how to design goals that work for you

Episode Transcription Season 3 Chapter 1

Welcome to design speaks. We’re here to empower you to unlock your inspiration so you can take control of your creativity. I’m your host. Brandy C joining me is my cohost Julie Heider. This week, we’re going to be talking about goal setting, vision, casting, fancy words for. Hopefully getting things done.

So stay tuned for that coming up later in the show.

hi, Julie.

Hey Brandy. How’s it going? Good to start the year out.

Oh man. Let’s just say that, like, this is our new year. Forget January, February, like we’ll just start the new year every year in March when we start the podcast. Does that sound good? Perfect. So I want to ask you what you’ve been up to, but first I want to say that I have been terrible at planning and like for the last five years, I bought the same planner.

So I use this planner from ink and volt, and it’s really great. And I really love it because it asks you like all these questions for like goal setting for the year. And it talks about like setting up like individual weekly goals and all this stuff. And so normally I have like this routine where I go through and I sit down and I think about all the things I want to get done for the year, which is insane, by the way, we can talk about that more later.

But Like this huge long list of things I want to get done for the year and this year, I just, I, I haven’t done it. Like I haven’t even thought about the whole year and. I just haven’t really been able to approach them the way I usually do. And I’m not entirely sure Y but I, I did, I always have like a word for the year, so I have like my goals and like a word.

And so I have a word for the year, but beyond that, everything seems like a little bit hazy. And so today we’re going to be talking about goal setting and. Vision casting. And I don’t even really know what that means. So we’re going to talk more about that. But I think I made this episode, like it’s a really good time.

It’s already almost a third of the way through the year and I still haven’t quite got my things down. So this is going to be very helpful for me. And I hope that it is for other people too. But first, what have you been working on what’s new in your life these days? Yeah.

Well, Along the lines of plans and in this case plans not going as you expected.

So Valentine’s day was a little bit ago now, but We, I think I said in last season we bought a Jeep and so we’ve been trying to like, get it out and go do stuff as much as we can. And the weather had been like, like 65 during the day. And we were like, okay, for Valentine’s day, like it’s on a Sunday this year, let’s go do something super fun.

Let’s go off-roading and then we’ll take a fun little picnic and like do that. We woke up on Valentine’s day morning to like, Six inches of snow.

Right? So everywhere was,

I think the high for the day was like 21 or something like that. It was.

Chile, not romantic for hiking weather. No, no

picnic weather by any means, but we were like, man, we still want to do this.

So we actually drove up into the mountains, whereas even snow year. And we just got new charges on the Jeep. So I think my husband like wanted to go try them out really?

Yeah, sweetie, it’ll be really romantic. Really. I just want to check if these tires work.

But yeah, we went up there and we just like parked in a, what was once a parking lot before everything was covered in snow and all looked the same.

And we spread out the picnic blanket in the back of the Jeep with like the, the seats folded down and we had a little sharkutery board picnic dish. It was really fun. So I brought some little string lights and we like attached them to the roll bar in the, in the Jeep. And I brought some hot tea because it was.

Five

degrees. How many layers were you wearing?

Just, just regular clothes. I did kind of nuts. Yeah. I did kind of regret, like at one point I was like, Oh, I should bring a blanket for us to like put her legs and then I forgot. And so by the time we ended our picnic, I like took the picnic blanket and put it over all cuddled up under it because it was chilly, but it was just really fun to like get out and do something different.

And even though our plans. Didn’t end up being what we meant for them to be. They’re still really fun and memorable. What a

cool story. Yeah. Valentine’s here was we, we spent it with our kids and we, Kenny made like a really amazing Valentine’s is my favorite holiday. So like it’s a big deal. It’s as big as Christmas, like we have the full, like we set up a table for the kids with like, Presence for them to open.

And like, it’s like a whole thing. So that makes me so happy that you like really went out for Valentine’s. Cause you don’t always need to like book a restaurant and have wine. And like, I feel like it suits you perfectly. It’s like. The you version of your allotment thing, it’s like, you don’t need the fancy stuff.

Look at us.

Yeah, totally. I wear both quality time, love language people. And so it just we tried the whole go out to a restaurant thing once and it wasn’t really that great of an experience. And so we were like, no, we’ll do things our own way. I

love it. I love it so much. That’s amazing.

Yeah. What has been inspiring

you lately?

Okay. So this was a hard one to choose because it’s been three months since we recorded last. And while I share a lot of stuff on Instagram, there’s literally like never enough places or ways for me to share all the things that are inspiring for me. I would, yeah, I would just like. Probably overwhelm everybody.

If I shared every single time I have something inspiring. So this one was hard for me, but I think are you still like no Disney person? Like you haven’t anything just, or just, you don’t have Disney plus

I do have Disney plus, but only because of the Mandalorian.

Okay. So. Your homework, should you choose to accept it?

Your mission is to watch the thing that inspired me. I like binged this with Kayden. My son, the inside Pixar documentary. So, so stinking good. So it was definitely creative to like, be an inspiring thing. So like it’s not surprising, like most things I find inspiring, aren’t inspiring to most people, I feel like anyone watching this would be like, man, that was so cool.

That was so inspiring. It’s basically like go behind the scenes and inner they interview illustrators writers, directors of a lot of like the Pixar films, especially some of the newer ones, but. The thing that really stuck out to me that was like really inspiring was that no matter how, like successful you are in the creative business.

So like some would say that becoming an illustrator or a designer, a creator in some way at Pixar is like the epitome, right? Like when, when kids learn to draw, they’re like, I want to work at Disney. And when people think about going into animation, it’s almost always like, I want to work at Pixar. I want to work at Disney.

And the percentage of people that get to actually do that are like, Yeah, I’m very, very, very small. So it was, it was really cool to see that even though those people are kind of like at the tippy top of what people would see as a successful creative like that, they still experience like self doubt. And like this feeling of the thing that I talk about all the time that I like push when I talking about selling my course and sharing my process that like fear that people have of the blank page, I was just like, just kept like being blown away by the fact that like these creatives at this level are saying the same things, that ice that I hear my students say, like, I don’t know where I get my ideas.

Like. I feel stuck. Where do I find inspiration? And it was just like on some level, I think we, we know this, that like everybody experiences that feeling of being stuck. But I think sometimes when you see people working in places like that, you can kind of go like no way, man. Those people are creative all the time.

And so the thing that was really inspiring to me was one, it was like validating that what I’m sharing and what I’m teaching is something people need. Because sometimes my self doubt goes like, I don’t know. Do people care about getting unstuck? Do they want to learn a process that will help them?

Like, does this even matter? And then I watched something like this and if this was in like dead in the center of when I was creating my course on the creator on the design process that I do was like, okay, no people need this. Like, this is something people need. So it was inspiring. It was motivating. I. I would really love to go deep into this.

So I think I’m planning on doing an episode later in this season on kind of preliminary title would be for sneak peak for all of you right now is like the things that you and I have in common with the creatives that Pixar. And so I think that it’s going to be really fun, but that was like really, it was just really valuable and really inspiring to me.

I didn’t I didn’t like go create anything because of it, but it was just something I think that I needed. And I think that if you need some encouragement, you need to go watch that film, those films. They’re short. They’re like 15 ish minutes each, and there’s only like four or five of them, but they’re amazing.

That’s awesome. That was a lot. I got really fired up. I got really excited. Okay. So I want to share some music with you. I played it for Julie earlier and she is like, Oh, where do I know this from? And if you follow me on Instagram, you can go. Be like a detective and figure out why this song might sound familiar to you.

So I would just get in, started, take up and let them go further in the broken heart. Take a deep breath, make the world a little cut. So this week, my song is colorful by jukebox the ghost. And this song is like kind of simple lyrically, but it felt like a really good song for coming back from a break.

Like every single lyric, pretty much of this song is really uplifting and like appropriate to the time for a new year for being optimistic. And even though like 2021 still feels kind of like 20, 20. It’s it’s very like, just empowering to have like a lot of optimism. So I don’t know them by heart. So I’m just going to read a couple of these lyrics.

So basically it says, Hey, we’re just getting started. Take your fears and let them go for the lovers and the brokenhearted. Take a deep breath, make the world a little colorful and want to feel like a light in a dark place. Another color in a world of black and white. So. As you all know, I love color and I love color with black and white.

So like on a funky level, that sort of resonated with me, but more so like, we can be a light, we can be joy and other people’s lives, like add something to the world that makes it more colorful. But. That doesn’t take away is like, I think something that we all need to remember, especially when things are crazy, especially when things are hard.

And so this song was sort of like the epitome of that mindset of, and to this year of like, we can be color in a dark place, we can be light and a dark place. And I think that’s something that we can all take away from that. So that was. My little, like super deep insight into like a not super deep song.

all right, Julie. Let’s talk about goals and vision. And we had kind of. Hummed and hawed over, like, should we even talk about like vision casting, like, or should this just be sort of like goal oriented? And I think that there’s sort of a happy medium. So I think that I would love to hear from you just because it might be the thing that people don’t quite know.

Let’s talk about vision casting first, and then we can kind of talk about like how goals play into that. Does that sound like a good plan? Yeah, let’s go for it. Cool. So. Vision. I know that I’ve heard of vision casting. I’ve probably watched or listened to something about vision casting. I feel like we might’ve talked about this with Tuesdays together at some point.

Yeah. I slept since then. So tell me, what is vision casting? Is that a fancy word for something else?

I think like in my mind, It means knowing what your vision is, whether that’s like, you know, your life goals, like what you want your future to be basically or something for the year or month or whatever the period of time is, but just like a vision that you have for your future self.

And

kind of like how far

those are. Yeah. Figuring out what those are and then like specifically, you know, writing them out or whatever. So that you’re, you’re. You’re casting that vision out there.

And then I would say,

yeah, I would say step two is like figuring out how you’re going to get there too, which I don’t know if that bleeds over into goal setting or, or what, I don’t know.

I’m not a vision casting expert, but in my mind, that’s what it is.

Yeah. So I think that something that I’ve been thinking about lately is is something that we talked about in a Tuesdays together a little bit ago was like creating a visual goal board. So like for me, when someone says a vision like that, and it may just be because I’m a visual person, visual creator.

I, when I hear vision, I think of something visual, not just like this This pie in the sky, like really like my vision. I like, my eyes went white and I saw something like miraculous in my future. So I heard about this idea about the visual goal board. And I’ve been thinking about like how to create that.

But I think what I’d like to explore a little bit more with you is like, how do you decide, first of all, like, How far ahead you, you set your vision four and what things qualify as like the vision and what things qualify as the goals. So there will be some, some bleed over, but I think that it’s important for, for us to sort of explore and explain the difference and how they kind of work together.

So how has that looked for you?

Well, this is very timely for me because this year I kind of went big on vision and goals and stuff that bigger than I’ve ever done before. And I’ve done

nothing which is less than I’ve ever done before.

Yeah. So around seeing each other out here Yeah.

So a couple of things I’ve kind of played a role into how I’ve done it this year. First was, I looked back at like partway through December. I looked back at what my goals for 2020 were. And obviously like we all have to give each other or give ourselves a little bit of grace because it was a strange year.

But I realized I achieved some of the goals, but didn’t realize that I had achieved them until I looked back at my list. And then I also realized that I had some goals that I absolutely could have achieved if I had remembered that I

actually said that, ah, yes. Been there, been like that. Wasn’t that hard?

Why didn’t I do that? Yeah. With them. I was like,

if I just had like a couple more weeks in the year, I could have done that, but I totally forgot. Like I, I wrote these things down and I never looked at them again. And so that was my downfall with

that. May I ask what that was? Well, one of those actually was, yeah.

When

specifically was to be published three times I was published twice. I

literally had the third

one to go, but like I was looking at this like right before Christmas. So it was just. I was like, it’s probably not going to happen. Like I would really have to scramble to make it happen. So it was just so silly.

Like the only reason I didn’t achieve that is because I didn’t remember that I made it a specific goal.

Yeah. So what did you change then? If you got like, super motivated at the beginning of this year to help that situation? Yeah. So

a couple of things that I did and I worked with her friend we set goals together over zoom calls.

So it was a little bit of accountability there too, which is great. There were certain things that I put dates on. So one of them, for instance is to start an email marketing list. By the end of February, which I am down to the wire on. Cause we are recording this at the end of February. So that is something that I will achieve tomorrow.

Yes. So putting that date on there made it so that I couldn’t really just keep pushing it back and being like, Oh, well, other things came up, like, that’s a goal that’s really important to me. So I am going to do it and I’m going to do it by this date. And then the other thing is just what I’ve started doing is every Monday morning, I start out the day by writing in a little journal.

All of, I think I have like five business schools and five personal goals and I write those out. And if I have achieved any of them, which there are a couple that I have, I still write them out. And then I like put a check Mark next to them or something like that to just like, you know, be like

Monday.

What’s that the same five every Monday. Yeah. Yeah.

Say every week I’m writing down those 10 goals, the five business, five personal so that I can’t forget them if I’m writing them out every week. For 52 weeks. Like I will remember what my goals are. And so that’s just a great reminder. It’s a great way to also keep track.

Like, so one of my personal goals that’s really big this year is reading 52 books. Yeah, I know I’ve never made like a book a week. Yes. So Civica week, dad never made a book goal before. And so for some reason I decided a book a week was a good one to do for the first time

that book goals totally every year and rarely hit them because I’m always over ambitious with my time.

Yeah. I

think I’m being a little over ambitious, but I’m going to try to do it. We’ll see what happens. But so in that journal, I’m also keeping track of like where I’m at with those goals. Like Which ones I’ve already hit. And then also like with that, it’s a measurable thing. I can say, like this week I have five out of 52 done, or 10 out of 52 or whatever.

So so those are some things that I’m doing to like, To actually make it happen. And then the third thing is that I will be making a vision board. I kind of have an idea of how I want to do it. I haven’t actually done it yet. But that is something that I want to be able to like visually see that every day to remind me not just of like the goals, but why I made each school.

That was something that when my friend and I were making those goals together is we wrote down, you know, Okay. So I want to read 52 books this year, but like why, why is that important to me? Why did I make that a goal? And by writing that down, it helps me stay motivated. And if I’m looking at that on a regular basis it’s just gonna keep me on track and like, you know, when there’s, when there’s the heart to it, it’s beyond

just with why.

Right. Simon Sinek. It all starts with Y. Yeah,

exactly.

Yeah. So. I guess is a vision board. Do you think the same as a visual goal board?

I guess it would depend on how you put things on there. Like, I know some people like to put very specific stuff and then some people like to put like, you know, a picture of a tropical beach because they want to, whatever that means to them, you know, either like go on vacation or make six figures so that you can lay on a beach.

I don’t know. I think people do those differently.

I’ve been, I think the thing that’s been holding me back at this point on, on like doing all of this is I think because last year was so wacky, it, it kind of like, even though it shouldn’t, it sort of threw a wrench into my thinking about goals, because I had set some really big lofty goals for last year.

And half of them, more than half of them didn’t get anywhere. Primarily because of the pandemic, like I wanted to travel to speak and I was already booked out to speak three times before June last year traveling, which would have been like half of Michael, but then everything got canceled. And so there was, there’s just like this, it’s almost like there’s this apprehension for setting goals because I don’t know what life looks like right now.

It’s like, well, I want to book. An X, a number of like speaking sessions maybe. And so that’s going to be now over zoom, which is fine. But is that really what I want? I don’t know. Like I would want, I want to travel to speak, like I want to do in-person workshops, but is it realistic to even have that as a goal?

So it’s just like, I’m like stuck on this precipice of like the goals I actually truly, really want and the things that. I might have to compromise on that don’t end up being as fulfilling, but that sort of will eventually need to be in place in order to do that. So it’s like, I need to keep speaking over zoom so that I can speak in person when the pandemic is over.

So I’m just like, I’m realizing that it’s not just like excuses. Like I just don’t know what goal that’s sort of just like being realistic and going okay. But why am I not. Wanting to put these goals out there because I’m afraid that it’ll just end up a big waste of my time to spend all this time, vision casting and vision boarding and all this stuff.

And then it’s just like, that goes in the garbage, because I can’t do any of this. So how are, how did you sort of, since you, you have done all this and I have yet to do all of this, like how did you look towards your goals in light of like, The limbo that we are all living in, in March of 2021.

Yeah, no, that’s a really great question because some of the goals that I didn’t hit last year were because of the pandemic, you know, like it just, it wasn’t going to happen because of that.

Yeah. So one of the things that I also did at the end of last year was to just kind of write out like, A bunch of things that I’d like to do at some point in my life. Like I’m not putting a time on them that I want to do them right now or anything, but just like someday, I would like to. Do this like one of them is to go to all 50 States and I’m like 40 something in, but like, that’s not going to happen this year.

And I know that, but I still have that written down and like, I’ve thought it through of like, this is something that I would like to do one day. So it’s still out there. It’s still like, it’s not like I pushed it back. You know, I’m never going to think of it again, kind of a thing. So I wrote all those out.

I think it was like 75 different things that I came up with. So it was like a really big list and some of them, like, it’s not going to happen even in the next 10 years, but just like one day. So this

is your bucket list.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically a bucket list. And then I kind of went through and looked and looked at what are the things that are like.

More that feel more pressing that are more important to me that I really want to achieve sooner. And then also, yeah, just looking at it realistically, like I do have a lot of travel related stuff personally, and I didn’t put those on my goals this year because I don’t know if it’s going to happen. Now if the opportunity arises, then like, You’re all down.

Yeah. It’s still out there. It’s still in my brain and everything, but I’m not necessarily like actively working towards it because I know now I do think though, You know, eventually this will all be over. I don’t know when, but eventually, so I do think like, you know, if you want to save up money for a trip now, even if you don’t know when it’s going to happen, that’s still like a goal you can work towards.

Or if you still want to like be speaking now so that eventually you can travel to speak, like then you’re still working towards that goal, even though you don’t know when it’s going to happen. So even though no, you don’t have like a date for it. If it’s important to you, you can still work towards the, in whatever way that you can.

But I do totally understand being realistic with stuff too. It’s just, it’s a

strange time. It is a weird time. So I think the thing that I’ve been gravitating towards lately is, and this is kind of where we’re going to get into maybe more of like the actual, like ideas of how to, how to do this is so having the visual goal board of.

I think a mix between like a little bit abstract because of the time we’re living in and some things that are a little bit more specific. So I, I did achieve one of my biggest goals from last year, just this year, because I had planned on putting together the course based on some things that I was hoping to do in the real world.

Outside of zoom last year. So when I couldn’t do that, I kind of had to push off the course until I could actually just create all that content in my office. And so I did do that and I’ve been thinking about having more of my goals and my vision for the year being around the kind of person I want to be.

Instead of just the specific for specific things that I want to achieve. And I think that, that there’s got, there’s going to be like a balance between like the somewhat abstract and could this happen maybe, maybe not. And the specific. Okay. So if, if the kind of person I want to be is inspiring and motivating and empowering for creatives, then how I do that can look differently depending on.

How the year looks. So right now that looks like creating reels and videos and interacting. Moreover, you know, digital means with people and coaching digitally and speaking digitally and all that stuff. But that same sort of thing that I want, the kind of person I want to be, once all these things have lifted and I have my vaccine and all that stuff is in place can then look like doing a lot of things.

Differently, but still with that same like goal of the person that I want to be. So I think that, that, that’s also like a bigger thing though. Right? It’s a little bit harder to sit back and go, what kind of person do I want to be is a lot more difficult than like how many, like speaking gigs do I want to book?

Like, that’s pretty like logical, like hard numbers. So. I think that, you know, I’m literally working this out with you live on this podcast, like figuring out that I think the reason I haven’t been able to fill out any of these things or make my visual board and all this stuff is because I’ve been focused too much on like the things that I may not achieve as opposed to looking at things that I might be able to achieve.

Yeah.

Yeah. And also I want to say like, You don’t have to stick to these goals. Like, am I feel a little weird changing them, but like if partway through the year, you’re like, yeah, this isn’t like taking me where I want to go or something else comes up that you’re like, okay, this is actually going to be a way better goal for me in this area.

Like I do think it’s okay to change it and reposition where you’re headed and everything, because sometimes stuff like this does come up where you’re like, well, that’s. You know, either it’s not going to happen and I have no control over that or just making some adjustments. That’s totally fine.

Yeah.

It’s not a failure. Yeah, for sure. And I was thinking I was thinking too about the idea of yearly goals and like, maybe this is part of like the benefit to doing what you’re doing, where you like write them down every day, but sort of in relation to that, to have. Quarterly goals or something instead, it feels a little bit less like daunting and you can kind of look quarter by quarter and do that say, is this still serving me?

Like, is this goal, you know, now that I’ve done X, Y, or Z, or now that this much time has passed or I’ve looked into this thing I thought I wanted and I don’t want anymore. You won’t feel so guilty about changing up your goals, your big lofty. One year goals. If you decide that like logically, realistically, I can only read 21 books this year after March and you go, okay, I’m going to switch it up.

And then it’s not like you reach the end of the year and you only read 20 books and then you feel terrible because you’re a big fat failure. So I think that that’s another thing that I’m going to be implementing this year that I’ve not done before is doing the, like. Shorter, like, look at my goals and seeing like, I’m just going to set goals for these three months and I have actually done that.

So I knew that I needed my course to launch by like mid February, which it did. I knew that I needed to start recording these episodes and get things planned out for this season before the end of March, which we are well on our way to doing. And so it’s like, I feel like. Having those like yearly goals just for me at this point, especially after a year, like last year just feels like too much to have a whole year of a thing that I don’t know what this year is going to look like.

Not that we ever really do, but. More, so true.

Yeah. And also something you said made me think, like, it all comes back to why, like if I get to April and I’m like, yeah, 52 books is like, not reasonable for me right now. I can look back at why I set that goal. It’s not because I want to brag that I read a book a week.

I want to make sure for me. I was the luncheon. I never said anything. My goal, the reason, yeah, for my goal was because I wanted to make sure that I was regularly taking time to rest and reset for myself. And if reading is not going to achieve that, like if it’s going to stress me out to try

to turn into another one of your stressors.

Yeah, then I can make adjustments. So I think that’s why it’s so important to know the reason you’re setting these goals is because sometimes you may need to look at the, the, the reason behind it and make an adjustment of what you made that goal.

Yeah. So maybe as you are setting these goals and maybe it’s not trying to like figure out the kind of person you want to meet, maybe that doesn’t appeal to you, but maybe if you are setting like a goal, like I want to write 500 words a day or something and you write that down right next to it or right underneath it.

Why I want to blank because not just. The, the goal as like a cold to do item, because then that’s all it’s going to feel like is a cold to do item. And I think that that’s another pitfall that I’ve had over all of my years of setting goals is always just for better or worse. Probably just like, I want to save space because I have a lot of things to write.

So I have to write all the things as small and as bullet pointy as possible, as opposed to like really digging in and saying. I want to write 500 words a day because it all starts with writing. And when you write, you have content for a blog, you have content for a video, you have content for a post. And like, knowing that the foundation of that is something as opposed to just, I want to write 500 or just write 500 words a day is just like, yeah.

I don’t really feel like doing that today. Yeah, that’s going to get you excited too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Knowing your why’s. So something that I do in, on my online, More of a personal side that I wanted to kind of bring up that we talked a little bit and that people seem to really resonate with for our Tuesdays together.

And I think it was January was the fact that I do a to-do on a ta-da list. I love that. Every I used to do it every day. I try to do it every day, but I just, haven’t simple legal pad and I slice it into not slice, literally. Like I put a marker down the middle and right to do on one side and to dot on the other side.

So in the morning I will write down on the left side and this is like, it’s a mix of personal and professional, but I sort of have like, My ink and volt journal for my professional weekly stuff. And this one is just more like, what are all like the mind dump, like things that I have in my brain that I know I need to have to, should do and want to do.

And I list all of those on the left side. So that could be literally everything from like vacuuming, picking up the socks, doing the dishes, or like homeschooling the kids, stuff like that. And so on the right side, as I’m doing things throughout the day, I write what I did. So if on the left side, my first to-do item is vacuum and on the right side, I haven’t vacuumed, but I look over and I see, okay.

But I made breakfast, I got the kids ready. I homeschooled them. And so that list goes on throughout the day. So I marked down all the things I did. I wrote a blog post, or I posted to Instagram. I made a real, like the things that I’m actually doing so that if by the end of the day, like some of these things on the left side and some days all of the things on the left side didn’t get done, I can go.

Okay. But what did I do? I did a lot that I actually. Didn’t have on my official to do list. And so that’s my to-do’s side. It’s like, okay, you didn’t do this, but tonight you did a lot of stuff. Like you still did get an empty day. Right. And so, but that’s how a lot of times I think that we go into our days, our weeks, our years is just with the to-do side.

And we don’t ever think about all the things that. Like sort of kept us from doing those things, but that we’re all also important or equally important to do. Like the life stuff that you don’t feel accomplished doing necessarily like laundry and washing the dog and like all the things that you kind of need to do, but that takes away time from those goals.

You still have to like celebrate that you are getting things done.

Yeah, definitely. I think that’s really important. I’m very bad at celebrating the thing. I’m just like move on to the next thing. And

yeah.

What last thing I was going to say about goal making is specifically writing down how you’re going to get to that goal.

So if it’s something like reading books, How you get to that goal as you read books, it’s pretty self-explanatory. But like for instance I’m going to be really vulnerable. I made a really big financial goal for this year. That honestly seems kind of unachievable, but I’m going to try for it. So I want to make six figures this year.

Wow. Yeah, it’s, it feels really crazy, but I I’m working towards it, but that is absolutely not going to happen if I just hope that it happens, right. I’m not going to come anywhere close. If I do things exactly the same as I did last year, which were still good things. And still like moved me forward, but I will not reach that goal if I continue as I am.

So I wrote out extremely detailed how I’m going to make that happen. And I broke it down into like, where’s my revenue going to come from? Which for me is primarily through elopements. So I set a number that I would like to make that’s going to come from that. And then I broke it down into like, how am I going to make that happen?

So some of that is Getting more website views. Some of that is getting more inquiries. Some of that is having a better experience for the people that I’m working with. And then I broke those down into just. All kinds of different steps that I can take. Like what are all the different ways that I can get more leads.

That is a huge list. And that’s basically my to-do list for the year is to, since that’s like pretty much my biggest school work-wise is to work on those things. I’m just going through little by little and every day I’m working on something. And some of that, like I just My website and like redoing the texts to share more of my brand and its vision and everything that has taken a long time, like circle week dumb I’m finally done.

And so I feel really great about that. So now I know like when I’m making new blog posts for people to find me through and. You know, doing all these different things, email marketing and Facebook ads and stuff like that. They’re going to come to a place that is going to serve them better. So it’s more likely that those are going to turn into leads.

So it’s a lot, if I, like, when I first looked at it, it was like, Oh my gosh, how am I going to do all this? But I’m. Incredibly like surprised and thankful at how much I’ve already achieved in just basically two months into the year. Because I have that list there. And I also have somebody who I’m working through that list with, who has also made a large goal like that.

And we’re just going through and meeting almost every single day to work on those things. And that has just been like a total game changer. And honestly, now I’m like, yeah, I think I can actually do this. Whereas at the beginning of the year, I was like, How, how will I ever do this? Like how could I possibly achieve that?

So having a real, like a realistic plan and then actually doing the things on that list is super important.

Yeah. It’s, it’s right in line with everything we talk about here, it’s like, Having a plan, having a process, having steps that you take because you don’t just, just like design you don’t just jump from client meeting to like the magic design button where it’s all finished.

Like you, you can’t have a dream. Without doing the work to achieve it. Like this is the real world. There are no magic ones. And like Gary V always says like, it’s head in the clouds feet in the dirt. It’s like, you should have your dreams, but you also gotta be grounded and understand that you like, you’ve got to be down digging in the dirt, like making things happen also.

And it is not one or the other because, you know, And I think that that is something I resonate really highly with as an Enneagram three wing four, because Enneagram threes are very goal, like focus, like get this thing done for whatever reason. But Enneagram fours are super like emo dreamy, like artists.

Like to the max and writing poetry and just, you know, being like Romeo in Romeo and Juliet where he’s just like just writing things. Cause they’re pretty about Rosalind. And I think that the benefit to being that kind of personality is that I understand that the dreams are really important because they are what drive you.

They are the why, but then you do need the, how so. This feels like it somehow like wrapped itself up really nicely. I wrote down that like the three things for setting goals and visions are the what, why and how you need to know what your goals and dreams are, what kind of person you want to be, and then understand why you want those things for yourself.

And then set up a plan that the how, and. What you need to make that happen because whether that’s an accountability person, like someone who’s going to sit alongside you and be like, Hey Julie, did you call this person today? Cause you said you were going to call this person today. Or if it’s just, if you’re really good at just like Julie writing things down every day so that you don’t forget about it or making a pretty vision board, I’m not a scrapbooker, that’s probably my other.

Thing about this is just like, I have a weird, a weird aversion to like being seen as like a scrapbooking mom. So I’m just like, do I really want to put together a vision board? It feels an awful lot, like scrapbooking, but knowing whatever the way

to design it. Like, so that it’s pretty because I don’t like that.

Like scrapbooky, like it looks like a kid put together a poster board

of stuff. No. Yeah. So maybe you and I can chat offline about what this actually looks like, but yeah. So I think if you don’t have anything else to add, I think that those three things like to really wrap it up and we’ve given you a lot of like, Things to think about and practical ways, but ultimately you need to know what your goals are, why those goals are your goals and set up some sort of, it doesn’t have to be a six-figure goal.

Like Julie’s, it could be as easy as setting up a business Instagram account. Separate from your personal or, you know, something that is achievable for you and doable and understanding why it’s going to go a very long way. So I guess in short goals are important. And how you set them and work towards them, depends largely on you and how you approach things.

But I hope this episode really gave you some like hope that these things can happen. Like whatever your goals are. The, the important thing is to like, give yourself the best opportunity to help. Make them happen. So, all right, well, that’s our episode for today. If you would, please leave us a review.

Five stars on iTunes is always amazing. You can leave us a note at design speaks podcast on Instagram. Check out all our show notes and links on design. Podcasts.com design speaks is produced by Kenneth Kniffen and Dakota cook. Shout out to Collin from Vespertine for our theme music. This podcast is a project by me, Brandy C, and is recorded in the shadow of the watermelon pink Sandia mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico, as always.

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