How to Avoid Making Goal-Setting Mistakes

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There's setting goals and then there's setting the right goals in your business. Guest business coach Christi Johnson shares with Katrina the five most common goal setting mistakes entrepreneurs make — and how to avoid them.

Christi is a wedding photographer, community builder & online educator. She helps creative entrepreneurs feel less alone in their business journeys through her Business Building Cohorts & Business Mastermind Communities.

Website // Instagram

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone and welcome back to the Badass Business Squad podcast. Today I am here with Christi Johnson and we are going to be talking all about goal setting, which I think is going to be huge for people, especially those people who are like kind of trying to like move into a new area of their business right now. So thank you so much for coming on here. I'm so excited to have you.

Christi Johnson: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Katrina Widener: Okay, so before we dive into what today's topic is going to be... and we're going to be, for everyone listening, we're going to be talking about how to set goals, or really more so how to avoid making mistakes while setting goals. But before we get into all of that beautiful information, would you mind just like telling everyone listening a little bit about yourself, what your business is, all of that good stuff.

Christi Johnson: Absolutely. So I am a wedding photographer based out in the upstate area of South Carolina, and I'm also a business coach. I host a mastermind for creative entrepreneurs. It's amazing, I love it. I'm also the host of the Crush Your Goals with Christi Podcast, release new episodes every week. So that's what I do, it's a lot of fun!

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes! Also, Christi was very generous in letting me come on her podcast. So hop over there, go listen to our episode, listen to the other episodes. It's full of amazing information.

So anyway I'm really pumped about us talking about goal setting because I feel like this is something that everyone talks about all the time. Like, "You have to have goals in order to see your benchmarks," or like "If you don't know where you're going, how do you know where you are now?" Or... I don't even know all of that. But when it comes to setting goals, it's not just the act of setting goals, it's about setting the right goals,

Christi Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: And being meaningful in how you set goals. So I am very excited to have you come on today.

Christi Johnson: Oh, thank you. Yeah and you're right. It's something that can be applicable to everyone. Setting goals is something that we do constantly in our businesses. You know, a lot of us like to make yearly goals and that's amazing. I love to set yearly goals. Or maybe you do quarterly goals. But also we're setting goals every single day when we show up to work and decide what we're going to work on for that day. So this is something that you can use no matter what, whether you're setting your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, daily goals. So it's going to be hopefully helpful to everyone.

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes. I really like the fact that you mention like, we're setting these goals every single day! I was just over here like, "Yes!" Like shaking my hands, really excited. Because people always think about it in terms of just like your annual goals, but you're really like setting these goal posts for yourself every single day, and I'm so glad that you said that.

Okay, so let's just dive right in. So when it comes to setting goals, and more importantly the mistakes that people make when they are setting goals. What would you say is probably like the number one mistake that you see people making?

Christi Johnson: Well, I actually think that the number one mistake that we make when we set goals, and I do this as well, is making client work the first priority. I think this is probably the most common thing that we tend to think that we need to do. So you... you get up in the morning, you are ready to start your day, and you think, "Oh, I have this work for a client that I need to work on." Whether you're a service based business owner, or whether you sell a product ,or whatever it is that you do if you're working with clients. You think, "Oh I have this order, or this service that I'm working on and I need to fulfill that." And I fully believe that the time that we have? We're going to fill up that time with whatever we choose to fill it up with.

So if you're making client work your priority, then you very well could be spending your entire day working on client work and not actually working on your priorities in your business. Which I believe personally for me, my priorities in business are things that are going to make me more money. Things that are going to save me time, and things that are going to bring me closer to my values. And client work maybe is going to make me more money, but it's not necessarily going to save me time and it may or may not bring me closer to my values. It depends on which particular work it is that I'm working on.

So I think that when we show up for work, instead of saying, "Okay, I'm going to do this client work first," we should say, "Okay, what can I prioritize to move my business forward? What's going to move the needle for me and help me to scale?"

If we work on client work all the time, you're just going to stay like kind of on this plateau. You're just going to be doing the same things over and over and not really scaling. And what we want to do with our businesses is to scale so that we have more time, we can do more of what we love, and ultimately make more money. So I think that would be the number one mistake, is putting client work as that first priority instead of something else.

Katrina Widener: I think that that is such a huge thing for people to shift their mindset around. I feel very lucky. I had a business coach that I used to work with, shout out to Lacey Sites, where she like changed my mindset around something. Where it's like, when you're structuring your week or you're structuring your day, make sure that you have a priority of a money making action every single day.

And money making actions can be reaching out to your current clients and doing current client work sometimes, but it could also be showing up in Facebook groups. It could also be doing lead generation. It could also be connecting with past community members. There are so many ways that you can do money making actions. But make sure you're doing one every single day, because then not only are you taking like that step closer to your goals and making more money and bringing in more business and scaling and all that kind of stuff, but it's also giving you the opportunity to feel like no matter what you did that day, you feel productive. You feel like you took that step forward in your business, and that is huge, that mindset aspect also. So yes, yes, yes, yes!

Christi Johnson: Yeah. I love that, it's very true. You want to feel successful in your business and you want to feel that needle moving and ultimately have a happier life in achieving your goals, whatever that means for you. So that's huge. Money making every day, I love that.

Katrina Widener: Yeah! So, we're now approaching our goals and I'm setting my goals outside of just client work.

Christi Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: What's like the next biggest thing that you're seeing, or the next biggest thing that you're like, "Okay, we need to stop doing this."

Christi Johnson: Yeah, great question. I think another one is including the "what" when you set your goal and not the how. So this can be something like, "I want to start a podcast." If that's your goal of, "I want to start a podcast". That's great, amazing. Congratulations. But that can also lead to maybe feelings of overwhelm if you don't exactly know how to start a podcast.

Saying, "I want to start a podcast," that's actually a little bit vague and a little bit ambiguous and it can lead to feeling overwhelmed and maybe procrastinating on that. Because you know, procrastination is actually... it's not a time management problem, it's an emotion management problem. So if we can unlock some of those emotions around why we procrastinate on a task, it's going to help us get closer to achieving our goals.

So an easy, easy way to eliminate this is instead of saying, "Here's what I want to do," say "Here's how I'm going to do it." So these are all the steps that it's going to take to start a podcast. Setting that very first step as something very actionable, very easy for you to achieve, and putting that on your calendar so that you know it's going to get done, and then you can just see it grow and go from there. So making sure that you're putting how you're going to achieve that goal, not just what you want to do.

Katrina Widener: That makes so much sense. It's one of those things where it's like tackling the smaller things feels so much less intimidating, and I 100% agree with what you said about like, procrastination is like... it's your mind. Like it's... you're fighting against your own brain more than anything else! So when you make it bite size, when you make it feel easy, when you make it look easy, that's the trick, right?

Christi Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Kind of along those lines of making it feel easy, I would say is another common mistake that I see. Where people are setting too many goals,

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Christi Johnson: And this might sound like I'm trying to say that you need to dial things back and not achieve your dreams. No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm a huge believer in dreaming big, thinking big and achieving like the wildest dream that you have. I really believe that. But for someone like me, if people can relate... I'm a type three enneagram and so I connect a lot of my self worth to what I achieve.

So when I set goals and then I don't achieve them, I don't say, "Oh, well look at all these other things I achieved." I say, "Ugh I didn't achieve this thing that I said I was going to do." So for me, what I have to do, in order to manage my emotions around that and to realize that I am valuable as a person, not just based on what I achieve.

For me, I plan to prioritize one to three goals, big goals per quarter. And this might be different when you go down into smaller chunks of time. So I'll usually have three overarching goals per quarter, and then I'll break that down, so that comes into including the "how" piece. I'll break down those goals into "How am I going to achieve this." And then every week, I will have three priorities that I want to focus on for that week. Just three. And when I'm setting these three priorities, again, they always come back to those three questions for me of "What's going to make me more money, what's going to bring me more joy, and what's going to bring me closer to my values?"

So setting those three goals for me is something that I know I can achieve, and it may be different for you. Maybe you're someone who can do more or maybe you can do less, but knowing what is going to be good for you and feel good for you is a great way to go about that. Instead of saying, "I'm going to do this and this, and this, and this, and this." And then be disappointed when you get to the end of your day? I mean, how many times have you made a to-do list for the day, and then you get to the end of the day and you're like, "Oh shoot, there's all these things that are left over that I didn't do. I'm such a failure." But what if instead, you had those priorities that were really going to move the needle for you, and you knocked them all out of the park and you were like, "Yes, I succeeded at this today." you know? That would feel so much better.

Katrina Widener: I'm a big proponent of the like, "Let's break it down. Let's make this bite size, let's make this feel easier." And for me too, I've been doing this business now for over five years and I think about my first couple of clients. And I was sitting there and I was like, "Three things a day. You're setting your goals for today of three things a day. Your to-do list. No more than three things today."

And when I say three things it's not like, "Today I'm going to write my website copy." It's like "Today I'm going to get started on my about page. Or today I'm going to send out the emails to these five people." It's not sitting down saying, "I'm going to respond to every single person in my inbox." And one of the things I feel like is we like break off more than we can chew. Whatever that saying is. But thinking about like what is achievable and what would feel good to get done, not necessarily like, "What do I feel like I should get done?" And I really, really love that you keep bringing it back to like, "What is going to make me money? What is going to bring me joy and what's going to bring me closer to my values?" Because those are the most important things in our businesses. The rest is just noise.

Christi Johnson: Yeah, and saying, "I should do this," is never going to be an authentic place for your business. It should be something that you want to do. You should...

Katrina Widener: Yeah!

Christi Johnson: I'm using the word should. It's such a word that we just throw around all the time, but I've heard so many people say, "Oh, I know that I should be blogging every week. Or I know that I should be posting to TikTok. Or I know that I should be making reels." "Well really? Like should you really? How do you know that your business is the type of business, or that you personally are someone who wants to do that? How do you know?" And that's actually a perfect segue, I think, into another common mistake that I see people making and I've done it myself in terms of setting goals. Is setting goals without considering your personal values.

So my business, even though I may have the same type of business as someone else? You know I was telling you earlier, I am going into the business coaching world. So you and I may have a similar type of business. I'm planning to launch a mastermind, and I think you have a mastermind too. Even though we have the same type of business, our businesses are not the same because I'm me and you're you, and I'm going to have different values from you and that's 100% okay. In fact, that's good because that's why we all can be successful, because we're so different from each other, and we're going to attract those people that want what we have to say. And it's not like we're stealing competition or anything like that. It's that there truthfully is enough clients for all of us because we are all different.

So when you set your goals, whether it's quarterly, yearly goals, or even weekly, daily, and you're doing it because you saw someone else over here on Instagram or wherever you saw that they were doing it. Without giving thought to, "Is this something that feels good to me?" Then I think you're just setting yourself up for failure in terms of how you feel about it. Because if it's not authentic to you it's going to be on that list of, "I should do this, or ugh I need to do this." Instead of, "Oh no, I'm excited about this and I want to do this." It's actually going to cut you off, I think, from working with those people that are more aligned to you.

So I'm going to give you an example. I was just talking about this with my business consultant today. We were kind of brainstorming some things for my launch and we were digging deep and I shared a personal story with her that just made things click for me about how my offer is something that is unique to me and I want to make people feel this experience that I felt.

So, for example, I grew up in a... we're getting personal here, I hope that's okay.

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes, yes!

Christi Johnson: I grew up in a small town where everyone looked like me. Everyone thought like me. Everyone had the same kind of background, politically, religiously, everything, and so for me, I thought that life for everyone was this one way. Because that's all that I had experienced.

Then in 2018 I moved to California, and that was an incredible experience for me because that was the first time that I felt people love me because I was there. Not because of what political party I belonged to, or what religion I was, or whether or not I was a certain way. It was literally because I was just there taking up space that they loved me because I was there. And so for me, that's what I'm building in my mastermind community. I want people to feel like they're free to take up space and they're free to share what's on their hearts, what's on their minds, and what's going on in their businesses in a really authentic way. Because I know how important it was for me that I felt that.

So that's a huge value for me, and so my business is going to incorporate that in a way that's unique to me. And your business is going to incorporate something else in a way that's unique to you. So before you start posting reels all over the place, or blogging every single week because someone said to do that, or posting four TikToks a day because Gary V said, you need to do that. Like take a look at yourself and say, "Does this align with your values, and is this something that's going to actually bring you closer to your definition of success?" Not to someone

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!! This is like... for me as a business coach and for you as a business coach, I love it when as coaches we take this approach of working with our clients of saying like, "What is the secret sauce?" and I know that people are like, "Who cares about the secret sauce? You need hard strategy!" And I'm like, "It's both, right?"

Christi Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: Like you need both! But the thing is that hard strategy isn't going to work unless we know what you're uniquely selling behind it. If it's not aligned with your values, if it's not aligned with who you are and what your business is and what's unique to your business, it's not going to be successful! Like it just isn't. And you can "should" all over the place and work a ton of hours and that can get you success. But you know what else can get you success? Getting really aligned with your offers and your marketing and your goal setting and all of these different aspects of your business too.

Because if we want to have a business where we're not just trading our time and energy for money, then it has to be a lot of strategical alignment. It's not just being like, "I'm getting aligned!" and it's not just "I'm strategic!" It has to be the combination of the two of those, and really them working together. I think that that is huge when it comes to knowing where you want to move forward and what goals you want to achieve is also knowing like what is it about my business that makes it my business? I show up as the business owner and that's going to have a trickle effect through everything else that you're doing.

Christi Johnson: Yeah, and it might take some strategizing with a coach or with a mastermind group like it did for me today. I didn't realize "Oh, I need to tie this into my offer," until I was talking with my consultant today. So if you feel like you don't know what your own personal definition of success is, or what your own values are, then talk to someone. Reach out to a close friend, reach out to a business friend that you have, or find a coach like Katrina. Or join, you know, or join a mastermind. That is I think one of the other mistakes that I see people making. Is just trying to do it alone. Trying to say, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do and I'm just going to do this, and then go full steam ahead."

You know, sometimes there are times that we need to turn off the noise and we need to shut down the noise that's coming in through social media, and we need to just go at it and go with what we know is aligned with ourselves. But what I'm talking about here is trying to make something happen without having a community of support behind you. Without having people to share the highs and the lows with. For me, that's why I'm in the Rising Tide Society. I'm a Rising Tide leader, and the first time I stepped into a Rising Tide meeting, I remember the feeling that I had where it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders because I thought, "Oh, there are people doing business the way that I want to do business." Not in this inauthentic way that I had been seeing. But in this true holistic, authentic, unique way that I just felt so relieved and excited, and inspired. Because we're meant to do things in community with other people!

So trying to do it alone, for me that's when I give up. If I don't have a community telling me " You can do this," and helping me? Because I don't always believe I can do this. Some days I wake up and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I have no idea what's going to happen. I just need to quit and go get a regular nine to five job." But the minute I do a voice call, a voice memo with one of my business friends, or I hop on to the people in my mastermind group and say, "I was thinking about quitting this morning," and they say, "You are an amazing business owner, an amazing person. Let's talk about why you feel that way and how to get you out of this."

That's where I find that that's what keeps me going is having that community of support. So I think for me that would be a huge thing is just finding people that you can be yourself with, that you can share your thoughts with, the highs and the lows. So join a group like The Rising Tide Society. Join Katrina's Mastermind. You know, like find the people that are aligned with you and team up with them because there are people who want to help you and support you.

Katrina Widener: I love that we're ending on that note because I do think that... It's allowing you this opportunity to really let yourself be supported by people and let yourself be lifted up by people. And when you feel that ease, when you feel that community, that support, and really that connection, you're able to then have more opportunities come to you. You're able then to have this like... almost like a safe place to land.

Christi Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: No matter what happens. That makes taking every risk that much easier. That means going outta your comfort zone is a little bit more comfortable. Anyone listening to this podcast knows I'm like, "Uhhuh community. 100%. That's my jam!" So these have all been amazing. Thank you so much Christi for sharing all of this, and I hope that everyone listening can really allow this to influence your goal setting and allow this to be something that like feels really, really helpful and supportive while you are building out this future of your business. So thank you so much for coming on.

Christi Johnson: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast.