Linda Artesani argues that personal goals like sleep, exercise, and vacation come first because they support business success. She pushes back against vague revenue targets, insisting on data-driven numbers and a concrete plan to hit them.
Chapters
Hi there, Linda Artesani, Artesani Bookkeeping. This week's post and this video is all about setting new goals for 2021. Now, you may have already done that and, you know, the resolution time has gone past, but we typically will talk to the business owners about goal setting and forecasting and budgets and things like that in this time of the year. We finalize the prior year and we'll go forward from there. And I always like to tell people, start with a good personal goal first. So take the time to go and look at your personal goals, see what you think will work best for you personally. And then almost like the, the everything else will fall into place once you've set up the personal goals. So if you start to frame goal setting around that, It really will help you move forward into a really happy and prosperous 2021. So for personal goals for myself, of course, everybody wants to lose weight in the new year, and I'm myself included, especially after last year. We really couldn't get out and do a lot of things. In Florida, we were a little bit more fortunate than that, but I mean, the weather's beautiful here, and for me to kind of bypass the gym or, or even going for a beautiful walk When I could be in here working. So you have to balance that. And for me, if I can just maybe get up— I'm a morning person, so if I can get up half an hour early, an hour earlier in the morning, fitting that time in, so I'm scheduling that time into my day for that exercise. That will help me obviously lose weight. Eating healthy, kind of do that sometimes, and I go off the rails sometimes. I can focus on eating healthy and losing weight. will just happen. So if you frame your brain around just how am I going to manage or obtain that goal, and maybe that's a matter of just getting up early. Now, sleep is so important. If you want to read a good book, there's a book called Why We Sleep, and it is really fascinating, the data behind why we sleep and how important it is to the body to really begin to heal itself. And a lot of times when I have a lot of work, I will skip out on sleep. And it's just not good for you. You really need 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day. So try not to lose that. So if I'm going to get up early, how am I going to— how am I going to compensate getting up early and getting the exercise in? I don't want to lose all the sleep. I just have to go to bed earlier. And part of going to bed earlier means not turning on those devices at night and try to at least be off the computer for an hour prior to going to bed. You want to start to wind down. So that's something to think about when you're factoring in that personal goal of losing weight. Second personal goal for me, and I think it should be for a lot of people, especially after last year, we really couldn't travel a lot, is a vacation. And that vacation can be somewhere local that you drive to, and maybe you, you have an outdoor type of vacation, but it's really important to have a vacation, a staycation, whatever you want to call it, To be able to take the time off, off from work. I was able to do that with my grandkids and my mom at Christmas, and it was— even though it was kind of hectic traveling and, you know, the whole everything to do with the virus this year, it just felt like it was needed for my soul to get away and get to be with my family, my daughter, her husband, the kids, and my mom. It was just really important. Now, now all those things are going to make me personally happy, and I want to get to that place of personal happiness. So getting more sleep, exercising, eating right, taking a vacation— all simple boxes to check off right now. Let's talk about revenue goals. Now I want to place a revenue goal, and in the past 2 years I've done that pie-in-the-sky revenue goal, which, if you really thought about it, would have to be a whole change in direction to be able to obtain. I picked the number out of the air, pretty big number. This year I've decided to be more reasonable in my goal, my goal setting for revenue, and I've set a goal that's obtainable, but I'm also making a plan to get there. So there's a mastermind plan behind my ability to get from my goal now to the goal that I want to get to. So that's just a couple of things that will— if you can get the personal ones out of the way, Get to where the other goals will just kind of fall into place. But that revenue goal, you need to know if it's something that's something you could manage and how you're going to get there. Like, before picking a number out of the sky— oh, I want to make $1 million— if I have no reasonable way to get there, then I might be there ready for a letdown. And I don't want to do that. I want to really sit and analyze. I do this with my clients. It's good to do it for ourselves, right? Analyze. Figure out, move from there. So I hope this helps you understand goals. Feel free to comment. We have a brand new Facebook group called The Accountant's Law Lab. Free, join us. We have— that kind of leads and funnels us into the Accountant's Law Lab private group. It is not on Facebook. You are not being tracked through everything, which is what I really like about the platform. And it's private. There's private special content for our members. There's a once-a-week group meeting with Sarah and I where we help people. You bring your problems with your clients to us. It's very private. And then we will go through the work with you. We'll go through any topic that works for you that you're really struggling with, with working with attorneys and law firms. And if you're not having any problems and you just want to join so you can learn, please come. There's so much value with working with directly with a group or, you know, support system, basically. So, this is what's really— we really enjoyed our meeting this week. The meetings are on Wednesdays. They're at 11:30 Pacific, 2:30 Eastern. So, whatever time zone you're in, it's somewhere in between. And we'd love to have you. If you join during the month of January, it's $57 a month, and it's for the— you're a founder of the groups. You're in the founding member group. So, it's a special group. So, we'd love to have you. The price is going to go up in February. So I hope you join us. We would love to have you. And if you have any questions, comments about this blog or anything that I, I have on my website, feel free to reach out. I am just an instant message or a Facebook post away. Thanks for watching. Bye now.
