How to set SMART(ER) Quarterly goals

How to Set SMART(ER) Quarterly Goals

When you decide to become an online business entrepreneur, setting goals is paramount to keep you focused. Without setting goals, you will be floundering with no idea what to do or what to work on. You need to have a plan in place. This plan should consist of an at least 5-year plan, which will help guide you to set your yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. Having a long-term plan will show you what you need to focus on and what roadmap you need to follow to reach those goals. Without this plan, you will not be able to set your quarterly goals. This is why learning how to set SMART(ER) quarterly goals is so important.

At the beginning of my journey as an online business entrepreneur, I found myself lost. I had no idea what to focus on, how to go about getting established, nor what I needed to work on to get this online business off the ground. I needed a plan! This plan was a focused effort in learning what goals are, how to set them, and most importantly how to ACHIEVE my goals!

So, what is a 5-year goal setting plan?

A 5-year plan is how you envision your business to be in 5-years. However, this plan not only includes work-related goals but personal goals as well. It encompasses all of what makes you, you! If you have still not worked on your 5-year plan, this is something you need to focus on. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

How do I see myself in 5-years?
Where do I see myself living in 5-years?
How much do I want to be making?
What does my ideal life look like?
How many hours a week do I want to work?
Do I want to work from home or do I want to have an office away from home?
Is traveling for fun a part of my ideal life?
Do I want to be able to travel anywhere and work from anywhere?

You get the idea. The more detailed you are about what you want to be doing and how you want to be living, the easier it will be for you to establish your roadmap to success.

Your yearly goal setting plan

Once you have established your 5-year plan, you need to break down those goals into yearly goals and make sure you’ve established a yearly plan that will help you to achieve the goals established. Now you need to make sure that the goals you establish are SMART(ER) goals.

What are SMART(ER) Goals

What is a SMART(ER) goal? A SMART(ER) goal is:

If all the goals you establish are SMART(ER) goals, that chances of you achieving them are much higher. You know exactly what to focus on, how it will help you, what you will achieve with that particular goal, and you know what success for you will look like in achieving that goal in a specific time-frame. They also set you to evaluate and readjust as needed depending on the season of life you are going through.

So now you know how to set SMART(ER) goals, how to create a 5-year plan, and your yearly plan. Now what? Now is the time to set your quarterly goals.

Why set Quarterly Goals

But why should you set quarterly goals? Why not just set yearly goals and go from there. Because, here is where the rubber meets the road! Here is where you will actually focus and work on those goals in 90-day sprints! Instead of establishing yearly goals and waiting until the end of the year to see what has worked and what hasn’t, you will be reviewing your BIG goals every 90-days and making changes throughout the year.

Gone are the days of not remembering your goals, or losing traction by mid-year, or even two-months into the year!

You will set your goals each quarter.

Once you’ve established your yearly goals, you will then break them down by quarter. Here is the trick though, you will only focus on one BIG goal each quarter. You need to make sure this big goal will help you reach the yearly goals you’ve established.

For example: If you are wanting to become a virtual assistant, your yearly goal would be to get enough clients to make a minimum of $5K consistently each month. You won’t reach that goal all at once. You’ll need to break it down. Your quarterly goal would then be to sign up 1-3 clients each quarter. This will take you on the path to reaching your yearly goal.

How to break down your quarterly goals

Once your quarterly goal has been established you need to break it down even more. So, how do you do this? You’ll need to focus on monthly, weekly and daily goals.

Monthly goals

To set your monthly goals you need to see what will get you closer to your one BIG goal for the quarter. You are going to set one small goal and one strategy for each month. This would be a total of three small goals and three strategies for your quarter. So, why should you just focus on one small goal and strategy each month? If you focus on just one each month, you will not be overwhelmed and you know that what you are working on is going to help you reach your goal. Once you’ve established your monthly goals you will then break down your goals even more and define what you will focus on each week. Use your monthly goal and strategy to establish what you will work on throughout the week.

Weekly Goals

Once you’ve determined your monthly goals and strategies then each week you are going to review and see what you need to do in order to accomplish the goal. You will define what strategy you will use to reach your goal. For example: If my goal for the month is to grow my email list to 100 subscribers, then the strategy I will use will be to use Pinterest to reach more people and have them sign up for my email list. Or my goal could be to network in Facebook groups to get people to sign up with my free opt-in.

Daily Goals

Okay. So, not that you’ve determined your quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals. Now your need to focus on what you will do each day to reach those goals. You will write down the BIG 3 things you need to focus on daily. These are things that you MUST do in order to accomplish your goal. For example, my goal is to grow my email list by adding 100 subscribers. So the three daily things I need to focus on would be: creating blog content, promoting on Pinterest, and networking in Facebook groups.

How to make sure you are achieving your quarterly goals

Now that you’ve set up your quarterly and monthly plan, and have figured out how to break down your monthly plan into weekly and daily tasks, how do you make sure you are achieving your goals? Here is where your daily and weekly evaluations come into play.

Daily Evaluation

Every day, as you wrap up your work day, do a daily evaluation. Ask yourself these questions:

Did I finish the work I wanted to do today?
Did I accomplish the Daily 3 things I needed to work on today?
If the answer is no, ask yourself why you didn’t finish that work
What do I need to change in my workday?
What worked best for my workday?
What do I need to focus on tomorrow?
What three things am I grateful for today?

Make this a part of your daily wind-down plan. This will also help you know what you need to work on tomorrow, and will avoid the waking up at 3am with tons of thoughts going through your head!

Also, it is VERY important to focus on the three things you are grateful for today. This helps to set your focus on the good things that happened throughout the day. If you’re like me, you tend to focus on the things that went bad and the things that didn’t work out, or the things you just did not do. STOP that! Focus on the things you are grateful for. This will help change your attitude and your mindset! I promise!

Weekly Evaluation and Weekly Planning Session

Every week at the end of the week you will do a weekly evaluation and plan your next week. It’s important that you don’t do this on Monday morning because by then you will already feel behind! As you evaluate your week, here are some questions to help you with your weekly evaluation:

Did I accomplish the daily tasks I had wanted to work on?
What are my goals for next week?
What do I need to do more or less of?
What happened throughout the week that derailed my workday? What contingency plan could I have set up?
Is what I am working on daily helping me reach my goals?
Did I spend too much time on social media?
Am I being as productive as possible? If not, Why?
What changes to I need to do to be more productive?
What am I most grateful for this week?
What was my biggest challenge this week?
Did I make sure to spend time in God’s Word and pray every day?

After you have evaluated your week, now it’s time to plan your next week. Ask yourself these questions:

What are the BIG 3 things I need to focus on next week?
What tasks do I need to do each day to reach those?
Is what I’m planning next week going to help me achieve my quarterly goals?
Have I prayed and asked God what I need to work on in my business?
What Facebook groups will I network in and grow relationships?

Ask yourself any question you need that will help you focus and set up your next weeks plan. Make sure you create a routine that will allow you to do your daily and weekly evaluation and plan.

What to do when you aren’t reaching your quarterly goals

We’ve all had those times when life just seems to get in the way! You know what I mean, laundry has piled up, dishes need washing, your child gets sick, etc, etc, etc. Sometime though we let these things get in the way of us reaching our goals. Now sometimes we really don’t have a choice such as when your child get sick, but other times we just need to be more creative and more productive with how we spend our time. Having a plan and working on it daily will help you with this.

Remember if you are feeling overwhelmed with everything you need to do, read my post on that here. I believe you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Believe in yourself and in your ability to reach those dreams you have. Make a plan and tweak it along the way so that it fits into your lifestyle. Make sure your family is on board with your plan and is cheering you on to help you accomplish your dreams. Now more than ever is when you need them to help you out, cheer you on and share in your accomplishments.

Let me know in the comments below how you are planning to reach your dreams. What are you working on? Is this working for you? If not, what do you need to change? Remember I am here to cheer you on and to tell you: “YOU CAN DO THIS!” Take care my friend!

Stay tuned for my post on how to use time blocking to be more productive.