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Looking for a new book to read? Well, you’re in the right spot! I’ve been doing a bit of reading this summer, specifically self-development books and today I’m giving you a rundown of the ones I think you should check out too!

Better than Before | Gretchen Rubin

I’ve already been a big fan of Rubin’s work after reading The Four Tendencies and I really loved this book! If you haven’t read The Four Tendencies, it’s all about identifying our personality traits and then using them to our advantage to reach our goals and live more successful lives. This book makes reference to some of the content in that book (although you don’t have to read it first) and is focused all about developing powerful habits that can support our goals and help all of us live happier lives. Things I’m all about!

Before Happiness | Shawn Achor

Maybe it seems like a strange time to read a book on happiness during a kind of bummer time, but this book was pretty interesting! This book follows Achor’s The Happiness Advantage and focuses on different strategies for looking at our lives in a positive lens. Which Achor writes is imperative to understanding before we can actually be truly happy and make changes in our lives. He definitely brings up a lot of good points and it had a lot of actionable advice you can start implementing in your life right away.

You are a Badass at Making Money | Jen Sincero

Mindset work has definitely been something I’ve worked a lot on over the last 3 years and after really enjoying You are a Badass I decided to read this book. This one is specifically on money mindset and how the way we think about money can ultimately have an impact on our success and how we look at it. During my time as an entrepreneur, I have to say my relationship with money has TOTALLY changed, for the better! Whether you’re a business owner or not though, I think this is a great book to work through some thought processes you may not have even realized you had.

Free to Focus | Michael Hyatt

This year, I’ve taken on a lot more passion and personal projects on top of being a business owner and sometimes it feels like there’s just never enough time. I’m sure you can relate! This book focuses on taking a good hard look at what you’re currently spending your time on and developing strategies so that you can make the most of your time by cutting out some of the fluff and really focusing. Our priorities are what we spend our time on and this book does a great job of helping you really identify what yours are.

The Power of Habit | Charles Duhigg

Clearly I’m on a productivity kick with these books! I know firsthand that our habits and the routines we set for ourselves are key in living the lives we want. So I read this book to learn more about them and how to create habits that really support my goals and what I’m working on. This book is interesting too because it really dives into the science behind habits and also about how our personalities influence how we look and create habits.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these recs and definitely give me a shout on social if you end up reading any of them or have some other recs. I’m always on the lookout for new books to read!

When it comes to planning goals, it’s not just important that you have them, but that you’re also intentional with the planning of them. What does that mean? Well, there’s no better way to set yourself up for success so that you actually make progress on your goals than really thinking things through during the planning stage. Over the years, I’ve tried a lot of different methods to do so and today I’m breaking down the Get Your Goals 6 Step Framework that has really helped me.

Goal

The first step is the most obvious, identifying what your goal actually is. What is it that you want to accomplish or work on? Do you want to work on saving more money so you can buy a house? Do you want to start a side hustle or a new business? Do you want to write a book? Whatever it is you want to do, start by writing out your goal and being as specific as possible — this will help you through the next steps.

Motivation

Once you’ve identified what you want to do now I want you to think about why. This is one of the most important parts of goal planning because your why statement is going to be what keeps you going through the good and tough parts of your journey.

Timeline

Next up, let’s chat about when you want to accomplish this goal. This one is important and one of the things that people skimp on. Deciding on a timeline is key because it’s going to be the deciding factor to build out your actual action plan. Is this a long-term goal like in the next 3 years? Is this something you want to accomplish by the end of the year? Or is this something you want to accomplish within the next few months? Write it down so you can make a plan!

Action Plan

Down to one of the most important parts — actually creating a plan. In this section you need to breakdown all of the things you’ll need to do to accomplish that goal. If you want to start a podcast, but don’t know anything about podcasting then you’ll likely need to learn how to create one, buy any necessary equipment, plan your recording schedule, outline your episodes, etc.! The key here is to break down everything you will need to do to accomplish your goal. If it’s a longer-term goal, it can also be very effective to actually break tasks down by time periods too.

Accountability

The other most important part is deciding on how you are going to stay accountable and track your progress. This is why it’s important how you write your goal in that first section too! For example, if you want to read more this year, instead of having your goal be “reading more” you might want to consider adding a quantity to it like “this year I want to read 12 books”. Every goal will be a little different but figuring out some element of it that can be tracked will really help you.

Once you’ve done that, now it’s time to decide how you are going to keep yourself accountable and how often you’ll check in on your success. Which is why it’s so important you have something you can track otherwise the accountability portion is going to be a little tricky! Will you check in weekly or monthly? Or maybe a little of both? Building out your systems is up to you but I highly recommend trying to build out a schedule and add reminders to your schedule so you keep up with them. That’s one of the biggest reasons people give up on things… not because they’re not passionate about their goals but because they write them down, put them in a drawer and life happens and they get away from them.

Success

Last, but definitely not least, is deciding on what success will look like for your goal. If you’ve already identified measurable quantities then it will be much easier. Then based on what success will look like for you, can you identify any milestones? For example, if you’re trying to save an extra $10k to your savings and you’re starting out with $2k, then maybe a milestone is going to be when you hit 3k, 5k, and 7k. This part is up to you but I’ve found that having milestones is a great way to keep your momentum because you get to celebrate each step of your progress along the way. This section can also be a great place to identify how you will celebrate your wins or milestones. Celebrating small wins along the way can really help build your confidence in sticking with things (especially if it’s been tough to stick to things in the past) so I highly recommend doing that too!

I recommend repeating this structure for each goal you have too. Yes, it’s a little more time-consuming but I whole heartedly believe that taking a little extra time to think things through is a gamechanger in helping you succeed!

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Could you use a little support with this process? I created an intentional goal planning worksheet to walk you through it step-by-step!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY

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Being a small business owner is a wild ride with a lot of ups and downs... on a NORMAL day. Add in a pandemic and holy hell it has been a RIDE! It’s not easy to watch things go up in smoke and have to go back to the drawing board on plans you thought you had. Trust me, I’ve had some dark freaking days… and let’s be real, your mindset and being proactive can only take you so far when you’re in uncharted territory.

Sometimes you just need to embrace the suckiness though and focus on putting one foot in front of the other until you can see some light again. Because it WILL happen. And boy can I tell you I’ve been soaking up every moment of joy and those good days even more now than I even thought possible!

The days you break out into your happy dance not once or twice but three times.
The days you get SO excited because you signed a new project with one of your dream clients.
The days you get off a consulting session and get those warm happy feelings in your heart because you know you just made a difference for someone.
And the days where you get the nicest emails, like happy tears nice😭, from clients who just love working with you...

You might as well call me a happy dancing fool because each and every one of those things happened for me today. I’m posting this for more reasons than just celebrating a good day though.

I’m sharing this to remind you that even though the journey is hard (like really freaking hard sometimes) that it’s worth it. To remind you that betting on yourself will always be worth it no matter how it turns out. To remind you that even though you’ll have some shit days (and sometimes even weeks or months) that it will only make you appreciate those good days even more. And more than anything… to remind you to KEEP GOING! Living (and finding) your purpose is always worth the effort. So keep going, keep learning and keep celebrating each and every win and good day along the way. You’ve got this 🎉