Creating Clarity Around your Goals

Okay, so let's see. Oh, it has a little message now that says this meeting's being livestreamed, even though I'm the one that clicked it.

And I think we're live.

We are. How are you today?

I'm well, and you?

I'm very good. I've got a little bit of a mess happening behind me in, uh, out there, as you can see, like blue painter's tape. Everything's getting painted. Oh my God, the dog's actually in the dog bed. That never happens.

I know it never happens. I— we buy these things for them and then they go and sleep on a couch.

A nice dog bed. I mean, it matches the room. It's navy blue. It's got, you know, I got my lights twinkling behind me. So it's Legal Accounting Wednesday and we're going to continue with goals and goal setting. And this week is about finding clarity with your goals. So if you think about I don't know if you've ever done this, Sarah. I've definitely done this where I'm like writing down goals, and I even think I did it when we were in Elevate Alliance when we went to the— with the conference. And like, write your goals down. And I took a pad and I wrote like 15 of them.

I feel like that's what we both did.

Yeah, we were both— oh, it was kind of fun because didn't they separate us at that point too? Like, you two, you're two together too much, you need to move. I'm trying to remember. I kind of remember that a little bit. And yeah, and, and then like, it's really hard to focus if you have 15 things written down on a piece of paper. Yeah, but we had fun because we like, what do you have for a goal? And this is really fun. Proper Trusted just started really. So it was kind of—

Yeah, well, it kind of— it'd been like it had legs for about a year and something.

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like, we start finally at that tipping point for you and I to be like, wait a minute. We got something special here.

So yeah, so let me share my screen and then I am going to hit that PowerPoint up here. I know it is blank, but I know I love my PowerPoints. So, Creating Clarity with Your Goals. Isn't that cool? So today we are going to talk about creating clarity. So getting around, wrapping your brain around what your goals and your intentions are and Picking one, because if you have 15, you got to pick one really to focus. You kind of need to direct your focus to one. And then if you think about it, how, how, how are you going to get to that point?

Mm-hmm.

And then if you can get to that point, can you look at the goal every day? I think getting focused and looking at the goal every day will probably make life easier for you. So bringing clarity to that goal. Almost making it like a living thing. So I know you love this slide. Yeah. If you had a bunch of goals, how did you pick if you had a bunch of them on a piece of paper? Well, I—

don't you feel, Linda, when you look at it first, it's kind of slightly driven and emotional in the same moment? And I don't know if I felt this way when I was looking at the list. It was like, What's the one I keep going back to? Like, on what are— what is my eye wanting to do? And so I went back to the one thing and I was like, all right, that gets the top star. And then I sort of rated the other ones in the way that I thought I could approach it based on time. You know, just sensibility. I like to be a little bit practical in the— in that draw. I'm sure for you there was some I mean, I, I personally know probably what those goals were for you.

However, you did, but I didn't, because it can be a bit fuzzy, right, when you have a lot of goals. And I don't think it's bad to have multiple goals. I really don't. I think it's good to have— I want the beach house, I want this, I want that. I don't think those things are bad to have, but I think to really goal set and to goal succeed, you really need to focus on one. And maybe it's You know, for business purposes, it could be maybe it's a number, maybe you're looking for a revenue goal. I remember we sat down and we had the same exact revenue goal, which was kind of funny because we were talking about our exclusive businesses, but combined business as a whole. And we were like, let me see your number, let me see your number. And it was eye-opening to see that some people had a lot lower goals than we did. And it's really— I still want that goal, by the way.

Oh, we're still so driven and it's gonna happen. I, I don't doubt that. Um, it's kind of like, um, Is it that Dave Ramsey thing where you have that snowball effect when you're doing the financials and that kind of the coin thing? I feel like that with, with goals. Once you obtain one, you accelerate to want to obtain the next one. But the thought process behind it is the clarity part. I think what you're driving at is picking the one and getting really clear about how you're going to get to that one, or what, how, what are the measures you're going to do to obtain it. I believe that's sort of the clarity behind what we're what we're looking for when you have, like you said, the beach house and all these other things on the list. Did I lose you?

I mean, really true. And I think that, yeah, so if you can get focused, laser-focused on a goal— oh, did you lose me?

Nope, you're here.

I don't know if you lost me here. Hold on. Can you hear me now, Sarah? I can.

Yeah, you're okay.

Can you hear me?

I thought I had lost you for a minute because it seemed like it was a delay, but you're good. Go for it.

You know, no, she lost me, which means Zoom decided to change off my settings, which it does to me for some reason. If anybody has a tip on how to Yeah, you can't hear me, so it doesn't matter.

I can, I can hear you.

Yeah. Let me just do this.

I can't hear you, probably.

Oh, can you hear me now, Sarah?

Yeah, I can hear you.

You can hear me the whole time?

Yeah, the whole time.

Okay, I thought you couldn't hear me, and I'm like, she can't hear me. Okay, so, um, now I can hear it through like my phone. Okay, so what was I just saying that I didn't want to happen? So you can hear me? I thought you said you couldn't hear me.

Oh, but I thought I lost you for a minute, but it was about clarity. I think what you're driving to is picking that one, like you were saying.

Really focusing on one and make it— bring it to life. It can, it can help you gain more, I think. I think that, um, but sometimes we— if you get focused on one, you can start to think, I want to make this goal perfect. So like, if I think back, if when I wanted to niche my practice. I started out like it was an idea and then it grew into something. It became a living thing and I started to really actively work towards it. And you have to do the homework to get to that point. Like you did too. You have to get to that. But then if you're doing that homework and you're starting to focus on it, do you want, or even not even the niching, just what I wanna do with some of the things I wanna do for us for marketing and some of the ideas that I have.

Mm-hmm.

I have to let go of that perfectionism bug that sometimes gets in the way because you're— I might be like, well, that's not perfect enough. And you start to pick away because you're trying to find that perfection. And I think as accountants and bookkeepers, we tend to have that as a dominant trait in our lives that we want everything to be ultra perfect. And it's hard to find perfection. Actually, if you're trying to find a goal and make it clear to you, And if you're hanging on to perfection, it tends to lead to you not taking any action towards it because you're afraid if you make a mistake, it's not going to happen. Like you're not going to have that goal happen. I think sometimes the perfection can be the enemy of good and moving forward.

Yeah. I mean, we were talking a little bit ago about wanting to get these things down in these systems perfect. And I was like, hey, it's okay. We're just real human beings.

Exactly.

We're just going to keep trying all the time and keep moving forward.

She's saying it nice, but she's like chastising me out like, Linda, just let go of this ideal thing that you've got in your brain that you think. And she's right. I mean, absolutely, you were right about that. Like, I have this mindset wrapped around a certain thing and I want it to be perfect. And it's probably, you know, hey, it's a live show. It's never going to be perfect. But so I need to let go of that. And one of the things they mentioned last week in the boot camp that I was in was messy action. So it's better to Take messy action and go for it and develop it over time and keep making it better and better. I knew you'd love that. So messy action is like, maybe you should put a sticky note on your wall and say, I'm gonna take messy action, because messy action is better than zero action, right?

Mm-hmm.

I love that term. When she said that, I was like, yes, I agree with that.

Mm-hmm.

So it's about finding clarity, finding that place, picking the one goal, And then making space for it.

Mm-hmm.

Make space in your day. We all get really busy. A great podcast that— I don't even know if they're still making them, but it's called Ditch Busy, and the lady's name is Kate. If you've never listened to that, it's really short, and I'll put a link in. Really short podcast. So if you go for a 20-minute walk, you can listen to it. And she's got some really great action items to get you to move forward. And it's part of the Entrepreneurs on Fire. I don't That's the— there's John Lee Dumas. It's his girlfriend, wife. It's going to be a wife pretty soon. So you have to donate time towards your goal. Mm-hmm.

That's such a hard thing. I struggle. I mean, I understand it and I struggle with it. But I do feel like if I just make even a minute or like 10 minutes to myself, like give myself a moment to reflect or observe where I'm at, kind of measuring myself a little bit internally just for myself. I think you are stepping one step closer because you're being intentional about it, I believe, is what the thought process is too with the clarity. It's like your steps are intentionally being done. You just— it's the habits. Like we always talk about that.

Truly is. I mean, if you think about if you are Working towards a goal and you actively make time and space for the goal, that you block it out on your calendar, which we've talked about week after week, blocking that out. And maybe you have an accountability partner or a brainstorming person that keeps you motivated towards your goal. I mean, that I think helps. I think if you can find the time and make the time— actually, to make the time, because we all get really busy in our work, it's so easy to Look at your day and go, you know, I really should work on this right now, but, ah, but this is still hanging. And you know what, does it— you look at it and say, is it really necessary to stray away from your goal? Is that one or two little things that you want to get done, like those little hanging things, worth it to stray away from the goal?

Well, it's probably a bit of kind of a hot topic too, is the mental stability and the mental state of mind. You know, I have to say, like last night I got home, things didn't go the way I had foreseen them in my mind. And at one point I was tired. I was like, you know what, Sarah, you're tired. That's okay. It's just going to happen tomorrow. And yeah, I had a, like, a long list of responses and things that need to get back to. But, but at the same time, I had to give myself the pause to be able to take the break. And I know that in our community, we have a lot of folks that talk about this. But what does it mean to you? And sometimes I feel like it's easy to say and hard to translate. But if you find that maybe you're hitting that wall, like you're saying, Linda, like you're coming up and trying to figure out how you're going to do this because you've got X, Y, and Z over here, maybe take the other road. You're at the fork, right? Take the other side and just try it. Give yourself 10 minutes. Do that whatever, that Pomodoro effect or something. Put the little timer on.

Yeah.

Put your little clock on.

We did that. And, you know, they set dedicated time. I didn't do it because I went to meetings, but they put a time clock on and everybody got together and worked on the project that we were trying to strive forward to. So yeah, the Pomodoro effect is definitely there. I think that, um, yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you took the time to take a break because a lot of times we're constantly driving forward and it, it comes to a point where You burn out. You need to take that time and space, whether it's to throw a couple yoga blocks down on the floor and lay down on top of them and let my head and neck go back because we're always forward. That is an amazing thing. You get the blocks in the right position, you get a little myofascial release on the back of your shoulders, and it will supercharge you. Or even take— just go in another room away from the computer and meditate. That's an amazingly energizing thing as well. So focusing on what you want, and you'll gain more So if you focus on the good of what you want in your goal, you will gain more from it for sure. Um, and then, you know, commitment to your goal. Uh, I think sometimes you have to kind of wrap your brain around gratitude for what you have today to start with. Sometimes that's a great— Oh, that's a good point.

Yeah.

Sometimes just starting out with, all right, where am I at today? We've talked about this recently, like because we've had some things come up that brought us back to like that first job and like thinking, thinking about how that first job went and things that we did. And, you know, a name would come up and you're like, oh God, I know exactly who that is because we had to do— we did a lot of manual entry, we did a lot of, a lot of re-cleaning. And so sometimes gratitude about where you are today helps.

Mm-hmm.

I think sometimes people, when they have a goal, they think everything's going to be done Like prior to— so you had a goal. If I have a goal of whatever, I think I'd have to, I have to take care of all these tasks before I can even start to consider that goal.

Yeah.

And I think that, again, that comes back to your messy action, that you don't have to do that because it'll never happen. Something else will fill into the space. If you accomplish all those little tasks on the list, something else will come into the space. And, you know, it's truly, it's sitting back and being grateful and Being happy that where you are, and if you're not happy about where you are, then use it as a motivational tool to get— go strive for it right there. Yeah, it's true though. I mean, I think, I think a little bit about like when I used to be a runner, it kind of comes into play. I used to be a runner, used to run half marathons. I had a goal of running in a full marathon and trained like a whole summer in the heat and All of that, got up really at 4 o'clock in the morning. So I need to get my, you know, 10 miles in, my 14 miles in. I had a chart. So the worst thing you can ever give to an accountant is like, just make it through a marathon. You have to finish this chart. So it didn't matter if it was thunder and lightning, I had to do however many miles I had to do it. But then it became a point where my body physically, like my knee started to hurt and my feet I had problems with. And the doctor just said to me, hey, you know, you just shouldn't do this. This is not wise.

Yeah.

And you're gonna probably end up replacing a knee, which half the people in my community have been replacing their knees. And I remember switching to walking. So anybody who's a runner out there that's watching this, if you, if you've ever been a runner— once a runner, always a runner, it's like a clicky thing— and if you've ever been a runner and then you've had to switch to walking, the first time you start to walk, you're like, well, I know this is better for me. And then you see people run by and you look at your watch, go, God, I could have gone 6 miles in the time it took me to do 3. Like, this is the stuff that goes on in your brain. And I never actually stopped and looked at how I was grateful. I had to stop and look and say to myself, and this just happened recently, so I haven't been running for a few years, but I actually stopped and looked at myself and said, be grateful you can walk. Be grateful that you can walk without pain and that you're fine to be able to walk because there's people who maybe can't, right?

Yeah.

So instead of whining and crying because you can't run, Yeah, gratitude around what you can do. So if your goal is something way outside the box and you're working towards it, as you do these steps, I think if you start to look at being grateful for what you have today, tomorrow, the next day, I think it'll help you with moving, inching towards the goal, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I think a dirty little secret for me is I'm— I don't actually like the word goal. Oh, I personally, like, I look at it more of an intention or a desire of where I— where my path is. It's kind of, um, my yellow brick road moment to myself. It's just always been that in my mind because it's like New Year's resolutions. People set them up and then, yeah, naturally they fail because the intention isn't there. They're not driving to it like you're saying. There's no clarity behind it.

Right.

But it's a common word. It's, it's a useful word. It's a term we all attach to. So I think kind of like what you're saying, Linda, if you distill it to getting clear, you're applying it every day in some form, or every week, giving yourself that little bit of time. Before you know it, you've driven yourself, and you have to have time for self-reflection and time for gratitude to where you are in the process. I think those are really important pieces. to being stable about obtaining the goal. Like, you can't obtain it until you give yourself that peace.

And if you don't analyze it, you don't know you've attained—

you don't know if you've gotten it.

Yeah, if you don't analyze, check it, measure it, yeah, you don't know you've made it. So yeah, and sometimes this can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster where you're up and down on this, right? You think, oh, I'm never going to get there, and then you start to have that negative talk in your head and Um, I'm actually reading a book where they talked about— they call it the bitch voice. The bitch voice jumps in and says, you can't do this. Like, you can picture a little person, a little me saying, you can't do this. Like the devil and the angel. You can't do this. What are you— what are you thinking? Why would you think you can do this? And you have to kind of like, go away. You have to stay focused on it because it does become a mindset. And it does help, like I said, an accountability partner or somebody that will help drive you towards what you want to do and keep you on course. Because it's easy to squirrel away and move off to something else too. That's another part. But it's also Something too, and one of the things that can happen when you start to get towards a goal is that you, you can look at it in black and white. And it's— no goal is probably black and white. It can be in a gray area.

Yeah.

Oh, Nina's saying hello to all. That's so sweet. Joanne's here too. I know.

Yeah.

Hi, Joanne. But yeah, so I think, I think in life a lot of times we do that. We tend to go black and white and you go, ah, this is this or this is that. And it really, most moments in life are not one way or the other. Yeah, right. The rainbow. Exactly. Exactly. So I think if you're looking at your goals, be grateful as you start to work towards the— you almost look at it as a roller coaster trying to get to the top. Start to take times and moments to stop and look and say, look, look what I've done. It is so easy to get busy and to never, ever, ever see what you have done. Oh, Joanne says, James Clear from Atomic Habits says to achieve goals, don't focus on the goal, but on the system. I like that, Joanne.

That is awesome. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And Stephen, I agree, an attitude of gratitude. It is so true. Always come from that place in reflection of yourself. It is. Yeah, if you— it's a humbling place too, at the same time.

Yeah, so you know, when you start to look at goals, you want to bring attention to them. That'll drive the focus. Write them down. Write it down. Putting it in writing and saying it out loud. Powerful, powerful stuff. Writing in a journal. I have my journal here. I write in my journal every day. And one of the questions is, what are you grateful for? And What do you want to, you know, what are your wins? So what are your wins? Take a moment. Sometimes I sit and look at that book and I'm like, I don't know if I had a win, but I make myself find something because there's always a win somewhere in your day.

There's something even small. Mariette says hello.

Hi.

Hello, Mariette. Yeah, no, it is the intention behind it, the drive behind it, and the gratitude behind it. And those help with the clarity. And like, I love what Joanne said. I'm gonna have to check that out.

I know, me too. I think I, I think I ordered that actually. Yeah, but commitment to the goal.

Mm-hmm.

If you're unclear and it becomes fuzzy, ask yourself the questions. Ask yourself some questions around it to kind of finitely get down into what is one really good goal. You can have 10, but find that one that you really want to give your attention and focus to, and a lot of clarity will come from that action, I think. You know, not setting an objective, but actually doing the work.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think, you know, I want to work towards my goals. Take, you know, can you take the emotion out of a goal, achieving a goal or an intention? I don't know. We're human beings. I don't know if you can ever take the emotion out of it. But I think that, you know, the emotional roller coaster can happen, but know it's going to happen. It's going to happen. You're going to feel up, you're going to feel down. That's part of life. I really think that it's part of—

You have to get in the driver's seat and drive though. Really, you have. It's your goal. It's your— you set it. You need to drive it. You need the tools that you need to do to get there. You need to find— and we applaud anyone that does that. Like, yeah, it means you take an educational course. If it means you buddy up with someone, you follow someone more deeply to understand, and you do just get you Take action. That's the thing. It's like you said in the beginning, if you do not take action, you're going to go nowhere.

It'll never happen. It's just a dream, right?

Yeah, it's just a dream. And we don't want those. We just want more of action items, right?

Action, focus, clarity. You can get all of those if you start to really narrow it down. And then setting the time aside to do it. Oh, Stephen says an attitude towards gratitude too. Time block, put it on your calendar and make it an unwavering, nope, I can't change my calendar for— I have this one thing that cannot be changed. Like, this is not open to me.

Oh yeah.

Like a client taking it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, reviewing them daily, uh, review them with a friend. Clarity, action for your goal, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And it doesn't matter if it takes you 5 years to accomplish your goal. Um, me moving toward the niche started in 2016. Yeah, it's not a fast thing, and we'll get into that a little bit next week.

Yeah.

But I think if you're thinking about niching your practice, and I highly recommend that you do because there's a lot of reasons, and we'll get into that too, I think that if you, if you're thinking about doing that, it's not something— none of these things, when you start to work on them, are done in like a month. If you can make a goal that's done in a month, great, I think that's wonderful. But none of the goals I've ever tried to push towards Have been fast acting, you know.

Yeah, well, there's big ones and there's small ones, right?

There's big ones.

It's kind of like what I was saying earlier, like it's a, it's a snowball effect. You gotta— so if you're the type of person that needs the little ones to get to the bigger ones, do it. Write the big ones down as a goal. But also, like I say, put it right in front of you. Have that, that written document or something right in front of you. You can journal it. Absolutely. I love that. But put, you know, an intent, like a little sticky note or something, so it's in you, it's in your face, it's a reminder. And then, like you said, follow up with your calendar and write it.

Yeah, and, and say it out loud. And if you have to put it on your computer, wherever you look every day, put it in a place you have to look at it, you know, keep forcing it. Say it out loud. Let people know that you have this goal that you're trying to get to. Yeah. The more you tell people, the more—

That's what you said last week.

Yeah. But, you know, think about what can you do today?

Yeah.

So here's our team. Yes, there we are. Sarah, Nicole, and Linda.

S-N-L.

Everybody kind of giggles when we tell people that. It's kind of fun. But yeah, I think, I think that it's a lot easier to sign too, by the way, when you're writing it. Message to somebody. Everybody knows who we are. But yeah, that, um, Mariette is saying the most important step is dreaming, creating intentions around your dream, and the steps that you step into, and emotional goals.

Yes.

Oh yeah, I love that, Mariette. It's so true. That's true.

Yeah. And then once— and where we were picking up to Mariette's point, where we were saying was you take those and you get really intentional and you get in the driver's seat with them. So, because you want to flip them, like Linda was saying earlier, you were— I mean, it's true, if you do not take action, it never happens.

And hey, I've been there. Know this, that probably Sarah and I know myself have thought about a goal for a really long time. I can tell you exactly what goal that was that I wanted to do, be, whatever, and I never took action on it. And I sat on that and I sat on that and I didn't do it. And it took somebody giving me a push to do it. Yeah. You know, I, I didn't, I didn't take action for a very long time. I kind of just dreamt it for a long time. There's nothing wrong with the dream turning into a goal in the future. But yeah, I think that if you, if you do that, I mean, Mariette helps people in her group and her mastermind, which I think she's got in August, another one. She helps people become bookkeepers, bookkeeping firms. Like, they start out and they become like this master bookkeeping firm From her bootcamp. So, I mean, those are— that's making dreams come true. And she must feel like— I can imagine by the end, I know she's tired, but in the end, you have to feel so fulfilled because you're helping them spread their wings and go and giving them direction. And we all need direction. And it's not a bad time, not a bad idea to find that person that can help you maybe get to that goal.

Exactly. Well, we filled the cup today.

We did. And we're going to continue next week as we talk about niching, why, what, And probably that'll be a few weeks of a chat. But thank you everybody for coming and watching. Yes, she said— Mariette said she's fulfilled and exhausted. I know, I got on a meeting with her after she got on. I've never seen her— and mind you, Mariette slowing down is totally different than most people slowing down. But I noticed she had given the energy. Kind of looked like after I taught— when I used to teach a bunch of yoga classes, I would be like so exhausted because you give so much. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I know. She's so— yeah, I just— you give her a hug. I mean, she's just like—

I love her. Um, everybody for watching, and, um, we will be back next week. If anybody's interested, the Law Lab this week, because we didn't really talk much about law, but this can all flow into that. Uh, the Law Lab this week, our private mastermind group, is all about, uh, data migration. And yeah, really have to be I was like, what was it again, Sarah? Taking a firm off of one software that's not modern and moving it into another. It was a request. We have like the longest list of requests for topics at the Lab, and I love all of them. It's like hard to pick which one for each week because it's incredible.

I know, it is. It's so— and we have so much great participation, which I enjoy so much. I love the personalities and the support.

Everybody helps each other. And the thing is, is not everybody in our group is like Sarah and I with like all these, you know, law firm clients. There are people in there that have like one or two and they just want to learn more about the industry and they, they're learning more about business. It's not just about the law stuff. It's also about business. We've brought in a lot of things like we're going to do one on engagement letters. There's a lot there that we're going to be teaching. So, and it's fun. We have a really good time.

Oh, Stephen, we love you too.

And Joanne. And Joanne.

And it's so nice to have the rest of our group on Friday, and enjoy the rest of your week.

Everybody, bye.