“An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.” Brian Tracy
I’m a strong believer in setting goals. Goals keep you focused, motivated, and most of all, goals give you a possibility for success. Without setting goals, how will you know when you’ve succeeded?
In this article, I’ll share why it’s important to set goals and provide some ideas on how to set those goals. It’s good practice to set goals for your career, relationships, and other aspects of your life and consistently reflect upon them. I’m going to focus on setting goals for a handyman business here, but these same principles can apply to other aspects of your life as well.
Step by Step Goal Setting
Step #1 – Decide Refine what you want
This is by far the hardest step. If you are one of those rare people who knows exactly what you want in life, lucky you. You have a leg up on the rest of us and I truly envy you.
If you don’t know exactly what you want, it’s time to dial that in.
To do that, make a nice long list of all the things you want. You can create sub-lists of what you want to own, what you want to do, and what you want to become.
Then, prioritize that list and refine it down to the highest priority ones, however you see fit. I sometimes find it helpful to ask myself the following question, “Which one of these, if completed first, would make obtaining or accomplishing the rest of them easier?”
But ultimately, it’s usually just best to go with your gut. Pick the one you want most right now.
This is your Top Level Goal. Imagine yourself running a marathon, the Top Level Goal is the finish line. These goals may not pertain to your handyman business directly. Some examples of these goals would be to own a successful business, escape a boring desk job, drive a brand new truck, retire and travel the world by age 50, or live to see your 100th birthday.
Step #2 – Research
In this step, you’re going to figure out what it takes to get to those goals. You may decide that you’ll need to start a handyman business, eat healthy foods, or save $10,000/year in order to accomplish those goals.
This step will lead to a list of smaller goals that you can begin taking action on immediately.
Step #3 – Set a timeline
Give yourself a due date for each of the smaller goals. Set some goals for the end of the year, the end of the month, the end of the week, and even the end of the day.
Then, write these goals down (why it’s important to write down your goals) and tell your friends and family. Sharing your goals with other people is super important and should not be skipped. By telling others, you create accountability, which is one the single most powerful human motivators.
You may be excited about your goals now, but two weeks from now that motivation will be gone, and unless you have some accountability to keep you motivated, you are far more likely to give up.
Read this article for ideas to stay motivated.
Step #4 – Reflect
Did you meet your goals? If so, reward yourself in some way, even if it’s something small like buying a new pair of socks. Giving yourself rewards consistently will train you to follow through in the future.
If you didn’t meet your goals, why not? Don’t beat yourself up. Everyone fails at achieving a goal at some point. Instead, just review what stopped you. Was it a lack of accountability? Was it too many other competing goals? Was it a change of interest or values?
By reflecting, you are both identifying what worked and learning from what didn’t. Over the long run, this will help you set and achieve goals more effectively, essentially making you better at life.
Step #5 – Repeat
Setting goals is a constant cycle. Identify what you want, create smaller goals to get you there, and review your progress along the way.
Once you accomplish one goal, set another one. Remember, setting goals doesn’t mean overwhelming yourself or forgetting to appreciate what you have. The biggest benefit of setting goals is that when done correctly, they give meaning to the boring day-to-day actions of life and make your efforts pay off at a higher level.
Setting Quality Goals
In addition to the above, there are a few more things to consider while setting your goals.
For your Top Level Goals, aim for the ideal and don’t restrict yourself. If you want a house with beachfront property, make it your goal. If you want to have six sports cars with a garage big enough to house them, go for it.
Feel free to think big, but mainly focus on what is truly important to your happiness. Big, challenging goals won’t necessarily make you any happier than attainable, down-to-earth goals. Everyone is different.
Then, while setting shorter-term goals, aim lower. Obviously, $1,000,000 in your first year as a handyman isn’t gonna happen, although $65,000 is a very real possibility. For me, the shorter the timeline on the goal, the lower I set the bar.
For example, my daily goal is to simply work two hours per day on my business. That’s total work. Very attainable, but it’s enough to get me to show up every day without seeming like a giant mountain to climb every day.
As I write this post (going into my third month in business), I’m barely making any money with my handyman business and I’ve actually lost money in my first two months. This doesn’t bother me at all because my goals for these months weren’t money-related. I set goals like design a good logo, set up a website, and have business cards made. I succeeded at these goals and it feels great. It gives me more confidence to crush my next goals.
Conclusion
I can talk about setting goals all day long and hopefully inspire you to set your own and get your handyman business running. The important thing is that you take action now and write your goals down. Write down one short-term goal that you can take action on right now. This goal can be as small as setting goals by the end of the day or making a list of services you will offer in your handyman business.
