You might think the answer is obvious: more money, better vacations, a new car, more bags, maybe? But I want to stop you there.
For many of us, the online world has skewed our view of what success is. Yes, it can be a shiny new car, but it can also be picking up your kids from school every day or having “me time” every week to keep your stress levels in check.
To achieve what you want, you must be honest about what it 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 have many apps that could probably do this more effectively, I don’t think there is anything better than pen and paper.
Write down what you want and then start thinking about it in as much detail as you can, because when you have the details, you can reverse engineer the steps you need to take to get there.
It sounds a little excessive, I know, but stay 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 you with your work-life balance, and you no longer have to work for someone else or day-to-day. .
At this point, the little voice in your head might say ‘there’s no way that can happen!’ along with questions about money, knowledge gap, what if it’s a disaster, what people might think, and so on the list goes on. Write all this down. All doubts, queries, put everything on paper.
Rhea Freeman offers her tips for achieving your goals in the New Year (file image)
With just these steps, you will have started making your plan. You know what you want and you have begun to address the blocks and questions that prevent 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 the way you want.
You now have a starting point. You know what your goal is. In this situation, many people start their business alongside their job, running it in the evenings and weekends.
Yes, this involves extra work, but it can also alleviate the financial pressure that comes with taking a big leap.
This allows them to increase their online following, start promoting what they do, start making sales and learn, allowing them to learn the ropes without compromising their income, so money is not an immediate issue.
If you go down this path, you can grow it to the point where you could try reducing your freelance work to part-time, or maybe quit altogether, but if you know the numbers and have created a plan for how you’re doing to cover your expenses – and you’ve even started testing your business concept – that’s a great start.
Then you might think that you lack the necessary skills or knowledge; This could apply to most big goals. Everyone is at the beginning, but the key is to think about what you need to know and figure out how to get that information.
Rhea said the first step to figuring out what you want is to write down your goals for the year.
There are so many amazing podcasts, courses, webinars, and organizations that can 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 turn it into a list of action points and steps to follow to achieve what you need.
This works with everything: Do you want to reduce the week to four days to reduce stress and pressure? Do you want to create positive change? Do you want to move to another part of the world?
Answer the queries and questions, reverse engineer your way to the outcome you want, and boom, you’ve created a plan that will help you get closer to what you really want.
But before you get too excited, this doesn’t mean everything is going to be a bed of roses. Sorry to burst the bubble of positivity, but being real is important. You will have blocks that appear on your journey… but that’s okay. Such is life.
Take a breath, grab a pen and paper, and think, ‘okay, what other ways could I approach this, because I’m not willing to give up on my dreams because of this obstacle in the way…’ keep the dream or goal focused, it will work for you. Very useful when things get difficult.
Having a plan builds confidence, confidence leads you to action, and action leads to success. You just need to know what you want and start your journey. You have this…
You’ve Got This: How to Boost Your Business and Achieve Your Goals by Rhea Freeman is published in Bloomsbury Business on 16 January 2025 (£16.99)