After leaving my 9–5 job in October 2014, and going full-time in my business, I started to really see what was possible for me financially, and my goal was simple: hit six figures by my 30th birthday (a year later). 

(The funny thing about goals is that oftentimes, people pull them out of thin air. I was no different.)

Six figures had always been the goal for me. (I wanted seven figures but I assumed that would come at some point in my 40s.) To me, six figures meant that I’d really made it. I was doing something legit. The only problem was that I had no idea how to get there. But luckily I saw other people out there doing it in my industry, so I knew it was possible. For example, I distinctly remember my coach telling me that I could turn my yearly salary as a matchmaker into my monthly revenue. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, but I loved the sound of it, so I chose to believe her. (Those mirror neurons were firing!) 

My coach helped me decide on the goal of signing up 10 clients for my one-on-one coaching program in November 2014. She let me know that it was all I was to talk, think, or write about until all 10 spots were gone. I followed her orders, and it worked! I celebrated my first five-figure month that November—over $19,000. Before the end of 2014, I’d registered 25 clients in a group program as well. And by January 2015, I’d hit six figures in my business—six months after registering my first client and 10 months before my 30th birthday. 

Within 18 months I’d made a million dollars, and hit 7+ figures every year since. I’ve also achieved pretty much ALL of the goals I’ve set myself personally, beyond my business, and so in this post, I’m sharing my 3 top tips, so you can approach goal setting like I do and similarly see success!

But, before we get into it, I want to share one of the HARDEST things for driven people when it comes to goal setting—knowing what they really want. 

So many of them are multi-passionate. They want to do all the things. Trust, me, I’m no different, but besides learning to focus on and set achievable goals and take massive action until I saw the results I wanted—another key factor in gathering such massive momentum in my first year of business was having perfect vision. As I say in this podcast episode here, it’s KEY to success. 

Just like an athlete looking to get a medal or break a record, I had to be focused on what I wanted and not lose sight of it until it was mine. And I had to take the right action. 

Think about it like this—if you’re looking to gain 10 pounds, the action you’ll take is very different to that you’ll take if you’re looking to lose 10 pounds. And although most people claim they know which goal they’re working toward, in my experience they don’t actually know how to goal-set in a way that primes them for success and facilitates consistent effort. 

I’m going to break this process down for you even more now, so you can really understand how it works, see the importance of it, and learn how to apply it to your own life to see the success you want. 

And by the way, in this blog post, I’m focusing heavily on financial goals and milestones—because as a business owner, that’s what I tend to goal-set around. But if your goals aren’t specifically money-related, that’s okay. Use the information and examples I give you and apply them to your goal. 

TIP #1: Set both big-picture and short-term goals

Your goals are two-dimensional—you have your big-picture goals, but you also have your short-term goals: the ones that lead you to the big-picture vision. 

As a driven woman, you have to learn how to focus on both types of goals simultaneously. 

This means thinking about the big-picture goal—let’s say a trip to California—as well as the current reality, which in this case is navigating the traffic as you leave New York City. It’s a dance to keep both places in mind. 

1. The first step is to actually get clear on your big-picture goals. What is it that you want to achieve? Is it starting a business? Buying your dream house? Moving up the ladder in your career? Getting into the best shape of your life? Being a guest on Super Soul Sunday? Landing in Forbes? You get to decide. (I hope you know this by now!) 

2. Once you have the big picture in mind, you have to ask yourself what this journey is about for you. Which steps toward the big-picture goal do you feel called to take right now? Maybe you want to hire someone to help you map that out, like I did, and take the guesswork out of it. Or maybe you have a strong intuition about where you need to start. 

Regardless, starting requires you to also be clear on your short-term goals. Otherwise, you’ll end up going nowhere.

One of the BIGGEST mistakes I see people making, actually, is setting big-picture goals only. They’re out there waiting, perfectly taped to their vision board, far enough away that there’s never any reason to make themselves feel bad for not having reached them.

That’s a problem.

Big-picture goals make you feel good about yourself because they automatically put you in the category of the driven, the dreamers, and those who are ‘reaching for the stars’.

With big-picture goals, you feel like you don’t actually have to do anything to get there—at least not yet.

But if you subscribe to this way of thinking, you will get lost in the fantasy. You’ll wait and wait in your little bubble, believing everything you desire is on its way to you… and then, when it doesn’t arrive because you haven’t taken any ACTION, the dream starts to not feel as good anymore. 

Your brain, when it sees that nothing’s happening, starts to doubt that it’s possible until eventually, you let go of what you wanted altogether.

As motivational speaker Mel Robbins says, ‘It’s the small, ordinary, mundane kind of stuff that will set you on a path to success.’ 

TIP #2: Play the whole tape through

The other key element in successful goal-setting is connecting with how it would feel to reach that goal, and checking in with whether you think it’s possible to achieve it. One of my coaches called this ‘playing the whole tape through.’ 

Playing the whole tape through means that when you make a goal—let’s say to hit six figures—you ask yourself if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to hit six figures. It sounds obvious, but this isn’t a question most people ask. If you’re not prepared to put in the effort and take action toward your goal, you’re wasting your time and energy.

I’m not saying that you should throw the goal out the window completely, but I am saying you should revise it. You want to set yourself up for success, not failure. And remember, we aren’t in the business of goals that end up just floating around.

If the goal is too big, or you don’t feel you can reach it, then you won’t.

This will leave you feeling frustrated, and potentially lower your confidence, which will, in turn, mean less action and goal-setting and fewer results going forward. This is why playing the whole tape through is so essential.

TIP #3: Set MONTHLY goals

One of the questions I’m often asked by clients is how far out they should set their goals. Ninety days? Six months? A year? When it comes to specific goals, I highly recommend people take it month by month (this is what I did in the first 18 months of my business to make my first million).

For example, ask yourself how much money you want to make this month. What personal goals do you want to reach? How do you want to transform your health? And then make sure that the goal contributes to the big-picture goals you also have in mind.

There are a couple of reasons for this recommendation:

1. Because you don’t want to be waiting around to celebrate your successes. That doesn’t feel good and it won’t encourage you to continue to move forward.
2. You have no idea what you’re capable of. What if you’re setting your goals too low? What if, by aiming for six figures by your 30th birthday, like I did, you’re actually lowering the bar without knowing it and stunting your capability and growth?

#TIP 4: Lean on the Universe for support

For a second, forget everything I’ve just told you about goal-setting. Well not really: but open your mind to the possibility that sometimes, you don’t actually have to do anything but keep the faith and expect that things will turn out better than you could have imagined. (More on this in this blog post here on manifesting money in 2022.)

I see this all the time with my clients: once they get into momentum, doors open for them that they didn’t expect. I share this to remind you that anything is possible. When you keep moving forward with your goals, you can achieve more than even you envisioned, and you can (and will) be surprised.

What if…

• You expected to knock your own socks off?
• You expected to do the impossible?
• You expected to shatter records?
• You realized you’re capable of a quantum leap now?
• You just got started and didn’t worry about the timeframe?
• You just showed up every day and gave your dreams your best?
• You doubled your goals or halved the time dedicated to reaching them?

As Robin Sharma says, ‘The future belongs to the misfits, oddballs and visionaries.’ So aim high. Expect more from yourself. This is your one life, so give it your all.

ACTION STEPS:

• What’s your big picture goal? Start with that one.
• Then I highly recommend that you ‘back into it’ and lay our your 90-day and 30-day goals.
• Next, ask yourself, what’s the first step I can take in the direction of that goal? What can I do every day in order to reach it?

There’s no exact science or art to this—at first, just listen to your intuition—what’s it telling you? Then consider how OTHER people have done what you want to do (success holds clues). And finally, think about and feel into what it is doing to take for you to teach that goal.

Oh, and remember…

“Taking massive action on massive dreams amidst massive uncertainties, is pretty much where anyone who’s ever done anything massive has to start. And then things got way easier.”

Mike Dooley

Here’s to making 2022 your best year yet—be sure to read this blog post here if you struggle to take action. This will help you QUIT procrastinating by supporting you in shifting your mindset from ‘meh’ to motivated.

Love, 

Emily xx