Today Dannie and Caitlyn are having a Jam Session on Mid-Year Goal Setting / Check-ins.

We believe in accessible content and that anyone who wants to learn from this content should be able to. In order to support this, we’ve had every episode of Season 4 transcribed. The transcriptions are available at the bottom of every episode blog post.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

• Knowing when its time to cut loose a goal.

•  The importance of pivoting.

• How to measure your goals.

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Episode Transcript - Goal setting Jam Session

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:00:21] Hello and welcome back to the side hustle gal podcast. You've got just me and Caitlyn today for our last jam session of the season. Holy shit. 

Uh, so today we are going to be talking to you about maybe your goal checking and setting new goals at the midyear if you need to plus maybe telling you something about the goals that we set this year.

Yeah. Uh, so let's dig right in. First thing that we want to talk about is how to check in on your goals. And we should probably preface this by saying that there are literally dozens of different ways to set goals. A couple of years ago, right in a Pomeroy, and I wrote a book interviewing a bunch of different goal-setting experts, and there were so many different things that we discovered. Um, so first there's no right way to goal set. Um, but checking in on your goals is interesting, right? Cause I feel like we set goals and then I used to be the person that would like set goals in my power sheets and then never use the tending list throughout the year.  um, so checking in on your goals is really about A, is this thing still important to me? B, have I achieved it? C. If I haven't achieved it, is it because of A or because of needing to put processes in place to get shit done? What do you think, caitlyn? 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:01:50] Yeah. Um, I think this is a very interesting thing because with my clients, I actually do quarterly goal setting. Um, so mid year is usually not really.

Okay. Kind of review outside of financial goals. Um, but I do know that if you set big goals for the year, you should be, in my opinion, checking in on them at least quarterly to make sure that they're staying up to date. Um, and I know this podcast episode is going live in July, I think. So it's perfect time to be talking about that midyear check-in and yeah, I think that it's.

the check-in is more about is this working or am I just not working on this thing? Is it. Providing what I'm expecting it to provide, or did I write this down because everybody else was doing it? So taking a look at what your goals were and what Headspace you were in when you wrote them, and then really reevaluating the year.

I think especially true with this year, the Coronavirus has thrown a damper on a lot of different things, or. Um, is making a lot of us pivot our businesses. And so this is kind of the perfect time to think about, okay, what were my goals then? What are my goals now? And how do I get there for the next six months or next three months?

And I think that kind of brings us into how to pivot and create new goals unless, Dan, do you have anything else to say about checking in. 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:03:31] No, I think it had a pivot. Basically, this year is more important than ever. Right? Like you and I were talking before we started recording this episode. What if like what if they just don't matter anymore?

Oh, and I think with Corona, that can be especially true. I think about those folks who had in-person events planned for Q2. That I ended up getting canceled or in person events for Q3 that have had rough ticket sales because no one wants to commit to an in person event right now. Um, so how do you pivot?

How do you adjust? I'm a good example of, this is even my own in person event. I have an in person event in September of this year, and I literally launched ticket sales the first week of March, and at the end of that week, it was declared a pandemic. And so we, we immediately stopped promoting ticket sales.

Early bird was supposed to end March 31st but like we extended it through the end of may that, um, because you have to, you have to shift and adapt. A lot of event planners have put into place ways to still hold their event digitally. Ah, like if coronavirus is still a thing in September, we're just gonna mail everyone swag and snacks and hold it virtually.

Mmm. So while the event industry is a more concrete example, there's other ways that this can be impacted because businesses are putting. Not essential projects on hold to focus on shifting. I'm even seeing that at work at Google, like all of the non-essential tests and planning that we have for Q2 gone out the window.

Caitlyn Allen: [00:05:16] Um, a lot of our sales goals have had to shift as well for a lot of business owners I work for. 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:05:22] Yeah, exactly. Um, so it's, it's an interesting, right? It's a, a reminder of those dream to do list. That we have and that we've never gotten done. We've seen a lot of personal ability to do that. I mean, my Instagram has been flooded with people organizing their homes and doing all those projects that we'd ever got to.

A friend of mine is live documenting her home renovation that they just decided to do since her and her husband are both at home right now. Um. So there is a lot of that going on and it makes you think about, you know, what's important because a lot of times we just carry things over on our to do, to do list from one day to the next to the next  to the next. And next thing you know, for six months you've been carrying this item over. Maybe it's time to scratch it off and let it go. 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:06:15] Or really do the damn thing now because we have time. So like for me, I was super excited. I bought a course at the beginning or the end of last year, and I was like, hell yeah, this is the time I'm going to do this thing.

And then. As you guys know, or as Dannie knows, my mom got really sick and I had to go back to Michigan and just a lot of things kept getting in the way and it kept getting pushed on the back burner. But now we have time, like take some time to  finish those courses. Take that time to read that workbook that you purchased. Take this time to really focus on your business too, and come back stronger than ever because.  this isn't going to last forever. It's just a season, just like anything else. Um, and it's the perfect time to make those pivots, if that's what you want to do.  

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:07:08] yeah, that's spot on. So if you're going to pivot and if you're going to set new goals, let's talk about measuring those goals, right?

Um, so you've all heard of smart goals, right? Simple, measurable, actionable. Repeatable, right? Something like that. Anyway, look into smart goals. It's a good way to measure it. And before we started recording, Caitlyn and I were talking about the difference between measuring quantitative goals and qualitative goals, right?

Quantitative goals, easy to measure. Did you hit your numbers? Did you produce the X number of things that you plan to produce? So for us, did we complete all 20 episodes of season four. Like, that's really easy. You either publish 20 episodes or you didn't. 

Um, but those qualitative goals, write those in a little bit harder to measuring, to understand and to think about.

So when you're setting, qualitative goals, think about breaking the master qualitative goal into quantitative chunks. So if you're writing a book. Maybe set a goal of recording writing 2000 words a week, or if you want to build a coaching program, set a goal of developing one chunk of it a week for the next seven weeks and really break it down so that way you have ways to check the box in in an actually measurable way, and you don't find yourself at the day of the deadline with. No book written or no program developed 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:08:45] and schedule time on your calendar to do the damn thing. Like that's what I see missing all of the time is, Oh yeah, I'm going to do, I'm going to write a chapter of my book this week because that's my goal is to write a chapter a week for the next three months.

It's not on their calendar, like they're not actually doing the thing. So when you're writing and you're making these smart goals or these quantitative goals, um, I always recommend having a chunk of time in your week and always putting it at the beginning of the week cause we know that we're going to switch it.

Let's be honest, we all do it. We all push it to the end of the week, but that you do it. And. Find an accountability buddy for it. We all, all of us out there, especially in the creative industry, have goals and things that we want to achieve. Talk to your friends, see if they can hold you accountable, and maybe they have something that they want be held accountable for too.

I think that is my number one recommendation is just having somebody to check in with, Hey, have you done this thing this week? I haven't. I have, 

um. Or I'm working on it tomorrow instead of today, like I planned, whatever. Um, but 100% what Dannie said, I always, always, always recommend quantitative goals or the over qualitative goals because qualitative can be emotionally charged and you can never actually get the thing done because there's no measurement to it.

So always set a quantitative goal or. Mmm. Make sure that there is quantitative pieces to that goal at the end of the day. Um, 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:10:35] let's talk about our goals. 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:10:37] Yeah, that's what I was just about to say. 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:10:41] Um, so if you want to see my 2020 goals, you can head to  danniefountaint.com/blog/goals/update and you can see the recap of what I did in 2019 and what I'm doing this year. And I have, looking at this list, I have seven goals. Uh, two of them. 

Are quantitative numbers based and the rest are qualitative. So of those quantitative goals, right. I have finished paying off my debt, which as of January 1st I had $48,000 as of recording this episode at the end of March, I have 18,000 left. It's like we're chugging along. 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:11:23] wait a second. Like, let's celebrate that, right quick? Hell yeah. That's amazing. Dannie. 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:11:31] And then my other quantitative goal is to read books following the read harder challenge. Um, and it's the end of march. I've read 31 books so far this year. Uh, coronavirus definitely helped with that one.

Hey, maybe you're hurting some people's goals, but it's definitely helping my reading goal. So especially with all of these companies like, um, Apple books and scribed, giving free access to libraries of books certainly helps. Um, and then qualitatively, I have be more minimalist, get healthy, be a better caretaker, uh, transition my business.

Um, so the transition of business one is done. Like I rebranded that launched sometime in January. Life is good. Uh, and the others I'm just working on, right? Like, 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:12:25] can we talk about how you, how do you check that off of your to do list? How do you know when it's completed? Do you have, like after you've written that qualitative goal, how do you know when it's done.

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:12:37] It's a good question, right? Um, you kind of have to write down the measurement. So going back to when we were talking about measuring, when you write, when you read a quantitative goal, it's easy. There is $48,000 of debt when that number is zero, that goal is complete. Cross it off. Okay. When you sat that qualitative goal, transition my business fully from its current iteration to its future state, that's vague as fuck.

But, uh, I had already committed to a rebrand when I wrote that goal. And so the, the way that I decided to measure it is. Launch the rebrand and book one new client under the rebranded like entity. Right. Um, so check, check. And for me, that's complete. So when you're setting those qualitative goals, define how you'll measure it, and if you publish your goals publicly, like I do, you don't need to publish the measurement metric, but have it written down somewhere.

Caitlyn Allen: [00:13:40] Yeah, that's what I wanted to get at, was making sure that you're writing down kind of what it means to finish it, because I've worked on lots of teams where we've set goals, and then at the end we're like, okay. So I think I hit this goal, but like we never really figured out what it meant to finish it.

Um, so I think that's something that, uh, is definitely something that's lacking in goal setting that a lot of people don't talk about. Um, for me this year I didn't really set many goals. Uh, to be honest, I think this year my. A mindset walking into 2020 was, I want this to be a year of, um, just like openness for me. So allowing myself to breathe and allowing myself to have kind of. A vagueness to it. Um, but one thing that I did say I wanted to do was to be more consistent on social media. And, um, I'm definitely doing that. You'll see, uh, Instagram stories for me, Instagram feed posts from me, something that was very much lacking before and more talking about business oriented things and not just personal.

Um. Uh, another thing that I. I told myself I wanted to do at the beginning of the year was to work on my health and wellness. So I've really been focused on like meditating at nighttime. Um, and. Going to the gym. though` the Coronavirus thing is definitely impacted that. Right. So, um, but figuring out how to transition it to your home, like that's, it's just something that makes, makes me feel better.

Um, so I do it, and I think the last thing that I really wanted to do in my business was pivot. And so I'm working on finishing that pivot and I hope to have it done by the end of this. Uh. Second quarter, uh, I've really pivoting into the integrator, the COO role. Um, I have been taking a course by Kristin Kaplan.

Um, that has been awesome and amazing and super helpful in making that transition. And I'm just. Super excited to continue working towards that. But yeah, I think for me, I have a hard time. I have an easy time helping other people goal set a boat when it comes to me, I'm just kind of like, yeah, I'll get there when I get there.

So, uh, for me it's been really good to have that accountability partner or that accountability buddy that's like, Hey, yo, checking in. How you doing? Um, that's super helpful. 

Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:16:35] Love, it, so I wanna know. Let us know as we wrap up this episode, come find us on Instagram and let us know what your goals are. Are you pivoting at this half year Mark?

Are you re-evaluating the way that you are measuring success? come strike up conversation. We'll have some resources in the show notes for you to make this a little bit easier. And in the meantime, we'll see you next week. 

Caitlyn Allen: [00:17:01] See you later.