using that excitement That you have in the end of December, the beginning of January.

What if we could keep that excitement going all year long without getting discouraged when we're not on target for our goals? And that's what I want to unpack today. And my hot take is that you're putting way too much emphasis on your new year goal and not enough on what it actually takes to get there.

So if you're ready for a little spicy brandy and learn how to make this the most fun year you've ever had, Let's jump into this week's episode of the Serve Scale Soar podcast.

[00:01:00] We are back at it y'all. It is 2025 January. We just took a break in December for the month and I am back refreshed and ready to do the dang thing. And hopefully you're at level 10 excitement about this year as well. But here's the thing I know is that most people's excitement starts to deplete about the end of February.

And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen to you. And I want this to be the most fun year you've ever had. So if you are brand new here, welcome, welcome, welcome. This is going to be a little bit of a spicy episode for you. And so I hope you enjoy that. I love to give tough love, but it's always coming from a place of love and wanting you to be the best dang you possible.

And so if you're here, Brand new. My name is Brainy Mouse. I am your host of the surf scale store podcast And if you're a returning listener, dang, [00:02:00] I just love that you pop me in your ears every single week and Enjoy this content and if you are enjoying it go on And give me some stars on either apple or spotify spotify.

You can now rate podcasts. So if you can do that, that's it fantastic. If you're on Apple, I'd love for you to leave a quick review. That is the biggest thank you that you can give any podcast or content creator because it helps their word, get out to more people so we can impact more people. So I would appreciate that in the comments.

And today I really want to talk about what Why putting so much emphasis on your new year goals is actually hindering you from hitting those goals. So we all know we, at the end of December, we're making our plans for 2025 or whatever year you're listening to this. And then we get into January, we are pumped.

We're doing the dang thing. Like we are doing it. This is our year. And maybe you had a goal of a [00:03:00] hundred thousand. So, in December, you went to your calculator, and you're doing the math, and you're like, 8, 400 a month! I got this, girl! And then, we get into January, and you don't hit 8, 400. And you're like, okay, okay, that's okay.

We got next month and then we get into February and you're feeling a little defeated, but you're still hyped because we're still at the beginning of the year. And then December, uh, February comes and goes, you didn't hit 8, 400. So now you're like, Oh crap, I'm behind, like real behind. And this is where most people then quit.

They're like, Oh, this was a dumb goal. I didn't want this goal anyway. You know, like I was just being silly, but that was, that's not really my goal. My goal actually is, and you start to deflate your goal or you're already done. You're like, gosh, another year, another goal, another one that I'm not going to hit.

And you toss that goal aside. So either way you're [00:04:00] throwing goals out when we're only 16 percent done with the year. And my question to you is, we're so quick to toss our goals or check out or not have the same excitement, but if our child was in second grade and they weren't hitting their benchmarks, maybe they were a little bit behind in math or reading or whatever it is, and we're like, You know what?

That's okay. You can drop out. Who needs 12 years of school? You got two and you're behind. You're never gonna catch up. So you might as well drop out now. There's no point in continuing. No, you are not gonna let your child drop out of school in second grade because maybe they're not hitting all the benchmarks.

You know what you're probably gonna do because you're a really freaking good mom is You're gonna try to figure out all the help that you can get them. Maybe that's a tutor. Maybe that is one of the Working with them extra after school. Maybe it's spending more time on the weekends reading or doing math, or maybe you're going to find a different way to teach them that fits their [00:05:00] needs.

You're going to do whatever you need to do to get your child up to the level that, They need to be at. Because that, you want the best for your child. So why the heck don't we want the best for us? Why are we so quick to throw out our goals? Because we may be a little behind. It's so silly when you think of it like that.

Because it's the same thing. Two out of twelve months, you're tossing it. And in second grade, out of twelve, twelve grades, you're already tossing, you're not going to toss in the towel for your child. So when we think about it like that, it's like, okay, If I take that metaphor, analogy, whatever it is, then I can think, okay, if for my child, I'd look for a tutor, maybe you need a coach.

If I need to figure out a different way for them to learn, maybe you need a different service. Maybe the way that they're teaching math isn't the way your child retains math, but you know, there's always another way to get to the answer. [00:06:00] There's no one way to get to it. So maybe you show them another way to get the correct answer.

Well, maybe you just need different packages. Maybe there is another way to get to your goal that you hadn't thought about. We get creative. We get scrappy. And so when we look at it like that, we can come from that mindset, but even still, that's a hard place to change right off the bat, but it's something good to keep in the mind.

So what can we do? Does this mean we don't do big new year goals? No, we have our goal. And that's your North Star. So in ads and in conversions for clients, I always talk about there's a KPI, Key Performance Indicators, that you always want to have one North Star metric that you're looking at. And that metric helps us make decisions.

It's the same thing with your goal. Your North Star metric for your year is your revenue goal. Great, you know it, but we're not attached to it. We know that's not the end all, be all goal. There's other troubleshooting metrics that we can focus [00:07:00] on. And so just like with your business, that is what helps us make decisions.

So maybe someone says, hey, will you do this summit with me? But it's not your ideal clients. You know, you're not going to get any clients and you know, your goal is a hundred thousand. Do you say yes to that? No, you say no because it doesn't align with your Northstar goal. That's why it's so easy for me to make decisions and say no to people.

Because I look at my Northstar goal and I say, is this going to get me closer to that? If it doesn't, it's a no. And that's how I choose to run my business because I want to have more freedom with my family. And I know every time I say yes to something, I'm taking away time from them probably, or I'm taking time away from hitting my goals.

So, when we have that North Star metric, we have our yearly goal, it's a great tool to use as our yes, no, our compass of where we're going, decision making. But it's not where we're focused. Instead, I want you to focus on 90 day goals because at the end of the [00:08:00] day, business is not, if you want to hit a hundred thousand, it's not going to look like 8, 400, 8, 400, 8, 400, 8, 400 for 12 months.

It's not what it's going to look like because unless you're already at 8, 400, That's not what it's going to look like. If you're at 8, 400, you're probably shooting for more than 100, 000 and you know that you need to increase that. So what it's probably going to look like is maybe you're at 2, 000 right now.

So in January, maybe our goal is to get to 5, 000. So then we're like, okay, if I need to get to 5, 000 and I'm at 2, 000, my gap is a 3, 000 gap, right? So then how much do I charge per client? Maybe I'm at 1, 500 per client. Awesome. So that means I need two clients. In the month of January, to get to 5, 000.

Perfect! So, how many discovery calls do you need to get on? Maybe you have a 30 percent discovery call rate. So, then, I know I need to get on 6 discovery calls to hit 2 clients. And then, from there, I can be like, how many people do [00:09:00] I need to reach out to? How many posts do I need to respond to? How many networking events do I need to go to?

whatever your marketing method is. We're going to say, what does that activity look like? Where am I going to go to get that? And then we're focused on the activity and the discovery calls and the clients, not the revenue. We're focused on the activity that it takes to get to our goals. And then let's say, great, January, we hit 5, 000.

Woohoo. We're not at 84, but we're excited because we hit that goal. So now our next goal is going to be like, okay, I just on boarded two clients. So I don't think I can do two again this month just because of capacity. So then I'm going to say that I want to hit 7, 500. So then if we look at 7, 500, and that's one client.

Awesome. So that's one client. We know we need three discovery calls. And then we know how much activity that's going to take. So then we finished [00:10:00] February and we're at 7, 500 or maybe we're not, but we were moving forward. We're building momentum. Okay. Now you are feeling a little maxed out with clients, but you need to, you want a thousand more.

If we get a thousand more dollars, then we're going to hit our 8, 400. Dollar a month. And that would be a really fun place for you to be. That would be a fun milestone. So then we're like, okay, we can't take on any new clients. So what does this look like? Well, those clients that we had before, maybe they're not at 1, 500.

So maybe we can raise their prices. Maybe this is a good time. Maybe you can do a done with you. So one thing I teach in strategist society is the three packages every strategist needs. And so maybe we start to look at that. Maybe there's something else you could tap into a workshop that you could do locally.

We start to get creative on where that other thousands coming from. So then that month we had 8, 400. So then if we look we're at 8, 400. Then the month before that we did 7, 500. And then in [00:11:00] January we did 5, 000. So then we're at 20, 900. Awesome. So we're building momentum. So then, we can do 100, 000 minus 20, 900.

And we know that we have 79, 100 to hit our goal. And we still have three quarters. So if we divide that by 3, which is not how business goes, we would be at about 26, 400 that we would need to do each quarter. Okay? In this last quarter, we did 20, 900. So we're super close. So, if we did that 26, 000 minus 20, 900.

That puts us at a 5, 100 deficit for the quarter. And we know that that 1, 000 was just kind of like [00:12:00] a one time project. So our baseline now is 7, 500. If we do 7, 500 x 3, that's 2, 200. Okay, so if we know that 2, 200 is now our base, then we can say, how much do I need to increase? This is it and it doesn't have to be the full amount remember because we're going to build momentum So then what do we need to do the next quarter?

We're going to maintain our 7, 500 plus maybe we need to Add another one of these 1, 000 days, or maybe it's one more client. Now you've got your onboarding. You can take another client. Maybe we need to increase our prices. Now, instead of 1, 500, you're charging 2, 000. So then you're like, okay, my new base is 2, 000.

So if I get one more client, I'm at 9, 500. Awesome. And then you maintain that base for those three months. And that would look like [00:13:00] 9, 500 times 3, that gives us 28, 500. So then, we get done with that, we're at, that quarter, we're at 28, 500. And then we add 20, 900 from the quarter before. We're at 49, 400. So then, we know, 49, 400.

Then we know we're 50, 600 away from our goal and we still have two quarters left. Which means we need to do an average of 25, 300. But your new base is all ready. 22, 500. So like, do you see how this can build and you want to build in some down months, you'll probably experience a down month. But when we look at the math like that, and we treat it as a building stepping stone and not a consistent all around, and we focus on quarters, you're going to hit your goal much easier.

So I know math is not everyone's favorite thing. But math becomes your favorite [00:14:00] thing when you start making more money, because when you can count how much money you're going to make, because you know exactly your discovery call conversion, you know how many leads you need to reach out and it becomes a game.

Your business becomes more fun. Every single month you do your gap analysis, which is something we teach in strategist society. It becomes more fun. It's no longer chasing this number that feels so far out of reach. It's having fun in your business and chasing a monthly activity, not a monthly revenue goal, a monthly activity that will get you to that goal.

When we change our mindset from chasing revenue and instead we chase activities and we check off those boxes, business becomes more fun. Fun and we'll hit our goals much faster. The first year that we did a million and I recorded the whole podcast the whole year, I gave all my profit loss and all that kind of stuff.

I had so much fun. And we had 200, 000 [00:15:00] months and we had 10, 000 months. It's not, that's not how business works. It's not going to be the same amount every single month unless you have year long contracts and you don't grow at all and you don't lose any clients at all. But for the most of us, we're going to have ebbs and flows.

And who you show up as is the person when things aren't lining up the way you thought they were. That's who you are as a person. That's who you are as a business owner. It is so easy to show up when things are going well and they're going as plan, but it's much harder to show up when things aren't going plan.

But that's when the most growth will happen. So if you want 2025 to be the best year ever, you want it to be the most fun year. You want it to feel like I am growing each month. I'm hitting my goals each month. Don't focus on the yearly. Use that as your North star, your decision making, but focus on your 90 day goal.

That's exactly what the first thing I do when you come into strategist society is [00:16:00] I sit down with you. We do a call. I ask you all the questions about your business, how much you're charging per client, all of that. And I create a custom non cookie cutter plan for you that shows you what to do week by week by week to hit your goals.

When you have that, it's hard to get squirrel syndrome, shiny object syndrome in 90 days. We can all focus on something for 90 days. Focusing on something for a year is hard for anyone. I don't care how disciplined in your goals you are. A year feels like forever away. So focus on 90 days instead. See what happens this year if you do that, and I can't wait to celebrate you when you do hit that year end goal.

But you were focused on the activity instead of that revenue goal. And so my friend, if you want a custom 90 day plan, you want to join us in Strategist Society, you want more one on one support, then we'll link that up below. You can go to brandyandcompany. com [00:17:00] slash strategist. com. dash society, apply for a spot.

We only have a handful of spots left and come join us. Let's do the dang thing, or if you're not sure if it's for you, DM me on Instagram and let's chat about if it is the right place for you. We don't let in everyone or anyone. It is application only, but you never know unless you apply. So my friends go out, do the dang thing, serve your audience, scale your business and soar into the success you deserve.