Episode 113: How Can You Make Your Business Goals Visible?
In this Quick Tip episode, Fiona talks about the importance of having visual cues to remind small business owners of their business goals. Listen now as she answers questions such as, ‘How visible are your goals?’ and ‘What do you need to tweak in order to do that?’
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
NAIDOC Week
How visible are your goals?
Fiona’s white boards
Conclusion
Links/Resources Mentioned in this episode:
Here are resources to help you learn more about First Nations histories, stories and achievements:
Explore Indigenous history and stories with these movies at SBS On Demand
Blak Business' Survey (June 2021) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Accounts to Check Out:
Episode transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Episode 113 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast.
Now before I get stuck into today's quick tip episode, I just want to acknowledge that I do make most of my money and I record this podcast while working in Warrandyte. And I acknowledge that the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation are the traditional owners of this land. And I pay my respects to anyone who is listening, as well as any elder’s past, present and emerging that are First Nation’s people.
And also if you are listening to this in real time, it's actually the second day of NAIDOC week here in Australia. So NAIDOC week is really a week to celebrate First Nation’s history stories and achievements. I mean, here in Australia, we are privileged to have the oldest continuing culture in the world. I mean, just take that in for a second. It's absolutely incredible. And yet, there's just so much that we all need to do to help true healing occur and you know, really help equality happen for all.
So whether or not you are in lockdown, whether you are in Australia, whether you are First Nation’s or non First Nation’s, there are just so many great things happening this week. There's so many events and lots of online events. And I'm not sure if you can attend them if you're not in Australia, but I'm assuming maybe wrongly, I don't know if you can attend them online from anywhere. But there's also, if you're in Australia, channels like SBS and ABC will be showcasing a lot of free-to-air amazing indigenous shows and films and documentaries. There's also amazing, and really great educational tools that are out there.
I've recently started following Wurundjeri education, you can follow them on Instagram. But yet, there's just so many ways to get involved in NAIDOC week, whether you are First Nation’s or whether you are not. So of course we'll link to those in the show notes, which you'll find over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/113. All right, let's get into today's quick tip episode.
So if I was to ask you, you know, I'm all about asking questions all the time. But if I was to ask you right now, how visible are your goals? What would you say? I'm sure for some of you, you might think, well, I make a vision board every year and it's up on my office. For other people, you might have made a vision board, and you have no idea where it is. It might be in the front of a diary, it could be on the fridge, you just don't really know it, you got all excited in January. And you know, it's now halfway through the year, we're not really sure where that is.
For other people, you might have your goals on a post it note. For other people, you might have them as a screensaver on your computer, or your iPhone or your phone. But for a lot of people, and I know this, because I work with a lot of people, those goals are either written down somewhere once and not really looked at again, or they're just in your head. And I think this can be a really kind of confronting thing to ask people, how visible are they because if we can't see them, if we're not being reminded of it all the time, it's easy to forget those things and get lost in, you know, shiny new objects or looking at what other people are doing. One thing that I get all of my clients to think about is when you're setting goals, where is that? Whether it's a calendar, whether it's post it note, whether it's a beautifully designed Canva, you know, document with your three goals in it, but where are they in?
Are you able to see them constantly, just in the same way that, you know, if you're trying to drink more water, you might get a fancy new water bottle and carry it with you everywhere. And that's a reminder, it's a visual cue, I need to drink more water. And if you are somebody who has vision, it's important to have these visual cues around you to be thinking about, you know, how am I every single day reminding myself of what I'm working towards.
So that one, you know, I can make small steps consistently to get there. But I'm not going to get distracted by what everyone else is doing. And I think that can be one of the biggest challenges for small business owners, especially if you're a solo operator, or you work and all of your staff are remote. Because essentially, you are having to keep yourself on track all the time. There's no one in your office, kind of having meetings with you, reminding you about these goals that we set. You're the one that has to really carry it all.
And so one way that I found with hundreds and hundreds of business owners that I've worked with, and also for myself is to keep things visual. So everyone will have different ways of doing this. Like I said, some people might design, you know, the most beautiful artwork with their goals in it and put it up. Other people have their vision boards. For me, I'm all about whiteboards. As you'll know if you've ever worked with me or you know visited me or you know, come to a workshop, even in my workshops, I have whiteboards with me I have like a mini memo Board of I think I actually did a whole episode about that. So I will talk about that in a second in case you want to go back and revisit it.
But for me, the way that I keep my goals visual is one, I have a pink post-it note with them on my computer at all times. I also have them in my phone, just under goals. And I also have unlike the Notes app, and then the big thing for me is to have visual representation of my goals, my activities and what's coming up through whiteboards. So I am lucky enough to have an office built in a garden. It's quite, you know, it's lovely. It's just like a little box. But I will have one, I'm just looking at them now. So I've got a whole wall of different whiteboards. So the first one that's right in front of me at all times is my at-a-glance calendar. And I talked about that, in everything in my book, in this podcast.
When I'm working with people, one of the first things I do is to get them to create an at-a-glance calendar. So I have a whiteboard, one, which means you know, at the end of the month, I do have to kind of rearrange things. And what I do is I take a photo of it, and then I redraw things into the grid. But basically I have all 12 months in front of me at one time. And I put different things in different colored pens, so I know what those things mean. So some of them will be related to goals, some will be strategy, some will just be sort of collaborations or brand building stuff that isn't necessarily money making things. And then they'll be you know, personal stuff in there as well. So that's my at-a-glance, whiteboard. And that's just a plain white board, it has a kind of wood surrounds, I think I got it from office works in Australia, you can find them everywhere.
Then next to that I have a month focus. So that is this month, you know, so right now it's July. And so that is it has all of the months laid out, and then it has the week underneath, so Monday to Friday. And then it has my key activities to do today. So it's a really great kind of Whiteboard that keeps me really focused on this month in particular. And then following that, and I've talked about these before, I have three-month views. So I have three different whiteboards. And they're hanging on nails, so that I can see my quarter or my 90 days at a glance as well in detail. So the first – at-a-glance calendar, I've really got not that huge of a space per month. Then the second one I've got very focused on what is happening this month, and today, even in this week. And then the other was the end one or three, which show me a 90-day view as well in detail.
So it might sound like a lot and it probably is because I think I've got like a whiteboard addiction. But it's really allowing me to stay focused. And I should mention that at that at-a-glance calendar on the side, I have my three goals listed as well. So I'm always being reminded of those, it's not something that I put in, you know, a beautiful piece of stationery at the start of the year. And I never look at it again. So you want to be thinking about, firstly, how visible are they, and you might already have them somewhat visible. But it would be you know, it might pay for you to make them a bit more visible, which might mean you frame it or you you know, get a whiteboard and put them right smack bang in front of you, you might just have the three things listed out and you've put them you know, on your fridge, and maybe I know one client who has some lemonade in the shower. So you know it has to work with your lifestyle, where are you going to see them, be reminded be excited about them. So you might link different things to them, you might link for some people, you know, cutting out magazines and putting images will be there. For other people, it might be that you've broken down your yearly goal into 12 sub steps. And every time you get one of those, you know what every time you can take one of those, you have like a reward system. So you might go get a massage or go out for dinner or go see a movie or do something else.
The point is, how can you make them more visible so that you are reminded of them on a daily basis, and that you're working towards them. And again, it's one thing to set goals at quite another to get them. But the point firstly is to not to set them and forget them. What we want to do is set them and keep them front of mind all the time.
So that is today's tip tool or tactic. It's really a tactic. And it's asking you how can you make your goals visible? And what do you need to tweak in order to do that? It could be I need to go and get a whiteboard. It could I swear I should get like affiliates affiliate money for whiteboards. But it could be getting a whiteboard, it could be you know, like I said going into Canva and designing them really nicely. If you're an artist, maybe you're going to paint them and make them beautiful. It could be creating a vision board. Whatever it is, it could be having a monthly check in with, you know your bestie in business where you both Share your goals. And maybe you've got a Google Doc that you look at every single day.
So whatever it is, make them visible, we cannot act on what we can't see. So as much as you might have been excited at the start of the year, keep that excitement going halfway through. And it's again, if you're in Australia, it's the start of a new financial year. So it's a perfect time to reset goals, but make them visible. So I would love to know how you're making them visible.
So please show me if you're on Instagram, I'd love it for you to show me and tag at my Dell business coach so we can see it, you can send me a DM you can send us an email, we love receiving those showing some photos of how you do this. I would love to see it because I just think we can all learn from each other and maybe you've got some great way of keeping them visible that I haven't even thought of. And I'd love to see that.
But for now I am going to go and you know, check on my whiteboards are in order and really keep my own goals visible because I'm just like you I'm a small business owner, I'm working towards things and I want to stay on my path my eye on the prize and not get distracted and I find keeping my goals visible and amazing tactic to help me do that. So that is it for today's quick tip episode.
If you would like the show notes, including those links to things that are happening for NAIDOC week, check them out at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/113. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time. Bye
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
