You might think the answer is obvious – more money, better holidays, a new car, more handbags, perhaps? But I want to stop you there.
For so many of us, the online world has skewed our view of what success is. Yes, it might be a shiny new car, but it might also be picking your children up from school each day or having ‘me time’ every week to keep your stress levels in check.
To achieve what you want, you need to be honest about what that is. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only one who ‘gets’ it. Let your friends chase their dreams, you chase yours.
When you have your goal in mind, that’s when it starts to get interesting. Although we live in the digital age, and I do have a whole lot of apps that could probably do this more effectively, I don’t think you can beat pen and paper.
Write down what you want and then start to think about it in all the detail you can, because when you have the detail, you can reverse engineer the steps you need to take to get there.
Sounds a bit much, I know, but stick with me, I promise it works.
Let’s say you really want to start your own business. You’re passionate about something, you love doing it, you think people will buy it, you know it would help with the work/life balance, and you’re done with working for someone else and the day to day grind of it all.
At this point, the little voice in your head might say ‘there’s no way that could happen!’ along with questions about money, knowledge gap, what if it’s a disaster, what people might think, and so the list goes on. Write all this stuff down. All the questions, queries, get it all out on paper.
Rhea Freeman offers her tips on reaching your goals in the New Year (stock image)
From just these steps, you’ve started to make your plan. You know what you want, and you’ve started to address the blocks and the questions that are stopping you from doing it.
Let’s take money to start. Look at your expenses and find out how much you need to earn to live in the way you want.
You have a starting point now. You know what your aim is. In this situation, many people start their business alongside their job, running it in the evenings and weekends.
Yes, there’s extra work attached to this, but it can also ease the financial pressure that comes with making a big leap.
This allows them to grow a following online, to start promoting what they do, to start making sales and learning, allowing them to learn the ropes without compromising income, so money is not an immediate issue.
If you go down this route, you can then grow it until you get to the point where you could look to reduce your employed work to part time, or maybe quit altogether, but if you know the figures and you’ve created a plan for how you’re doing to cover your expenses – and you’ve even started to prove the concept of your business- that’s a great start.
You might then think you’re lacking in the skills or knowledge needed – this could apply to most big goals. Everyone is at the start, but the key is to think about what you need to know about and find out how to get that info.
Rhea said the first step to discovering what you want is to write down your goals for the year
There are so many podcasts, courses, webinars and incredible organisations out there to help you learn what you need, or even find people who are ahead of you on the same path.
You can take this ‘block’ and make it into a list of action points and steps to take to achieve what you need.
This works with everything – want to cut down to a four-day week to reduce stress and pressure? Want to create a positive change? Want to relocate to another part of the world?
Address the queries and questions, reverse engineer to get to the outcome you want, and boom- you’ve created a plan to help you edge closer to what you really want.
But, before you get too excited, this doesn’t mean it’s going to be plain sailing. Sorry to burst the positivity bubble but being real is important. You will have blocks that appear on your journey… but that’s OK. That’s life.
Take a breath, get your pen and paper, and think ‘right, what other ways could I tackle this, because I’m not willing to give up on my dreams for this bump in the road…’ keep the dream or goal in focus, it’ll serve you well when things get rough.
Having a plan breeds confidence, confidence gets you to act, and action leads to success. You just need to know what you want and get started along your journey. You’ve Got This…
You’ve Got This: How to supercharge your business and conquer your goals by Rhea Freeman is published Bloomsbury Business on 16th January 2025 (£16.99)