5 Mistakes Coaches Make When Setting Goals

Do you have goals in mind for next year? Things you think you might want to set up in your coaching business in order to increase your productivity, get more clients in the door, or make running your business easier?

Goals are a great thing to have — and necessary in business — but only if you’re actually taking action towards reaching them. Not having them (or not working towards them) is equivalent to being on a hamster wheel going nowhere.

Just for fun, take a few minutes to write down some goals you want to accomplish in the next year. Then, we’ll see how effective you are at creating goals for your coaching business.

5 Goal-Setting Mistakes You Might Be Making

1. Procrastination.

The biggest mistake you can make when setting goals is waiting for a certain thing/date/event to happen before you start working towards them. A great example of this is New Year’s Resolutions. We all know we should start making changes and working towards our goal as soon as possible, but we use the excuse of a certain date or event to procrastinate getting started today.

2. Prioritization.

You probably have a million goals you want to achieve for your coaching business, and one of the most important things to do is prioritize which ones you’ll work on first. The things that are going to have the biggest impact on your bottom line are the ones you should be working on first. Don’t get distracted by the goals that are nice-to-haves; work on the have-to-haves before all the rest.

3. Vague Goals.

“Make more money” or “book more coaching clients” is too vague. There’s no way to measure it, so you never know when you’ve hit it. Do you want to make $100 more per month or $1,000 more per month? Do you want 1 more client, or 10 more — in the next month, or the next year? You have to be as specific as possible so you’re aware of where you currently stand and how much further you have to go.

4. Goals That Are Too Ambitious.

Dreaming big is a great thing, but dreaming too big can be daunting. If you set a goal to make six figures this year when you haven’t even booked your first coaching client, you might be setting yourself up for overwhelm. Instead, try setting smaller goals to start. Aim for $2,000, then up it to $10,000, and so on. Be realistic about your goals, and don’t set yourself up for procrastination and overwhelm when you’re getting started.

5. Not Working On Your Goals Daily.

Again, think about New Year’s resolutions. We set a goal, work on it for a few days (or weeks), then it falls to the side. Come October, we remember we’d set a resolution, then beat ourselves up for not sticking to it. This happens because we get busy. We turn our attention to other things, forget about the goals we’re supposed to be working on, and then berate ourselves for not staying focused.

Instead, find a way to carve out dedicated time in your daily schedule to work on your goals. This might mean you have to delegate some things, or even put a hold on other things that aren’t important. In the long run, you’ll be grateful you stayed focused long enough to reach your important goals, which now frees up time (and probably finances) to work on the smaller goals with a sense of ease.

Final Thoughts

The world is full of people who have struggled to reach their goals. If you don’t make it happen immediately, don’t despair. Keep going. And remember that you’re not alone.

Walt Disney was laughed out of the banks when he tried to get a loan to build Disney World. Now the Disney franchise is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Michael Jordan was rejected by his high school basketball varsity team for being too short. Now his name is one of the most famous in the sport.

Thomas Edison’s teachers called him ‘stupid.’ He invented the lightbulb, a product we all still use a hundred and forty years later.

One final piece of advice: You’re building a coaching business, not a hobby. When you think about your business a year from now, where do you want it to be? What goals do you need to set in order to make that happen? And what actions do you need to take every day to make those goals your reality?