I'm probably going to puke all over my diamond-studded shoes if I hear one more time some insipid, corporate wank-speak about SMART goals.
In case you're not familiar with SMART goals - they're just a bullshit metric thought up by some PR firm in San Francisco in the early 2000s to keep middle-managers busy, leave the work-force scratching their heads and as a way to suppress wages globally. Oh... and oft-repeated by those desperate to sound authoritative when actually they just sound "grasping" and inexperienced.
Well... that's my version of the truth and I'm sticking to it!
Thing is, SMART goals are just a box-ticking exercise - they don't inspire creativity, passion or even just the allowance of "having fun" and enjoying what you do, exploring new options and building your online business the way you actually want to.
Goals shift - especially when you're a multi-passionate entrepreneur buzzing with ideas and creativity. So setting a SMART goal a year in advance? Fucking bonkers... a massive waste of time - oh, and did I mention - tedious as fuck!
If you want to set goals that's great - and of course you SHOULD be setting goals otherwise you're just rudderless and hoping for the best - but, these have to be shorter goals in terms of what you're actually "going to achieve this month" - and have in-built flexibility because that's the joy of being a solo brand entrepreneur of course - you get to steer your ship any fucking way you want - you're not waiting for instructions, permission or "the nod" from others.
When you discover you don't like the direction you're taking, you have the luxury to change it. In the next hour. Not the next fucking quarter when you've lost ALL the will to live. You don't answer to a line-manager performing a pointless and tedious "360 review" or shareholders.
It's you. Your business is you and you get to make your goals what fits for you.
Be those financial goals for the day, the week or the month - yep, seriously! You can have a DAILY FINANCIAL GOAL - you don't need to set some arbitrary figure which is supposed to still work in 12 months - meaning you put off your damned crap until the end of the financial year. If you want to? Set the daily goal - decide you're going to make $5k (or whatever) today.
Online business is messy, it's fun, it's exciting - and if you want to get rid of any form of excitement - you go right ahead and spend 2 days forming mind-numbing, creativity-crushing SMART goals and then you too can go and collect your sticker from the latest self-proclaimed expert repeating tosh from the Corporate Book of Dire Fucking Boredom.
It really is time to stop listening to gobshites and start trusting your OWN instincts.
Top tip: You can tell the gobshites because they've not got an original bone in their entire body! 😂
Or... you can do it your way.
Your choice - what are you going to do?