Hey there my savvy blogging friend! Did you accomplish your blog goals for the year?
Did you crush them?
Or did you crash them?
Earl Nightingale once said,
People with goals succeed because they know where they are going.
This is true in all walks of life and you can apply it directly to blogging as well.
Have you ever watched the show Deadliest Catch (also known as Crab People in my house?) Granted, it’s a bunch of guys, and the occasional girl, wandering around on the Bering Sea looking for decapod crustaceans. But, can you imagine being out in that big ocean on a little boat, bobbing up and down, looking for something the size of a dinner plate 450 fee underwater?
Ain’t nobody going out there without a plan. Right? Those boat captains really have to know where they are going and why. They have to have a plan for setting their pots and then a plan for getting back to them after they’ve “soaked.” The desired outcome is a bounty of crab and their plans reflect that each and every time they head out from the harbor. No matter what comes their way, hundreds of miles away from port, they have one goal in mind, crab.
Have you ever seen them set or pull pots in a raging storm? It’s tumultuous, to say the least. Waves, salt spray, wind, ice, snow, giant troughs, uh, no thank you. It doesn’t matter if the seas are raging, calm, or somewhere in between, there’s a plan. And when the plan doesn’t yield any crab, they immediately evaluate, accept the outcome, and move on. There’s no time for a pity party, they stick to the plan and keep moving forward.
That needs to be you!
The most successful people have a plan, they know where they’ve been and where they want to go. They write it all down and then revisit their goals regularly, sometimes everyday.
People who are floundering around are those who aren’t focused on their plan. They either don’t have one, or they have left it by the wayside some way back and are now wandering aimlessly.
In the blogging world they are the ones who write only sporadically, forget to share on social media, and get sucked into the mundane and unimportant (like Facebook or Instagram) at the expense of working hard and moving forward.
So, which one are you?
If you fall into the “I’m right on track” category, good on ya, friend. I’m so proud of you and what you are accomplishing. Use the 12 questions below to evaluate your year and then set excellent goals for the upcoming 12 months. It’s always helpful to look at where you’ve been and make small adjustments to keep up your forward momentum.
If you fall into the category of “Where am I and how did I get here?” then you have some work to do, but have no fear. You can turn this ship around pretty quickly and get yourself headed in the right direction. You just need to reflect on where you’ve been and then decide to redirect your course. With a little help, and a solid plan, you can be back on your way towards success in no time.
So, where do you start?
I recommend a proven strategy that will help you see where you’ve been, make appropriate adjustments, and then plan for the future.
Reflect
Looking back over the past year (and you can do this at any point of the year, December, March, August, it doesn’t matter) what do you see? Do you see progress, forward movement, a specific event that threw you off course?
By looking at where you’ve been and answering a few questions you can paint a picture of what’s happened and how you got to your present location. Then, you can use your answers as a springboard towards the place you want to be.
Start with these 12 questions. Go ahead and spend some quality time on them, be honest, but don’t beat yourself up.
12 Questions To Help You Evaluate Your Goals For The Year
- Did I accomplish the goals I set for the year?
- What is one thing I did really well on my blog this year?
- What is something I know I need to work on?
- Was there a specific event that threw me off course this year?
- Did my priorities align with how I spent my time?
- How can I better improve the quality of my planning, organization, and writing?
- What were some notable wins, positive interactions, or successes from the year?
- What books, podcasts, or courses impacted my blogging, writing, or business growth this year? What were the truths and lessons I wanted to remember?
- What goals didn’t get completed this year? Why?
- How would I describe my attitude towards my blog this year?
- How can I better serve my readers in the coming year?
- How would I best describe this year?
Download a printable version of these questions.
Evaluate
When you’ve finished reviewing and answering the questions, take a good, hard look at what you wrote. Can you see a picture begin to emerge of where you’ve been and how you got to your current location?
You should be able to see quite clearly where you succeeded and where you need a little help. Don’t worry, hiccups and even major blunders are par for the course. No matter what’s happened this year you can easily make a mid-stream course adjustment to get back on track.
All of your answers are important. They are part of your journey and you need all of the experiences you’ve had this year to propel you forward.
Accept
Now it’s time to acknowledge where you are and give yourself some grace. No matter where you’ve been this year and what’s happened, own it and start moving forward.
From this moment on, the ship will be headed in the right direction, but you, the captain, will have some great knowledge and experience to help keep you from returning to this spot ever again.
Accept what’s happened, add it to your experience knowledge base, and move on.
Plan
Now, it’s time to look forward. Your future success depends on it. But, you don’t want to just throw yourself out there, you need a plan: a set of goals to help you move forward with direction and desired outcomes. Your goals need to be SMART. They need to be realistic and achievable. They also need to have a deadline.
The best goal setting increments are lifetime, five-year, one-year, 90-day, and weekly. Sound overwhelming? There’s help. The 90-Days To Success bundle will get you started out right. It includes a community of people to bounce ideas off of.
For weekly goal setting tactics, try The Savvy Blogger’s Toolkit. It’s got everything you need to crush your goals each and every week.
However you plan, do it now. Don’t delay, because you’ve got momentum behind you. You’ve reflected on your goals from last year, evaluated where you need to make adjustments, accepted where you are right now, and are now ready to plan your goals for the year.
The foundation you’ve set for yourself is amazing. What happened before can now be turned into the fuel you need to steer your ship to success.
Are you ready to evaluate your goals for the year?
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
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