How to Achieve Your Goals This Year

This is episode 22 of Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and inviting you to join me as I share how to achieve your goals this year. My name is Shelli Hitz and I was looking back on 2015 recently. It's getting near the end of the year and I realized that I had met almost all of the goals I set at the end of last year. It was amazing. This year has just been an incredible year for me and my business and I want to share with you the power of setting goals and how you too can not only have a dream or a wish, but it can actually become a reality. I want to share with you the exact steps I took and be able to help you have an amazing year this next year in whatever God has called you to do. Because ultimately I believe you have a God given message to share with the world. The question is, are you ready to shine?

It's time for this week's Center Stage Spotlight training. This is where I share training and strategies to help you grow your business or ministry through writing and publishing books, marketing online and creating products and services to sell on the back end. I'm not just about books, but so much more. I'm here to help you connect with your audience in the best way possible. I'm a lifelong learner and that is one of the things that I love sharing what I'm learning now. I have been engrossing myself in reading and learning and researching all about goal setting and planning because I'm preparing for an upcoming virtual planning retreat called planitday.com P L-A-N-I T-A-Y.com this is gonna be an exciting day where I'm gonna walk you through step by step through this process that I'm going to share with you in today's episode. This episode is number 22 titled how to achieve your goals this year. So the first step is really, really important. I believe if you skip this first part of the process, it just will not have the same power and that is simply to schedule out time to not just work in your business or ministry, but to be able to work on your business or ministry. And that just means setting aside time to think, pray, plan and Strategize. That's what I did at the end of 2014. I set aside time, blocks of time to simply pray and ask God for his direction. I believe that is ultimately the very most important thing you could do. But. But then to sit down and to plan out and to strategize and to take you, you know, take these steps that I'm going to lead you through, you have to set aside that time. And so I encourage you, put it on your calendar. Now I'd love for you to join us live on planitday.com if you're an author audience, Academy member, then you will have access to this day, and I want to see you there. There will be a replay, and you can access that at any time, whether you're listening to this podcast years later or at the time that it's published. So the first step in being able to reach your goals and achieve your goals this year is what I call position. So you want to position yourself in knowing what you want. Now, I've done a ton of research, like I mentioned, and so I know that these steps are not just what works for me, and. But they work for a lot of people. And this first thing is really, really important. It's to find your sweet spot, to position yourself in the best place. So most of you know my story. This last year, I rebranded from a general brand from my website, trainingauthors.com where I had a partner with Heather, was a partnership with Heather Hart. I rebranded into a personal brand@shellyhits.com and now Heather and I have decided to go our separate ways, and we are both, you know, happy with where we're going and what. What God's leading us to do. And I'm Moving forward with shellyhits.com on my own. And so part of this whole change and the reason that I went through this, I mean, it was a difficult process of the rebranding and going through and setting up the website and the logos and the colors and, you know, all that stuff all over again was because of this step. I finally found my sweet spot. You know, I was trying to be everything to every author@trainingauthors.com and with my new branding with Author Audience Academy, I've niched down to helping nonfiction authors that most, a majority of them are Christ followers or Christians. And I have found that sweet spot that.

It just. I can't even explain it. It's so rewarding, and it just has been such an amazing year. I know that I'm doing what God has created me uniquely to do so. I want you to find your sweet spot. What is God unique created you to do, and how can that apply to what you're doing in your business or ministry? Well, I think there's three different things. And when you find all three of those things, the place that they intersect, that is your sweet spot. So it's your values. And during planitday.com I'm going to take you through a values exercise. I did this last year and I found my top five values and. And I realized number one on my list personally was faith. Now, I'm not saying everyone has to integrate their faith into their business, but for me, it made such a huge change for me. And to be able to open my webinars in prayer, to be able to open my trainings in prayer, I mean, it's just.

It really just took everything to the next level for me. I love it. I love being able to do that. But I had to know what are my top values and then what are your top strengths? So I took the assessment through Strength Finder 2.0. If you purchase the book on Amazon, you get a free code to take that test. And then I was able to find out what are my top strengths. Well, some of my top strengths are speaking, networking, things that, you know, I wasn't doing as much of. I was behind a computer screen and so been able to get out and do more of those things that are in my strength. This podcast is including my strength of speaking and communicating. And so knowing your strengths and then knowing your passion. It is my passion to help Christian authors get the gospel to more people by publishing and marketing books and resources. And I'm. I love helping anyone, I love helping anyone reach their goals, fulfill their dreams. But that is my ultimate passion, is to help spread the gospel to more people. And so when I intersected my values, my strengths and my passion and I saw that sweet spot, that's where Author Audience Academy was born. And it has been amazing. So it's really important to really get that first step, positioning, correct. The second step is to plot. This is where you're going to write out your goals. And I really believe, and I've heard so many people say it's so powerful to hand write your goals. So we have apps, we have our computers, we have mind mapping tools, we have all this software, all these tools. But for this, I really do recommend that you hand write your goals. There's power in writing out your goals with pen and paper. I did this last year and I was Looking back on those goals and it was just, it was amazing. I mean, it just literally amazes me how many of those goals I met. And so you want to not only write out your goals, but you want to write them with a specific deadline. Now I'm going to recommend that you write goals in 90 day increments.

It can be really overwhelming to just write out goals, goals for the whole year. And I still recommend thinking about like the big picture of what you want to accomplish for the next year, but do it in 90 day increments because things change. Things have changed dramatically for me over the last year. And so you want to have some flexibility and you want to be, you don't want to be rigid. So set a goal. Set your goals for 90 days in one year. I recommend at that, at the minimum, do that. And then you know, your lifetime goals, your big goals, things that you want to do over a lifetime, you know those will change and that's okay. But then once you've plotted so you have your position, your sweet spot, now you've plotted, you've written out your goals with specific deadlines. Now it's time to prioritize. And so this was what was really powerful for me last year, is I was able then to decide, okay, what is my breakthrough goal? Like what is, what are these goals? You know, what are the goals that are going to bring the biggest impact? Prioritize. You know, there's a ton of things that you could want to do, but what's going to really bring the biggest impact, the biggest bang for your buck? So prioritize those goals and decide what is it you really want to go for. And then I want you to pick one of those goals to be your breakthrough goal. So this breakthrough goal for me last year was launching Author Audience Academy. It's not only been able to be a vehicle for me to help authors and I mean, so many books are being published through Author Audience Academy, so many things are going on in the forums, but it's also been able to provide income for my husband and I. And that was a significant part of my goal setting last year. So what is the one thing that could be your breakthrough goal that would make the biggest difference for you? Pick one. So that's step four. So step one was position, step two was plot. Write out your goals. Step three is prioritize everything so you find the goals that are your highest priority. And then step four was to pick one, pick your breakthrough goal. Step five is to now plan. You want to do a brain dump for your breakthrough goal and write out all the steps it's going to take to accomplish your goal and add deadlines. So like I said, I did this for Authority and Academy last year and I'll just share with you a couple of the things I wrote out. Create an opt in gift video series on the Ascent method. I did that. You can go to my website@authoraudience.com and you can sign up for that free video series. Something else I had written out was to research other methods and programs. I did that. Another thing was to outline my modules. Did that decide on my membership, program the software and the different ways, you know, the different technology I was going to use. Did that set up my list and get response, did that set up my member area, create PowerPoint presentations for each module, create worksheets, record videos, create templates in Word, decide on my payment and affiliate system, and then to launch to a paid beta group on March 1st. So anyways, I mean it can kind of sound overwhelming, right, when I just list it all out. But you want to list all these steps out and you can get even more specific than I did because there's a ton of steps even underneath each of those steps that I mentioned. But you want to write out your steps, what are the steps, and prioritize what needs to be done first, then next, then next, then next, and add deadlines to those steps. So you have a big deadline. You know, my big deadline was to launch to the beta group March 1st. I did that, I reached that goal and then I had all these smaller goals where I set deadlines towards them as well. So the last step is progress. It's to take action. It's to stop, start going through your list, start taking action and doing those things on your list now. I am so excited to help you go through this process. I have a full 12 step process for Planet Day that we will be going through and I just shared six of the steps with you briefly. We're going to be spending hours together and we're going to actually be doing these things together. You're going to be writing out the things. If you have questions, you can ask me either live in the comments or afterwards in the members area. And so I encourage you to find out more details and join us@planitday.com that's P L A N I T-A-Y.com and if you just want to fast track into Planet Day, you can sign up for Author Audience Academy and get right in@authoraudienceacademy.com.

I just I know this process works and you may have to tweak it a little bit for you, but I encourage you to set aside some time, whether or not you join me for Plan It Day or you do it on your own. I did this process on my own last year. Now, I did hire coaches along the way and I did get a lot of great input and advice and accountability. I had people that were helping me through the process, but, you know, I actually did this time on my own. But I'd love for you to join us or to set aside a time on your own. Let me know how it goes. I just love working with action takers and would love to hear how this process goes for you and you know what the results are that you get in the next 90 days. Days. All right, it's time for this week's Take Action tip. My recommendation is to get out your calendar, look at your schedule, and set aside at least two hours for planning and strategizing. We're going to take a full four hours for Plan It Day and if you can join us for that, put it on your calendar. You can find out more information@planitday.com within your author audience Academy membership and just go and block out that time so that you can go through these steps. Get a notebook, get some markers, some pens, whatever you want, some calendars. And get ready to have an amazing year where you're able to reach your goals and have an impact far beyond than you ever dreamed possible. Also, make sure to get the show notes and all the resources from Today's episode@authoraudience.com 22. That's the number 22.

Before we end, I want to give you a backstage pass in this week's Godly Gains segment, which is all about keeping Christ at the center of all we do.

Now. I just want to be really honest with you at the time of recording this podcast, I just found out this morning that my cousin's husband passed away. He's young, he's in his 40s, he has two young children.

And not that long ago I was sobbing, just grieving the loss of his life. I mean, it's just been a puzzle, a mystery. They didn't even find out what's wrong with them. And I don't know what we'll find out in the days to come.

But I question whether or not I should still record this episode. It's due in a few days. I just took a vacation, so I'm catching up and I thought, no, I'm going to go ahead and Record this. And you know the reason why.

The center of my goals and my planning that I did last year, my number one goal was to glorify God. That was my goal. My overarching biggest goal for anything that I do through my life is to glorify God. And I know that my cousin Mike.

He was a mighty man of God. He was in ministry for many years, and that was his goal as well, to glorify God. And so I want to dedicate this podcast to Mike.

And all that he has done throughout his lifetime.

And to all the ministry that has been done through his life and will be done through his legacy.

He was an amazing, amazing man of God.

And I want to dedicate this to him. And today's scripture is from Philippians 3:14. It says, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Now, Mike, I know right now is with Christ in heaven. He's had his ultimate healing. I know that. I know that. I know that he is in a better place.

Life is short. We are not guaranteed tomorrow.

I had no idea I'd be losing a cousin this week.

Crazy. I don't understand it. I may never understand it this side of heaven, but I want to encourage you to make the most of every day, to continue to press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, to do what he has called you to do. To not let fear, to. To not let the obstacles hold you back, but to continue taking that next step. And I truly believe, if you go through the process that I outlined in this podcast, if you plan, you set those goals and then you take the action, that this year will be a breakthrough year for you, that God will do immeasurably more than we can even think or imagine. That has been my year. I would never have imagined a little over a year ago all that God did this year. And I give him the glory. He did it through me. But I took the action. I took the steps. And I encourage you to take the next step. Do what God is calling you to do. Use your gifts and your strengths for his glory. And may he be glorified through all that is accomplished in our lives.

It's my hope and my goal that these episodes are bringing you one step closer to being able to shine and reach more people with your message.

This is such a critical, critical podcast that I recommend that you listen to it again and take notes. If you didn't take notes, do it. Plan out the time to take these steps and strategize for your next 90 days. I encourage you to join us for the Planet Day P L A N I t d a y.com youm can find out more information. My husband helped me come up with a name. It's a play on words for Planet Planet Day. And it's about the tagline is the world is waiting. And so I just, I thought that was such a fun way to just, you know, that just encapsulizes what this virtual planning retreat will be all about. But I also recommend that you take those next steps to what God has put on your heart, and I look forward to seeing what you accomplish and what God accomplishes through your life this next year. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelly's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.