36. Goal Setting - We’re Almost Halfway There

I’m tapping you on your shoulder today to remind you that the calendar year is almost halfway over and it’s time to check in on the progress of your goals.

Grab a spot on my calendar for a Strategy Call if you need support making a game plan for the second half of the year.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Janice: Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode number 36, I'm tapping you on the shoulder to remind you that the calendar year is halfway over and it is time to check in on the progress of your goals.

[00:00:14] 

[00:00:41] Janice: You hear a lot of chatter about quarterly goals and taking a big goal and breaking it down into small steps, but I think there's something really magical about the halfway point on a journey. If you set a reading goal for yourself for the year, and you said you were going to read 10 books this year, at the halfway point in the year, you can't argue that a half of the year is over and half of the days are behind us,

[00:01:06] and you can see how many books you've read. Is it more than half or less than half? Are you reasonably close to the target or are you way off and you haven't even started yet?

[00:01:20] We don't have to get caught up in the emotions of the data that we uncover about our progress towards our goals, but facts are facts and data is data. And it is really helpful to stop the day-to-day grind for a moment and make sure the tasks you're doing are aligned with your goals and the goals you're working towards are still the right goals for you.

[00:01:46] So as we reach the halfway point of this year, I have some coaching questions to offer. Can you even name what the goal is that you're working towards this calendar year? Do you even remember the goal that you set back when that New Year, New Me energy was floating around? As you look at that goal today, was it the right goal?

[00:02:10] Does it still feel aligned? If you haven't been taking action towards that goal, let's find out why. It might be that you didn't post your goal somewhere that you could see it and you just forgot about it until today, and that's a okay. It might be that you set a goal you felt you should set based on goals you saw other people setting, and now that it's a little bit of a quieter time of year when everyone isn't talking about their goals, you might be able to turn within and say, I didn't wanna set that goal at all.

[00:02:49] That goal doesn't feel exciting to me. That isn't what I want to be working on, and that's okay. I celebrate this opportunity to take a pause and take action on that before the entire year comes and goes without us. And so new year, new me energy is great, but I prefer to do my goal setting and tracking work in a little bit more of an off peak time of year so that I can make sure I'm running my business

[00:03:21] my way, and I think this is a time where we can really tune out the noise and check in on our goals and get honest with what we want from our business. So if your goal isn't on track, we've got time, but we don't have as much time as we did back in January, so it's definitely time to roll up our sleeves and get serious about our game plan.

[00:03:43] We had such great feedback from a previous business book club episode about the book 12 week year that talked about the idea of sprinting in 12 weeks. And the good news is we have more than 12 weeks left, but I think that same sprint energy and the benefit of having a little bit of a compressed time period can work in our favor

[00:04:03] now. We have the opportunity to turn within, get really serious about what our goal is, and realize that we don't have a lot of time left so we need to not only make a game plan, but stick to it. I mentioned posting your goal visually. For me, I work at my desktop computer and I have a clipboard on the wall right above my computer, and that goal is posted on the 50 yard line.

[00:04:28] It's a visual tracker. I can color in the progress I make towards that goal, and I can see it every time I'm thinking about going in a different direction and jumping on something shiny. Having that goal posted visually for me is so important. I also post it on Instagram because goal setting and goal tracking is something I love to chat with my other business friends about.

[00:04:51] And having that goal posted and pinned on my Instagram feed means it's there for me to reference any time and it's a conversation starter where I can chat with people who have similar goals and we can go on that journey in community together. Where did you post your goal visually this year? Did you try a desktop wallpaper or maybe a wallpaper on your phone?

[00:05:13] Did you put a poster in your office but then realize that you usually work in bed or at a coffee shop or on the couch? It's time to look at where that goal is posted visually and evaluate if it's working well, and if it isn't, take that goal and post it in a new location. I am also curious who knows about your goal.

[00:05:33] I mentioned bravely posting my goal on Instagram, that's not for the faint of heart, letting the entire internet know what goals you're working towards, but it does force me to check in and

[00:05:45] There's something magical about saying your goal out loud and letting other people know about it. It's one thing to write a goal in our notebook or on a little planning worksheet during a webinar, and it's another thing to share that goal with another person. That's a step in the right direction saying, I'm really serious about this goal.

[00:06:07] It's also an opportunity to get some feedback from another person about how that goal sounds completely different than what you're usually working on, and they might have some ideas that can help you get started and also some good feedback to be curious about as you set out on your journey. If you can't say your goal out loud to another person and share it with them, then we definitely have to do some work turning within to figure out why. Does the goal feel too scary?

[00:06:36] Are you afraid you're not going to make it? Are you worried about what other people will think of you? We have to do the mental gymnastics around the goal first to get to the point where we're ready to commit to the goal and share it with others. We can't really start taking steps on our goal if we have mental baggage holding us back from actually committing and deciding that that goal is important to us.

[00:06:58] And accountability is so powerful. It's so interesting as I go through testimonials of clients that I do tasks for in my virtual support business. Often what they come to me for and what they mention as the biggest transformation are different. And there are many people that the only reason they're writing to their email list weekly is because they know I'm gonna tap them on the shoulder every month and say, Hey, it's time to plan our emails for next month.

[00:07:25] And there are many people who would let their weekly content on their podcast slide, but they get a reminder from me, Hey, it's time to put next month's episodes on my desk. And they know that I'm going to be there to help them get unstuck and problem solve their schedule and problem solve their content strategy if they need to in order to get to that goal.

[00:07:46] But if they came to me and said, it's important for me to email my list, it's important for me to have a podcast, then I'm going to be there for accountability and I'm gonna help make sure that goal gets accomplished. And so you don't have to hire a support provider in your business, but there are so many ways you can leverage accountability.

[00:08:08] I mentioned sharing about my goals on Instagram. That's accountability right there, because if I don't update that goal post every month, someone is gonna check on me and ask how it's going. And I love to mention what I'm doing for the day in my mastermind chat on social media with other people with similar goals that they're working on.

[00:08:29] We just say what we're working on today, because if what someone says they want to accomplish and the tasks they're putting on their calendar for the day are different, that offers an opportunity for someone to gently nudge and help them uncover what's going on.

[00:08:45] So accountability can be a superpower, and as you set your goal and recommit to it at the halfway point of the year, I would look and see if you have any accountability baked into your plan. And if you don't, let's come up with a way to add some in. It could really help.

[00:09:01] I love to give permission slips on this podcast. And so if you are looking at your goal from January and it no longer feels exciting, you have no idea why you set that goal, it feels like a goal from someone else, not one for you, or you thought it would be easier to accomplish than it was, and now that you're looking at the data, you realize you really overshot or undershot, it's totally okay to pivot and go in a new direction.

[00:09:25] There's no rules here. But I would rather you pivot and choose a more aligned goal now at the halfway point in the year than let the whole calendar go by and feel like you have to wait until January to set a new goal again. You get to pivot, you get to pick out a goal that you're passionate about and you get to take action and celebrate making it to that goal at the end of this year.

[00:09:49] I also wanna let you know that it's totally okay to reach out for help to get unstuck. There have been a few times in my journey where I loved the goal that I set, and I still felt really sure it was the right next step for me, but I just couldn't make the next step, and I couldn't figure out why. And so one time I had to invite a service provider

[00:10:09] behind the scenes to look at the mess and help me make a plan to get out. And another time I had to schedule a coaching session with someone I trusted and just get some real talk about why I wasn't doing the steps that I knew were next to make this goal happen. And so sometimes we have blind spots in our business and in our lives, and it's okay to reach out .

[00:10:31] You might just need one conversation with a thought partner to help you figure out what the block is that you're not seeing.

[00:10:39] And so while it's okay to pivot and it's okay to reach out for help to get unstuck, it's really not okay to do nothing. We can't just wake up in the morning and decide what to do that day based on a vibe check. We can, but that's not the way that business owners reach their goals.

[00:10:58] We need to be clear where we're trying to go and make a step-by-step plan to bring us closer to that important goal each and every day. That's how business owners get their goals accomplished. 

[00:11:11] So in the first part of this episode, I wanted to deliver some coaching questions to help you evaluate your own goals, and it's only fair to chat about mine. So I'll do this briefly because this podcast isn't about my goals, it's about yours. But I chose six goals in 2025. 2025 for me was really focused on long form content.

[00:11:32] It's been something that's never made the cut in my business. I've always focused on other parts of my business, and this was the year I wanted to get really serious about that. So goal number one is that in 2025, I wanna put out 52 fresh pieces of long form content. And for me, that represented weekly podcast episodes that we're also going over to

[00:11:52] youTube. I had a YouTube channel in a previous version of my business. It was a great source of traffic for me. I haven't really a hundred percent gone all in on YouTube, that's not part of my 2025 plan. But I did want to start to send some signals in the backend of the YouTube algorithm about what my business is doing these days, and I wanted to give the subscribers that are on that channel the opportunity to either come along with me for the new journey or unsubscribe since I've gone in a completely new direction.

[00:12:22] So goal number one for me was 52 pieces of long form content and if I put out a weekly podcast episode and it makes it to show notes and to YouTube, then that goal will be accomplished at the end of the year. And truth be told, you guys have asked some great questions this year

[00:12:37] so there have been some months that I've been able to do two episodes in a week to get the answers to those q and a questions to you as fast as possible, and that's been really exciting and it's a sign to me that I am on track. To hit that goal at the end of the year, we should have more than 52 fresh pieces of long form content out there.

[00:12:56] My second goal was 12 new blog posts. There were 12 really important topics that I really wanted to have proper SEO optimized blog posts on my website to cover my thoughts on, so thought leadership content that had all the proper back linking and internal links. There were 12 blog posts that I just knew needed to be on my site and I hadn't blogged in a while

[00:13:19] so that's been a tough goal to move the needle on, but just because it's hard doesn't mean I can't do it. I took a course, I have a coach guiding me and looking at that content to help me get better at blogging as a skill, a blogging coach, and that's a baked in piece of accountability that I desperately need in this season.

[00:13:39] And I know by the time I'm finished with those 12 blog posts, blogging won't feel as new and scary and rusty and it will be easier to set a new goal in 2026 where blogging is a big part of my strategy. And if you wanna see more about the blogging course and coach that I love, the one that's I think is really working well in the 2025 Google algorithm

[00:14:03] i'll share that information for you in the show notes.

[00:14:05] Goal number three was to write at least 52 emails to my list. So again, that sounds a lot like weekly content. I spent a lot of time in 2024 pouring into the back end of my email marketing strategy and welcome sequences and funnels and subscriber cleanup and all of the hoops that we had to jump through when email marketing really went through some big changes.

[00:14:29] I did a lot of that heavy lifting in 2024, and now I get to be a person who writes to my list weekly, and it's been so exciting. That's one of my favorite parts of my business. The conversations that I get to have with other teacher business owners when they hit reply, so meaningful to me. I wanted to commit to writing more than 52 emails this year.

[00:14:51] So if I send one out once a week, I will make that goal. And I can tell you that I've sent out emails more than once a week, so I'm more than on track for that goal at this time. Goal number four for me was to get one new lead magnet out there, and that was done early in Q1. I had had some requests for some video content to preview Asana and preview my course

[00:15:13] and so I put together a new lead magnet that gave a visual peek inside my Asana workflow. If you'd like to take a look at that, I'll leave a link for you in the show notes. But that gives people another opportunity to jump on my email list and start a conversation with me from a different angle, because different lead magnets are going to resonate for people who have different problems in their businesses at that time.

[00:15:35] And if multiple people in my audience were asking for that video preview, it was something I wanted to get done right away at the start of the new calendar year.

[00:15:44] Goal number five for me was reading 25 books in 2025. I've never been a big reader, but there is something about 2025 America that just broke my daily Instagram habit. It no longer felt safe to be on Instagram in the same time slots that I used to be on. The bingo cage of the content algorithm was just really wearing on my nervous system that I had one post that was about a recipe and another post that was about marketing, and then the next post might have been about parenting that just no longer was serving me.

[00:16:19] I still spend some time on Instagram, but it's mostly Instagram stories and Instagram dms in this season, and I just spend a lot less time consuming content in that format. But I traded out that time slot in my schedule for a reading time block, and I finally bit the bullet and got myself a Kindle. And I have loved keeping my TBR up to date and chatting with other friends about what they're reading on Good Reads and keeping stats and data on what types of things I'm reading.

[00:16:50] And I've explored tons of new books and really enjoyed that daily reading habit. So I slashed this goal of 25 books in 2025 before the midyear, and it feels really good to not be working on all six of these goals at the same time. Goal number four about my lead magnet I took care of in Q1 and I made it to my goal of 25 books during Q2.

[00:17:14] And so as I turn into the second half of the year of my six goals, I can see that two of them are on track, two of them are already done, one is a little bit behind, and the other one is right on schedule, which I'll talk about in a moment. So I changed one habit and it ended up being really positive. Now I could be checking in at this mid-year checkpoint to say that I've only read one book and that I'm not on track for reading 25.

[00:17:42] And so that would mean that it's just time for me to evaluate if I still care. If I read 25 books in 2025, maybe that was a goal that looked trendy on the internet and I realized that I don't need to do that and I could release that goal. But right now, that goal is all set and I have a new habit in place

[00:18:00] that I'm really happy with. And goal number six for me was weekly strength training, which doesn't seem like it mixes with these other goals, but in these six goals, four of them were business focused, one of them was half business, half personal, and this one I would consider to be half business, half personal too.

[00:18:16] I have been working to shorten my work week and part of that has been moving to a four and a half day work week instead of five, which means that I take a half day to go meet with a trainer and get a really solid strength training session That's personalized to my goals, and that also comes with accountability because I can't cancel sessions that are already paid for.

[00:18:39] I can reschedule them, but if I said I'm going to do that 52 times this year, I'm already locked into that contract and I will be doing it 52 times this year. And once I prove to myself that I can get all of my work done in a four and a half day work week, going once a week to the gym, I can decide to modify that contract for the next year and possibly start going twice a week, which will pull me into three full days of working

[00:19:07] and two half days of working, and I know that I can tighten up my systems over time to make the same amount of money in a little bit less time just by being more efficient and really guarding my time. And that's an exciting journey to be on in multiple ways. So those are my six goals that I'm evaluating progress on here at the midyear, because I wouldn't be suggesting this look at our goals at the halfway point in the year if I wasn't willing to do it myself.

[00:19:34] And as we talk about my goals, as a side note, you might notice there are no revenue goals. These are all goals that I can control. They're based on my actions. And of course I'm going to keep an eye on revenue. But if I've selected the right goals, the revenue growth will naturally follow, and certain things in our businesses and lives are already ingrained habits, so those don't need to be goals that we keep an eye on, right?

[00:19:58] I'll always be looking at my revenue situation twice a month when I do my profit first bookkeeping swipe, so I choose not to place any of my goals for 2025 in a revenue related bucket.

[00:20:10] So I hope today's episode serves as an invitation to stop the bus and reflect on your goals for the calendar year while there's still time to make a plan to reach them. Post that goal, visually, say it out loud, embed some accountability into the mix. Take my permission slip to pivot and take my permission slip to make a plan to get unstuck

[00:20:34] if you're stuck. And if you need a thought partner to get your goals on track for the year, I'll drop a link to my strategy call calendar in the show notes.