Confessional | Making & Breaking Goals
Today we reflect on the goals we've set, met and still need to work on. Last night, while stressing about stress, we took a much needed break with friends (girls night happy hour & boys night pool game). While catching up a friend reminded us that we have achieved one of our first and biggest business goals, which was number of weddings for 2013! Sometimes in the day to day ups and downs of running our own business we have to pause, take a breath, and realize that we've made some huge strides even with the stumbles and trips along the way. Last fall, after driving up the coast and moving into an apartment in Seattle we randomly chose a number to obtain for our first year of weddings in Seattle, a reasonable but also somewhat challenging goal for being new to the area. We hurled ourselves into research, marketing, and a million other things to get the ball rolling and last month we officially reached our goal, "Hooray!" Of course, instantly we reset our goal and have set our sights on the next step. This reminds us how different things are from a year ago or 2, or wait-for-it 5 years ago! We are reminded today (and hopefully remember each day) that daily we meet goals or at least jump closer and that our goals are OURS and are connected to our dreams.
I (Marissa) wasn't really into goal setting before last year so it's definitely a skill I'm working on (a goal to be a better goal setter, ha!). I'm a true believe that if you write down your goals, tell others about them, or think about them- the very least that will happen is you're holding yourself accountable in many ways (plus others will ask you about it too!), which might actually lead you to work that much harder to obtain the goal!
We go back and forth with creating monthly goals, quarterly, or yearly. Monthly seemed too fast and furious. The end of the month would loom quicker than expected and I'd feel guilty leaving even one thing on my list. So, we broke that pattern and now, setting yearly goals with a quarterly focus seems to be working. Meaning we've set several goals for 2013 (business & personal), but rather than try to accomplish everything all at once we do one at a time. After getting a handle on the first goal, or at least feeling halfway there, we start on the next one. This feels more flexible since some items on the list take longer than others and some are new ongoing life or business habits (like drinking more water and eating Paleo). Not to say that every goal is golden, in fact, recently I had to break one of my goals (treats every 5 days) because it would be the 3rd day and we'd be at a birthday party with cake and who says no to that? The better word here I suppose is readjust, since that's what I did and now I feel great about my new treat goal!
The kicker in all this goal setting business is having a support system. We have each other for some of our personal goals (when I'm craving dessert Erik helps me refocus and when he wants pizza I cook something healthy) and we have some amazing professionals and friends/family who push us and are our cheerleaders to accomplish our professional goals. Surrounding ourselves with good people who are happy and positive is the best thing we've ever decided to do!
We absolutely cannot wait for what future goals may bring...hmmm, living in Italy for a month has crept onto our bucket list since our talk with friends last night! The moral of this story: keep them coming...the goals, dreams, or whatever you call them. Stay happy. ~Erik & Marissa
