Stacy wanted this year to be different but she needed help with her goal-setting exercises.

After looking at what she managed to accomplish over the last 12 months she knew that something needed to change.

Some weeks over the last financial year were downright hairy because of the limited amount of cash flow.

Plus her dream of living on a tropical island for 6 months of the year hasn’t materialised just yet.

If you can relate to Stacy let me know if these points sound familiar.

1. Setting goals and achieving them can be quite daunting
   
2. You’ve rarely ever accomplished the goals that you set in the specific timeframe
   
3. Others seem to be better at setting goals but it doesn’t work for you
   
4. You have a goal but you are clueless about the steps needed to take action
   

Wouldn’t it be lovely if there was a realistic way to set achievable goals with action steps as well?

In this resource, you’ll discover a few key secrets that separate the winners from the others.

Join me as we look at a few goal-setting exercises for complete beginners.

Before looking at the various goal-setting exercises available for you to use.

It is important to understand the various aspects of the goal-setting process.

Many people make the mistake of looking at the ultimate goal while ignoring the reasons behind that goal.

For example, if you have professional goals like getting a 6-figure deal or having an income of $10k/month why do you need that money?

I’ll tell you why…

It’s because you have a number of personal goals behind those specific goals.

This could range from larger goals like buying a mansion or a sports car to smaller goals like hiring a fitness coach.

At the end of the day, the goal-setting process should start with the realistic goals of improving the quality of your life and the lives of your loved ones.

It’s important that you have a process that walks through the stages by adopting the 7 whys principle. At each stage of the process ask yourself why you want that thing.

Here’s what that looks like…

1. I want to make $100K a year so that I can
   
2. Pay for living expenses so that I can
   
3. Buy a beautiful home so that I can
   
4. Provide a secure life for me and my family so that I can
   
5. Not have to worry about emergencies so I can
   
6. Live my perfect day so that I can
   
7. Do the things I enjoy
   

Of course, you can also do this powerful exercise in reverse order.

The most important step is that your focus is on accomplishing the right goal to create a life worth living.

Also, these must be meaningful goals for your future self so that you’ll be motivated sufficiently to accomplish them.

A number of years ago I was encouraged to write out in detail what my perfect day will look like.

At the time, I was not a digital nomad or even a virtual assistant.

In fact, I thought that it was a lot of wishful thinking.

With a bit of hesitation, I sat down with a pen and a few sheets of paper.

I scribbled down my perfect day from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed.

Here are a few things I included.

1. The ideal time for me to wake up each morning
   
2. Who I would like to wake up with in my bed
   
3. What I did after waking up
   
4. The atmosphere and location I’d like to wake up in
   
5. Items that I would include on the menu for breakfast
   
6. At what time would I check messages and emails
   
7. What I would do for work
   
8. My working hours and days of the week
   
9. Extracurricular activities
   
10. Things I would like to do with my loved ones
    
11. My downtime routine
    
12. What I do at bedtime
    
13. Things I do during the day for self-improvement
    

Although I can’t remember every single thing that I wrote down many years ago, I can tell you that this stuff works.

It’s crazy what happens when you get crystal clear about what you want to include or even exclude from your perfect day.

I’m living some of that dream even today which really amazes me because I really believed that it wasn’t possible to have a perfect day.

Have you ever wondered if creating a vision board will work for you?

I always thought that they were useless until I discovered a dirty little secret.

You must always use photos of actual places, locations, fun experiences and things that you want in your life.

For example, a number of years ago I wanted to get my hands on the Chanel No. 5 perfume.

It looked good in the adverts so maybe it will be good for me too.

To tell you the truth I never walked up to the beauty counter and did a scent test, I just decided to get it.

That bottle of perfume remains on my bathroom shelf many years later because it doesn’t match my body scent.

The most important thing to learn from this lesson is to get crystal clear about what you include on your vision board.

Do a test drive, trial or just try it for a few days because chances are you may not like it.

When next you are creating a vision board get photos of places, things and experiences that you know would work for you.

No more magazine clippings, go try out that mattress, the sofa, the dream destination, etc.

If you like it, include it, if not, move on. Vision boards only work when you get real with your dreams.

One of my absolute favourite goal-setting exercises is mind mapping.

At first, I just didn’t get what the excitement was about but then one day I came across a great tool called Xmind.

My life changed forever.

Something just clicked and there I was mapping out world domination before sunset.

In case you’ve never done any kind of mind mapping before it’s like writing down your big dream and working backwards to figure out the next steps.

Here’s an example of how it works.

Say you would like to achieve an income of €100K a year. Just look at that number it may seem impossible but let’s break it down.

$100K/year = $8,333/month

What can you do to make $8,333/month?

You can do a split of 3-4 income streams like $2,000 from digital products, $3,000 from client work, $2,000 from UGC and $1,500 from sponsored content.

I have to warn you that the items that you include in the income streams must align with those things on your vision board and your perfect day.

There’s no point in you generating income from things you absolutely dislike.

Now that you have an idea of what you want to include in a mind-mapping exercise.

Let’s do a practical example.

My favourite free powerful tool that I like to use is one called Whimsical because it’s so easy to use and you can share your mind map with team members.

Always start at the end goal and work your way backwards through the process of achieving that goal.

Here’s a screenshot of the first stages of my mind-mapping process.

Let me explain some reasoning behind why I chose these vehicles for my income streams.

I know that I only have 24 hours in one day so I’ll need some sources of income to be passive and others will need my time and attention.

I’ll also need help creating quite a number of deliverables.

Notice that under the section for digital products, I’ll need to create 1,000 different products for my store.

I already know that I can outsource the product creation process.

Using this method gives me tons of fun accomplishing items.

One of my favourite and fun goal-setting exercises is the bucket list.

The reason why it’s so much fun is because I use it to cover all 8 areas in the Wheel of Life.

So, it goes beyond entrepreneurial goals.

I’ve used it to cover areas like self-growth, romance, travel, learning a new language, learning a new instrument and volunteering for charity.

If you are one of my regular readers or listeners then you would be familiar with my bucket list.

However, if you’re new you can check out my 50th birthday bucket list here.

I created it before the global health crisis so that slowed my progress significantly.

However, I’m so happy to report that I’ve achieved quite a number of the items on that list which is so very exciting.

At this point, you’re probably wondering how many goal-setting exercises you’ll need to achieve your goals.

The answer, my dear, is only one.

I’m giving you a peek behind the scenes of the ones I’ve tried and what I liked or found exciting about each one.

I am also letting you know the dirty little secrets about how to get them to work for you.