3 Things To Do When You Don’t Meet Your Goals As An Entrepreneur
I secretly started learning a new skill.
I’m on a social media hiatus (well, Instagram specifically because Pinterest isn’t social media it is self research) so I haven’t been able to shout to my little squares and far away friends about my new skill.
I am honoring my inner retiree with this new skill. I mean so much less of my time is spent scrolling I needed something to do with my hands.
So, like any good millennial, I asked a friend for suggestions on a skill to learn. Because this friend is truly a jack of all trades. She works in a very high level full time position, teaches fitness classes, can cook/bake anything, loves to read and knows basically any craft known to the world.
She said the easiest thing to try and get good at is crochet. So, I tried. And I failed.
Something about tension, chains and counting got my brain alllll messed up. So, I went back to the drawing board. Meaning scrolling Pinterest.
And I landed on…embroidery. And no I didn’t spell that right on my first try.
It has been so fun. I decided to purchase a kit off Amazon to learn the basic stitches before trying to tackle a project. After a week or two of that I KNEW what project I wanted to tackle.
A custom denim jacket for the Eras Tour.
That’s right, from zero to 89 😉
After raiding my mom’s craft closet, getting a denim jacket from the thrift store, and buying a pattern off Etsy I was on my way.
Started with the easiest icon (IMO) the heart. And I screwed it up. It looked like one of the kindergarten art projects that you LOVE from your kids but also can’t tell exactly what the final product was supposed to be.
So I had to grab my trusty stitch ripper and take out all my hard work and start alllll over.
I am happy to report that my second try was 100 times better and I am about 60% done with the jacket with two months to go before the concert.
This whole situation of trying something new, failing and trying to figure out a new way of doing something is SCREAMING the life of an entrepreneur.
It’s almost like an entry fee for being an entrepreneur…failure. And as we are walking into the end of a year (I’m currently writing this in October), you might be looking at your goals and saying “well, that didn’t work out how I hoped.”
This is common and guess what…not a bad thing. (Most) of the time a mistake isn’t make it or break it. It is more disappointing and makes you feel inadequate or that you are “missing” something. The amount of times imposter syndrome has crept over my shoulder is impossible to count in my years of running a business. What I feel time and experience have taught me is what to do to get back up and strategically move forward after not meeting goals.
And not all the time does it need to be as dramatic as ripping out hundreds of stitches like I had to do. Sometimes it is a simple tweak, timeline change or support structure.
Let’s get into what you SHOULD do when you don’t meet your goals as an entrepreneur!
3 Things To Do When You Don’t Meet Your Goals As An Entrepreneur
REFLECT
First let me say that not meeting your goals does not make you…
A terrible entrepreneur
A failure of epic proportions
Someone who needs massive intervention to succeed
That is all hullabaloo, hogwash, hot stinky trash.
You are someone who took a risk, tried something and it didn’t work out as intended. As my fellow business owner friends say “This is not the Emergency Room, it’s not that serious.”
While this is all true, you wouldn’t be here without the hope to actually meet your goals. Us too! The first thing to do when you get to the end of a project, quarter or goal is to reflect on the results.
The first step when you reflect is to be DATA focused and EMOTIONALLY separated. This is time to look at the facts and leave emotion out. Sure, you might be disappointed, but when looking back it is time to be realistic about what happened.
During this reflection phase, consider both, data AND life!
Looking at the data might include:
-Analyzing the data from your project
-Looking at the timeline of your tasks
-Examine tasks for this goal and their completion
But. this is only half the story. Because behind the data is a person. This is where you examine what was going on for you personally during this project time.
Looking at life might include:
-Seeing if personal responsibilities took the front seat for a bit like a sick baby or a full sports season
-Deciding if you took on too many client and internal projects at once
-Remembering if you were sick or stressed during this timeframe
-Examining if your skill were best suited for this project
For example, this past quarter our team was going to double down on batching social media content. And we did that for about a week and then had to quit. When we actually take the time to examine the data and life happenings we found that:
-We had our biggest quarter to date with multiple client projects, onboarding new clients and hosting our team retreat.
-We also had our entire team headed back to school (either as FT teachers or sending kids back to school with new routines)
-Sarah decided to take a break from social media this quarter which put too much pressure on Hannah to deliver all the content
These two factors attributed to us focusing on our attention on client projects (yay!) and truly our mental health. While we recognize that this is important in building our brand and instilling trust in people who find us on the interwebs it was just not in the cards this month.
And at this point, usually we throw our hands up in the air and either 1. Decide to just try again without modifications or 2. Scrap the whole thing
That is not what we are proposing. Steps 2 and 3 will help you take those factors that led to this goal being unmet and figure out a path forward.
REPRIORITIZE
Next, it’s time to (re)prioritize. Because you are older and wiser, right. Or actually because today is a new day in your business and your priorities MIGHT have changed from when you first started that goal.
This is where you get to decide:
-Do I try again?
-Do I table this goal for another time when I have more space/support?
-Do I scrap the idea?
-Do I hire someone to do it instead of me?
All of these answers are great. It is just up to you to decide what is the best option.
You might be asking how the heck can you even decide? So happy you asked. We use a prioritization matrix specifically designed for entrepreneurs. No, not the Eisenhower Matrix. It is something we created after years of hearing that the Eisenhower’s Matrix is THE THING to determine what is important and urgent.
President Eisenhower used this matrix to prioritize his tasks that make him known for being a productive leader. It has been used widely in the business and entrepreneur space to show you how to prioritize your tasks.
It allows you to categorize tasks into 4 quadrants dictated by importance and urgency.
The main point is that you should stay in "one quadrant" – the not-urgent/important quadrant. And allows you to "delete" and "delegate" tasks that are not important or not urgent.
Here's the kicker that *most* people don't tell you…
Eisenhower had a staff, an assistant, and freaking cabinet of a minimum of 11 people to help him get shit done. That doesn't even count the countless government workers, white house staff, etc. Now, I am not knocking President Eisenhower (may he rest in peace). He gave us a great jumping off point.
The problem I've found with Eisenhower's Matrix (as someone who has tried AND failed to use it effectively) is as a small team or solopreneur you might not have the capacity to delegate or sometimes delete tasks or even have time to plan.
I hear from clients often that days are spent putting out fires and the working "on the business" is always pushed to the back burner.
You might also feel like you live in the urgent and important quadrant allllll day. And that is how burnout begins.
So when they use this Eisenhower's quadrant they end up with a top heavy To Do list that is full of urgent and important tasks, which basically is the back to the long to-do list drawing board.
I kept finding myself in the same boat, which is why I created something that worked better for me instead – and I have a pretty good feeling it can work for you too!
I call it: The Entrepreneur’s Matrix – which combines enjoyment and income.
Essentially, you focus your prioritization on things you love to do AND things that provide you money.
Let’s take that social media goal our team failed on recently, for example.
Once we really thought about it, we came to this conclusion:
-We DON’T love promoting on instagram and feeling beholden to showing up daily with our busy lives
-We DO love connecting and helping with people
-We DO love writing (hence this blog 🥰)
-We DON’T make money from Instagram (most of our clients are referrals and word of mouth at the moment)
That led us to the solution of TRYING this goal AGAIN in a new way. We are going to try Pinterest to connect our love of writing with helping people. While this isn’t an exact apples to apples match, it achieves the same goal we had to connect with more people!
So take your reflection from step 1. Ask yourself, do I LOVE this and does it provide me INCOME? Then return to your reprioritization actions…
-Do I try again?
-Do I table this goal for another time when I have more space/support?
-Do I scrap the idea?
-Do I hire someone to do it instead of me?
If you’re interested in diving deeper into this matrix, be on the lookout soon for a training on this exact thing!
REPLAN
Now that you have made the decision, it is time to replan. And if I am being honest this is where I feel most entrepreneurs drop the ball.
Entrepreneurs love a new idea or goal (guilty 🙋)
We get so excited, write it on a big 3m sticky pad and have all the optimism in the world. We trust in our abilities to GSD (get 💩done).
And we forget to actually make a plan to get the goal done.
Maybe this manifests as your back burner business tasks, quarterly goals or even annual ones.
To quote Queen Taylor herself “If you fail to plan. You plan to fail.” And I believe it.
So, ask yourself, what are the tasks needed to get to your goal? And no, you cannot just say “relaunch updated website.” That kind of task requires a lot of steps that take time and energy.
It might look like:
-Content review
-Copy Update
-Image curation (might need new headshots)
-User Experience Testing
-Mobile Optimization
Those tasks take a lot more time than an afternoon and have complexities within themselves. It is time to be honest about the tasks required to complete your goal and the time required to complete it.
You might have estimated the first time you decided to tackle this goal it will take one month, but now you might realize it will take 6 months. And that is OK, it is better to be realistic than sloppy.
In our goal we decided that we need another quarter to accomplish implementing a new social media outlet and posting content. We also realize we might need some help. Thankfully, I have a training waiting for me in my writer’s membership ALLLLLL about Pinterest Marketing.
So, I am going to make some tasks to help us get started. Here are a few examples:
-Watch Pinterest Marketing Training
-Create Pinterest Account for G&G
-Work with creative team to curate at least 3 images to go with each blog
-Pin at least 1 time per week starting in November
Your goal might look completely different. Your tasks will most likely be completely different. And your timeline will look completely different.
That is because your business is personal.
Your goals are personal.
Your plans to achieve your goals are personal.
Your reflection, reprioritization and replanning is personal.
So, take some time to listen to yourself and make decisions that feel right to you! And if you have felt like you have tried, and tried again without success it might be time to try a new approach with some help.
Here is an options that might be of interest to you if you are specifically looking for strategic planning assistance.
1-on-1 Strategic Planning & Support
From downloading everything happening in your business, aligning your goals for the quarter AND getting help from a team. G&G Consulting can help you create a plan customized to your goals and use our strengths to lift those tasks off your shoulders.
Regardless of what you decide, we are cheering you on louder than a Taylor Swift concert as you tackle your business goals.
