Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:49 — 9.1MB) | Embed
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I prefer waffles over pancakes, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share my goals and game plan for 2015.
Friday Forum
I want you to be a part of the Friday Forum! Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278.
What I Learned Yesterday:
Today is the day! For the last two weeks I’ve been talking about setting goals, and today I’m going to share my 2015 goals with you. This has been a really difficult process for me this year. In fact, I don’t recall a year that I’ve had this much difficulty setting goals. The issue wasn’t coming up with goals, the issue was deciding which of the things I want to achieve were going to make it to the top of my priority list.
I spoke last week about setting milestone moments where you can asses the progress you’ve made on reaching your goals. Today, as I share each of my goals, I’ll be sharing another critical component of goal achievement. For most of us, maybe even all of us, it’s not enough to simply set a goal and then go achieve it. Instead, we must also set up the guidelines which we will bring us to achieving the goal.
For example, I could say that my goal is to lose 20 pounds this year. That is certainly a worthy goal. However, setting that as a goal is not enough. We must also ask ourselves HOW we are going to achieve the goal. We can not keep doing exactly what we are doing and expect to achieve a goal. If the path we are currently on has not brought us to the goal, why should we expect that staying on our present course will bring us to the goal in the coming year?
So if I want to lose 20 pounds this year I need to make instant changes in my life. I could get up earlier and use that time to exercise. I could buy different food at the grocery store and start eating differently. I could join a support group. I could start a daily blog or Facebook post that chronicles my progress. All of those options are good ideas and the best formula may be a combination of those ideas. One thing is for certain. Action will be required on my part if I am ever to achieve my goal.
I think this is where a lot of goals or resolutions fall apart. They are nothing more than hopes or wishes. Our goals must be infused with action or they will fall apart.
Secondly, we must plan for roadblocks. There will undoubtedly come a moment where we come face to face with something that will cause us to lose momentum or take a step backward in our progress. Maybe we have dinner with friends and a healthy food choice isn’t available. Maybe we’re sick and can’t exercise for a day or two. Maybe we don’t see the results on the scale and wonder why we’re even putting forth effort.
These moments will come and they will be genuine challenges. The best way to overcome these roadblocks is to mentally prepare yourself ahead of time. If you prepare for roadblocks then you’ll know what you’re going to do before they even come. The biggest factor in achieving goals is the mental approach we take. Mental toughness will overcome physical shortcomings almost every time. Try to imagine the obstacles you’ll face before you begin your goal and decide how you’ll respond to each obstacle.
Lastly, we need to make our goals public. I’ve shared my goals with my wife, and she’s share her goals with me. Likewise, I’m sharing my goals with you. I’ve been encouraging you for a few weeks to share your goals with me so that we can encourage one another and help each other reach our goals. The author of Ecclesiastes said, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
There is truly strength in numbers. If you’ve been too uncomfortable with the idea of calling in your goals but want to have someone to help keep you accountable and on target, come over to the Stuff I Learned Yesterday Facebook group. Post your goals there and join the conversation with others who are a part of this community. We can achieve more together than we ever could alone.
Now, here are my goals for 2015. I have broken my goals into 3 categories this year: Personal, Pro Podcast Solutions, and Golden Spiral Media.
Personal Goals:
My first goal is to read 10 books. I had a reading goal last year that I failed to meet. It got messed up for a lot of reasons, but one reason was that I finished a book before the end of the month and then took time off. That broke my momentum and I quickly filled that time with something else. I then lacked the personal discipline to get back on track. My plan this year is to read 30 minutes each day and go seamlessly from one book to the next.
My first book is one that I have already started and am about ⅓ of the way through. It’s by Rabbi Daniel Lapin and it’s called [[[Thou Shall Prosper]]]. My second book is [[[Six Ways to Keep the “Good” in Your Boy]]] by Dannah Gresh, my third book is [[[Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less]]] by Greg McKeown, and my fourth book is [[[80/20 Sales and Marketing]]] by Perry Marshall. I have several other books on my list and I will finalize the remainder of my list before I finish with the fourth book.
My second personal goal is to work more efficiently. I love the work that I do and I’m a workaholic. However, I must develop harder boundaries so that I don’t spend all of my waking hours in my studio. There is always work that can be done and always and idea rolling around in my head.
I will be going to bed no later than midnight. This may seem late to you, but it’s actually pretty early for me. I will be closing down the studio by 6pm every night except on the one night a week when I do Person of Interest Podcast. I will be getting up earlier and having a consistent wake up time 7 days per week. I will spend the first hour of my day reading and doing other personal development activities. I will look at social media only at specific times during the day, and avoid multitasking.
Pro Podcast Solutions Goals:
My first goal is to add 10 new production clients. Even though I became a full-time entrepreneur on May 3, 2013, I kind of don’t feel like I truly became a full-time entrepreneur until May of 2014. For my first year as a entrepreneur, TV Talk occupied nearly all of my time and also made up nearly all of my income. I did so much work for TV Talk that I didn’t have the time to do any work for anyone else or go try and land new clients.
When TV Talk closed shop in May of 2014, I really began to experience the full challenges and perspective of an entrepreneur. I learned a lot during 2014 and managed to land 7 recurring production clients and 19 paid consulting clients. My goals for 2015 are to add 10 recurring production clients and help 30 consulting clients.
I plan on achieving these goals by building on what I learned in 2014 and the new website that I launched last fall. I’ll be running some targeted ads, working on building an email list, and making more improvements to my website. One of those improvements will be the addition of a blog, and I’m also considering a podcast for Pro Podcast Solutions. However, I’m not quite sure the world needs another podcast about podcasting.
Golden Spiral Media Goals:
My goals for Golden Spiral Media are interesting because we’ve changed so much in the last year. I still feel like we’re changing so much that it’s been hard for me wrap my head around it all. However, in 2015, I’d like to see Golden Spiral Media branch out more. This podcast is currently the only podcast that Golden Spiral Media has outside of the TV & Film category. I would like to see us expand to more than just one podcast outside of TV & Film. Eventually I think we can be as expansive in other categories as we are in TV & Film.
Everything we do at Golden Spiral Media is done with the idea that we are making the lives of our audience better. As we grow and add more shows, we need to make sure we’re not only growing our audience, but impacting our audience in a positive way. As a group of hosts, we’ll be focusing more on impacting and growing the audience this year.
All of us at Golden Spiral Media love what we do, but it takes money to keep the podcasts flowing. We need to earn more revenue in 2015. Obviously we want to make sure we do it in a way that brings value to our audience as well as any sponsors, but my goal is to have a network sponsor in 2015.
Lastly, I want to engage the Golden Spiral Media audience better this year. As we have grown in audience size and the number of podcasts that we offer, I have found it more difficult to keep up the engagement with our audience. We’ll be doing a live event this year and engaging our audience in some new creative ways that I’m looking forward to sharing with you in the next 30-60 days.
So these are my goals. I have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things vying for my attention. Time management and priority management will be extremely important for me and I hope you’ll encourage me as I do my best to encourage you to achieve all we set out to achieve in this year that is set before us.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
Check out Lynda.com for over 3,000 video courses from expert teachers who are passionate about teaching. Learn from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. With courses covering technical skills, creative techniques, business strategies and more, you’ll never be at a loss of things to learn. Visit www.goldenspiralmedia.com/lynda and your first 10 days of learning are FREE!”
Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and Facebook.com/GoldenSpiralMedia. To subscribe to Stuff I Learned yesterday, visit GoldenSpiralMedia.com/subscribe. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
[sc:stuff]