Are you someone who makes new year’s resolutions or not? In this episode, we discuss consistency, showing up, balanced work life, and how you can set your goals for the year. In addition, we look at professional and financial goals, how you can achieve them and focus on what you are good at.

What You Will Learn:

→ Word of the year
→ Balanced personal and professional life
→ Professional goals
→ Financial goals
→ Accomplishing your goals
→ Focusing on what you are good at

What to skip ahead? Here are some key takeaways

[04:55] Word for the year. As we start the year, you just need to refresh. Do not turn to new things but continue to build on the foundation you have already set in place. All you need is to focus on what interests you and be the best version of yourself.
[05:54] Professional life goals. What do you enjoy doing? Understand what lights you up and the reason why. Once you are in business, you might forget the passion, that is, “the why.” Although your why might change over time, always revisit yours why. It keeps your power and passion going.
[08:21] Financial goals. What are the specific things you want to do? Take something you are working on and build upon that foundation to create more revenue avenues.
[08:40] Accomplishing your goals. What is the one thing you are going to hang your heart on? Understand what you want to accomplish. As the year goes on, other things might pop up, such as family meetings, which can distract you, but it keeps you focused once you understand what you want to accomplish.
[10:50] Focusing on one thing. Find out what works for you and specialize in it. When you dwell on what you are outstanding in, you will see more growth than doing all things and being all things.

Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Hey, everybody, welcome to the first episode of The Digital Marketing Therapy podcast in 2022. I mean, can you believe it, I don't think I can believe it. Plus the first time that I am recording my podcast on video, which I'm super excited about. So we are now on YouTube, you can head on over to thefirstclick.net/YouTube and check out a video of all of our episodes. So now you can get real with the people that we're interviewing and see my beautiful mug, depending on the day in the episode. So again, thefirstclick.net/YouTube, if you want to check out video versions of these episodes. But wherever you listen, it's fine. And again, I'm so thankful that you listen to these episodes.

Now it is the beginning of 2022. And I know there's a whole lot of conversation around, are you someone who does New Year's resolutions or not. And I tend to not do New Year's resolutions. I tend to instead just really think about what are the goals that I have for my year. What do I want to accomplish? How am I going to accomplish it, and then put things in motion because I'm all about putting things in motion? So that's what we're going to talk about today is some of the goals that I've put in place and how I am kind of setting my goals for 2022. And what that looks like and how I am putting together that mix of personal and professional all together in one. And we've talked about this a few times. But I'm definitely excited to dive into it again. Because I think it's always great to have that reminder. 

Now before we get into this episode, it is brought to you by my new YouTube channel. So I hope you will check it out again, thefirstclick.net/YouTube, please subscribe so that you don't miss out on a single episode, they come up every Tuesday. And we are currently uploading previous episodes as we go as well. There'll be an audio format only. But you can check them out there if you'd like to make sure you share it with any of your friends, families, or other nonprofits that you think could benefit. We really want to make sure we're reaching as many nonprofits as we can so we can provide these resources for you all. And I'm just super excited about it. This has been a thing we've been thinking about doing for a while and it's finally here. So thefirstclick.net/YouTube, check us out. And let's get into the episode. 

[INTRO] You're listening to The Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sammy Bedell Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business. 

So I've done several episodes over the series of this podcast all-around planning. Different types of planning episodes 29, Episode 79, Episode 85 come to mind. And so you can check those out. We'll link those up in the description of the show notes. So that you can grab those at thefirstclick.net/podcast. So check those out if you want some additional stuff, but it's 2022. And I'm feeling really excited about this year. There's a lot of changes have been happening in my personal life. And it's just kind of opening up this new phase in my business and for me in growth as a female entrepreneur as a mom as a wife as all the things right. So one of those things is we recently moved to Minneapolis. Well, recently, I guess it was like six months ago, we moved to Minneapolis, and my kids are in full-time school, they're back in activities. Like it just really feels like yes, it's not normal, normal, but we're definitely like, I don't know like we can breathe. Like we feel like we're all kind of hitting those things that we want for ourselves in our personal life. And it's great. We're getting out, taking my kids on big names again, and my husband and I are going out on date nights. He's working like all of the things seem to be aligning in a way that's really great and wonderful. 

And so what that has done for me has really kind of opened up that creativity to really think about my business, build my business, and put plans in place for the things that I want to accomplish. And that's what I'm really excited about for 2022. Now, I've often talked about what's my word for the year. You know, and I think my word for this year is just refresh. Right? So we're working on a lot of things that have been in the pipeline, we're not necessarily doing a ton of new things. It's more just like how can we continue to refresh the things that we've been doing, and continue to build on the foundation that we've already set in place. On the personal side, a big thing for me is really working on my work-life combination work from my house. And so I want to make sure that I am doing a better job in 2022, of kind of separating some of those things, and really honoring my personal downtime, my family time, and all those things and not feeling the need to kind of come into my office and get some work done, I happen to be right outside of the kitchen. And so it's really easy to just pop in here and take a look at a few things. So I'm trying to do better at that. We're also in the process of looking for a new house. And so all of those things are happening. So lots of exciting changes happening here in my personal life. 

 Now, in my professional life, when I'm thinking about the goals that I'm working towards, I'm looking at a few things. Number one, what do I really enjoy doing, like what lights me up, because I think when we tend to be in business for a length of time, we kind of forget about the things like the passion for why we started the business, the reasons why write the why, and which is really critical. And it can change over time. I'm not saying that it has to be the same. But I really want to make sure I'm coming back and revisiting the reason why I'm doing this so that I can keep that passion in that power going. So my y's are obviously making sure that I'm providing an income for my family, we do have big goals of being able to take more trips and more vacations, being able to spend more time together as a family, I do love the fact, if you've been following me for a while, then you know that we took three months off while I worked in my husband took three months off while we moved so we could spend time with family in like Arizona, and Texas and all the things. And so I want to make sure that we're continuing to drive revenue and grow the business so that the family can still continue to do some more of those travel things because it's easier for me to do it well to commute to work from the road, right. So that's super exciting. For me, that's a passion. 

But then, in March of 2020, then I also really pivoted and shifted towards focusing more on nonprofit work. And that has been a big thing for me for my entire career. And so it was great to really have that be the focus for my digital marketing consultancy and be able to provide more support for nonprofits in the online space. And nonprofits that are trying to really provide that support for their communities that we know that they do such an amazing job of. So I still love that passion. And we're still growing and creating more avenues for us to support more because I'm only one person and can only do so much. So I'm super excited about some of the programs and things that we have in place to be able to support more nonprofits at a more economical rate. There'll be more coming out about that as we go. And it's not anything new. It's just an expansion on some of the things that we're already doing. So if you have questions about that, feel free to message me. I'm happy to have a conversation. 

So when I think about it obviously, like we have a financial goal in place tied to the specific things that we're going to do, but really, for this year, it's about taking the things that we are really working hard on building upon them and building upon that foundation. So one of the things I really want to encourage you to do is think about what is the thing you're going to hang your hat on? What is the race that you're going to run? What is it that you really want to accomplish? Because as things go, as time goes, as the year goes on, we tend to kind of think about all of these new things that come up in these things that percolate and all these ideas that get raised at board meetings, team meetings, whatever. And it can get distracting, it can be really easy to kind of go off course. And so when we really think about what is the thing that we really want to accomplish, what are the three things that we really want to accomplish, then that is something that's going to keep us striving forward, keep us focused, keep us moving in that one direction. And so you know, this has been a practice for me. When I first started my company, it was definitely let's do all the things on all the things let's offer all the services so that we can get all the people in the door and we can increase our chances of making money. But what that does is really wears you out and exhausts you and makes you feel like all the things I can't do all the things and you shouldn't do all the things. 

So what I love about really focusing and building upon what we've been doing, is that we've laid that foundation as I talked about, and now we're ready to take that next step to grow and scale And what we're doing. So we're here to have more conversations with our donors and retain the donors that we have and build upon that relationship and see what happens, right, as opposed to spending all of our efforts getting in new donors and neglecting the ones that we have. Or we're going to double down on the service that we're providing and make sure that we can do it even better, we have a better aftercare program for kids. And because we're continuing to put the effort in making that better, as opposed to adding, you know, this and that and adding, oh, now we're gonna do this, and we're gonna add this age group, we're gonna do this, right, we work and serve this group of people we work in serve three to six-year-old kids who have parents that are, you know, dual working household, whatever, whatever it might be, really focus on that thing that you do. And I know it's really tricky, and it feels scary, but I promise you if you can do that, and you can double down on the things that you do, well, you're going to see more growth than if you try to do all the things and be all things to all people. 

It has taken me a long time to get there, several years. But I feel like I'm getting there. And I feel so good about the way that we show up for you. I feel so good about the products and services that we provide the experiences that we're providing the training that we're providing. And I know that 2022 is just going to be amazing, and I'm very excited about it. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. I know we're not talking resolutions, we're not talking major change, we're talking consistency. We're talking about showing up in the way that you show up best. And we're talking about really making sure that you're balanced in your work and your life, and your personal and your professional life. And you know your communication with your teams and your communication with all those around you is spot on. That's what I really hope for you in 2022.  

So, thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really appreciate you showing up for my first video episode. I'll get better at this, I promise. I'm noticing how much my hands move around. But if you want to see the video for this head on over to thefirstclick.net/YouTube check it out. Subscribe wherever you've listened so you don't miss out on a single episode. And as always, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for taking the time to listen and I will see you in the next one.