Now that you can clearly explain why you started down this path and what you want to get out of it, we can start defining more tangible goals. While it’s great to have a destination, it’s important to choose the right way to get there. This is why many goal-setting frameworks involve breaking down the bigger goals into multiple pieces.
For our purposes, we’re going to break your goals down into three pieces.
We can define your goals as a big picture result you would like to accomplish. You can have multiple goals but you should try to keep a shortlist (two or three) to ensure you don’t spread yourself too thin. Remember that as time goes by, it’s okay to change these goals to align with what you want. We also encourage everyone to set new goals as soon as a previous goal is reached so that you always have something to work towards.
Goal Example: Build a large and engaged audience that I can monetize.
A milestone is a meaningful achievement that lets you know you are making significant progress towards your bigger goal(s). Each goal can have several milestones. You can identify this by asking yourself, “What’s next?”.
I started my site.
“What’s next?”
I should write some blog posts I think people will like.
“What’s next?”
I should get this content out to people who will be interested in it.
“What’s next?”
I should increase the number of people I am able to get my content to.
And so on…
Milestone example: 5000 followers.
Signals are frequently changing factors that help you evaluate your progress and the effectiveness of the different strategies and tactics you use, which are known as a Call to Action (CTA) that you build into your content.
A CTA might be asking people to subscribe to your email list, or to visit your site from a social media post, or to follow you on social media. Ideally, try to focus on one or two CTAs at a time so that it’s easier to monitor the effectiveness of each one. If you have too many CTAs, it can be difficult to figure out which ones are actually working.
If milestones are like objectives, think of signals as expected outcomes of reaching those objectives. So the signals are the results you experience from your CTAs.
For example, if you start sharing your content on your social media channels asking people to read the full post (CTA), a signal might be that you see more visitors coming to your content. If you start a newsletter and add a way for users to sign up on your site (CTA), you should see the number of subscribers go up (signal).
Basically, you’re monitoring the effectiveness of your efforts that will be aiding you to reach your larger goals. This is a bit different than monitoring the progress toward your goal.
Once you have started to formulate your big picture goals, milestones, and signals, you’ll want to convert those into an action plan.
An action plan is a series of tasks that you can complete to take baby-steps towards achieving your milestones and larger goals, or assessing your signals. Think of them like weekly goals. They’re your to-do list that will keep you focused and moving forward with positive momentum.
If we look at the provided examples above:
Goal Example: Build a large and engaged audience that I can monetize.
Milestone example: 5000 followers.
We can break these larger targets into smaller, bite-sized objectives:
Before you can reach 5,000 followers, you need to reach 1,000, and before that 500, and before that 100, 50 and 10 etc. This is how you divide your larger goal into milestones, and your milestones into weekly goals. From there you can define your baby-step action items and work your way up the goal ladder.
It’s important to remember that none of your goals are static. These are not rules carved in stone. Part of the reason why it’s important to review and set weekly goals is because things change as you progress, learn, and get results.
You might think that you can gain 10 followers in a week, but you might only gain 5. No need to get down on yourself, simply pivot and adjust your milestone goals. On the flip side, you might be taken by surprise and gain 50 followers in a week – also requiring a pivot and adjustments. This is completely okay, acceptable, and common.
Part of the process of pivoting and adjusting is related to your strategies and tactics, that are your CTAs and you’ll be monitoring your signals to help you figure out what is working and what isn’t.
For example, you may start to see a pattern of a particular post topic, or posting day of the week, that you share on social media with a CTA to visit your site produces better results than one of your other topics or posting days. If Topic A consistently brings you 50 views per day, but Topic B is only reaching 10 per day – then that’s a signal that you can use to adjust your strategy.
It’s important to remember that this is a journey and rarely are journeys predictable. This is why it’s important to be willing to pivot and adjust as needed.
For your baby-step action items, you’ll need to know your start point. Where you’re at right now. For example, if you already have 1,000 followers then that’s where you’re starting from ready to set the next milestone. If you’re already getting 50 page views per day, then that’s your start point and you can build out from there.
There’s not necessarily a right or wrong order in which to do things, but it will be easier to define your action items if you know what pieces you need, what tasks need to be done, and then just put them in an order so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out “what” you should do next.
Your weekly goals should set you up for success, because making progress is addictively motivating. Many people also believe that good goals will make you stretch a bit as well. They shouldn’t be so easy that they take no effort to achieve. Of course, this all depends on your circumstances, but we suggest setting more than one goal. Set a task that is going to give you an easy win for instant gratification. Then set one that requires a bit more discipline and effort. And if you’re really dedicated, set one more that pushes you just a bit outside your comfort zone. This is a pattern that you can grow into as you begin to establish your habits.
Take a moment to review your why and what statement and come up with a couple of big picture goals that align with your vision. Then break them down into milestones, the Calls to Action (CTAs) that will help you achieve them, and the signals to look out for to show your CTAs are working. Then, come up with some immediately actionable baby-step tasks that will be your first weekly goals.
You can use this goal-tracking template to track your progress, or come up with your own system. The most important part is carving out time to review your progress and think about what’s next.
Click to expandResources
- To Reach Your Goals, Identify What’s Holding You Back (Article)
- WP Courses Goal Tracking Template (Spreadsheet)
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