REFRAMING CONSTRAINTS
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tarting your own business or working for yourself comes with both freedom and challenges. Setting clear, achievable goals - and staying accountable to them - can make all the difference in turning your ideas into reality. This worksheet is designed to help you set clear, actionable goals and think creatively about how to reach them, even with limited time or resources. Whether you’re launching a new idea or growing an existing venture, these exercises will help you stay focused, overcome obstacles and develop accountability measures that work for you – so that you can turn your vision into reality. STEP ONE: DEFINE YOUR GOAL Write down one clear and specific outcome you’d like to reach for your business. For example: "I want to sell ten ceramic mugs by the end of the month."
STEP TWO: DOUBLE IT Now, challenge yourself. If you had to double this goal, what would it be? For example: "I want to sell 20 ceramic mugs by the end of this month."
What changes would you need to make to reach this higher goal?
02 | Setting Goals and Making Them Happen
Are these changes possible with your current time and financial resources?
STEP THREE: HALVE THE BUDGET Now go back to your original goal. Imagine you have half the budget, time, or resources. How would you still achieve it? For example: "if I had half the budget, I would rely more on organic marketing instead of paid ads." Write down some strategies to achieve your goal with half the resources:
STEP FOUR: REFLECTION How does doubling the goal or placing new constraints help you think differently about what you might achieve?
Does changing your goal present new options for how you might move forward?
Write a revised goal that you'd like to achieve this year, challenging yourself to open up to the idea of what's possible.
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ACTION PLAN
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ow that you’ve thought about the outcome you’d like to achieve, let’s break it down to see how you’ll get there.
Instead of setting a goal based on something outside your control (e.g., "gain 5,000 Instagram followers"), set a goal based on what you can control (e.g., "post on Reels five times a week"). This is known as a process-based goal. The advantage of process-based goals is that you can track them as you’re going. If you rely only on an outcome, it's harder to track your progress on a day-to-day basis. If you get to the end of the year and you haven’t met your goal, you can’t go back in time to course correct, but if you notice that you aren’t meeting your processbased goal, you can make changes immediately to make it more likely you’ll meet your outcome goal. The tricky part is choosing a process-based goal that's likely to lead to your outcome. So, take some time to think about what you can track on a daily or weekly basis that's likely to lead to meeting your long-term outcome goal. STEP ONE: SET A PROCESS-BASED GOAL
STEP TWO: IDENTIFY POTENTIAL OBSTACLES What might stop you from reaching your process-based goal? Consider personal, practical, and external factors. List your top three obstacles. 1)
2)
3)
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STEP THREE: OVERCOMING OBSTACLES For each obstacle, write down at least one potential solution or strategy to tackle it. 1)
2)
3)
STEP FOUR: ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN Lastly, think about how and where you'll track your process-based goal as you go. This can be as simple as putting up a calendar and putting an X on every day that you work on your goal. Or maybe you’d like to work with an accountability partner you and a friend could text at the same time every day or week to confirm whether or not you've met your goal. Different types of accountability work for different people, so it may take some experimentation to find what works for you. You may find Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Framework helpful for thinking about how to help you stay consistent with your goals (https://gretchenrubin.com/four-tendencies/). Write down how you'll stay accountable:
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06 | Setting Goals and Making Them Happen
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