Ways to Support + Work Toward Goals

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Hey friends, I think this month’s theme is goals because I’ve already made a couple videos about it and I’m going to keep going. So I wanted to talk about ways that we can support ourself through reaching our goals. And this is not just advice to you, but it’s also advice to myself because I need to remember these things too. So usually when I’m making videos, it’s for you and it’s also for me.

So I have learned a lot about goals from Leonie Dawson, who is an entrepreneur mom, autistic person, artist, awesome human being who lives in Australia. (All her courses are here! All her freebies are here!) I’ve taken a couple of her online courses, which are really awesome and I super love them. And I have a couple that I’m signed up for that I haven’t completed yet. But some of the things that I learned from her about goals are, if you don’t have goals, of course, you’re not going to meet them because you don’t have them. But if you do have goals, it’s easier to meet them if you have like a larger overall goal, and then you can break it down into smaller actionable steps.

So like, for instance, as an example, one of my goals is to monetize my YouTube. So in order to do that YouTube says that I have to have at least 1000 subscribers and at least 4,000 watch hours over a course of 12 months in order to monetize. So right there, that’s a lot of information that I need in order to meet that goal. So if I want to get more subscribers and if I want to get more watch hours, that means I need to make more content and share it on YouTube because if I don’t make any content and I don’t share anything on YouTube, then, of course, nothing is going to grow. So I’ve broken it down to: I want to do at least one longer video a month and at least one short every week. So having more consistent content going on my YouTube will help me meet the goal of having more subscribers and more watch hours.

So, to kind of further break that down, if I want to do at least one longer video a month and one short video a week, it might be a good idea to just like write down a whole list of ideas of what my videos could be about because then I can like slowly go through and be like, okay I have…. so if I’m going to do one longer video a month, that’s 12 longer videos for a year. And one short a week is 52 short videos for a year. So if I go through and just like list 15 or 20 ideas for longer videos and like 60 or 70 ideas for shorter videos, then I have enough information that I can just like, look through my list and be like, I wanna make a video about this this week and go from there.

So right now I don’t have that list, so that would be my next step towards working towards the goal of monetizing my YouTube, is planning out what I would want to share. Yeah, so breaking down goals is really helpful in order to meet them. It’s not like I want to climb this whole mountain in one day. I kind of have to like, let me practice walking X amount of miles a day and then practice climbing smaller mountains and then practice climbing slightly larger mountains and then, you know, so yeah, everything is one step at a time. You can’t just like go from A to Z. You have to go through ABCDEFG, blah blah. So breaking things down into smaller pieces also makes it feel more doable.

Also, another way that I can work towards like meeting my goals is to have some form of reminder of what I’m working towards and also a way to like track what I’m doing and help myself continue to do it. So like I have… in my journal, the way that I have these like self-care habits that I do every day. I support myself and doing them by having…. Let me grab it, I’ll show you. This chart of… Let’s see, will it focus? Of like all the things that I want to do, and then the dates and then I color in if I’ve met those things. So, this is not really this like image example is not really goals, but it’s like these are things that I do to support myself every day, but having something visual like this and having it in a place that’s easy to see and I see it every day, it helps remind me. Oh, I haven’t done X today. So let me maybe do that. It’ll only take me five minutes or oh, It’s been a few days since I’ve done Y, so, maybe I want to do that today, but it’s helped me to have something visual that I see and is like, in my space that I’m there on a regular basis to remind me like, oh, there’s this thing that I can do because I kind of tend to float off into space like I turn into just like a floating brain and forget that I have a body and like all these things I need to do.

So when I have that visual cue of like these are some things that you can work on, that helps me a lot. So maybe you can have like a big poster in your room or like me, you have a journal that you like… I leave this journal on my bed, and I’m just like in my room a lot. So I see it and I’ll just like cross stuff off on it while I’m doing it, so having something physical and visual that’s in a place where going to be a lot, would be really helpful to help you work towards your goals or at least remind you of the things that you can work on. If you’re if you have time to do them.

Another way to help meet goals is to create habits around them. So for instance, one of my goals is to journal every day. I started journaling every day, January 20th of 2020 and I have journaled every day since then. I’ve already filled up…. this is my fifth notebook and it’s almost full like this is… the this is all that’s left. Actually already wrote all this. Let’s get there. This is what’s left.

So, the way that I have actually managed to journal every day is one, I have my notebook on my bed. Like I said, it’s like it’s available to me all the time. It’s right here. Two, I’ve built it into my routine throughout the day. So like every morning, as soon as I wake up, I journal what my dreams were the night before. And then every night, before I go to bed, I journal about my day. So I’ve turned that thing that I want to do into a part of my everyday life and it’s become a part of my like daily rituals and habits.

So if say like one of my business goals is to monetize YouTube, which means I need to make videos maybe instead of or maybe I can just have a goal of recording something every day, and whether it’s good or not. I’ll have something every day because if I want to post once a week, then if I record something every day, then I’ll have seven things to choose from by the end of the week. And then I can just post the best thing. For me, building those into habits and rituals has to do with like, including it in the things that I already do every day. So, like my journal, I wake up in the morning every day and I just I grab my journal because I have it at the top of my bed. So I don’t have to get out of bed. I can wake up, grab my journal, journal about my dreams and then I’ve already journaled and it’s the first thing in the morning. So like, maybe if doing a video, if I want to turn that into part of my like daily ritual, maybe I’ll have breakfast and then right after doing having breakfast, I’ll make a video and do that every day. So that way, it becomes like… I make a video every morning after breakfast. This is part of my routine. I don’t know if I’ll actually do that like after breakfast because my breakfast was like fluctuating. Sometimes I want it early and sometimes I am not hungry until like 1:00. So something that’s consistent for you that you do all the time, maybe you can like add another thing to it. So it’s like when I do this thing, then this thing also happens. Yeah, so creating habits around your rituals… or creating habits and rituals around your goals can be really helpful. Yeah.

And I can’t think of anything else right now. I probably will, as soon as I turn this off, but I also don’t want to make this video way too long. So I’m gonna sign off for now, but I hope this helped you, and I hope that you’re able to create some goals for yourself that are doable, and that support you and that become a part of your everyday. So, that way you are working towards your goals everyday, and growing and learning and changing. Yeah, because it’s nice to have goals. It’s nice to have things to work towards and it I feel like for me it kind of gives me a sense of purpose because otherwise I’m just kind of a sack of potatoes on the couch and that doesn’t feel super great to me. So yeah, I like having goals and I like working towards them and it feels good to have them because then it feels like I’m working towards something. I have something to look forward to.

And maybe, maybe you can like reward yourself for meeting your goals in some way or like. Say, if my goal to make a YouTube video every week, maybe if I do that for X amount of weeks, then I’ll take myself out on a date or something. You know, like building in rewards and treats for myself for meeting goals. Even if it’s just like, not the full overall, huge goal. If it’s like, here’s the first section of a goal. Once I get that done then I can celebrate and then that’ll help me continue and do more. Yeah. Okay.

I love you so much! Thank you for being here! I’ll talk to you soon. Thank you! I love you! I can’t do this without you! Let’s meet our goals together!