Today we are going to talk about setting goals for 2021. 

Let’s face it, 2020 was not kind to our industry. 

It had many of us hanging on for dear life and a good portion of us going into next season feeling like we may be entering another ride on the merry go round. 

But, because we are go-getters and choose to have one of the most stressful careers out there, I know we can make it through. 

However, we cannot do it without a plan for the future. 

I highly recommend that you grab a pen and notebook. Because we’re about to cover some really important information.

Prefer to watch my Goal Setting System visually?

WATCH THE YouTube Video:

IMPORTANT DEFENITIONS

Before we dive into my six step system. I want to cover important definitions.

Goal vs. Task: A Goal is something you want to achieve and tasks are all the smaller supporting steps that will take you there. 

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that covered, let’s move into step number one. 

STEP ONE: GOAL SELECTION

In this first step, we want to recognize the 1-3 important objectives to focus on. I highly suggest choosing no more than three big goals at any given time, because otherwise, it can be really easy to get spread to thin or fall off the wagon.

If you are suffering from having too many goals and don’t know how to narrow them down, this is what I want you to do. 

Write out these next four questions and answer them for each goal that you have floating around in your head. 

1. Why are you motivated by this goal?
2. What does a successful outcome look like?
3. Is now the time?
4. If I don’t work on this, what will I lack?

Once you have answered those questions, choose the one to three that you want to focus on in 2021.

Step Two: Goal Development 

The purpose of this pillar is to understand the Smart Goal Acronym and walk away with a clear outline, destination and deadline for your goal. I use the ‘Smart Goal’a acronym because it has the ability to provide you with structure and the support to define your goal more clearly. 

Basically, you’ll walk away knowing EXACTLY what you are hoping to achieve – and by when.

Okay, let’s breakdown this Smart Goal Acronym. 

SPECIFIC

Start by stating the objective you wish to meet as specifically as possible.We want to get clear with our description. “Make more money” becomes “Generate 100k in revenue this year.” Or “Book 10 Full Planning Clients and 5 Coordination Clients between January 1st and December 31st of 2021” Being specific helps to incorporate the method into the goal, not just the outcome

MEASURABLE

Give yourself a way to track your progress. Add in some quantifiable criteria to your goal. “Blog more often” becomes “Write and post one blog to my website every other week”. This way, you can easily track whether you are hitting the markers you’ve set in place for yourself.

ATTAINABLE

I am a big believer in setting yourself up for success. With that said, no goal is “too far out there” as long as you plan accordingly. Here you will want to make sure that the markers you’ve set in place for yourself are actually achievable.

RELEVANT

You should have a burning fire for your goal. The end result should excite you. Your goal should be inspiring enough that it motivates you to succeed. If you are not determined to meet your goal, obstacles will be very difficult to overcome.

TIME BASED

Give your goal a deadline. Setting a date to have your goal achieved will allow you to visualize that time in the future. Make sure to keep in mind, its attainability when assigning a date.

Step Three: The Big Picture and Supporting Steps

Step three is made up of two parts. We will take your smart goals and assign them with big picture metrics and create our list of relevant tasks. 

I’ll be using an example for this step so that it’s easier to understand.

Part One

For Part One, assigning big picture metrics looks like this: 

In order to Book 10 Full Planning Clients between January-December of 2021 you will have to do the following:

• Increase visibility on social media – increase ig follower count to 10k
• Increase viewership on website – increase viewership to 800 avg. monthly viewers
• Receive 8 inquiries per month
• Expand my vendor network and build relationships with 4 vendors I would like to associate myself with.

Part Two

For Part 2, you’ll break down these measurable metrics into actual tasks. 

To make this part easier, I like asking myself the following question. 

 “In order to do this, I have to complete this”

• In order to increase visibility on social media, I need to
  • Post to instagram once per day and use 30 hashtags per post
  • Take a class on how to create a successful social media content calendar
• In order to increase viewership on website, I need to
  • Write inspirational and relevant blogs once per week. 
  • Share the posts to Facebook and instagram to pull viewers back to the website. 
• In order to receive 8 inquiries per month, I need to
  • Post a call to action once every other week to drive an increase in inquiries
  • Have a copywriter look over my website to make sure I am using correct wording to drive new business
• In order to expand my vendor network and build relationships, I need to
  • Attending virtual networking events and ask important vendors to coffee
  • Set up a styled shoot

The goal is to have each of your tasks work towards the bigger goal. And you will know if some of these tasks need to be adjusted or updated in the future based on where those measurable metrics are landing. (We will talk more about this though in step 6).

I hope this is making sense to you. And if you have deeper questions on this step, let me know in the comments below!

Step Four: The Quarterly Calendar. 

I map out my goals only for the next three months ahead. I do this because it allows me to speed up or slow down as needed, have time to evaluate and track my progress. 

and I plan out my quarter about 2-3 weeks before we enter it. 

For this step, what I want you to do is to have three consecutive months laid out in front of you. You can print out templates, use an annual planner or my favorite, a digital calendar. Which is what I will be using as an example. 

First things first, you want to add in important dates. 

This means vacations, holidays, days that you work a full or part time job, basically anything that would remove time for you to work on your goal. I like to call them, the non-negotiable of your calendar. 

Next Up, create a list of batch days based on the tasks you outlined in the last step. 

What’s a batch day you might ask? A batch day is a day that you solely work on one area of focus. I began doing this when I realized I work a lot more efficiently when I do creative work all at one time and technical work a a different time.

Here is an example of my batch days, based on the example above.

CONTENT CREATION BATCH DAY: 

• I create all my blogs for the month ahead.

GRAPHIC CREATION BATCH DAY:

• I create all my Canva graphics for YouTube, Instagram posts and stories and Pinterest posts. 

SCHEDULEING BATCH DAY:

• On my scheduling batch day, I take my written content and it’s graphics and schedule them into my social media scheduling programs.

NETWORKING DAY:

• I like to group as many meetings and networking as I can in one day. I have two kids and it’s hard to find free time outside of the house. But batching my meetings and get togethers allows me to knock out a lot of them at once. 

Once you’ve outlined your batch days. It’s time to add them to the calendar. 

Which is what you can see me doing here:

A word of advice. Don’t overwhelm yourself. 

It has taken me years to figure out what makes successful days and what doesn’t. I try to make my content batch days’s just once per month, but sometimes it takes me twice a month to get it all done. So, don’t be hard on yourself it if takes you some time to figure out your routine, but again. Set yourself up for success. I’d rather you start easy and make it more challenging as you’ve gotten it down. 

Once you have all of your tasks added to your calendar, it’s time to move on to step five. 

Step Five: Staying Accountable 

Aside from getting to work, there are three things I want you to do once you’ve set your goals and calendar.

FIND YOUR PEOPLE

Choose a few close people to share your goal with. Let them know why you are passionate about this goal and that you are looking to them for support and accountability during your journey. Give them actionable dates or times to check in with you.

FIND A MENTOR

Sometimes you need an outsider’s voice. Someone who could be honest with you when family and friends want to avoid sensitive topics. If you are looking for a coach, I may be your girl! I do accept 1:1 coaching for both aspiring wedding planners looking to break into the industry and already seasoned veterans looking to up their game.

You can check out my services HERE

SHARE YOUR PROGRESS

I encourage you to post what you are working on, online! Sometimes putting it into the world makes it that much more real!

But most importantly, its time to put your words into actions and actually doing the work. 

We’ve made it to Step Six. The last one. I promise!

STEP SIX: The Check in Chart and Quarterly Audit. 

I have a download for you below. It’s called the check in chart. 

I’m going to show you how I use it so that you know how to set it up yourself. 

At the top you are going to list out your measurable metrics that you outlined in step three. 

CLICK HERE OR BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE CHECK-IN CHART

EXAMPLE

(Note: I’m only going to write out one for this example, but if you have more than three metrics, it is totally okay to print out another chart or create one on yourself.)

Increase visibility on social media – increase ig follower count to 10k

By the time you first review your goals in 3 months, I want you to ask yourself, “What would on pace look like?”

• What I did for my example was take my goal of 10k followers, subtracted my current follower count of 4,500. Which leaves me with needing to increase my count by 5,500 over the next 12 months or 1,375 per quarter. In three months I need to increase my count to 5,875 to be on pace. 

• Behind schedule would be anything less than 5800 followers
• Beyond expectations would fall (in my opinion) between 5900-6000
• Blowing it out of the WATER would be beyond 6000

Once you have this filled out, it’s time to hang everything on the wall or keep it in a place that you will see it often. You’ll revisit it and reevaluate your next step of goals once the quarter is up and keep going until you’ve achieved your goals.

So now it’s time to get to work. 

I know that you have it in you to make 2021 your best year yet. 

2020 did throw a lot at this industry. But my heart tells me that we will be getting back to what we love soon. So take the extra time you may have now to really outline what you want your next wedding season to look like.

I want to remind you to check out my YouTube Channel if you haven’t already and make sure to follow me on my other social media channels for more tips and insight on how to grow your wedding planning business. 

And lastly, once you have your goals picked, leave a comment below and share one that you cannot wait to get started on. We will be here to cheer you on!

Until next time friends! 

Nicole