How to Achieve Your Business Goals
(Episode 2 of 2 with Kristin Swanson)
In the last episode with Kristin Swanson, we discussed how we can overcome resistance to achieve our “someday when…” projects and goals. In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss how we can achieve our soul-led goals.
Soul-Led Goals
Soul-led goals are what Kristin calls our greatest dreams. They are the goals that resonate deeply with our souls. They are the projects we desire to accomplish in our lifetime.
We can ask ourselves, “What do I want? How do I want people to remember me? What difference do I want to make in whose life and what do I want my legacy to be?” The answers to those questions are clues to what our soul-led goals are.
“These soul-led goals are big and [they’re] not going to happen overnight,” Kristin said. “When you go after those big goals, you’re going to have this resistance and you’re going to feel like you can’t do it. You’re going to be scared. There’s going to be fear present and that’s a clue. It’s like a clue to follow that [goal].”
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” While our soul-led goals will come with challenges and resistance, there are ways we can overcome them to meet our goals. Kristen shared six ways to help us achieve our goals.
1. Start with a Routine
A great way to help set us up for success is by starting our day with a routine.
“I believe strongly in a morning routine to set the tone for your day and really set things up for success,” Kristin said. “I believe that your morning actually can start the night before. . . . Being proactive the night before and thinking it all through makes for a super successful day.”
Our evening routines can help us get in a productive mindset for the next day. We can go to bed early so we have more energy, we can put our screens away before bed, or we can fill up our water bottle the night before to make our mornings a little bit easier. We can also look ahead at our schedule for the next day to see what we need to get done. Do we have too many meetings scheduled? Do we need to add anything? Doing this will put us in the right mindset to go after our goals.
To help us get into a better morning or evening routine, we can use habits we already have established to help us create new habits. For example, Kristin drinks coffee every morning; this is a well-established habit. She knows she won’t forget to drink her coffee, so sometimes she will put a sticky note on the coffee maker to remind her to get something else done.
2. Manage Our Energy
Another great way to help us meet our goals is to make sure we have good energy during the day. A good morning routine can help us keep a good energy; then, we just need to manifest it in our work. This means staying positive, catching our limiting beliefs as we talked about in the last episode, and letting our true self show.
Kristin runs a workshop on how to attract clients to gain consistent revenue. She explained that one of the things she teaches is to really get to know our ideal clients. Once we know who they are and what their needs are, we can ask ourselves, “What do I love that I can use to help these people with?”
“It’s all about managing your energy, showing up as your best self, and showing up consistently in the places where your audience is going to be,” Kristin said. “Really shine your light. I love this analogy of the lighthouse. . . . [Just as] the ships come to the lighthouse even in storms, it’s our job to be there shining our light. Consistently show up in your best energy and shine your light.”
As we find our unique gifts, use our energy to portray our true selves, and let our light shine, we will naturally attract clients.
Another part of managing our energy includes managing our time. In Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he uses the analogy of putting rocks, pebbles, and sand into a container. He first got people to put in the sand, the pebbles, and then the rocks. However, when they did it in this order the big rocks didn’t fit at the end. The next time, they put the big rocks in first and the pebbles and sand filled in around the rocks. Everything fits.
Essentially, this example is telling us that we need to prioritize putting our energy on the most important tasks first and then everything else will fall into place. We’ve got to find those most important tasks and find time blocks for them. If we waste our good energy on the small tasks first, we won’t have enough energy left for the most important tasks.
3. Stay Calm During Times of Change
As we are on the path to achieving our goals, we have to remember that unexpected changes are part of the journey. To help us stay calm during times of change we can find the things that really ground us. Kristin said that it really comes down to the basics. Eat nutritious food, drink water, exercise, etc. Meditation and visualization can also help us avoid getting overwhelmed.
“Know the things that really ground you so . . . you can insert that into your day,” Kristin said. “The biggest thing here is to know what you can control.”
Kristin likes to have people start by writing out a list of complaints since they are typically obvious. It is often easier to see what isn’t working than what is working. Once they have a list of what isn’t working, they can write a list of everything that is in their control. We should then focus on what is in our control and find ways to use that to help us continue in the right direction.
4. Own Our Gifts
As we discussed in the last episode, we need to own our gifts. This means learning how to overcome resistance and our fears.
“When we have these gifts that we’re meant to share with the world, it’s scary and there’s resistance,” Kristin said. “It’s easy to say, ‘Not today.’ . . . Own your gifts and share [them] without those fears. That really takes some work, whether that be personal development work or managing your inner critic. . . . It’s never going to go away but just take action anyway and stop comparing.”
It is easy for us to hide our gifts. Time might stop us. Our fears might stop us. Whatever it is that is holding us back, we need to overcome it and share our gifts with others. As we embrace our strengths and unique skills, we will become much closer to achieving our goals.
To find our gifts we can ask ourselves, “What do I lose track of time doing? What do people compliment me on?” Our strengths often come easy to us and they are things we enjoy. When we can find what we love doing, accomplishing our goals will become much easier.
5. Listen to Our Intuition
It’s important for entrepreneurs to know when to say “yes” and when to say “no”. The most successful entrepreneurs say “no” the vast majority of the time, and that’s really a secret of success. We’ve got to say “no” lots of times so that we have time left to say “yes” to the most important things. Then we can focus our energy on the most significant tasks that will help us achieve our goals.
“It’s important to know the areas that you want to focus on and what you’re committed to in your business that is important to you,” Kristin said. “I think the biggest thing is listening to what your intuition says and the initial reaction that you can feel viscerally in your body.”
One of the things Kristin likes to teach people is to create a space between when we’re asked a question and when we say “yes” or “no”. Sometimes we may want to be people pleasers and our first reaction is to say “yes” to everything. However, if we did this, we would become overwhelmed with too many tasks, so we’d never really be able to reach our goal. Instead, we should take a moment to think about the question and determine if that task is essential to our goal.
“Really sit with that [question] and notice the resentment factor. Is there going to be a resentment factor? Am I gonna wish I didn’t do that?” Kristin said. “I think it’s following your intuition and asking yourself, ‘Is this a hell yes?’”
We shouldn’t do something just because we feel like we should either. Are we excited about the decision? Stressed? We should try to find some of the no-brainer decisions. God can also really help us with this. We can be in touch with that guidance that we feel and follow it.
6. Overcome Procrastination
One of the biggest challenges of meeting our goals is procrastination. Most people struggle with this throughout their lives. One way we can help with this is to understand why we are procrastinating. Is it because we are afraid of what other people might think? Is it because we are afraid of failure? Is it because we need help and don’t know who to ask? Getting in touch with what is stopping us from accomplishing our goal is a good way to overcome it.
“Get in touch with what’s stopping you and then have some go to strategies,” Kristin said. “Sometimes [that’s] having somebody else hold you accountable. It’s as simple as saying it out loud. By [being] accountable to another human, you’re way more likely to do it.”
We can announce our goal on social media or tell a friend. Just as getting a personal trainer can help encourage us to go to the gym, a friend or family member can help encourage us to work on our goal each day.
Key Takeaways
Thank you so much Kristin for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:
1. Soul-led goals help us achieve our greatest dreams. Our soul-led goals are often met with challenges and resistance, but that is a clue we are doing something great.
2. Having great morning and evening routines can help us set the tone for day, and make our days much more successful.
3. To help meet our goals, we should have a good energy and manage our energy effectively.
4. To stay calm during times of change we can make a list of what we are in control of and find things to ground ourselves in.
5. When someone asks a question, we should give ourselves time to think about our answer and follow our intuition.
6. To overcome procrastination we can find an accountability partner to help us.
Connect with Kristin
To learn more about or connect with Kristin:
– Connect on Instagram
– Visit her website at KristinSwansonConsulting.com
Next Steps
- Get a free ebook about passion marketing, to help identify and leverage the highest passions of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.
- Subscribe to Monetization Nation on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform.
