Elevate your brand game - January 2024

Welcome to 2024! It’s going to be a phenomenal year!

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”

—Bill Copeland

Hopefully you had the opportunity to take a break and relax with family and friends over the festive break. As business owners we often neglect our needs and wishes and spend too much of our time running on an endless treadmill to without any real idea of where we are headed and what we want to achieve. Well, this year I urge you to do things differently and this month’s newsletter will help you do just that. It’s time to set yourself up for success in 2024.

Goal planning and regularly check-ins will see you reach the end of 2024 and be able to look back and be proud of what you have achieved both personally and professionally. It all starts with a positive mindset and a few hours of reflection and SMART goal planning. So, what are you waiting for, let’s get started!

Warmly, Alysha
Owner, Wow Studios

We are doing things a little bit different this month…

LET’S TALK GOAL PLANNING!

This month, we are stepping away from our brand advice column to focus on helping you set yourself up for success in 2024. Creating a positive mindset and setting personal and business goals for the year ahead is one of the most powerful things you can do to kickstart your year, your motivation, and your path to a happy and successful year!

To get us started, earlier this week we posted a blog about setting yourself up for success. If you have not read it yet, switch over now for a detailed introduction to this month’s topic.

Goals are a regular part of everyday life. Regardless of whether you actively set them or just work towards ideas, goals give you a sense of direction, motivate you and determine the choices you make each and every day.

But are people who set goals really more successful I hear you ask… The answer is yes – people who set goals are more successful. A study by Dominican University found that people who set goals are 43 percent more likely to achieve them.

When it comes to actively setting goals that have a strong chance of working, SMART goals give you a set of criteria that will help to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. When you set SMART goals your chances of success increase dramatically.

Let’s look at them one by one.

Specific

Your goal should be clear and concise and leave no room for misinterpretation. It should be precise and unmistakable. For example, if your goal is to have a better work-life balance rather than simply saying “I will work less’ be clear about what that really means to you. Perhaps its about making time to attend more social engagements with your friends or more time with your family and children. It could be about not working on weekends or making time to pursue your hobbies.

Measurable

Your goals need to include ways for you to measure your success. Determine the frequency and duration or a timeline for completion. For example your goal could be to attend a minimum of three, 30 minute gym sessions each week or allocate three hours every fortnight to pursuing your creative passions such as painting or singing.

Achievable

Make sure the goals you set are achievable. Do you have the necessary resources or finances available to achieve your goal? Do you have the skills, access to information or ability to learn new skills to achieve it? Do you have the time necessary to achieve this goal in your allocated timeframe or if your being truthful will it take longer. Whilst you want your goals to be challenging to achieve growth you also want to be able to achieve success. Make sure you don’t set yourself up to fail before you even begin.

Relevant

Are these goals your goals or are you doing them to please someone else? Is this the right time to put your focus on achieving this or are there other priorities that you should be spending your valuable time working towards? Is it something you are passionate enough about to do the work necessary to achieve it? Your goals need to be your own and you need to be invested if you want to succeed.

Time-Bound

In order to stay on track and achieve your goals you need to set a start and end date. If it’s a big goal you may also want to break it down into bite-sized chunks with mini deadlines. This ensures you regularly see progress and keeps you motivated towards achieving the end goal. It’s also important to check in regularly and evaluate where your at and what you still need to do to achieve success. It’s all well and good to create your goal plan but sticking to it and regularly evaluating your success is just as important. You should aim to do a review every three months to stay on track. If you have more several goals, you may also need to think about the priority status of each one and whether you can do them simultaneously or if you should focus on the highest priority items first and then work on your secondary goals later in the year. Remember its all about setting yourself up for success!

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

– Tony Robbins

Everybody has their own definition of success based on their personal values and life experiences.

Working out what matters to you may require some self-reflection, evaluation of the previous year/s and possibly even facing some hard truths.

Once you know what you want to achieve you can then focus on getting your goals on paper. Remember your goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound to be successful.

Personal Growth

First let’s look at personal growth. This could be anything from making more time for friends and family to improving your health and fitness, learning a new skill, or improving the quality of your relationships with the people around you.

Start off by reflecting on the previous year. What did you achieve that made you feel accomplished and gave you a sense of self-worth? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them or are they still a work in progress? Are their skills that you successfully developed and are really proud of or perhaps some weaknesses that you discovered and have identified you want to work on this year?

Here are a few SMART goals you can use to help you get started.

Watch less TV and read books to improve my knowledge instead.
- I will limit my tv time to xx hours per week or I will read a book on Sundays instead of watching tv.
- I will hire or purchase a new book and read it completely every xxx weeks/months.
- I will attend a book club to help me become more excited about reading and commit to reading the required books for the next six months.
Exercise more and improve my fitness.
- I will work out/attend the gym/do some form of physical exercise at least xx times per week for xx minutes.
- I will track my weight/body fat/fitness using a fitness tracker and aim to improve it to xx within xx months.
- I will start my diet plan next week, weigh myself weekly and aim to lose xx kilos by the end of the year or xx kilos each fortnight.
Improve my time management and arrive to events on time.
- I will work out how long it takes me to get ready and plan my schedule accordingly to ensure I am ready to walk out the door on time.
- I will write a to do list of what I need to achieve to be ready on time and allocate enough time during the day to ensure I have the necessary time to get ready.
- I will book an appointment with a xx to learn relevant strategies to help me manage my time and avoid distractions. I will dedicate xx hours per week to practising these strategies.
Save money for a house/holiday/specific item.
- I will create a savings account and setup a weekly automatic deposit of xx%/$ to save xx $ by xx month.
- I will track my finances using a finance app so I can see where I am spending my money and aim to change my habits to save an extra xx$ each week/month.
- I will limit my coffee purchases to three times per week and keep track of what I save for the next xx months.

Business Success

Working on your business goals, think about what has been working well and what areas of your business could do with some improvement. Speak with your customers and staff and find out what pain points exist within your business or where they feel you could excel further. Look back over your previous years results, customer feedback, social media comments, etc and evaluate how you went at customer service, sales, customer retention, etc.

Here are a few examples of goals you could set. Increase sales.

I will allocate xx hours per week to making calls/attending networking events to increase my client base and sales. I will monitor my sales and aim to increase my profits by xx% by the end of the year.
I will book myself into xxx course by the end of the month to learn xx and implement the skills I learn to improve my sales conversions. I will monitor my sales and aim to increase them by xx%/$ within xx months.
I will increase sales over the next xx months by signing xx more clients. I will allocate xx hours per week to achieving this goal and set specific tasks to achieve this goal.

Update my website.
- I will redo my website content and ensure it is live by xx date.
- I will hire a web designer by xx and plan to have my site updated by xx.
- I will allocate xx hours to updating my website and content with the aim to have it fully updated by xx.
Be more productive.
- I will update my to do list at the end of everyday, so I am ready to start the next working day with a plan and commit to doing this every day for the next xx months.
- I will allocate xx hours per week on xx days to doing marketing/admin/finances/etc.
- I will start my day by xxam, stick to a xx min/hour lunch break and finish my day at xxpm.
Improve my email response time.
- I will allocate xx hours in the morning to respond to enquiries and again in the afternoon each day.
- I will check my email every xx hours and aim to ensure all emails are responded to within xx business hours.

How many goals you ultimately set is completely up to you. If your working on personal growth it could be as little as 2-3. If your working on your business plan you may have up to ten. Try not to go too far over ten as you want to ensure your setting yourself up for success. If you set yourself too many goals you will likely end up feeling overwhelmed and achieve nothing. Its better to have a few really meaningful goals that you can take the time to focus on rather than a bunch of goals that you never get around to.

Ok so you have your goals in place. To be successful, you need to keep them front of mind and take active steps towards achieving them.

There are lots of ways you can use visualisation to help manifest your goals into reality. In this article I am going to talk about just two.

Vision Boards

A vision board is a visual representation of your goals and it’s a great tool to help keep you motivated. Typically, it’s a poster sized visual full of images and text that represent your goals and what you want to achieve. Your aim when creating a vision board is to create something that will inspire you then place it somewhere you will see it every day.

Celebrities like Oprah are firm believers in visualisation and research also suggests they really work so it’s definitely worth giving it a go! You can focus on just one goal or include a few. You can even include goals for personal growth and your business on the same page. There are no rules.

So how do you create one? Start by finding images, quotes or words that link back to your goals. You could cut out images from magazines, print images off Pinterest/Google, draw illustrations or even go out and take your own photos. You can also add words of encouragement, statements or quotes. Remember, when you put it together to keep it simple. It should be eye-catching and visually appealing. The idea is that you look at it often, so if you eye is drawn to it when you walk by making that process much easier! Try not to make it too messy, you want it to inspire you not give you a headache.

If you’re not that great at doing arts and crafts you may prefer to go for an online program that helps you design it. Canva has a really easy to use option but if that doesn’t appeal to you search ‘Vision board maker’ on Google and you will find a bunch of other great programs you can use.

Still need a little more help. Here’s a great article by Mind Body Green that should help get you started! And here is a link to a bunch of Pinterest ideas on how it could look.

Listing your Goals

If you’re not an overly visual person or you don’t have the time or interest in creating a vision board then this one might be for you.

Rather than an image based visual board you can write down your goals in a list and pop it beside your bathroom mirror, next to your computer or anywhere you’re going to see it regularly. To make sure it’s still eye-catching and that you read it, make sure you keep each goal super short and to the point. Remember to make sure you print them in a large, easy to read font. It’s as simple as that!

Visualising your goals is an important step in the process and I promise you it really works. Want to delve in a little deeper into the science of vision boards. Check out this article. CNBC – Visualisation that helps executives – according to neuroscientist Tara Swart.

CLIENT SPOTLIGHT

This month, instead of our usual spotlight, we thought we might celebrate some of our favourite projects, clients & moments from 2023