Do you ever set goals for yourself? What about New Year’s Resolutions? If so, do you stick with them? I’ve never really been successful at following through with mine… until this year. Yep. You read that right - I’ve ACTUALLY stuck with some of my goals in 2020… this CRAZY year!. 

But back in June I was struggling. We all were in one way or another. The girls had missed the last 3 months of school, Abby didn’t get a prom or a high school graduation and we couldn’t even have a graduation party. We were trying to plan for her to go off to college in the fall without really knowing 100% if it was going to happen. We hadn’t been out to eat in MONTHS!  We hadn’t seen our parents in MONTHS. We had found toilet paper and paper towels, but still hadn’t been able to put our hands on very much in the way of cleaning supplies. And I was having a really sucky year in my business. It was struggling financially (but who wasn’t?) and I was struggling to stay focused. And these struggles (on top of school and kids and dorm worries and cleaning ALL.THE.THINGS and mask making and LIFE) were really draining on my mental health and self-worth. 

Enter Powersheets.

“Powersheets” are a goal setting planner system. They’re not really  a planner in the traditional sense, but they help you figure out your goals and develop a yearly/quarterly/monthly/weekly/daily plan to accomplish them. I’ve looked at them before, but let’s be honest - I’ve never been good at sticking with things, so I didn’t want to spend money on yet another thing I wouldn’t finish. But like I said, in June I had reached a low point and was looking for something (anything) to help me. I bought my first set of Powersheets (I got the 6 month version - remember I have commitment issues) to go from July through December and figured I’d try to stick with it AT LEAST through the end of 2020.

All Powersheets (even the 6 month version) come with a whole section of prep-work in the front. I’m not going to get into too much detail about the prep-work except to say IT’S INTENSE. They ask a ton of you... I recommend not trying to tackle it all in one day. You are asked to give yourself grades in business, home, relationships, health, friendships, happiness, etc. It asks you where you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, when you’re 80. It asks you to write what “success looks like” to you. Let’s just say that I wasn’t too kind. After you work through the 40-ish pages of prep-work (I told you it was A LOT), they help guide you toward creating goals that make sense for you. For the remainder of 2020, here were the goals I set for myself:

I’m only going to talk about a few of these today… some of them are for me only! 

Goal #5: Use better communication to grow my business

When I set out to accomplish this goal, I wanted to get better about posting content on time. I was writing my blog, newsletter, and repurposing my content like the day before it was supposed to post. I dreaded it EVERY WEEK. Full transparency: writing is like a CHORE for me. But at the time that I wrote this goal, I didn’t REALLY have a concrete plan of how I was going to accomplish it. I had met Amanda Warfield (time management and simplicity coach) in an online class earlier in the summer and I was following her on Instagram. She was always talking about “batching her content” and on a whim one day, I joined her Content Batching Bootcamp class. It was a month long class (we met weekly) and Amanda promised to lay out exactly how to batch a full month of content in only 1 week. SOLD! Well something clicked and for the past 4 months I’ve been batching all my content in one week per month!

Goal #5 DONE!

Goal #4: Be consistent with routines and Goal #6: Remove Distractions

You know how one success leads to another (and another)? Well, since I had been successful at the content batching goal, I decided to bite the bullet and hire Amanda as a time management coach for several months. She and I have been working together to create batch schedules and routines for my life and business and I count this as among one of the best things I’ve ever done for my business (besides buying my Powersheets in the first place). She has taught me how to eliminate distractions and make time for things that really matter (business, life, home management, MYSELF, etc.). This is an ongoing goal (routines and schedules change as life changes), but one I definitely feel I’m on the right track with! 

Goals #4 and #6… In Progress!

Goal #7: Save for College and a Car

One of my goals for this year was to pay for college out of my business so that it wouldn’t have to come out of our finances. I didn’t really know how I was going to do this… in 6 months (college aint cheap), but I made that commitment to myself. Even though this year was kind of a BUST for book sales, I was able to accomplish this goal by running a few promotions, taking on a new (regular) design client, and not spending any superfluous money. DRUMROLL PLEASE… as of today, I have paid for fall semester and have enough set aside for the winter semester (plus some)! The car will come later, but AT LEAST I got the big one (college) out of the way! 

Goal #7 DONE-ish!

Goal #8: Organize my office, computer and business

This goal is definitely ongoing… there was/is A.LOT.TO.DO! But I started small with this one. I started by cleaning out the cabinets in my office and moving all my inventory (read: BOXES of books that I haven’t been able to sell this year) into the designated spaces. I went through ALL the art supplies and got rid of the stuff I’ll never use (nothing good, of course). I bought a file cabinet and filed ALL.THE.THINGS (seriously - so much paperwork), and I cleared off my desk of ONLY the necessities. So my office is DONE! This goal is going to transfer over to 2021 though because I still have to work on business organization and I haven’t even begun to think about touching my computer files, storage drive, emails (there are so many…)... the list is daunting, but I’m up for the challenge. The beauty of Powersheets is that you take these HUGE goals and break them down into something smaller and more manageable. So this HUGE task of organization can/will be spread out over 12 months/52 weeks/365 days (I had to look that up…  2021 is NOT a leap year). 

Goals #8… Partially done and held over to next year!

As I write this I haven’t finalized my goals for 2021 (remember: I’m content batching this several weeks before it posts). But as of right now, these are goal categories I am wanting to focus on:

• Mental health

• Physical health

• Relationships (Marriage, family, and friendships)

• Routines/Time Management

• Home

  • Sub-Category: Sustainability and/or Toxin-Free Living

• Laura Murray Creative - Organization

• Laura Murray Creative - Finances

• Laura Murray Creative - Intentional Marketing Calendar

And I’m also planning on making note of some big Oprah-sized goals and tack those up on my wall where I see them every day. One of my Oprah-Goals is a financial goal… it’s a specific dollar amount I want to strive for. I have a realistic number, but I ALSO have this big goal number. 

Q:

What are some of your goals for 2021?

Q:

What about those Oprah goals? Have you ever made any of those for yourself (business or home life)?