Written by Gabi

Why is it important, to me as a business owner, to set goals? Read on to find out how to not only increase your chances of reaching your business goals but also enjoy the process of running a successful business. 

Advice on setting specific goals:

  • What is your goal? 
  • Is it a long term goal or a short term goal? 
  • What resources will you need? 
  • What series of events will you need to plan out?

Sit down and take notes, allow yourself to ask these questions to help your business prosper. Be SMART! SMART is a format that is easy to follow, looking to see if your goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely, then taking note of these, provides for easy planning.


Understanding the steps you’ll need to take, is imperative, as poorly realised goals will leave you with little results. So, it’s all well and good for me to tell you to “realise” your goals, but what does this mean? It means to analyse every aspect of your goal and write this down. Don’t forget the purpose of what it is you’re doing. 

Let’s look at this as an example; If you aim to improve web traffic for your candle making business, first, you could create a plan. This maps out content, looking into what you’d do on specific days, How’d you go about achieving this step in your goal, etcetera. You’d then begin to create, which will ultimately promote your website and achieve your goal.

Planning advice:

Planning has been mentioned a few times; so why is planning so important? 80% of your time should be spent on planning, and 20% on doing the task. Knowing that you can see how important planning is, but also fun. A task feels less like a task when there’s a structure to follow. 

Doing things in advance, like creating a plan, will allow for you to have an overview, going day by day, planning out weeks, if your task is long term, then it’d pan out into months.

Using a plan. Even though it would be cool, our goals can’t be achieved overnight. Preparation, and asking yourself questions like: when does something need to be done? What needs to be done? Is it possible?  Answering these questions in the form of a written plan (whether it be a calendar and written and/or digital document) will improve progress, as it’s something you can refer to when you’re stumped with what you need to do next.

Advice on time management:

Be strict with yourself! Do set work if work has been set. It’s easy to get distracted, especially if you work from home. Setting notifications, via free resources, like google calendar, acts in place of a personal assistant. These notifications also have custom settings to alert you, when you need to see them.

Don’t take on more than you can handle. This means offering your time to others and coming up with additional tasks. Overall, seeing progress is great, but there’s only so many hours in the day, so taking time off for a break is crucial. 

Great ideas come when you have a clear headspace. Create a list of these new ideas that come to mind, don’t start them all as ongoing tasks.

Little and often. Massive workloads can burn out anyone, long tasks prove to be uninviting. Breaking a task down into smaller tasks, and then spacing out the work, increases your chances of being able to enjoy the task and also, increases the chance of completing the task successfully. 

A checklist to takeaway:

  • Write down the answer to questions (like the ones given above).
  • Use SMART as a template when assessing your goal.
  • Makes use of calendars, written and/or digital plans.
  • Do things in advance.
  • Be strict with yourself.
  • Take breaks when needed, don’t overexert yourself.
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