I am a dreamer. I can dream all day and all night. I love to imagine all the possibilities, think about new ways of doing things, dream up trips to take, and things to make. Pretty much I have the dreaming part down, but setting goals does not come easy for me! Goals feel like rules and rules only weigh you down – right? WRONG! Goals (and rules for that matter) help us set our eyes on where we want to go. They add structure to our lives so that we go places and not just rabbit trail our whole lives.
If you want your blog to grow you will need to start setting goals (and all the goal lovers rejoice and the dreamers hesitate). Good news is that dreams & goals go hand-in-hand. You cannot set effective goals without having a dream – so dream away and then get to work. Since goal setting is not easy for us all, I have compiled a quick formula to help your dreams become reality by setting goals.
CREATE A BLOGGING SPACE
I get it, you have a laptop and you blog all over the place – couch, bed, car, starbucks, or wherever the internet is and that is great! I am not confining you to a desk but I am confining all your blog stuff to one place. Maybe that is a desk with your blog planner, receipts, product reviews, thank you cards, and favorite pens OR maybe it is a shelf that is in your bedroom OR maybe it is a blog binder. I don’t know what that space is for you but you need to have somewhere that all blogging things & ideas can call home!
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TEMPLATES & PRINTABLES
I highly recommend some type of blog binder/ journal as part of your blog space. This will help you organize your thoughts, dreams, and plans. I highlighted a lot of my favorite blogging resources in this post but always be on the look out for great printables and templates! Elah Tree, Emily Ley, and Laura Casey are all great places to look for help with blog organization. I currently use this Elah Tree monthly goal sheet & #powersheets to help me make goals. Use other resources (and other people) to help you narrow down your goals and write them down.
WRITE & REFLECT
This one is the most important step because it requires a lot of time and thought. You need to sit down somewhere for a block of time where you can write all your dreams and organize some goals. You can do this a variety of ways, but here is something to get you started:
WRITE: Write down your big (BIG) dreams.
Where do you want your blog to go? What would you love to do with your blog? What inspires you about blogging? Do you want to make a full time salary on your blog and write a book and create some e courses and possible start a conference? You dream big and write all that down!!
LIST: Now go through under each dream and make a list of what needs to happen to get there.
Say you want to make a full time salary with your blog, first you need to offer sponsorships, network, be an affiliate, get paid to write posts, grow in demand and raise your prices, figure out if you want another source of income (book sales, consultation, classes) All those things would be listed under the dream. Try to think of everything that needs to happen.
ASK: Ask yourself what is the first step.
Look at all your goals and all the lists under them and circle the things that need to be done first. You can circle a couple things for each goal. These you can turn into your first goals – to get those 6 things done. They may be smaller but that is good! It is a goal and a step in the right direction.
So dream big brave ones. Dream bigger than you ever dreamed. Don’t hold back, don’t let fear win. Dream bold & loud and then set goals. Little steps and guidelines to help you achieve your dreams. Most importantly, abide. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. – John 15:7
Thanks! I hope it encouraged and inspired you!
You are so welcome! Enjoy them!!!
Writing down my blog dreams can be scary, like when I write it down I have to work towards those goals (which makes me think I should write them down more as motivation).
This is such a great post, and I must admit that the "creating a blogging space" is where I need to focus and get organized. I *do* have a binder (and I agree–it's the BEST) but I have other stuff scattered and it makes me feel scattered, too. This has definitely inspired me to take some time for organizing in the near future!
One of the most helpful things for me with thinking about big picture/goals/action was something Kat Lee shared on the How They Blog podcast (episode 1). Basically, she said as bloggers we wear 3 hats: the CEO hat (big picture, vision, big dreams), the manager hat (setting goals and action plans for making them happen), and the writer hat (the creative employee). Often, we try to do more than one at once and put on several hats. Or, we don't take our big picture dreams and set clear goals, so we feel like we're "rabbit trailing" (like you said) and don't have direction. And then we sit down to write, but don't have a clear picture of what we want to write or how it's helping us reach our goals. We should give ourselves permission to have a dream session (put on our CEO hat). Then have some time set aside to put on only the manager hat and make those goals and plans. Then, when it comes time to write, we can put on our writer hat and not feel like we should be over here or over there, worrying about the tasks of the manager. We'll have a pretty clear picture of where we want to go and why, and we can give our "writer self" permission to just write.
Anyway, Kat says it much more clearly than I do (I love her podcast!), but I found the visual of having a different "hat" for every "job" to be so helpful! 🙂
{stopping by from Jack of All Trades}
I'm so with you! I love my blogging binder!
I love those hat ideas!! That is so great!
I totally agree! I feel the same. But really when you think about it, what is worse?
What a great list! I'm a list girl so I've got all sorts of dreams and plans written down for my blog.
That is so exciting!!
I'm a HUGE dreamer. I want to do all the things, but doing them is never my thing. Lol. I love your advice!